Stories for babies

[halogen]

My daughter is 14 months old and really likes stories. She is very bored with factual 'this is a dog' type books. The hard part is finding stories that are easy enough for her to understand. She likes Big Red Bath, The Elephant & the Bad Baby, Peepo, Each Peach Pear Plum and Meg & Mog books but I haven't found much else that is easy enough for her to cope with. Most stories seem to have too many words on a page. Any recommendations?

have you seen the "that's not my" series? they are fab

Nursery rhyme books?

Short, good for encouraging communication, important that old songs get passed down through the generations, lovely singing together, usually have good illustrations, too.

DD2 is 15m and is just starting to 'sing' back certain rhymes (she obviously can't verbalise, but da-di-da's the tune back. It's so cute!)

Zoo is much-loved by my 15 month old. My dd wasn't much older when she lloved the cat in the hat books. Especially one fish two fish.

Notnowbernard - love that book from when I was young. Keep meaning to get it for my kids.

Was going to mention 'That's not my...' books.

Also I love 'The Tiger Who Came To Tea', my DS (9mo) gets impatient with it but might be OK for an older baby...

That is meant to say Dear Zoo

The Maisy Mouse books are sweet simple stories

What about the touchy feely Usborne 'That's not my dog/fairy/car etc' series.

The very hungry caterpillar?

'Dear Zoo' is very good...

sorry x post !!

yes, forgot about Dear Zoo, it's excellent. there is also a counting one by the same author which is good too.

we,re going on a bear hunt

oooh, and the Little Kipper books are lovely

The very hungry caterpillar
the baby who wouldn't go to bed - both my 19 month old and my 4.6 year old love it1!

Spot (the dog) stories

Any lift-the-flap book

have you been to your local library? Our library does a scheme which gives them free books from quite an early age, and a library ticket for them to take out more books.

A few my dd loved at that age:

Roaring Lion
Dear Zoo
Where's That Cat? and Where's That Duck?
Little Kipper books
Where's Spot? and other Spot stories
Wibbly Pig stories
All nursery rhyme books

Hope this helps

hairy mcclary
the gruffalo

Squash and a Squeeze - by the same people who did the Gruffalo

Is it vital that she understands all of everything you read her or that she can enjoy some things in the story? We've been reading and telling stories to our ds since he was a few days old in hospital, and at bedtime each night from about 2 months.

Julia Donaldson and Axel Scheffler have done quite a few good books as well as The Gruffalo.

I also recommend the library. I've bought a lot of books for ds but find that getting books out for him stops me getting bored, and it sounds like your dd is ready to start picking out ones she likes. Also, you might find library staff who really enjoy having someone to make recommendations to.

Another source of books - or ideas - is www.redhouse.co.uk, part of the same company as www.thebookpeople.co.uk - cheap books but no bookclub minimum commitment or Editor's Choice that they send you when you haven't asked for it.

my DD has loved the very hungry caterpillar since that age
also ...
monkey puzzle
dear zoo (lots of us like that one, from reading the thread)
a set of books entitled "busy..." - railway, park, oooohh my memory is going i cant remember the other two
boat sails away train's day out - lovely rhyming stories
fergus goes quackers.

what a list....

happy reading

There's one we really like called The Magic Sky, about polar bears and the northern lights. My 15 month old DS really likes it (and it sparkles!)

Goodnight Moon, the Runaway Bunny and various Sandra Boynton books (all American but readily available here) were very popular with all my DDs at that age.