As a grandmother with another magical grandson on the way, my thoughts return to teaching your child the magic of language. The beginning happens long before your baby understands words, and it is never too early to introduce a young one to the wonder of books. Reading to your infant over time provides the child with a variety of sounds as well as the building blocks needed for language development. One study shows parents who read to babies every day expose them to around 78,000 words each year, such that by age five, that infant has been exposed to nearly a million and a half words during storytime.
As children grow, stories stimulate their imaginations and allow them to learn about the world around them. A baby's brain grows more in the first year of life than at any other time. They are learning the sounds of languages, the meanings of words, emotions, and communication. And with all of this, reading to your child builds listening, memory, and vocabulary skills. It is also an opportunity to cuddle your baby, making him or her feel safe and connected.
Bear in mind that many of my suggestions date back to when I read to my own children. Many of these are considered "classics." Of course, there are thousands of other books to read, and these are many of my favorites; not all of them, but enough. If you like a book, get the next one from the same author!
On a side note, for spellers who are well-read, the actual skill of spelling is usually easier, and their vocabulary is much broader!
Linda's Favorite Books for Infants & Toddlers - Many of these are available as board books or soft books, as well as regular hard-bound books For some you'll want both types.
- A color of his own, Leo, Lionni
- A to Z Picture Book, Gyo Fujikawa
- A Hole is to Di, Ruth Krauss & Maurice Sendak
- Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day by Judith Viorst, Judith Viorst
- Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What Do You See?, Eric Carle & Bill Martin, Jr.
- Dear Zoo, Rod Campbell
- Don't Let the Pigeon Drive the Bus, Mo Willems
- First 100 Words, Roger Priddy
- First Book of Colors, Roger Priddy
- Frederick, Leo Lionni
- Good Dog, Carl, Alexandra Day
- Goodnight Moon, Margaret Wise Brown & Clement Hurd
- Goodnight, Goodnight Construction Site, Sherri Duskey Rinker
- Good Night Moon, Margaret Wise Brown
- How Do Dinosaurs Say Good Night?, Jane Yolen
- Make Way for Ducklings, Robert McCloskey
- Mike Mulligan and His Steam Shovel, Robert McCloskey
- Now We Are Six, A. A. Milne
- Nutshell Library, Maurice Sendak
- Pat the Bunny, Dorothy Kunhardt
- Peter Rabbit Books, Beatrix Potter
- Planting a Rainbow, Lois Ehlert
- The Cat in the Hat, Dr. Seuss
- The Going to Bed Book, Sandra Boynton
- The Little Engine that Could, Watty Piper
- The Little House, Virginia Lee Burton
- The Original Mother Goose, Blanche Fisher Wright
- The Runaway Bunny, Margaret Wise Brown
- The Touch Me Book, Pat and Eve Witte
- The Ugly Duckling, Robert McCloskey
- The Very Hungry Caterpillar, Eric Carle
- There's a Nightmare in My Closet, Mercer Mayer
- We're Going on a Bear Hunt, Helen Oxenbury & Michael Rosen
- When the Sky is Like Lace, Elinor Lander Horwitz & Barbara Cooney
- Where the Wild Things Are, Maurice Sendak
And anything by the above authors will be outstanding!
Linda's Favorites for Young Readers or read-along books, and again, anything by these authors...
- Aesop's Fables, anonymous
- Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, Lewis Carroll
- Black Stallion Books, Walter Farley
- Bridge to Terabithia, Katherine Paterson
- Call of the Wild, Jack London
- Charlotte’s Web, E. B. White & Garth Williams
- Children of the Star Series, Sylvia Engdahl & Robert Wallace
- Dragon's Blood series, Jane Yolen
- Dragonsong trilogy, Anne McCaffrey
- Harry Potter books, J. K. Rowling
- Island of the Blue Dolphins, Scott O'Dell
- King of the Wind, Marguerite Henry & Wesley Dennis
- Old Yeller, Fred Gibson
- Random House Book of Poetry for Children, Jack Prelutsky & Arnold Lobel
- The Chronicles of Narnia, C. S. Lewis
- The Chronicles of Prydain, Lloyd Alexander
- The Dark is Rising Series, Susan Cooper
- The Forgotten Beasts of Eld, Patricia McKillip & Gail Carriger
- The Hobbit, J. R. R. Tolkien
- The Jungle Books, Rudyard Kipling
- The Lorax, Dr. Seuss
- The Secret Garden, Frances Hodgson Burnett
- The Story of Babar, Jean de Brunhoff
- The Velveteen Rabbit, Margery Williams
- Where the Red Fern Grows, Wilson Rawls
- Where the Red Fern Grows, Wilson Rawls
- Where the Sidewalk Ends, Shel Silverstein
- Wind in the Willows, Kenneth Grahame
- Wizard of Oz books, Frank Baum
- Wrinkle in Time series, Madeleine L'Engle
And anything by above authors will be outstanding!
