Board Books

Why it worksEffectively wordless - a child on a swing goes higher past a giraffe, a plane and a spaceship, high-fives an alien and comes back down - so the reading is done by the pictures and one repeated word, which the toddler takes over completely by the second time.

Worth knowingAround twenty words in the whole book. If you want text at bedtime, this is not it.

Why it worksThere are about nine lines of text in the whole book: the zookeeper says good night to each animal while the gorilla quietly unlocks every cage behind him. The child sees the joke before the man in the story does, and pointing that out is what they come back for.

Worth knowingNearly wordless, so the reading is really pointing. A child who wants a story told to them may not settle for it.

Why it worksDie-cut windows give away half the answer, so an eighteen-month-old guesses 'peek-a-moo' before the page turns and is right every single time - which at this age is the whole appeal. The last window is a mirror and it always gets them.

Worth knowingSix spreads and it is over. It earns its keep by being read six times in a row, not once.

Why it worksOne opposite per spread with the same bald baby doing both - spaghetti is yummy, worms are yucky - and the yucky drawing is always the funnier one. A toddler has the pair after a single reading because the pictures carry the whole meaning.

Worth knowingThe jokes depend on the baby eating something disgusting, and a literal-minded toddler may take it as a suggestion.

Why it worksEvery spread pairs something the baby must not do with the version that is allowed - crayon on the wall, then crayon on paper - so it is house rules delivered as a joke rather than a telling-off. Two-year-olds shout 'no no!' at the correct page unprompted.

Worth knowingIt does hand a toddler a tidy catalogue of ideas they may not have had yet.

Why it worksIt gives you permission to be loud inside a book, which is rare - the loud pages want shouting and the quiet pages want a whisper, and switching between the two is what pins a wriggler in place for the next spread.

Worth knowingIt licenses noise. Do not make it the last book before sleep.

Why it worksThree animals dress correctly, the turkey puts the shirt on his head, and the whole fourth page is one word: 'Oops.' The child learns colours and clothes from the first three and gets to shout the fourth, every spread, for the entire book.

Worth knowingIt lives or dies on how you deliver 'Oops'. Read flat it is just a book about hats.

Why it worksIt hands the last page to the child - 'What do YOU say?' - so the book ends on the toddler's line and they take it. Getting the pigs deliberately wrong ('three singing pigs say LA LA LA') is the first joke most babies understand, because they already know pigs say oink.

Worth knowingNine spreads and under a minute. You will be handed it four times in a row rather than once.

Why it worksThe song as a board book, with a baby modelling each body part, so it doubles as the naming book that gets a one-year-old touching their own knees. Speeding up on the final round is the part they wait for.

Worth knowingFour lines of text repeated; without the tune there is almost nothing here.

Why it worksEvery verse has a hand action and a die-cut hole runs through the whole book, so a toddler's finger has somewhere to go while you sing. Kubler draws babies actually performing the motions, so the book teaches the actions rather than assuming you know them.

Worth knowingIt is sung, not read. If you do not know the tune the book does very little on the page.

Why it worksIt is a square-dance call rather than a story - 'Bow to the horse, bow to the cow, twirl with the pig if you know how' - so you end up on your feet doing every instruction and the toddler copies you. That physicality is why it holds a child who will not sit for a plot.

Worth knowingNeeds reading fast and loud. Mumbled at bedtime it falls flat, and it winds children up rather than down.

Why it worksEvery spread hides a nursery-rhyme or fairy-tale character in the picture and the couplet names who to look for - 'Each peach pear plum, I spy Tom Thumb'. It turns into a search game the moment the child knows the characters, which is what carries it well past two.

Worth knowingIt assumes Mother Goose and the Three Bears. The game is invisible to a child who does not know them yet.