Baby Preschool Books

I read this to my 2 year old when I wanted him to start sleeping in a big boy's bed. I couldn't believe how easily this book helped with the transition. With everthing that elmo did in this book, my son could do/ have too. I showed him elmo's pillow,sheets,and lovey's and then showed my son that he has his pillow, chose his sheets, ect..too and said that "he was just like elmo" what was another great bonus is that in this book, elmo has no binkie in his mouth - so, when it was time for that stage to happen - this book became my greatest reference! Now, I am about to have a new baby and once again this book is coming in handy. One page shows a crib and a big boy bed in the same room so now I can explain that there will be a baby in the crib that is near his bed! I must admit I couldn't have been more pleased!

This is a cute book but not all that effective. It doesn't seem to get the point across.

We are trying to teach our son about sleeping in a big bed, so this book is helping since he loves Elmo.

I thought this book was adorable as Elmo always is. It helps toddlers understand the move to a "big kid" bed.

I read this book to my son on his first night in a big boy bed. He likes the book and it seemed to help the transition.

Very cute classic of the boy's sweet stuffed animal come to life. Would have been better with updated illustrations, I don't think kids will get the originals, very sketchy and old fashioned compared with today's standards.

It was just like I remember it being. My two year old loves bunnies now. It was a good buy.

I've lost count of HOW many copies of this book I've bought for gifts. My own grown children had their copy when they were little. I have always resonated with the story. And I feel it pertains to adults as well as children. My grandchildren also have this book and love it.
When my girlfriend had her first grandchild, I gave it as a gift and have continued to do so for many other first time parents and grandparents.

This is a touching story of a little stuffed bunny that envy's the real rabbits hopping around in the garden. He complains to the wise old skin horse, and asks him what it means to be real. The wise horse replies that being capable of running and jumping doesn't necessarily make you real. He tells the bunny that there are a lot of stuffy, pretentious people who can move about freely. He says,"They look down on everyone else; they are full of modern ideas and pretend they are real."

So the inquisitive little bunny asks the horse. "Then what does it mean to be real?"
"Does it happen all at once?" The old skin horse replies no, it take a long time. By the time you are real most of your hair has fallen off. You eyes drop out, you get loose in the joints and you get very shabby, but these things don't matter at all."

"Does it hurt? asks the bunny. "Sometimes," replies the horse," But when you are real you don't mind being hurt."

The realities of true life are explained through the eyes of an old skin horse. This story will warm your heart and touch your soul!
Author/Illustrator

The rabbit, feeling a bit out of place and a bit unworthy, nonetheless yearned to be loved, not for what he could be or should have been, but rather for what he truly was. What child (or adult, for that matter) can't find meaning here? Children yearn for love and acceptance, and unfortunately we live in a world in which that acceptance and approval usually consists of things being bigger, stronger, better, prettier, faster, newer.

The rabbit is not the 'best' toy in the boy's collection; he's not the most expensive, the best constructed, or the most interesting. But as the wise old Skin Horse knows, it isn't in the flashy paint and moving parts that true love grows. True love makes one real, and it takes a special being and a deliberate process to become real. 'It doesn't happen to people who break easily, or have sharp edges or who have to be carefully kept. Generally, by the time you are Real, most of your hair has been loved off, and your eyes drop out and you get loose in the joints and very shabby.'

Being real can hurt, but the rabbit in the process of becoming real barely notices that his velveteen fur is rubbing off, his tail is coming undone, his pink nose is worn and his whiskers are gone. He knows he is loved, especially during the boy's serious illness (the story was written shortly after the great flu pandemic that claimed countless lives in the early part of the twentieth century, and other childhood illnesses were still commonplace killers even in the most technologically advanced countries, perhaps another aspect of how technology can fail to address the 'real').

The ending is poignant and significant - reality means something different for the rabbit than he anticipated, but it is a joyous happening nonetheless. The Skin Horse, the rabbit and the boy are all real, and serves as an extended parable on how right relationships can overcome much adversity.

