Board books are a baby’s best friend—perfect for story time, bedtime, and even teething (chomp, chomp)! But with so many baby books to choose from, it can be hard to know where to start.
Whether you're building your own baby's library or want to shower a babe-to-be with reading material, we've rounded up 45 tried and true favorites with just the right combination of education and entertainment. Most importantly, they’re really fun to read aloud, which is clutch when you’re reading them over and over and over…
Newborn babies respond best to bold, black and white illustrations…like the ones you’ll find in this board book for babies. I Kissed the Baby will grab their attention while charming you with its sweet tale of welcoming a brand-new baby.
You can’t go wrong adding any of Sandra Boynton’s board books to baby’s library. We love this exploration of animal sounds, an important part of every baby’s vocabulary.
There’s a reason everyone has heard of Good Night Moon. The Margaret Wise Brown classic makes bedtime feel safe and cozy by wishing goodnight to every object in the room.
Babies love to read with their fingers, so Pat the Zoo invites babies to touch and feel different animals, from a furry panda to a bumpy turtle.
Baby loses her precious stuffed animal, but how can she explain the problem without words? Luckily, Mom understands what she’s trying to say in this classic board book for babies.
In this board book for babies, a little bunny and his parent express their love for each other to the moon and back.
Each page of this board book for babies asks the question “What do you see?” before revealing a new animal, from a red bird to a purple cat. The rhythmic repetition and bright colors make it a perfect book for a baby’s first year.
It’s nearly impossible to explain the depth of our love to our littles, but this board book for babies comes close.
Every page of this baby book features a young animal snuggling down with its mama for good night’s sleep. You’ll both be yawning by the end!
This board book starts out innocently enough with a tiny caterpillar eating through one apple on Monday. By Saturday he’s worked his way up to cupcakes!
Learn the parts of the body and count down from 10 to 1 while getting lots of kisses? That’s a win-win.
A wily gorilla steals the zookeeper’s keys and lets all the animals out of the cages. You’ll both be laughing when Mrs. Zookeeper discovers the animals napping in her house.
Babies aren’t born seeing color right away, but they are drawn to high-contrast images. Enter this classic baby book! Your bub will love gazing at the black-and-white illustrations designed for their little eyes.
Bathtime is one of the most reliable rituals of the baby days! And written in verse, this board book for babies will get your bub excited to suds up.
A classic exploration of opposites through funny dogs who are big and little, fast and slow, and all headed to a big dog party!
Babies are fed, dressed, and loved in this baby board book that celebrates babies everywhere.
Before your baby can even talk, they’ll be able to imitate the animals’ gestures in this boardbook for babies, turning their head like a penguin or shrugging like a buffalo. (See more interactive books for kids!)
Hugging kitty makes baby happy. Falling down makes baby sad. The simple examples throughout the board book teach babies about their feelings…and that’s a good thing!
A brave little truck helps a dump truck who’s stuck in the mud in a much-loved baby board book that features great values and great trucks!
In this board book for babies, a horse graciously offers a ride to a dog, cat, pig and duck…but they’d better hold on tight!
Every baby loves a good game of peekaboo, so try it in board book form as you spy on an owl that says “who” and a train that goes “choo choo.”
For little ones who like things that go (and who doesn’t?), this is the perfect bedtime board book.
Very few things fascinate a baby more than the faces of other babies! Explain the parts of the face and the meanings of different expressions as you explore real life baby pictures together.
This board book does more than just label the main parts of a kid’s face and body—it explains what they’re for, as in, “A nose is to blow, a nose is to sniff, a nose has holes for sniffing with.”
Even hippos have bedtime routines, at least in this board book for babies, which finds various animals brushing their teeth and donning jammies before rocking to sleep on their cozy boat.
It’s never too soon to build self-esteem, and I Like Myself does a great job showing how our differences make us uniquely awesome.
Sam proudly demonstrates the parts of his car and how he takes care of it with gas, oil and washing. We love Byron Barton’s cartoon-like illustrations and littles are absolutely fascinated to discover how things work.
“Little dishes on little carts” will make you hungry and eager to explore the culture that gave us such yummy goodies.
