The most recommended toddler books

My son knows this book by name and will tell me when he wants to read it. He loves to count the Chakras as the book begins. He loves the colours as the book moves through each Chakra and enjoys describing what the baby is doing on every page.

This one is a winner, winner, chicken dinner!

The narrator of Cat Problems is a cynical, bad-tempered, ungrateful cat (sounds a lot like my cat, Stanley), wonderfully drawn by the brilliant Lane Smith. After the cat’s litany of complaints, a nosy squirrel tries to teach him (and the reader) a lesson about gratitude, but the cat just ignores him. And I love that! Sometimes, you don’t need a lesson, you just need to laugh—and you will!

This is a wonderful, sturdy book for inquisitive little hands. The use of photographed appliqué to illustrate is inspired, and the visuals clearly capture my youngest son’s imagination.

The different rhymes each elicit a smile of recognition now, and even just seeing the book being brought out sparks a squeal of excitement. This is a book that I think we’ll all remember sharing in years to come.

Michelle Lanier’s My N.C. from A to Z is illustrated by another awesome North Carolina native, Dare Coulter.

This wonderful book celebrates the great state of North Carolina, highlighting our African American heritage, unveiling historical landmarks, and introducing kids to social justice icons. Spotlights include the Great Dismal Swamp, Ella Baker, Black Wall Street, and Pauli Murray.

This book is another great classic full of scary characters dreamed up by a young girl to explain her hurt knee. On the way home, she bumps into one friend after another and to each of them she provides an even more dramatic description of what happened. Did a wolf try to snatch her for his tea? Did a crocodile knock her over? Was it the witch, the snake, the dragon, the flying saucer that was responsible for her injury? This is such a great story for encouraging children to fire up their own imaginations – and to think about description. It encapsulates how they sometimes exaggerate events to make them appear more impressive or to feel better about what has happened to them. Finally, when the young girl gets home to Mum we discover how she actually hurt her knee, and Mum supplies the all-important plaster to make everything… show more.

Richard Scarry books are nostalgic gold. There’s so much going on on every page, and I remember it all like it was yesterday (which it probably was, because half of the illustrations are on Twitter as memes).

The little vignettes cover all the traditional kids’ book themes—firemen, policemen, ship voyages, road construction—but then go further. Everyone is a Worker talks about how money flows through the economy, and Wood & How We Use It discusses a supply chain, from raw materials to production and manufacturing to transportation (albeit in grossly unrealistic trucks). 

I love the colorful illustrations and the silliness of Dr. Seuss books. This book delivers a positive message about our natural resources in a way all can understand. The message is taking responsibility for the problems we create. The seed represents hope for the future.

When I was a child, I went to see an outdoor screening of The Lorax at a local festival. I won a copy of the book and it’s been special to me ever since. I think it reinforced the idea that no matter how old you are, you can change things for the better. I also wanted to share something positive through my books.

I use color in the illustrations in my books because when I was a kid, I loved picture books and they were helpful when I was having difficulty with my learning disabilities and how others perceived me. I was ten years… show more.

He has had three bedtime stories every night ever since he was tiny and is now reading books himself. He loves reading and is working on writing his own novel. This is his all-time favourite book.

It is a great story about a boy who is trying to solve a big mystery concerning bums. It really makes him laugh. He likes how the story develops and ends. He did an art project all about the book for Book Week at school.

I laughed the whole time I read this book, even though my kids’ tantrums make me cry in real life.

Dr. Hershberg is the type of expert I completely trust and really like because she’s so human and relatable. I read this book when my children were beyond the typical tantrum stage, but I found it helpful even for dealing with their older kids' tantrums. And I recommend it to every parent of a toddler I know because it would have changed my life in those toddler years.

Tantrums can make me feel like the worst parent ever, but this book made tantrums so normal and not really about me while also giving me tools to help make tantrums less painful for everyone.

My daughter has two mums, and most mainstream children’s books don’t feature same-sex couples. This one is different. It’s a short story, in a poem format, that tells you about a day in the life of a baby with two mums – Mummy and Mama. She loves seeing her family reflected in the book and points out the three characters and tells us what they’re doing. It’s a joy to read to her, and she loves it so much she’s on her second copy.