This is one of my favourite stories of all time, and the drawings accompanying this edition are very apt and special.

Added to this edition is a foreword by Toni Raiten-D'Antonio, whose book 'The Velveteen Principles' explores the different ways in which the lessons of the book can enrich the lives of adults and children of all ages. A wonderful addition to a wonderful book.

There are two pages for each letter. Children can trace both capitol and lower-case letters, then practice making the shapes themselves. They identify the letters when jumbled with similar letters and complete alliterated sentences. It's fantastic for helping with letter formation, recognition and phonetic sounds.

My daughter is three. These worksheets have been a wonderful help to her and fun, too! She loves playing "school". The best part is the free copying!

HIGHLY RECOMMENDED.

This is a very helpful workbook. In the beginning of the year, we do them in class. Once the kids get the hang of it, I send it home as H.W. for extra practice...good morning work, also. Many letter writing workbooks available on the market (and pages that come with reading and phonics series) have too many to trace or not enough. This one fits!! Good job, Scholastic!

my mom surprised me with this when she bought the alpha tales boxed set. i was blasting through the roof when i saw the workbook. it is fun because you get a lot of tracing practice for each letter and the stories match the alpha tales books. and you have fun activites too for each letter. my mom made copies so she could use them for my little brother too. the book said she could do that and now if i mess up she can just copy me another page to do. this book has more times of the letter on it to trace than my other writing book so it is more fun. you should get this book. i am now finished with what i want to say about this one. really - stop typing.

My two year old grandson is totally in love with trains, especially Thomas and friends. He loves anything with trains. This was a perfect fit for him.

The illustrations are interesting and lend themselve to questions and answers. The flaps are large and sturdy, and opening one actually changes the action in the picture.

My little girl's birthday gift arrived on time and in great shape. It also cost a lot less that it would have if I had gone to the mall AND I didn't have to drive. :-)

This book was just right for the price. I bought it for my 2 yr. old boy because he loves Thomas and I needed to spend a few more dollars to save on shipping costs. The book has been a huge hit with him! He loves the flaps and that James is on one of the pages also.

Thomas is our 2-yr old son's favorite thing right now so we got him a new Thomas book. "Wave Hello to Thomas" is a very simple book with nice pictures and fun flaps. After just a few weeks he has memorized the book and will sit happily "reading" and lifting the flaps. He even takes the book to bed with him.

Whenever my 18 month old sees me reach for this book he instantly starts jumping around and shrieking with delight! He just loves this book!

The simple illustrations, the colored backgrounds, the adorable little baby--these are all great reasons to buy this book, especially if your little one is already on their way to becoming attached to his/her blankie. My son happens to adore his, and he truly does take it everywhere with him.

There is some controversy over the part where he takes the blankie to his time-outs (and the image shows him crying). I think one of the odd things about this book is that, while the main character is clearly a baby, there are several references that are more appropriate for an older character--I'm thinking both of the time-out scene and also the taking the blankie to school scene. Honestly, the time-out thing does not particularly concern me--I don't think it is meant to portray an infant/toddler too young to understand a time-out, and at the very least it makes for something interesting to talk about with an older child.

What actually kept me from giving the book 5 stars is toward the end. Kids emulate characters they like, and the lines "I don't like bedtime...." and "Blankie isn't afraid of the dark, but I am" seem very suggestive to me, and are in locations that are difficult to skip. My son loves to go to bed and is NOT afraid of the dark, and I hate for him to get the idea he should be! Still....

The best part of these books, in my mind, is that they have just a handful of words on each page, but unlike other books of this length, there are sufficient pages that there is a distinct progression in the "story", and it's long enough that he doesn't always insist on reading it 20 times in a row; but not so long that he can't finish it in one sitting.

My son is quite picky about books, and he loves all the Leslie Patricelli books, so we buy then, read them (over and over and over!), and accept that, unless we write the book ourselves, there will always be topics we don't love in the books our kids read.

