Cute for grownups -- but also for kids?

Dear Aunt Debbie,

Among the many kinds of board books out there in the world, one of my least favorite has always been the Cute for Grownups board book. You know the kind I mean: books which feel like they were written to be marketed to the hip friends of new parents who will pick them up at the counter of a trendy gift shop on their way to a baby shower. These are the books that a browsing shopper might find chuckle-worthy in the moment, but they're not really for children.

I'm talking about titles like the Baby Be of Use series, or the nine book series which started with
Urban Babies Wear Black. And of course there's Go the Fuck to Sleep, which made the rounds a few years ago, and for which you had much less patience than I.

I've been given a few of these types of books over the years, and have quietly deep-sixed them before having to run the risk that a child will get attached to one and I'll have to read it aloud twelve thousand times while feeling vaguely annoyed.

So when my mother (your sister, and generally a terrific judge of children's literature) bought us a board book version of Anna Karenina, I was skeptical.

In the BabyLit series -- of course it's a series -- Jennifer Adams and Alison Oliver reimagine a number of classic works of literature as concept board books. Anna Karenina is "A Fashion Primer," and introduces dress and accessories vocabulary; Wuthering Heights is "A Weather Primer," using direct quotes to illustrate the various kinds of weather Heathcliff and Catherine are exposed to ("Breezy," "Stormy"); Frankenstein is an "Anatomy Primer."

Despite my misgivings, Will fell in love with Anna Karenina immediately. I think the attraction resides in part in Oliver's illustrations, which are attractively blocky and colorful. Will's love of dress-up, which he shares with his older sisters, may also play a part.

In the last year, I've read a number of the BabyLit titles in stores and at friends' houses (suddenly, they're everywhere!). I've found them a little uneven in quality -- some are spot-on, both funny for the grownups reading them and interesting for the kids, some less so.

Hands down, my favorite is Pride and Prejudice: A Counting Primer. Here's the entire text, with a couple of illustrated pages to give you the flavor:

1 English village
2 rich gentlemen
3 houses
4 marriage proposals

5 sisters
6 horses
7 soldiers in uniform
8 musicians
9 fancy ballgowns (this is Eleanor and Isabel's favorite page)
10 10,000 pounds

When I got to 10 the first time I read it, I laughed out loud.

Have I been bamboozled by the hip nerd feel of these books? Are they just as obnoxious as the other Cute for Grownups books I've eschewed over the years? They feel different in character to me, but I'm willing to hear an argument. What's your take on this genre?

Love, Annie

Making joyful noise with babies

Dear Aunt Debbie,

In the swirl of finding the right books for Eleanor to read independently and for Isabel to stay happily engaged, I sometimes worry that Will gets short shrift. He's certainly surrounded by books: the bottom two shelves of the main bookcase in the living room are stocked with board books he can reach; the coffee table is always piled with books the girls are reading, which he opens at will; and his crib is next to an adult bookshelf -- this past week, I found him playing with  Roland Barthes' Elements of Semiology.

Back when Eleanor was a baby, Jeff and I read to her every night, picking a few board books we loved, always ending with Goodnight Moon. Our routine with Will is far less stable: I read to him when we're alone during the day, and sometimes in the afternoon with the girls, but bedtime reading is overtaken by Eleanor and Isabel, and it feels like time is always short. Here on the blog, I fall into the same pattern, writing much more often about books at the 7 and 4 year-old level, and not so much the newly-1-year-old.

But 1 is an awesome age to read to a kid! While Will is still a big fan of books with photographs of baby faces, he's now really getting into books full of sounds.

The prime book in this category is, of course, Sandra Boynton's Doggies: A Counting and Barking Book, which I wrote about when Isabel was a baby, and for which I have a deep and abiding love. So simple. So captivating. So endlessly entertaining.

Two other favorites from Eleanor's babyhood are coming back into heavy rotation now:

Cows in the Kitchen, by June Crebbin, is a rollicking version of "Skip to My Lou," repopulated with barnyard animals intent on taking over the farmhouse and wreaking havoc:

Cows in the kitchen, moo, moo, moo,
Cows in the kitchen, moo, moo, moo,
Cows in the kitchen, moo, moo, moo,
That's what we do, Tom Farmer!

The farmer in question is sleeping in a haystack, and comes running to shoo everyone out, but is so exhausted by the end that the animals sneak back in and jump on him quite joyfully. It's kind of like having a house full of kids, come to think of it....


