How can I encourage my 2-year-old to enjoy books?
If your toddler isn’t a natural bookworm then there are things you can do to help encourage their interest in books.
Make sure to read to them regularly, both at bedtime and throughout the day if possible. This helps them get used to sitting down and reading a book together. Make sure that the books you choose are easy to follow, with small amounts of words on the page and pictures to help tell the story. Funny stories will keep them engaged and repetitive and rhyming text will make it easier for them to join in with the story, as they are easier to remember.
Get them to choose the books you read together by putting out a few stories for them to pick from, including any books about topics that interest them. This will help them get more excited about reading. At this age they will enjoy learning about animals and practising their alphabet and learning to count, so find books that make this fun.
You can also lead by example. Does your toddler see you reading? If not, make sure they see you reading regularly too and they may feel more interested in their own books.
What kinds of books are good for a 2-year-old?
At this age, there’s a huge range of books that will cater for a child’s interest and development. The main types of books are:
Board books: These are good for this age group as they are more robust and easy to handle for toddlers.
Rhyming stories: These are fun for a toddler as all the words rhyme, making it fun and easy to engage with the story.
Picture books: For this age group, this will be a short story with small amounts of works on a page accompanied by illustrations to help tell the tale and engage their imagination.
Interactive books: These may have fun flaps to lift up, textures to feel or sounds to listen to.
About the author
Poppy O'Neill is a Content Editor at Mumsnet and a mother of two. She's been researching and reviewing baby and child products for 2 years, with a particular focus on baby essentials, toys and books for toddlers and outdoor play equipment. From potties to paddling pools and bunk beds to bedtime stories, she loves to deep-dive into research and find the best products out there.
Poppy is also the best-selling children's and parenting author of books such as Don't Worry, Be Happy, The Extraordinary Book That Makes You Feel Happy and Mother Power. She specialises in children's mental health and her books are used by therapists, teachers and SENCOs across the UK. She won the Kate Betts Memorial Prize in 2019, her books have been translated into eight languages and her writing has featured in The Guardian, The Sunday Times and The Sun.
After earning a BA in Creative Writing from the University of Leeds and a PGCert in Fashion and Lifestyle Journalism from University of the Arts London, she worked in fashion for most of her 20s. When her children were young, she undertook an MA in Creative Writing from the University of Chichester and re-trained as an author and freelance writer. When she's not working, Poppy enjoys Pilates, hunting for sea glass on the Sussex coast and playing with tarot cards.
How we chose our recommendations
Recommendations from real parents
To start our research for the best products to recommend to you, we head to our Mumsnet forums to find out which ones our users rate the most. There’s over 7 million users each month so what better place to start our search? It means that every product recommended has been put through its paces by a family at home and caters for a range of different needs, budgets and lifestyles.
Expert advice
We always want to be able to recommend a range of tried-and-tested products so to get to the bottom of which ones are the best, our trusted and experienced parenting journalists research each category thoroughly. Once we have a list of products from our Mumsnet forums, we check them with the experts to make sure that each one comes highly recommended.
To do this we use a variety of sources, including consulting independent review sites, such as Which?, to ensure we are bringing you the best products on the market right now.
Consumer feedback
How often have you used online reviews to help you pick a product? This is a great way of finding out how well it lasts when put to the test at home by the consumer. We scour the internet to consult reviews on websites such as John Lewis, Amazon and Argos, to make sure the products are worth your hard-earned cash.
We don’t just look for positive reviews, negative feedback also helps us work out which products perform well across the board.
Celebrated best products
Finally, we want to include any products that have received industry awards as we know this means they stand out from the rest. We cross-reference this information with the rest of our research to help us recommend a variety of books for 2-year-olds that will engage and entertain your toddler.
Why you should trust us
We work hard to provide unbiased, independent advice you can trust. We do sometimes earn revenue through affiliate (click-to-buy) links in our articles. This helps us fund more helpful articles like this one.
With two young children, now aged eight and six, our writer Gemma has enjoyed reading many books at storytime. She knows what kind of books engage and encourage a toddler to enjoy reading - in fact, she used to be able to recite Stickman and Room on the Broom word-for-word they were read so often!