I bought this board book because the baby on the cover (no hair, round head) looked so much like my little daughter wearing a diaper. Adorable. This is her *favorite* book and one she'll pick out of all the others to look at. She's able to turn the pages and seems to really love examining the cute, brilliantly colored but simple woodcut-like artwork. Now she's just 11 months old and -- possibly due to this book? -- wanting to hug a blankie more and more. No problem if this kind of book gets her loving books and reading early.

My daughter loves this book because she too has a blankie that does all that the blankie in this story does. She reads it over and over again.

Yet another awesome board book by Leslie Patricelli! My son loves that "Baby Boy" loves his blankie and how it goes on all his baby adventures with him. I can't wait for the new book to come out!

My daughter is a year old now and has had this book since she was only a few weeks old. She loves everything "Baby Einstein" and this is by far her favorite of all the BE books. In fact, her first word was "book" and she was holding this one up when she said it! I really think it's the bright orange tiger on the front. :)

You can't go wrong with any of the BE books. They have bold, bright pictures and poetic content. I love reading them to her but she also enjoys sitting on the floor and "reading" them to herself!

This book is colorful, simplistic and really does teach little ones about numbers and counting. This was one of my son's favorite books. I'd recommend it along with the one about shapes. If you read these to your child starting at age one, they will most likely learn them by age two.

Great book, but your toddler have to be able to sit and count. Its fun to have it if your baby is in that counting stage.

When I was majoring in education, I bought a lot of books for my classroom. I was planning on teaching small children, so I bought this book.

The back of the book says that it is for ages 1 to 4, but most 4 years can count past 5. Still, if you consider it be be for say ages 1 to 3, I think it is a very good book.

The pictures are bright, like other books from the Baby Einstein Company. The bees are cute! The text in the book is kept simple, so it is easy for little ones to comprehend.

The best way to encourage a child to read is to have books in the home.

This is a family favorite. We love the bright pictures and enjoy the interaction with our 10 month old. The pictures, as in most of the Baby Einstein collection are intriguing (looks intently with interest and points at them). Our baby has begun showing us with his fingers how many "five" is, how many "two" is, etc...What a fun way to learn about numbers!

My Maisy-loving two year old grandson loves this book. My only concern is the durability of the paper flaps; already one is "peeling" after only a week or so of use.

I placed an order for this product about Dec 3, 2007. On Dec 6, 2007, I was notified that the book had been shipped, and my credit card was charged. It was shipped via USPS, with an estimated arrival date of Dec 12, 2007. This was great since it was to be a Christmas gift. When it did not arrive, and the USPS did not have tracking information, I called Amazon. Their representative, Ahish, assured me it would be replaced and would arrive by Dec 19, 2007; still in plenty of time for Christmas.
Needless to say it did not arrive on Dec 19. It was finally delivered on Jan 25, 2008. Amazon would not reverse the charge on my credit card, and would not expedite the shipment. This is a completely unsatisfactory way to do business!!

My 18 months old likes Maisy and she enjoyed this book. Its too bad she started pulling off flaps.

My 2 year-old son loves Maisy and he really loves this book. We've had it for several months now and we still read it almost every night before bed. The colors are wonderful and the book includes opportunities to talk about colors, animals, insects, flowers, shapes and counting.

My daughter is one, so she is a little young for the target demographic of this book. She does however really enjoy it. This book is played with multiple times a day. She enjoys turning the large pages and lifting all of the flaps. My only qualm with this book is, that although it is large in size, it is not have many pages. Overall though a great book and I'm sure my daughter will enjoy it even more when she is old enough to really interact with it.

We have all 4 books in this series and we love them all! Great pictures and words for my little two year old.

Great pics!! The only con--if any, I think is that maybe the words could be a little more general. (i.e just "firetruck" or "tractor" instead of the formal full name.) But overall this book is awesome! Because of this book, one of my son's first words was "mail truck!" :) We love it!