Jamberry, by Bruce Degen, is a joyful set of berry-based rhymes, truly fun to read aloud. The illustrations depict a boy and a large friendly bear moving through a landscape filled with berries and other animals. The text riffs off of one berry name at a time: blueberries, strawberries, blackberries, raspberries. The blackberry rhyme may be my favorite:

Quickberry!
Quackberry!
Pick me a blackberry!

Trainberry
Trackberry
Clickety-clackberry

And then there's a new favorite which came as a gift from you: The Noisy Book, by Soledad Bravi. No narrative here, just more than 100 pages of things that make sounds:

The firecracker goes boom
The cars go brrmm brrmm
The drink goes glug glug
The monkey goes oo oo oo

And then there are a few cute ones:

This afternoon, Will let me read him the entire book. Noises are awesome.

Love, Annie

More first books for babies

Dear Aunt Debbie,

I've been wanting to write about great first books, the ones I give most often as presents for new parents. As you mention, Goodnight Moon has played a major part in our parenting life, and is one of my all-time favorites.


Goodnight Moon

Starting when Eleanor was about 6 months old and we were trying to establish a bedtime routine, I stole a great idea from a mom in my new moms group. Each night, we'd read Goodnight Moon aloud as our last book, and then go around the room saying goodnight to everything: Goodnight books, Goodnight mobile, Goodnight light, Goodnight window. It's calming, and it also makes you aware of some of the weird things you have in your kid's room: Goodnight Teddy Roosevelt (Uncle Dudley's old framed bandanna), Goodnight 50 Foot Woman, Goodnight Buster Keaton (our framed movie posters). The routine faded after a while, but now that we've moved Isabel into Eleanor's room, we've started it up again.

Every night, after Eleanor's teeth are brushed and she's ready for bed, we pick up the board book and read it together to Isabel. Some nights, Eleanor says it aloud with us -- she pretty much has it memorized. Isabel slaps at the pages and tries to eat the book as we go. (The corner of the last page is worn away from Eleanor eating it three years ago.) Isabel loves the book, especially the color pages; she really stares at the pictures. How many times have I read this book aloud by now? Easily three hundred. But Margaret Wise Brown is brilliant, and I never get tired of it. There's something about the rhythm of each line.

We have at least three copies of Goodnight Moon, one the big hardcover with normal paper pages.


Goodnight Moon hardcover (not board)

I'm pretty sure the half-eaten copy we're using now was our second board book version. Do you remember the story about Michael trying to climb into the pictures of Goodnight Moon when he was maybe 1 1/2? I don't think I remember him doing it, but my mom has told us the story so many times I have an image of it in my head: Michael putting the book on the floor, then carefully stepping on the pages, then crying, so frustrated that he wasn't actually in the room. Clement Hurd was a genius too.

The other two I want to write about tonight were, of course, gifts from you. I Kissed the Baby, by Mary Murphy, is a nearly perfect book.


I Kissed the Baby

It's super-simple. On each page, one animal asks another animal if they've done something with the baby, and the other says yes: "'I sang to the baby. Did you sing to the baby?' 'Yes! I sang to the baby, and the baby sang to me!'" The drawings are high-contrast black and white, with a little splash of color on the edge of each page, and the baby, when it appears, bright yellow. It also allows you to do the things you're reading about ("I tickled the baby. Did you tickle the baby?") as you read. I've given this book as a new-baby gift several times, and my friend Tui recently emailed me that her mom has turned the text of the book into a song, and they sing it to their baby regularly. He, like every other baby I've seen interact with the book, adores it.

Then there is the joyful and loving "More More More," Said the Baby, by Vera B. Williams, another I've read aloud so many times that I know it by heart.


"More More More," Said the Baby: Three Love Stories

It contains three stories, each about a little kid being fondly chased by an adult: Little Guy and his daddy, who kisses his belly button; Little Pumpkin and grandma, who eats Little Pumpkin's toes; and Little Bird and her mama, who puts a sleepy Little Bird to bed. The three variations are rhythmic and affectionate, with each adult lighting up and calling the child, "Oh my best little baby." Every page is alive with color. The book is also unobtrusively diverse. Little Pumpkin (whose gender is never specified) is black, while grandma is apparently white and blonde. Little Bird and her mama might be Hispanic, might be Asian, and when Little Bird falls asleep, her mama makes her a bed out of the couch. Little Guy and his daddy are white, but his daddy is hanging out at home in shorts and flip-flops. There is total joy and love on each page.


And so many favorites I've left out! I will definitely be revisiting this theme.

Love, Annie