If the first two years are anything to go by, we may have a new little bookworm in this family. Books interested D long before toys, and continue to absorb her and make her sit in one place more than any other activity. (Not counting her strictly rationed TV time after she turned two though- who am I kidding? We are not that perfect!)
Books may need a little effort — selection, reading them out with interest and expression, answering questions, and not getting bored if they want the same book for three weeks in a row. But they are totally worth the effort.
I’ve been lucky enough to have plenty of bookworm friends and generous cousins and started off with a large hand-me-down collection, to which we added a generous share of our own and have our own little toddler library. The range and diversity of children’s books these days are mind boggling, and it’s truly amazing to see what publishers like Pratham are doing for children.
While our collection is not such a carefully curated list that follows a particular pedagogy or covers everything in an ideal manner, we’ve found it a fun mix of worldwide favourites and Indian publishers. It’s also special to us as it comes with memories — memories of reading them, of the people who gifted them, or of tearing them!
Here are our top reads of the past two years.
Board Books
1 . Goodnight Moon by Margaret Wise Brown and Clement Hurd
While this book felt like a bit of a cliche to buy, I think there is a reason it is so popular and continues to have appeal. It was the first book we ever bought, is still well loved, and the unusual colours, aesthetic and dimming lights held such a draw for D, and she used to look through the pages to try to find the tiny mouse when she was less than a year old. Reading this article also woke me up to all the thoughts that can go into the producing of a children’s book that lasts decades and crosses geographies.
2. Pooni, Pooni, Where are you? by Manjula Padmanabhan
Pooni Pooni is a fun read for the repetitive words and a relatable Indian aesthetic with the mommy in a nightie, the sofas and the stools, and the little child with her hair exactly like the little monkey in the house.
3. Choo-Choo Peek-a-boo (A Thomas the Tank Engine book, based on the Railway Series by W Awdry)
I loved that we got this book after three or four children have used it. My cousin first got it got it for INR 20 in a second hand fair in Pondicherry, and the tag still intact. The book has been read a hundred times more than it’s price. Although some of the things in this book are quite unrelatable for Indian kids (like the grandfather being named Sir Topham Hat and engines named Toby), it’s a fun read and trains and kids always go well together.
4. Are you there little puppy? An Usborne peep-through book illustrated by Essi Kimpimaki
This series from Usborne is great for richly illustrated pages, peek-a-boo games and an easy breezy story. The series also has many other animals.
5. Rain Rain Go Away
A box set of four books from Usbore with refreshingly reimagined endings, this was a great buy with Rain Rain Go Away rapidly becoming our most read and easy-to-carry-around bedtime story. The story is retold where it starts with the animals wishing the rain away, and the owl explaining why the rain is important for the forest to thrive and food to grow, and ends neatly with the animals having a meal together and going to sleep.
The others in this set are also pleasant reads — To the Moon , Three Little Pigs and The Gingerbread Man, with new endings where no animals (or baked goodies!) get eaten.
6. The Very Hungry Caterpillar by Eric Carle
The thing with these classics is that they can be read at various levels. We started out just with the pictures and pointed out the familar fruits, and D now wants to know the names of the days of the week, wants to count the food, and wants the name of every piece of food in the book(she calls the salami samali). All the yummy edibles just make it an happy book with a happy ending.
7. Mamas in the Wild and Papas in the Wild by Vaishali BK, illustrated by Vaishnavi Giri
I definitely wanted these books as a pair, especially as most bedtime books only have the mother. Read as a set, both books introduce the kids to various animals the animal relationships, like the seahorse father which carries the baby or the baby kangaroo that’s born at an early stage and spends time in the mother’s pouch, and the many animal fathers who are equal co-parents.
It’s also great for being a simple picture book at early stages, and gradually introducing the concepts and details to help children understand parent relationships.
Lift-the-flap and interactive books
If they survive without tearing, these can be great for peek-a-boo games, car rides, travel and distractions during tough times.
8. Dear Zoo by Rod Campbell.
Like with Goodnight Moon, there is certainly something this simple story that has instant appeal, and when D was gifted this book for her first birthday it was the first non-board books she was given. While I thought she’d tear it, she listened with rapt attention.
The book has survived with just one bar of the lion cage getting torn (which she points to every time she reaand guessing the animals each time gives her new joy.
9. Vroom Vroom Trucks by Karen Katz
Children love JCBs and tractors and bulldozers, irrespective of gender. This book was an instant hit with all the animals hiding in the trucks, and the little baby playing with them at the end. Introducing it after 18 months has also ensured that this book has remained intact with no torn pages.
