Children's books we love right now (2.5 years)
Good children's books are pure magic. Having a little one of my own is the perfect excuse to spend time researching them for hours. Here are some that we love right now.
My son is a bit over 2 and a half years at the moment, but I tend to buy books over his age. Most of the times I research various topics that come up in our daily life(like feelings, letters and words, our planet etc.), and look through lists online. I am fortunate to have access to the Berlin library that has a generous amount of children's picture (e)books I can borrow and read before buying a paper version. For the ones that are not available at the library, there is always a Youtube video of someone reading them.
We've owned a few picture books for 3-year-olds since my son was a baby. It's such a lovely thing to see the story grow with the child. At first, it is just a canvas to learn about the world from(oh this exists too! here is the word for it). Then it is parent reduced/modified version of the story that follows the images. As soon as their vocabulary broadens it becomes a shorter, easier version, to finally be really read aloud in full the closer they come to being three.
When I pick the stories, I am mostly looking at new contemporary work. There are often many societal dynamics playing out in older stories and fairytales that I don't want to introduce before we can critically talk about them.
Since I am so fascinated and interested in the picture books myself, it creates a lovely opportunity for us to connect over reading. When the days get hectic, naps are missed and tempers heated, the worlds between the pages offer an escape, a common ground, a breath.
Here are some of our favourites at the moment.
On feelings
For a toddler, figuring out feelings is a big topic. They are messy, many, and often overwhelming. "The colour monster" can help with that. We love the pop-up book, where the monster escapes the pages. The monster mixed up all of its feelings while a little girl is helping with sorting the mess out.
Die deutsche Ausgabe lautet: “Das Farbenmonster”.
"The rabbit listened" is a beautiful book with minimal illustrations that tells about empathy and showing up for someone. The feelings are personified in various animals that "visit" Taylor as he processes his frustration about his grand tower crashing down. In the end, he finds the motivation to build again.
Die deutsche Ausgabe lautet: “Häschen tröstet”.
While our toddlers are figuring out what they feel, they are also learning about what society thinks about those feelings. "Big boys cry" is following the story of Levi on the day that he is starting a new school, and his father. It is a big scary moment for both, and the father is too quick to jump to old dusty phrases. Raising a boy in our world as it is, I feel such a big responsibility to hold space for his feelings. Levi and his father are supporting us in the journey of normalising all the tears and big emotions, even if only in our little home.
Die deutsche Ausgabe lautet “Männer weinen”.
Show and tell(and interact)
Oh, how I love this series! I wish we had every single one of the books. We have two for a long time now, "The Ultimate Book of Vehicles: From Around the World" and "The ultimate book of cities". The books have parts you can move and open together with the little one. There is not much text, but therefore it offers an endless possibility of stories erupting from details and the images themselves. Our books are getting a bit damaged at the moment from constant use, but they are still lots of fun. He loves to look over them himself, or we do that together. When we are both in a storytelling mood, there easily goes an hour just looking at one of them. One of the best thing about these books: they are one of the books with the most diverse characters I've come upon. Valuable in itself!
Die deutsche Ausgaben sind: “Mein großes Buch der Fahrzeuge” und “Mein großes Buch der Stadt”.
"Press here" is an interactive book. It starts with one yellow dot and a page that instructs you to press it an takes you on a journey of shaking and blowing and clapping to change the dots through the pages. You will read it over, and over and over.
Die deutsche Ausgabe lautet: “Mitmach buch”.
All-around favourites
My boy loves Peter from "The snowy day". The storytelling is so right and effortless, perfect for the little ones to engage with. In the book, we follow Peter, who wakes up to a lot of snow and goes out to enjoy the winter wonderland.
Keine deutsche Ausgabe.
In "Tomorrow I'll be kind" we learn about the concepts of kindness, gratitude, generosity and much more. The illustrations and typography are gorgeous. One not so obvious thing about this book: the way the family is pictured, it opens up space for mirroring many different family situations and arrangements(you can come up with your story about their relationships and identities). That is so refreshing.
Keine deutsche Ausgabe.
”Here we are” takes us through all the crucial facts about being a human on Earth. We used it to talk about essential things like space, the solar system, gravity, water circulation in nature, breathing underwater and water pressure…there isn't much story again, but vast micro-prompts concealed in the details. Today we woke up at 6:00 am and we delayed breakfast until the sun completely rose lost in it for a quite long time.
Die deutsche Ausgabe lautet: “Hier sind wir”.
