Oliver's Book Recommendations

I wasn't totally unfamiliar with children's literature, but only after Oliver was born did I realize I had no idea what would be appropriate and interesting for newborns, babies and toddlers. I imagined myself reading the classics, but I never knew, for instance, that books with textures, silly rhymes and flaps would become a large part of our collection. The past 16 months have been an exploration into a subset of children's books and I thought I'd share Oliver's favorites to date. We discovered all of these books from gifts from friends, recommendations from early childhood experts, baby story times or digging through the bucket of board books at our library.

Especially for Newborns
You can read anything to a newborn, but the books that will catch their eye, literally, are anything with high-contrast pictures in black and white, and later on some red (around three months).

Black & White by Tana Hoban (the accordion version is especially great for tummy time)
Black on White by Tana Hoban
White on Black by Tana Hoban
Baby Animals by Phyllis Limbacher Tildes
My Big Animal Book (and others in the My Big... series) - Not meant for newborns, but the book is big and the large pictures of the animals are set against simple backgrounds, so the pictures weren't too "busy" to be distracting for a young baby.

Classics

Dr. Seuss's ABC: An Amazing Alphabet Book!
The Foot Book: Dr. Seuss's Wacky Book of Opposites
Mr. Brown Can Moo, Can You : Dr. Seuss's Book of Wonderful Noises
There's a Wocket in My Pocket! Dr. Seuss's Book of Ridiculous Rhymes
Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What Do You See? (or the other variations of What Do You See? or What Do You Hear?)
Are You My Mother?

Textured Books
That's Not My Puppy (and other That's Not My.... variations)
Touch and Feel books - Each book is devoted to a different subject- puppies, farms animals, dinosaurs, objects around the house, etc. - and in addition to photographs, each page contains the texture of one of the objects (the bumpy peel of an orange, the fluffy coat of a Labrador Retriever puppy, etc.).

Interactive Books

Panda in the Park
Little Puppy (and other finger puppet books in this series)

Lift-the-Flap Books
Oliver LOVES books that have flaps on the pages he can open and close. I'm guessing this obsession with flaps is linked to a baby's love for the game peekaboo.

Who Said Boo?
Who's at Home?
Where is Baby's Belly Button? (and many other lift-the-flap books by Karen Katz)
Christmastime is Here (or any of the Little People lift-the-flap books)

Finer Baby Literature
After months spent narrating picture books, I appreciate a book with a storyline.

Gossie (and other books by Olivier Dunrea)
Olivia (and other books in the Olivia series)
Everywhere Babies by Susan Meyers