10. In the City and On the Beach: The Little World Series
This series was great for introducing D to different environments, when we were still at peak Covid and never went anywhere. Most books were about animals and farms, and I hunted around for books that show other landscapes like city streets and beaches The streets, buses, museums and city squares may not look much like an Indian city, and when we finally went to the beach in Chennai, it was a different site with sundal sellers and groups of women with saris hitched up high rather then lifeguards and people in swim wear. Nevertheless, this series was great fun and has a lot of energy : Lifts that go up and down, balls that get thrown, seals that appear and disappear in the water and a juggler with balls.
I’m not sure about all toddlers, but I’ve found that in books, D is not quite the minimalist. She likes lots of things happening on the pages, and discovering new things with each read. A great thing about this series is there’s a little ladybug hidden on every page, and when they’re old enough to look carefully, searching for it on every page is a great way to engage them.
Unfortunately, overenthusiasm for this series ended up in several tears and torn off pages in both books.
11. Pathu Naatkal/Ten Days by Pridhee: A bilingual board book
Adapted from a Hindi rhyme, this is a simple story about a bear who falls sick (and had a 7-day quarantine, heh), with the text written in Tamil and English. Great for showing them a different script and reading in a different language (although we tend to translate even some of the English books into Tamil in the early days rather than reading aloud).
Read-alouds for toddlers
Once the children are past the tearing stage, the variety is much more and we have much more to explore. These have been a few favourites so far.
12. Meet Zippy by Anitha Balachandran
When we first got this book, we thought the vast bunch of characters would but too much for a toddler but she loved all of them, especially as some of them share names and nicknames with people she has met in our family and in the park — Cheenu the cheetah, Jiya the rabbit, Chikki the monkey and Deepu the duck.
13. Patrick by Quentin Blake
When people gift books like these, they excite me as much as her. This was one such which worked absolutely well for us, with Patrick’s wonderful magical world where he can solve all the problems with his violin. The distinct style of illustrations may be familiar for parents who’ve read Roald Dahl growing up.
There’s also something very nice about the universality of these books despite being geographically and culturally very different, and D always connects the grandmother with a prominent chin wearing a shawl and a dress and a prominent chin to her own great grandmother who wears a nightie with a shawl.
14. Fetch that Colour : The Rosa Gulla series by Shoba Vishwanath and Deepa Chordia
This was another that’s great for familiar names and sights, and doesn’t force the child to actually rush and learn the colours (like the little Kuldip in the book who always brings the wrong colour, except when it’s orange). Our book that is well worn and torn because of over-reading, and D’s very first doll has been christened Rosa.
15. Ammama’s Sari by Niveditha Subranamiam
This one was just made for us with a tailoring paati at home who turns her saris into curtains and cushion covers and picks out inside bits to make pavadais for D. Being a wordless book, it has wonderful warm illustrations and a great message on reuse.
16. Llama Llama Misses Mama by Anna Dewdney
We found this a great one to introduce the concept of school and being away from parents. There have been times when D has cried inconsolably when the mama leaves, and very often we have to skip the page where the llama cries. But she loves the book and carries it everywhere.
17. The Story of a Panther by Mickey Patel
I fell in love with the unusual illustrations on first glance but wasn’t sure D will. The story is also a little deep for toddlers talking about man-animal conflicts, and we tweak it while reading to her because it feels to early to read about a panther being shot.
But this has been one would call a ‘sleepy hit’ where she constantly wants to see the pictures, and there have been times when it was read for 3 weeks straight back to back. (More on the writer here)
18. Music for Joshua by Chatura Rao illustrated by Satvik Gade
Picked up online on a whim without knowing the level, I thought after I got it that it was a little too complex and long for a 2-year old. It probably is, but children surprise us as always and she enjoyed this story enough for it to become a daily demand.
There’s a page when a character plays an old Hindi song- Yeh Shaam Mastani, which I sang when reading it and she was hooked to it, so we had a very excited grandfather who could sing a Kishore Kumar song to the grandchild!
19. A Musical Road Trip by Shyamala Panikkar illustrated by Lotta Farber
This one’s for the Indian classical music lovers, also a little advanced for a toddler but if it strikes a chord it’s great. I sing along with it and D loves to listen to how each animal sang the seven classical notes.
20. Ammachi’s Amazing Machines by Rajiv Ipe
This is our latest favourite, which I read online for now. It has a strong personal connection for me as my paati’s most famous sweet was coconut barfis, and she has a complete engineer’s mind like the Ammachi in the book, fixing leaky faucets with household hacks.
I don’t remember what I read or whether I had books at this age, and I don’t know if D will remember these books a decade later. But I think it’ll remain memorable for us, along with the tears and tantrums and bedtime battles that these books witnessed.