My 18 month old is talking up a storm and LOVES trucks. He insists on reading this book over and over. The pictures are clear and he can now name EVERY truck in the book although he has some trouble with "car transporter". The word is a bit long for a kiddie book but he's certainly up for the challenge. I would recommend this book for any truck lover or word enthusiast. It is not a story book, just pictures and words. Some other vehicles include "mini loader", "digger", "ambulance", "fuel truck", "cement mixer", "fire engine".

my DAUGHTER loves things that go - trucks, buses, cars...we both have learned lots from this book -- there are so many types of trucks and things that go that I did not the names to and many common things we see every day like the mail truck or fire truck.

Encarta Dictionary defines truck as "large commercial freight transport vehicle" or alternatively "a large vehicle for transporting goods by road".

On the back cover of this Bright Baby book the publisher pledges "This book will increase your child's vocabulary by associating words with beautiful pictures".

So what's the problem?

On the front cover we see a bright yellow mini loader - interesting, but definitely not a truck. The book also wrongly identifies tractors, diggers, scrapers, bulldozers, grass cutters, and excavators as trucks. All are fun to look at heavy equipment, but none are trucks.

Books purporting to be educationally valuable should be factually correct.

Therefore the most I can give it is two stars. It would be one except that my nephew's one year old Jacob just can't get enough of it, notwithstanding the inaccuracies.

This is a cute one. There is emphasis in picking pink hat for her and orange hat for him. Blue boots for her and red boots for him. They use the word "slicker". I just change it to rain coat. Good buy for two year old.

I adore Rosemary Wells and so do my twin toddlers. But I think this is one of those books "inspired by" Rosemary Wells. It is just not as hilarious and unpredictable as some of the other books. My girls like it but I wouldn't put it at the top of my Wells reading list.

This book is not representative of thr true Max & Ruby books. Notice that it's "based on the characters of Rosemary Wells" not written by her. It is boring and lacks the true charm and wit of her other books. She has written plenty of excellent stories with great pictures. Skip this one.

Another adorable story. Probably would not be very interesting to older children (over age 3) since it is a short, simple story about basic colors.

My daughters - a preschooler and a toddler - gravitate to Max and Ruby like magnets. The board book Ruby's Rainy Day proved no exception. Shiny foil raindrops splash across the book cover. Lively rainbow colors brighten the ten sturdy pages inside. The story itself is an abridged version of a comical episode on TV's Nickelodeon. Little brother Max wants to go outside to play "Baseball!" Big sister Ruby insists they both don layer after layer of rain gear first. Your child can learn colors while laughing at the antics of these lovable rabbits.

This book is not only educational for children but an entrancingly visual experience for anyone. My just-turned two-year old granddaughter loved it and had no trouble opening the shapes. Definitely another Van Fleet classic!

All of this author's books are great fun. Check out "Tails" and "Fuzzy Yellow Ducklings"-- my favorites.

The illustrations are warm, funny, friendly, and interesting. What a great way to introduce help your kids learn to love and treasure books! :)

My son calls it the sticky tongue book. I like to call it a wonderfully illustrated and educational book for young children. 3d shapes are shown in different colors and patterns and then open up to show a scene of different creatures underneath. A red zig zag ball turns to a family of red zig zag beetles tickling each other and playing, one is eating and one is sleeping. My 2 year old loves the humor in the pictures. He asks to read this book every day.

It's a good thing I love this book, because I've had to read it every day for the past two weeks and there is no end in sight to my son's enthusiasm. Not only is it a good introduction to complex shapes, but the illustrations are phenomenal. The animals are drawn with complex emotions on their faces that are fun to discuss with my child. From bored to exhausted to annoyed to surprised to delighted to perplexed and on and on, with small details in the background that my son loves to look for over and over. This one will be a gift to other children from now on.

We got this book with a bunch of other hand-me-downs, and now I'm planning on getting the others from this author. My daughter is almost a year, and she gets squirmy every time we try to read any book but this one. With this book, she sits still, and looks so intently at the pages, laughing as we open each flap. Every time I say "the end", she signs "more". She could sit and read it over and over. While the shapes are more advanced than a baby will understand, I highly recommend this book for little ones, as well as preschoolers!