I've noticed that there are certain developmental book stages for young children. They begin with babies, age into animals, cycle around to cars and trucks, before developing a dinosaur book passion.
Even infants love looking at baby faces. Several new books give them opportunity do so. Four new padded books, Baby ABC, Baby 123, Baby Colors and Baby Faces, use bright photographs to show babies doing what they love best. (all board books from DK Publishing, $4.95 each, ages 6 months- 3 years) Baby Faces (Playskool, $6.99; ages 6 months - 2 years) presents a variety of expressions with tabs to help small fingers turn pages.
Before babies reach a year old, they fall in love with animals. They point, name, and make animal sounds almost instinctively. Animal photographs abound in Baby Farm Animals (Playskool, $6.99; ages 6 months- 2 years) marked with tabs for easy page turning. DK Publishing adds Horses and Teddy Bears to make twelve animal-shaped board books with just a bit of text and great photos. (each $3.95 each for ages 1-4).
Song and animals go well together. June Crebbin's Cows in the Kitchen (Candlewick, $15.99; ages 0-5) shows what happens while the farmer naps and his animals take over the farmhouse. Children join the fun by singing the choruses to the tune of "Skip to My Lou". Bright, active illustrations by Katharine McEwen accompany the silliness of the story-song.
Sue Williams' text for Let's Go Visiting (HBJ, $15.00; ages 1-3) explores farm animals with lilting rhythms while Julie Vivas' illustrations warmly show a young child savoring the romp with kitties, ducks and others.
Lucy Cousin's much-loved character returns with tabs and flaps so children can help her collect eggs, ride the horses, and drive the tractor in Maisy at the Farm. (Candlewick, $12.99; ages 2-4).
The favorite young game of peek-a-boo is caught between book covers in Marie Torres Cimarusti's Peek-a-moo! where big bold drawings give animals a chance to play babies' favorite game. (Dutton, $9.99; ages 6 months to 2yrs)
Wild animals provide a way to release toddler liveliness in Steve Lavis' Jump! (Lodestar, $14.99; ages 2-5). Bright illustrations and repeatable refrains follow a boy through active antics that will encourage children to join in.
For real fans you can bring the animal kingdom into your home with two thirty minute videos, Baby Animals on the Farm and Baby Animals from the Wild. Babies will thrill at seeing the animals and preschoolers will learn facts. (from DK Video, $12.95)
For years I wanted to avoid my seemingly sexist viewpoint, but the truth is little boys around four adore trucks with a passion girls don't.
For young appreciators, Byron Barton's Boats; Planes; Trains; and Trucks (HarperCollins, $6.95 each, ages 3-5) come in board book with bright primary colors, simple text and lines, and clear foreground and background.
Dump Truck, Fire Engine, Race Car and Truck, a new series from DK Publishing has books shaped like vehicles, filled with bright photos, and wheels for children on the go! (each boardbook, $4.95; ages 2-5).
Many truck books give you the sense of being there with pop-up. I love pop-up for young children, but put them up on a special shelf to protect the expensive books from zealous young readers and give an early message about the preciousness of books. Richard Fowler's Pop-up Trucks (Red Wagon Books, $14.95; ages 3-6) allow young appreciators to unload a dump truck, maneuver a fork lift, tow a van, and operate two other trucks as well. Jeff Cummins' Cars, Boats, Trains, and Planes (Orchard, $12.95; ages 2-6) accents motion -- the in and out of tunnels, train stations, and more active adventuring. Steve Augarde's Fire Engine to the Rescue (Tupelo, $14.95; ages 2-5) lets young firefighters check out equipment, sit in the driver's seat with a steering wheel that gets them to a fire where they rescue a kitty!
Pop-up, a bus, a song and wonderful art is a winning combination in Paul Zelinsky's The Wheels on the Bus (Dutton, $15.99; ages 1-6). The wipers swish, wheels rotate, and the magic has brought this book into its thirteenth printing!
Parents who have vehicle-loving children appreciate a real story. Peter Sis invents a deliciously silly one in Fire Truck (Greenwillow, $14.95; ages 3-5). Young Matt loves fire trucks so much, one day he turns into one and has great fun blaring around until he smells something. No, it's not a fire, just his breakfast pancakes which wait for him!
I wish Mittie Cuetara's The Crazy Crane and Other Very Short Truck Stories (Dutton, $14.95; ages 3-5) had been around when my son was infatuated! She tells the stories of fourteen trucks that captures the truck's function, embrace a rollicking rhythm, and includes a laugh with every story.
They may have been extinct for eons, but when children turn four or five, dinosaurs rule! There is so much to learn about dinosaurs and children learn millenniums faster than parents who struggle and flounder just to pronounce names.
Paul Stickland's Dinosaur Roar , a colorful book with a wild romp of rhythm, rhyme, and prepositions is now a board book with a puppet to encourage even more involvement. (Dutton, $13.99; ages 3-5).
Sandra Boyton's Dinosaur's Binkit (Little Simon, $9.99; ages 2-4) has the allure of rhyme and rhythm, textures to feel, a dinosaur hero and the familiar theme missing a blanket at bedtime.
Many times dinosaur lovers don't care how complicated a book is and will pore over pictures intended for a much older child. William Lindsay's Incredible Dinosaurs (DK Publishing, $14.95; ages 4-8) is produced with the American Museum of Natural History and gives photographs of realistic scale models that show dinosaurs in action that the very young will appreciate and there's room to grow as the book also shows how their fossils are excavated.
As children grow there are stories to help. Barbara Shook Hazen writes a first story of sharing in That Toad is Mine! (HarperCollins, $9.95) when two best friends find and fight over a frog, and then discover taking turns is a great cure.
Three new tales provide a bedtime comfort. Frank Asch's Good Night, Baby Bear (HBJ, $14.00; ages 3-5) has a little bear who becomes needy when it's time to bed down. And Joyce Dunbar's small rabbit is afraid to go to sleep in Tell Me Something Happy Before I Go to Sleep (HBJ, $16.00; ages 4-6) until her big brother Willoughby makes everything in her room sleeper friendly. Anna Grossnickle Hines helps children make the important transition from crib in My Own Big Bed (Greenwillow, $15.00).