My son’s favorite part of a book is the spine. Whatever board book we happen to be reading, he’ll grab it with his chubby paws, turn it around, and start gnawing away on the spine. Yum! Did I mention he’s only 7 months old and teething?
I once knew a mom who told me that she was keeping books away from her son (he was 1½ at the time), until her boy was older because all he did was bend and tear the pages. Who am I to judge? Maybe this kid will grow up to be a voracious reader anyway. But I don’t want to wait. I want my children to grow up never knowing what it’s like to be without books. I want them to just as eagerly reach for a favorite book as they would a favorite stuffed animal or toy. I want them to know that books are meant to be opened, read, and carried around—not just look pretty on a shelf or teach them something.
So I let my son slobber away on sturdy board books, until they look like they’re in danger of being digested. Then I pry them away from his pudgy fingers and give him a fresh book with a just-as-tasty spine. I know that one day soon he’ll start to pay more attention to the pictures and take an interest in identifying the objects on the pages. And in the meantime I take comfort in the fact that he’s getting a feel for how the pages turn and he’s hearing the words being read to him. To capture his interest (even for just a little bit), I try to pick board books with big simple graphic images and repetitive text (Eric Carle’s Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What Do You See? is an outstanding example of this). Flip a Face: Baby Animals by SAMi is another favorite of mine for the under one set.
And I’m all for gimmicks at this age—anything to get my little guy to slow down and look at what he’s chewing. Books with mirrors incorporated into the pictures (like Baby Einstein: Mirror Me!) are good because babies love looking at themselves. Touch-and-feel books (like Sandra Boynton’s Fuzzy Fuzzy Fuzzy!) are great too. I was skeptical at first, but my son also loves the Finger Puppet board books like Little Mouse and Little Duck. He giggles when the finger puppet pops out of the book and tries to grab it. Last but not least, we love books that have anything to do with the peek-a-boo concept in our house. Peek-a-Who? by Nina Laden is a standout in this category. My baby loves grabbing the die-cut hole to turn the page and find the full picture underneath. And he can’t get enough of the mirror at the end (“Peek a You!”).
Just the other day, he sat through Brown Bear, Brown Bear without pulling it toward his mouth. He seemed to be concentrating on the images and anticipating what came next as I turned the pages and repeated the text. There’s hope yet.