Books for older readers, including many classics..
- 1984, George Orwell
- A Clockwork Orange, Anthony Burgess
- A Farewell to Arms, Ernest Hemingway
- All Quiet on the Western Front, Erich Maria Remarque
- Animal Farm, George Orwell
- Anna Karenina, Leo Tolstoy
- Atlas Shrugged, Ayn Rand
- Babbitt, Sinclair Lewis
- Beowulf, --
- Catch 22, Joseph Heller
- Cat's Cradle, Kurt Vonnegut
- Contact, Carl Sagan
- Crime and Punishment, Fyodor Dostoyevsky
- Cyrano de Bergerac, Edmond Rostand
- Death Comes for the Archbishop, Willa Cather
- Doctor Zhivago, Boris Pasternak
- Fahrenheit 451, Ray Bradbury
- Flowers for Algernon, Daniel Keyes
- Foundation series, Isaac Asimov
- Frankenstein, Mary Shelley
- Great Expectations, Charles Dickens
- Gulliver's Travels, Jonathan Swift
- Heart of Darkness, Joseph Conrad
- Iliad, Homer
- Ivanhoe, Sir Walter Scott
- Jane Eyre, Charlotte Brontë
- Jurassic Park, Michael Crichton
- Lord of the Flies, William Golding
- Les Misérables, Victor Hugo
- Middlemarch, George Eliot
- Midshipman Hornblower, C. S. Forester
- Moby Dick, Herman Melville
- The Odyssey, Homer
- Out of the Silent Planet, C.S. Lewis
- Planet of the Apes, Boulle, Pierre Boulle
- Pride and Prejudice, Austen, Jane
- Rabbit, Run, John Updike
- Rebecca, Daphne du Maurier
- Robinson Crusoe, Daniel Defoe
- Selected Tales, Edgar Allan Poe
- Slaughterhouse-Five, Vonnegut
- Tess of the d'Urbervilles, Thomas Hardy
- The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, Mark Twain
- The Andromeda Strain, Michael Crichton
- The Call of the Wild, Jack London
- The Catcher in the Rye, J. D. Salinger
- The Cherry Orchard, Anton Chekhov
- The Fountainhead, Ayn Rand
- The Glass Menagerie, Williams, Tennessee
- The Grapes of Wrath, John Steinbeck
- The Great Gatsby, F. Scott Fitzgerald
- The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, Douglas Adams
- The Hunchback of Notre Dame, Victor Hugo
- The Last of the Mohicans, James Fenimore Cooper
- The Martian Chronicles, Ray Bradbury
- The Picture of Dorian Gray, Wilde, Oscar
- The Red Badge of Courage, Stephen Crane
- The Scarlet Letter, Nathaniel Hawthorne
- The Sound and the Fury, William Faulkner
- The Stranger, Albert Camus
- The Three Musketeers, Alexandre Dumas
- The War of the Worlds, H. G. Wells
- Time Traveler’s Wife, Audrey Niffenegger
- To Kill a Mockingbird, Harper Lee
- Treasure Island, Robert Louis Stevenson
- Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea, Jules Verne
- Ulysses, James Joyce
- Uncle Tom's Cabin, Harriet Beecher Stowe
- Vanity Fair, William Thackeray
- Walden, Henry David Thoreau
- War and Peace, Leo Tolstoy
- Wuthering Heights, Emily Brontë
And anything by above authors will be outstanding!
ENCOURAGE READING FOR YOUR YOUNGSTERS!