Board Books for Newborns

Why it worksThere is no text at all - just black silhouettes of familiar things on white, at the contrast level a newborn's eyes can actually resolve. It is the book you prop open beside a baby who cannot yet hold one, which is a job no other book on this list does.

Worth knowingNo words means no reading, and it is usually finished as a favourite by about eight months. Buy it for a newborn, not a first birthday.

Why it worksThe companion volume with the contrast reversed - white shapes on black - and worth owning alongside its twin because babies fixate on whichever polarity is stronger for them that month. Same wordless spreads of ordinary objects.

Worth knowingIdentical in concept to Black on White. Owning both only makes sense in the first six months.

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 worksFour babies, four words a page, and every line is an instruction the child can obey from your lap - clap, wave, bang the drum. Oxenbury draws real babies of different sizes and skin tones, which is why children recognise themselves in it.

Worth knowingTiny and very short. Treat it as one of a set of four rather than a book on its own.

Why it worksSix words a spread building to the whole group toppling over, and the falling page lands every time because it is something the toddler can do too - most children are on the floor acting it out before you have finished.

Worth knowingVery short and squarely for under-twos; a three-year-old will not sit for it.

Why it worksIt ends in a tickle, so the book has a physical payoff the baby learns to expect - by the third reading they are squirming before you turn the last page. That anticipation is most of what a book can offer at this age.

Worth knowingRead it at bedtime and you will have to settle a wide-awake, over-tickled child afterwards.

Why it worksThe wind-down member of the set - the same four babies rocked, swung and finally put down, ending on a spread of them asleep. At four words a page it is short enough to genuinely be the last book of the night.

Worth knowingAlmost no text at all, so it needs a longer book before it, not after it.

Why it worksOne colour per spread - a single big colour block and four photographed objects, nothing else on the page - which is why it holds a nine-month-old when a busier colour book does not. Small, thick and square, so a baby can hold it themselves.

Worth knowingOutgrown fast. Most children are finished with it well before two.

Why it worksBlack-and-white cut-paper shapes with a single spot of red, and one short line a spread - so it does the high-contrast job of the Hoban books but actually gives you something to say. Babies track the red long before they track anything else on the page.

Worth knowingThe white paper marks easily and the pages are thin for a board book.

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.