With Thanksgiving now in the rear view mirror, it's definitely feeling a lot like Christmas in our house. We've got all of the decorations up, the shopping is in full swing and we've been diving head first into all of our seasonal children's books before bed.
I fully expected my five-year old to be excited when we started reading the Christmas children's books again. She has favorites from past years that she goes to immediately, and usually every year, we try to mix in a few new ones as well.
For my youngest, she was far too young last year at Christmas to really get what was going on, but this year is certainly a different story. She loves our Christmas tree and gets overly excited when she finds the Elf on the Shelf around our house. I've also been pleasantly surprised by how quickly she's shifted her interest towards toddler Christmas books as well.
Her love for books really started to pick up right before she turned one year old. Rather than grabbing the noisiest toy in the room, she now would rather grab a book and bring it over for my wife or I to read to her. At first, those books were kept really short since we usually couldn't get through more than a couple of pages, but in recent weeks her enthusiasm for new, longer stories has started to pick up. Whereas previously she would become fixated on the same one or two books for weeks at a time, she's now shown interest in more of a variety. So as soon as we added Christmas books within reach on the bottom shelf in her room, they've become an instant hit.
Over the next couple of weeks, we'll be jumping into lots of different holiday books for preschool and elementary kids, but this week's edition of "Bennett's Favorite Books of the Week!" is all about toddlers. Below are some of my youngest daughter's current favorite Christmas books for kids!
There is nothing that will get a toddler interested in reading as much as "lift-the-flap" books. We have dozens of them in our house, all of which are favorites for my one-year old.
Where is Baby's Christmas Present is a seasonal flap book that takes the youngest audiences through a house in search of a missing Christmas gift. The book is full of classic Christmas imagery, including ornaments, Christmas cookies, angels and candy canes. The final page shows baby finally finding the missing present is underneath the Christmas tree.
The book comes in a board book format which are always ideal for infants and toddlers. Each of the pages contains one flap that covers the whole page so they're really easy for little hands to grab and lift up. Just be careful not to pull too hard on the flaps since they are thinner than the board book pages. We've had to do a little repair on our book a few times thanks to an overly excited one-year old.
Of all the Christmas books for toddlers in our house, this one is my daughter's favorite. If you want a fun, interactive book for a child with a short attention span, this one is worth picking up.
Now that we've shared our fondness for "lift-the flap" books, it's only appropriate that we show some love to the "touch and feel" books as well. Like flap books, these touch books are very interactive and perfect for keeping toddler engagement when reading.
The Usborne Touchy-Feely Books are our favorite series of these types of books because of the variety of topics. Each book is only 5-6 pages and contain sections that are made of different materials. Younger children will love getting to interact with the different textures while looking at the bright, fun illustrations.
With more than 60 different versions of these books, it only makes sense that there would be some holiday editions. That's Not My Snowman is our favorite to bring out in December, along with the other Christmas books.
Some of my favorite memories with books as a child were tied to favorite characters. The series of Clifford the Big Red Dog books were common go-to stories for my brother and I before bed. Anytime my daughters want to read those books, I get a little extra joy that comes from my own story time memories.
There are quite a few editions of Clifford books, most of which we have scattered throughout our house. The holiday version, Clifford's First Christmas, was a great option for my youngest daughter thanks to its board book format and short, simple sentences. Since the book is less than 20 pages long, it's pretty easy to get through without her short attention span taking her away from the story.
In the book, we see Emily and her dog Clifford getting things ready for Santa's arrival on Christmas Eve. Even though he should be asleep, Clifford decides to go out and investigate and ends up getting stuck in one of the stockings hanging on the mantle. Luckily for Clifford, Santa arrives just in time to save the day.
Clifford's First Christmas is a fun book for toddlers that will surely get the youngest audiences ready for the Christmas season.
During a recent trip to a local bookstore in our area, my wife picked up a number of Christmas books for my one-year old. One of her favorites so far has been Christmas Peekaboo from DK Publishing.
The book is made of large, board book pages and features pictures of real children in their Christmas clothes playing with stockings and toys. Half of the book's pages serve as large flaps that the reader gets to look behind to play peekaboo with various Christmas-themed stuffed animals. Once you peek behind the book flap, there's also touch-and-feel elements on the page as well!
Although very simple, this book has been well-received by my toddler and usually will keep her easily entertained when we're reading stories. Anytime you can get a one-year old to spend more than a minute with one book, you've accomplished something. Christmas Peekaboo will certainly accomplish that goal.
Alexandra Day's book, Carl's Christmas, is unlike most of the books we review on this site. Whereas normally we like to get into the various subjects and themes covered within a book's text, this book only has words on the first page. Although it may not be a traditional story that follows a familiar pattern, Carl's Christmas is worth a look because of the illustrations.
The copy of the book we have is one that my wife has held onto since she was a child. Their family dog was a Rottweiler which also happens to be the featured character in the book.
The story takes place on Christmas Eve as Carl the Rottweiler is left to babysit the baby while the rest of the family goes to church. Carl then takes the baby on a fun-filled day of decorating the tree, giving to the needy and doing a little window shopping.
I was admittedly surprised to see how much my one-year old enjoyed this book. While it may not necessarily be geared towards toddlers, the book does have beautiful artwork and successfully drew in her attention. The story is certainly a bit far-fetched since the dog is left to babysit, but if you're able to suspend your disbelief and not treat this as a parenting guide, you'll almost certainly enjoy the illustrations.