Best Nature Board Books (Baby Blueberry!) 2021 -2022
Title: The Amicus Book of Nature
By: Isobel Lundie
Published: 2021
What is nature? From the flowers and trees to the animals of the forests and oceans, it's everything on Earth-even you! This collage-illustrated board book introduces toddlers and preschoolers to the beauty of nature around us Age Range: 2 -3
Call Number: Board Book Lundie
Title: Animals (Slide and See First Words)
By: Helen Hughes, ill. Isabel Aniel
Published: September 13, 2022
This interactive board book is designed to promote early language skills and fine motor skills. Children can slide the sliders across the pages to learn animal words and animals sounds. I’m always up for a bit of cutting edge board book technology. What’s interesting is that you’re not revealing the animals themselves. They’re right there! Bold as brass. It’s a little more sophisticated than your usual reveals, and the tabs are significantly smaller, indicating increased fine motor control. Age Range: 3 - 5 years
Call Number: J Boardbook (Board books are not reservable.)
Title: Baby Animals First Colors
By: Alexandra Claire
Published: February 15, 2022
“Charming and educational in one joyful package” — School Library Journal A little red crab, fluffy yellow ducklings, a vibrant purple seahorse, and soft pink piglets join together to welcome toddlers to the wide world of color. Filled with eye-catching photos of animals in their natural surroundings and paired with playful rhymes , Baby Animals First Colors Book will instill a love of nature while introducing children to all of the colors in a rainbow of adorable baby animals. Age Range: 0 - 4 years
Call Number: JBoardbk (Board books are not reservable.)
Title: Baby Montessori: Animals
By: illustrated by Agnese Baruzzi, edited by Chiara Piroddi
Published: 2021
This book is wordless and contains brilliant images in black, white, and the occasional splash of red. Part of what I enjoy about these illustrations isn’t just the fact that they’re cute but look at how Baruzzi uses negative space! Nature for literally the earliest of readers. (Also check out Baby Montessori: The Garden) Age Range: 0 - 6 mo.
Call Number: JBoardbk (Board books are not reservable)
Title: Babies Love Animals
By: Susanne König
Published: 2022
An accordion-shaped board book created specifically for tummy time! This book consists of black and white images of animals in family units, their bodies in the shape of hearts. Some of the art is quite artistic and some is downright cartoony, but all of it is very pleasant. Backgrounds alternate between black and white, and everyone in the pictures is very happy. One of the lovelier accordion books to come out. Would work well in any home any time of the year. Age Range: 0 - 6 mo.
Call Number: CARDBOARD BOOK B (at Indian Trails Public Library)
Title: Bear Has a Belly
By: Jane Whittingham
Published: September 13, 2022
Bear has a belly.
I do too! Do you have a nose like Fox, cheeks like Squirrel, and a tongue like Frog does? This is a body parts book where you find out about a portion of an animal’s anatomy and then see a human with that part as well. When reading this in a lapsit or in a storytime you can make sure the toddlers are pointing to their own faces or hands or ears. As charming as it's cover implies. Age Range: 3 - 5 years
Call Number: JBegin Whitt.J
Title: Birds (Words of the World Series)
By: Motomitsu Maehara
Published: 2021
There are plenty of cut-paper board books out there. But Maehara’s different, as is this series. Each book focuses on some kind of animal with each page displaying that animal with its name spelled out in 7 different languages (English, Chinese, Hindi, Spanish, French, Arabic, and Esperanto). The end result is really both lovely and informative: Bird. Oiseau. Pájaro. (Also check out Words of the World: Ocean Animals by Motomitsu Maehara) Age Range: 0-5 years
Call Number: JBoardbk (Board books are not reservable.)
Title: Busy Baby Animals
By: Suzi Eszterhas
Published: April 19, 2022
Suzi Esztrhas is a wildlife photographer and this board book of hers is full of inventive, innovative photos of parents and child animals. Her photography? It can’t be beat. Throughout the story you’ve got this text that says what different babies do. So, for the page reading “Babies bugging” you see this baby cheetah fully enveloping its parents’ head, gnawing on an ear while the now blinded adult sits there, casually. A fun, visual eye-popper of a book. Age Range: 1 -3 years
Call Number: JBoardbk (Board books are not reservable.)
Title: Butterflies Soar!
