Children's Book Recommendation

"Dear Zoo"
great book all my kids loved it. here is a link to it on amazon

http://www.amazon.com/Dear-Zoo-Lift-Flap-Book/dp/141694737X

www.usbornforthefuture.com is my website! usborn books has TONS of books for kids of ALL ages - even adults ! :D they are all very fun, and still educational! i highly recommend the first picture animals book - my son LOVES it! :D it has different scenes, and gives a label for the animals! its less like a story, and more like, well, a picture book! :D good luck - and remember to shop through the current show! :D thanks!

"The Napping House."
http://www.audreywood.com/mac_site/catalog/catalog.htm

"The Mitten" by Jan Brett is one of our favorites. All of her books have great illustrations with lots of detail. It's recommended for 4-8 year olds but our son fell in love with it when he was 3. This is an old story and there are several versions by different authors but we like her illustrations the best. http://www.amazon.com/Mitten-Jan-Brett/dp/039921920X/ref=...

"Stand back," said the Elephant. I'm going to sneeze!..." is another good one. http://www.amazon.com/Stand-Back-Elephant-Going-Sneeze/dp...

"Brown bear, brown bear, what do you see?" is really good too. I've seen it in board-book format also. http://www.amazon.com/Brown-Bear-What-You-See/dp/08050479...

J.

As a kid, I loved "Stand Back Said the Elephant, I'm Going to Sneeze."

Baby Einstein has a series of animal books and media with great photos, vocabulary enrichment, and a wide range of animals.

Check out the;

Baby Einstein Neighborhood Animals Board Book by Julie Aigner-Clark, or the Baby Einstein Baby Noah World Animal book by Julie Aigner-Clark, the Baby Einstein Animal Flashcards, Baby Einstein Animals DVD and more.

Check them out at www.amazon.com or any Babies R' Us or Target stores.

We just got "Who's Hiding?" at an art gallery gift shop. It is SO great. I was surprised that my 24 month old was able to get the concept right away, and once we went through it a couple times with her just pointing at the correct animals, she can SAY the animals (Who is backwards? and she'll say 'Pig backwards') It is a great book! Here's a link from Amazon

http://www.amazon.com/Whos-Hiding-Satoru-Onishi/dp/193360...

Another idea would be to take them to the zoo and take pictures of each animal with your camera (he can "help"), get them developed, and put them in a little photo book. Then, he will not only see the photos and say the names, but you can talk about what was going on at the time of the photo ("Remember when we took this picture of the goat and later he ate out of your hand?! that was SO FUN!... or... Remember how TALL the giraffe was? he could eat leaves right off the trees!)

great question, i'll tune in later to write down some of the answers you get so I can get them for my 2 year old!

We have read a book to my son called The Beastly Feast by Bruce Goldstone since he was in my womb. He is only 7 months old but he smiles when ever we read it and it is one that is not to difficult so he can gradually learn to read it himself.

I have a couple that my daughter loves: Little Golden Books: "Baby Animals" and "Baby Farm Animals". They have pretty accurate/realistic drawings and different types of animals that you don't see in most books. She also loves the book, "Try Counting Sheep" by Joanne Partis. My daughter's only 20 months old, so right now she just loves the pictures and when my hubby and I make the different animals noises, but for an older child, part of the fun is finding the sheep hidden on each page. There isn't a lot of reading to this book, but there is counting and cute pictures!

The National Wildlife Federation also has some neat books and magazines. I got my niece "Wild Animal Baby" a few years back and she loved it. I can't remember how often they receive it (maybe every 2 months), but they're full of new and different animals, poems, games, etc..., plus there's just the thrill of getting something in the mail! You can probably find this at www.nwf.org.

Good question! I've enjoyed reading all of the responses!

I think the Priddy books are great for expanding vocabulary in this way. www.priddybooks.com
There is no story, but there are lots and lots of photographs and the animal names are underneath. The animal one we have has the animals grouped in various ways, like pets, baby animals, fish, reptiles and then some by where they live: forest, river, Australia, etc.
We have had this book for quite a while but there really is so much to see in it that my son has not tired of it. Plus he will just look at it on his own sometimes, which is nice too.

"But Not the Hippopotumus" by Sandra Boynton

"Quick as a Cricket" is a GREAT book. Lots of animals and pictures. Look it up on Amazon.com

My son loved these huge board books that I got at Target for him ($10/each if I remember correctly), I think one is called My Little Word Book and the other is about Animals - he learned so many animals (and words in general) from those books! They are big and with a white cover and very sturdy too - each page has a ton of pictures grouped by different categories.

If you ever get a chance to look at the Usborne books, I highly recommend them.

If you are interested, they are sold through home shows. I was just at a conference and there were a couple of gals there with the line. I can email you their information if you want to speak with them. My email is ____@____.com

K.