Studies show it's never too early to start reading the best children's books to infants. In fact, the American Academy of Pediatrics notes that reading baby books out loud to your kids starting from birth strengthens your parent-child bond and gets your baby started on important language and literacy skills. And in truth, it doesn’t matter what you read to your babies: Just hearing any words will get them the foundations for a later vocabulary, and it’s the lap-sitting, not the book choice, that makes for good bonding time. You could read your to-do list for the week, and it wouldn’t matter to a baby.
But it does matter to you, because reading a to-do list isn't that much fun. And instead there's a world of fantastic baby books with wonderful illustrations, innovative interactive features, ingenious wordplay and great read-aloud rhythms, all available at your fingertips. You might even get to learn a thing or two about quantum physics while you're it. Add the best baby books to your child's home library, and get ready for snuggly story time. (Bonus: They also make for great baby gifts.)
At first, your child will just get a kick out of seeing their own face in the mirror. As they get older, the book gives prompts like, "Little lion looks so happy! Can you look happy, too?" which gets them to explore their emotions.
This book offers sweet, rhyming instructions, like, "Count to LOVE on your fingers and toes. 1-2-3-4 touch your nose." Your baby will love watching you play along!
Sure, babies may not remember this book's rhyming facts about our solar system, but, staring at the smiling faces of all the celestial bodies, they'll still have a good time.
For kids who love to get their hands into things, this book features a sliding mechanism on every page that reveals a surprise. Plus, the reveals are usually adorable, courtesy of illustrator Ingela P. Arrhenius.
At Good Housekeeping, we love our appliances, but Steven Weinberg just might love them more. His books — Dishwasher's Big Job, Fridge and Oven's Big Job and Washer and Dryer's Big Job — are all love letters to the machines that make our homes run. And babies also love the googly eyes!
If you're sick of seeing the same style of illustrations for the same fairy tales over and over, the Once Upon a World series is the antidote. It sets common fairy tales in specific locations: Rapunzel escapes from a tower in India, Snow White hikes through the woods of Japan, Cinderella attends a ball in Mexico and The Little Mermaid swims in the waters of the Caribbean.
Little Fish is hiding, and babies get to check under flaps to find him and his fishy friends. The brightly colored coral, shells and seaweed they conceal themselves in makes for a happy hide-and-seek book. It's by Lucy Cousins, who delights preschoolers with her Maisy books.
Bath time, like story time, could be a cherished part of the nighttime routine. This book uses rhyming lines with lots of repetition to celebrate the joys of the tub.
Tummy time is hard for babies. This book folds out like an accordion, so you can stand it up in front of your baby for some extra motivation to pick that head up. The illustrations are a mix of high-contrast black-and-white patterns, images of smiling babes and mirrored pages so your baby can gaze at her own reflection.
For a delicious twist on a counting book, this board book lets kids count the offerings at a dim sum outing, starting with one menu. (Five egg rolls, please!) The words are written in both Mandarin and English.
Research shows that babies as young as 3 months already recognize race, so it really is never too early to start conversations about anti-racism. This board book, written by Ibram X. Kendi, the Founding Director of the Boston University Center for Antiracist Research, offers nine steps to becoming an antiracist baby.
You really can't go wrong with any board book by the great Sandra Boynton. (And there are so, so many of them.) But this book follows animals as they get ready for bed, so it might inspire your little one to get some shut-eye, too.
This books shows how there's many ways to be a family, and how families have different routines for everything from getting breakfast in the morning to celebrating special occasions. It also comes with a mirror surprise and a fill-in family tree.
Start building that baby vocabulary! This board book's sweet illustrations are labeled with both English and Spanish words, so your baby can get double the vocab out of the same number of pages.
If you want to feel inspired about your baby's future, pick up this book, which introduces kids to 18 different inspiring women, like Disney artist Mary Blair, musician Sister Rosetta Tharpe or scientist Wang Zhenyi. There's also Follow Your Dreams, Little One, which features figures like tennis star Arthur Ashe, civil rights leader John Lewis and dancer Alvin Ailey.
Ultra-adorable illustrations make this book feel like a sweet treat. Each page is another delicious term of endearment, like sweet pea or pumpkin — all with happy, smiling faces.
This book combines two things kids love: outer space and hide-and-seek. You look for extra-terrestrial elements on the pages, finding them under the flaps of the book. ("Where's the space dog? Here he is!")