If you need an excuse to shower your bebe with kisses, Besos for Baby is here for you.
On a quest to find the elusive green sheep, we meet the up and down sheep, the scared and brave sheep, and many others in this extremely silly rhyming board book for babies.
Author Karen Katz is a master of the lift-the-flap book, and this baby favorite teaches the parts of the body from head to toe.
Having trouble getting your little one to sleep or listen? Spike Lee feels your pain in this sweet baby book that he wrote with his wife…it’s the perfect way to prep for the toddler years ahead!
Jazzy rhythms and rhymes make this story about a boy and his bear on a berry hunt read like pure poetry.
It’s Spot’s dinnertime but he’s hiding so we’ll have to search the house! Baby can help lift the flaps in every room until our puppy is found.
Dr. Seuss gifted us with many classic books for babies, from Green Eggs and Ham to The Lorax. We love Mr. Brown for reading to babies because it’s all about making funny sounds like “buzz buzz” and “boom boom.”
A small child compares himself to animals with different traits—like “loud as a lion” and “quiet as a clam”—because humans are complex and amazing!
A baby bunny learns that no matter where he goes, Mama will always be there in this imaginative fantasy.
Can The Zoo help us find the perfect pet in this lift-the-flap book for a baby’s first year? After several misfires—including an elephant that’s too big and a snake that’s too scary—a perfect puppy finally arrives.
Celebrating family love in its many forms, the three short stories in this classic board book are sweet as a baby’s smile.
“Crunch, munch, caterpillars lunch,” begins this nature adventure with just a few well-chosen words on each page and gorgeous illustrations.
Not every day starts out perfectly, but hang in there, and you can turn it around. That’s the moral of this beautiful baby book by Kevin Henkes.
This celebration of oh-so-sweet little baby toes will get little ones giggling with its charming rhymes.
Little ones are able to express themselves with gestures before they can speak, so teaching your baby sign language can be a helpful way to communicate with your kiddo early on. This book breaks down some essential signs to help the whole family learn!
An ode to families of all configurations, this baby book is the perfect way to help your sweet pea get to know their own family (the book includes a mirror and a blank family tree)—while also opening their eyes to the world beyond their home.
Chances are, in a few years you’ll be introduced to the bigger-kid books that have made Mo Willems such a hit with young readers (and their parents!). In the meantime, this baby-focused tome gives families a taste of Willems’ humorous writing style (with a dash of sweetness, too!).
Another essential for a baby's first year? SNOObear! SNOObear plays the white noise babies and toddlers love and doubles as a cuddly lovey. Learn more about SNOObear here.
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Virtually every children's book requires illustrations. Before you even decide on an illustrator for your book (or, if you are an illustrator, before you decide what book you are going to draw) you need to decide on an illustration style.
What is an illustration style? It is the type of artwork that you will use in your children's book, and there are many types.
Additionally, there are also different types of mediums, used to create art, which can be used in a variety of styles, but all have a flavor of their own.
In this article, you will learn:
Let's dive in, shall we?
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When it comes right down to it, there are five basic components of a children's book:
While all five of these are incredibly important, one could argue that illustration is the single biggest element, as it is the most attention grabbing, it sets the tone for the book, and requires the most amount of work.
That is why it is not only important to have a talented designer, but you also want to know what their unique style is. Depending on the subject and tone of your book, one style might be more appropriate than another.
With that in mind, let's take a look at the best illustration styles in children's books these days.
While style is something that changes frequently with every decade, here are 10 unique styles that you will find today.
A cartoon -like style is possibly the most common illustration style, as it is colorful and engaging for children.
This isn't just using bright colors and Disney-like people, but can also involve anthropomorphizing animals with human features, exaggerating reality a little bit, etc.
While there are a few children's books that use photographs, a picture-perfect illustration style is not very common.
However, there are a few illustrators that specialize in a more realistic style, sometimes mixed with a few other styles to create something unique.
The example above is the perfect embodiment of this realistic, yet stylized approach.
Sometimes called fantasy or whimsical illustration, this illustration style tends to lean more on the fantastical and less on reality. It tends to be a lot more fun and dreamy, inspiring the imagination.
