The latest issue of The Horn Book has a great article called “What Makes a Good Baby Shower Book?” You know how I get into this stuff! Think of this as an addendum to my thoughts on books for young children.
Although youngsters may view books as products, the authors and artists never should. There’s a lot of commercialization in board books; watch out for cartoon characters, small print, lackluster illustrations, and little story line or confusing factual information.
In addition to a ton of recommendations, many of which I’m adding to our family wishlist, the authors give some guidance on figuring it out yourself:
Before buying any board book, consider this: “Is this a book that contains illustrations, a story, or information worth examining again and again and again?” Try reading it aloud. Do you stumble on the words? Do you pause to really look at the illustrations? Is there some opportunity for interaction? The answers here should be “No,” “Yes,” and “Yes.”
Interesting article. I actually shy away from a lot of Mother Goose because there are some pretty morbid rhymes… (Is rockabye baby Mother Goose?).
We LOVE almost anything Sandra Boynton. The Big Red Barn is a favorite for Ailey right now. And anything with animals, for that matter (her default animal sound is “moo” — altho she is getting pretty good at differentiating).
This is a good summary of my thoughts on Mother Goose: http://metropolitanmama.net/2010/05/i-gave-away-our-mother-goose-book/
Hmm, I hadn’t really thought about the Mother Goose recommendation in that article being controversial. I definitely disagree with your friend, but maybe part of it is that she has girls while I started with a boy and grew up with brothers! Not everyone reads St George and the Dragon to an under-two year old (who loves every detail).=) In the Mother Goose board book you gave us after the accident, Tommy’s favorite rhyme is “Tom, Tom, the Piper’s Son,” which involves beating a thief! I don’t think the nursery rhymes we read contradict our worldview, which is my #1 criteria. (I love the historical background of a lot of the nursery rhymes, and I know there are studies out there about their value in developing language, vocabulary, etc.) We also don’t sanitize any of the Bible stories we read our kids–in fact, I always add into the most basic ones that David ran over and chopped off Goliath’s head because Tommy loves that detail.
But we have shown the kids very little TV (Cars 1 was about as intense as Tommy can handle), because they seem very sensitive to conflict and violence there (as I was).
Different parenting philosophies…there’s not one “right” way, and as in most areas, the most important thing is to know your own kid! =)