George the Dog tries to be good while his owner is out, but just can't stop himself from chasing the cat and making a mess. If your child is too young to glean the themes of self-control and restraint, they'll still love the doggie mayhem — most of which end with a chorus of, "Oh no, George!"
Kids have been enjoying the interactive nature of this book — patting the bunny, feeling Daddy's scratchy face — since way back in 1940. And no, the novelty has not worn off yet.
It's never too early to get them started on their college applications. (Kidding!) Still, parents get a kick out of these "Baby University" books, which includes Quantum Physics for Babies, Rocket Science for Babies, General Relativity for Babies andNewtonian Physics for Babies. (Then maybe they can explain it to us?)
Die-cut windows give kids a hint as to who might be hiding on the next page. It's way more fun than playing peek-a-boo alone, and less tiring for your hands, too. If your baby adores this one, there are others in the series, including Peek-a-Zoo and Peek-a-Moo.
Starting on the cover (with the "tufty" ears), there's something for kids to touch on every page of this book (part of a That's Not My series, which also includes dinosaur, unicorn and goat). Babies love feeling all different textures as they go through all the dragons, trying to find the "right" one.
Goodnight Moon has had such a weird history, from being banned by the New York Public Library to the strange story about what happened to the book's rights after author Margaret Wise Brown's death. So it really speaks to the magic of the book that the simple story of a house winding down for the night is still so loved today.
In 2019, The Very Hungry Caterpillar celebrated its 50th anniversary — and it's easy to see why it's endured, since it combines so many things that babies love: counting, cute animals and food. You can pair this classic with the recent Sleep Tight with the Very Hungry Caterpillarfor all-day fun.
Author Mo Willems began his career as a writer and animator on Sesame Street, and is most famous for his beloved Knuffle Bunny, Elephant and Piggie and Pigeon series. Until your baby is old enough for those, there's Welcome, which explains to babies some of the many wondrous things to look forward to in life, like music and cats.
This book is about a little bear who finds out he needs hearing aids, and how he has to adjust after receiving them. The book won a prestigious 2021 Ezra Jack Keats honor for its writing.
In this book, rhyming lines in English are paired with simple Spanish phrases, so your baby can get used to hearing two different languages. "Besos" means kisses, so be prepared to give lots of smooches!
As the Little Nutbrown Hare and the Big Nutbrown Hare talk about how much they love each other, you get to assure your little one that your love is immeasurable, too.
When Leo goes to the library for "baby time," he gets to do exciting activities, like singing a happy song or playing peek-a-boo with scarves — things you can play at home, too!
Chances are, "no" and "yes" are going to be the words that your baby hears most. So it makes sense that "no" and "yes" are the only words in this book, too. The baby gets a "no" for bad behavior and a "yes" being good. (See also: Yummy Yucky.)
There are endless numbers of counting books out there, but only one where the great Frida Kahlo acts as the guide to numbers. This book counts in English and Spanish, using element of her life as inspiration. ("One blue house/una casa azul.")
Your baby is cuter than Baby Groot, sure, so make this Marvel book their first introduction to the ABCs. The book's pages are so thick the whole thing feels like a block instead of a book — good for withstanding your baby's abuse. If Marvel isn't your family's fandom, you can also do Star Wars (or just regular words if you don't want them hooked on movies so young).
Yusuke Yonezu's clever lift-the-flap illustrations offer surprises on every page — what looks like a lollipop turns into a chameleon, or a hard-candy wrapper transforms into the tail of a fish.
Practice naming feelings with the characters in Jane Austen's Emma. ("Emma is excited! Mr. Weston is Surprised!") It's part of the BabyLit line of books, which adapts classics into board books for kids. If you know a new parent who's a fan of Shakespeare or ancient Homer, or if you want a scaled-down version of your own favorite literary classic, there's a BabyLit book to go with it.
Almost every Dr. Seuss book is a classic, but this one is a good starting point, since it gives you an excuse to play the little piggies game as you examine your own feet.
Or if you simply cannot choose, you can have the experts at the Brave + Kind Bookshop put together an assortment of books for you. Each bundle comes with both chunky and soft board books, plus a crocheted rattle. It comes in three different sizes, with either four, six or eight books.
Marisa LaScalaSenior Parenting & Relationships EditorSenior Parenting & Relationships Editor Marisa LaScala covers all things parenting, from the postpartum period through empty nests, for Good Housekeeping; she previously wrote about motherhood for Parents and Working Mother.
This content is created and maintained by a third party, and imported onto this page to help users provide their email addresses. You may be able to find more information about this and similar content at piano.io