While not common in most regular children's books, a children's book that doubles as a coloring book almost always has a line-drawn style.
This is a style using only simple lines, with little to no shading, to express the ideas in the book.
Similar but different from line drawings, a sketch drawing is usually a children's book made up of one color (usually black), but adds a little more detail.
These type of sketch drawings were a lot more common in older books, such as Alice in Wonderland, or the Chronicles of Narnia.
Abstract art tends to be a lot more exaggerated and stylized, but in a specific artistic direction.
This is one of the more difficult styles to define, but it is also one that you know when you see it.
Similar but not necessarily the same as abstract art, stylized illustration styles tend to exaggerate real-world features and create aspects of the illustration that are larger-than-life, drawing attention to the focus of the book.
Vintage children's books are still highly beloved today, so it is no wonder that older styles of art are still relevant.
Vintage styles tend to be a little bit more subdued, often created with pencil, and evoke a simpler time.
These bold or bright illustration styles make a statement. They tend to zero in on bright colors, large, powerful characters, and more.
These styles are great for creating a feeling of liveliness and activity.
In contrast to the bold and bright illustrations, these muted illustrations are perfect for a more serious type of children's book.
Using muted colors and subdued imagery, you can easily create a mournful, emotional atmosphere.
In addition to the different styles, there are different mediums to create children's book art, some of which are so distinct they create styles of their own:
Watercolor is one of the most distinct mediums for illustration, as it almost creates its own style. When I was originally writing this post, I almost put watercolor into the styles section, because it is so unique.
However, watercolor is more of a medium, and it can be combined with other mediums such as pencil and acrylic paints.
It's beautiful subdued and gentle colors are often perfect for children's books.
When creating physical art, acrylic paint is one of the most common ways to design. It is a relatively clean way to paint, doesn't need long to dry, and can create beautiful and vivid imagery.
Believe it or not, the use of black and colored pencils in children's book illustrations is quite common. A lot of older children's books especially, used pencils in a lot of their designs.
Pencils are cheap, they can record a lot of detail, and are a great tool for children's book illustrators in general.
For a beautiful and distinct style, try using charcoal.
Charcoal is great for creating bold shadows and illustrations that pop off the page. Children's books that use a heavy amount of charcoal rarely have much color, but they can still be incredibly striking in their style.
A lot of children's books take a collage approach, where your illustration looks like it has been pieced together from various materials like a scrapbook.
This is another medium that creates a unique-looking style, and is commonly used.
Who says that you have to have one medium? There are many books that use a combination of all of these techniques, whether it be digital art and watercolor, watercolor and pencil, charcoal and acrylic, or whatever you want.
For books produced today, digital art is possibly the most common way to create children's book illustrations.
There are multiple types of digital illustration (I'll talk about another one below), but the most common are hand-drawn illustrations using something like a digital tablet.
The best thing about digital painting is that it can be adapted to almost any other type of style, and you can mimic most other mediums as well.
Vector illustrations are a specific type of digital illustration that typically takes on a flat, 3D look.
Vector illustrations are the type that maintain their resolution no matter how large your file. This means that you can expand the size of your illustration to virtually any size, and it will still have an amazing, crisp edge.
Vector illustrations are most commonly created in Adobe Illustrator.
As with all art, the answer to this question is somewhat subjective. However, I believe there are a few attributes that you should try to embody:
Easy to use, and and full of amazing features, you can quickly turn your book into a professional book.
Check It OutIn addition to everything I've mentioned, there are a few other considerations you should make when selecting your illustrator and illustration style.
In the age of the Internet, most children's book illustrators can be found freelancing online. Some of the best places to find these people include:
Additionally, if you have a children's book that you like, look at the artist. If they have a website, see if they are willing to work with you. You never know what might happen.
You might also find Facebook groups of children's book illustrators or authors, and can get recommendations there.
If you are an illustrator, or have found one who is willing to work with you, be sure to check out the other articles about how to write a children's book, and how to publish a children's book.
Easy to use, and and full of amazing features, you can quickly turn your book into a professional book.
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