Being a bibliophile by birth made me a borderline obsessed mom ,who wanted her kids to read before they learned to walk or talk or even sit up. Developing reading habits can yield high benefits as children grow. I bought my son his first books when he was six months old. Well, as expected, it brought about a lot of sniggers from people around me specially the father of the kid. He rolled his eyes in a manner which said- there she goes again with her loony ways.
But I stood my ground. I used to make my son sit in my lap and read in a sing song, loud, cheerful voice with all the hand gestures and facial expressions which could have fetched me the job of a clown/ventriloquist/slap stick artist in a circus no less. ALL that hard work has paid off and I am having the last laugh as now both my babies are decent, if not voracious readers.
In my opinion, we need to invest time to read out to our kids. If left to their own, the colorful, sound making, antics throwing cartoon characters will win any day over the static images of a book. However the way a book ignites their imagination and opens up their minds, passive TV watching will never do. Also, we need to have loads of patience while reading out to them as them being kids, they will take time to understand the REAL function of a book. At the mighty old age of six months, all my son did with his books was either flap his arms like a duck on the books, bang them, chew on them and make them wet etc. but by 10 months, he understood the sing song reading and the right time to turn the page.
The world of kiddy books is vast! For me, it was a kid in candy store situation when I tried buying books for my son. Here on Curiousmumma, I would try to chronicle the books by age and would review them for our readers. Take your pick mommies because as the quote goes- The world belongs to those who read.
Here's my pick of top 5 baby/toddler books for the age group 0-18 months.
So this was a list of difficult to compile list of top 5 touch and feel books loved by my kids and me. What are your favorite kiddy books? What special effort do you put in to make your kids read? Any specific book you would like us to discuss here? Drop us a line and we will get back to you.
