Board Books

I love board books.

I have watched one child grow into them- and out of them- and into them again to share them with a sibling. I am watching a younger sibling develop her own relationship with books, different and the same as her brother's.

I have strong opinions about what works well as a board books (generally, books formatted initially as a board book, not simply printed as a board book with the exception of The Little Caterpillar, Brown Bear, Brown Bear, Machines that Work and a few others.)

I am stunned about how varied learning can be with board books:
* learning to sit on a lap with a book
* learning to engage alone in a book
* chewing a book (and getting the dog blamed for eating a binding of Busy Doggies)
* looking at pictures
* studying pictures and naming objects
* comparing pictures from book to book
* listening to a story
* listening to comments about each page (when a story is too long)
* caring for books (even Miss C puts the books back in her baskets)
* carving out "real estate" in homes for books
* figuring out book orientation
* developing favorites
* increasing attention span- sitting through as many books as a lap will allow!
* "reading" a story independently
* getting stories in your blood
* exposure to genre, concepts, structures, rhyme
* conversation fodder
* flaps!
* and, of course, my favorite thing: finding "meow-meows"


It's always a good day when someone little crawls in my lap with a book and says "ree". I enjoy a good story and always sneak in a cuddle.