Babies Everywhere Board Books
January 21, 2011
Books: Families and Carry Me, both from the Babies Everywhere series
Author: Star Bright Books
Pages: ~20 pages each
Age Range: 0-3
Star Bright Books recently sent me two board books from their Babies Everywhere series. Baby Bookworm and I both quite like them. They are small (about 5" square) and slim, which makes them easy for the baby to pick up and chew (she's quite irked by thick, blocky board books these days, because they don't fit easily into her mouth). More importantly, both books feature bright, photo illustrations that have BB reaching out to touch, smiling. And, from my perspective, they each offer a little bit of learning that's a a few steps away from the well-worn path of either "Yes there are baby faces" or "Yes these are animals. These are the sounds that they make".
Families uses each page spread to show the similarities between human and animal families. So we have "All families give kisses", with a mother human kissing her baby on one side, and a mama giraffe kissing her baby on the other side. We see human and animal pairs of each laughing at jokes, walking, swimming, etc. The photos, especially the ones of the animals, are bright and engaging. I might have liked to see a page at the end that shows a mini photo of each type of animal and labels it (clown fish, rhinocerous, etc.). But it's still a fun read.
Even better is Carry Me. Each page spread shows two different examples of a way that a parent might carry a child. So we have two photos of dads each carrying a child in a pack, two photos of moms each carrying a baby in a sling, etc. The photos are from all over the world, and a compact index at the end of the book shows the country in which each photo was taken. This makes it nice book now for baby bookworm for drooling over the colorful photos. Later, perhaps we can try to remember which country each photo is from, and talk about them (China, Kenya, Scotland, etc.).
In short, these two books are an excellent addition to our library of board books. They would also be a great addition to, say, a basket of books delivered to a new baby. Recommended.
Side note: If you're participating in the Needle and ThREAD: Stitching for Literacy New Blogger Puzzle Contest here's line 2:
Q S A M Y W V L M A S X W Y W B,
This contest is open to everyone so if this is the first you're hearing of it, go take a look.
Publisher: Star Bright Books
Publication Date: May 2009
Source of Books: Review copies from the publisher
© 2011 by Jennifer Robinson of Jen Robinson's Book Page. All rights reserved. All Amazon links in this post are affiliate links, and may result in my receiving a small commission on purchases (with no additional cost to you).