By: Amber Hendricks
Published: 2022
Follow the transformation of caterpillars from their first crunch of leaves to changing in a chrysalis and finally to beautiful butterflies soaring in the sky in this poetic celebration of nature for babies and toddlers. Age Range - 0-3 years
Call Number: JBoardbook (Board books are not reservable.)
Title: Coral
By: Amy Sky Koster (Author) Lisel Jane Ashlock (Illustrator)
Published: 2022
Gorgeous art introduces the variety of corals and then you see them all together in the sea at the end. Also check out the even more amazing Egg and Seashell by the same author and illustrator! Age Range: 3 - 5 years for this book; Egg (2020) is 2 -4 yrs.
Call Number: No call number as this is not a library item.
Title: Fish by Fish
By: Giuliano Ferri
Published: 2021
Giuliano was born in Pesaro, Italy and when he’s not creating books he’s working with young people with disabilities, using animation and comic theater as therapy. This may account for the animated and unquestionably comic (if dark) nature of this book. The tiniest fish is in the center of the book and with each page turn a larger fish comes to eat it. Each time they are scared away by an even larger fish. The little clown fish never moves and yet somehow manages to get the last laugh in the end. I was so taken with the truly beautiful soft watercolors, that make it look as though you’re seeing the action through the blur of water. The ways in which the book comes up with synonyms for “big” is also a lot of fun. A liquid winner. Age Range: 0-3 years
Call Number: JBoardbk (Board books are not reservable.)
Title: 5 Wild Animals
By: Rhiannon Findlay, ill. Margaux Carpentier
Published: 2021
See, this is what makes me happy: innovative new ways of doing board books. Essentially, you have an image and on its page a little rut and groove has been carved out. Inside that groove is a small circle. The child is able to move that circle down the back of a twisty snake or around the mane of a growling lion. It’s not just the tactile elements that I like, though, but the eye popping art. Carpentier really goes out of her way to fill these pages with high contrast colors and enticing images. Perfect for developing hand-eye co-ordination, too! Age Range: 2 -4 years
Call Number: JBoardbk (Board books are not reservable.)
Title: How Big is Your Paw? Forest Animals
By: Kristin J. Russo
Published: January 4, 2022
This little board book shows a range of animals’ paws, and you can compare how big they are to your own hand. Most of the text is too old for babies and preschoolers, but not all of it. There is a small part in darker print with simpler words that you could read to younger readers. The rest of it could be for their older siblings, hanging around, wanting to press their own grimy digits against the prints. Interactive and a lot of fun! Age Range: 4 - 8 years
Call Number: JBoardbk (Board books are not reservable.)
Title: Let’s Find Momo Outdoors! A Hide-and-Seek Adventure with Momo and Boo
By: Andrew Knapp
Published: 2021
Explore the great outdoors with Momo the adorable border collie and his new puppy companion, Boo. Photography is the name of the game with this uniquely clever board book. These pups have one job: To hide in each outdoor scene. Fortunately their little black and white heads have a tendency to give them away, but the book doesn’t make it easy. Beautiful photography and a darn good encapsulation of what it’s like to go camping including all that rich vocabulary that goes with it! Age Range: 1 -3 years
Call Number: JBoardbk (Board books are not reservable.)
Title: Little Bug on the Move
By: Stéphanie Babin, ill. Olivia Cosneau
Published: 2021
A delightful peek-a-boo title. Little Bug starts out in any number of hidden situations which you can reveal with just the push of a tab. I like the sheer inventiveness of looking for Little Bug (enormously fun when two leaves are presented under two mushrooms and you have to figure out which one she’s hiding under). There’s even a pop-up butterfly at the end for a bit of flair. Magnifique! Age Range: 0 - 3 years
Call Number: JBoardbook (Board books are not reservable.)
Title: The Night Is Deep and Wide
By: Gillian Sze, ill. Sue Todd
Published: 2021
Sue Todd’s woodcuts contain black and white images with shots of color. The red of the tulips on the cover. Green leaves. An orange cat. The text, meanwhile, lilts hypnotically. Listen to this: “The tulips close, row by row, and shadows grow, against the light.” Look at how that long “o” sound gets repeated in the first three stanzas and then diverges at the very end. And a book that grows with its readers is worth its weight in gold. Utterly lovely. Age Range: 0 - 2 years
Call Number:JBoardbk (Board books are not reservable.)
Title: Odd Beasts: Meet Nature's Weirdest Animals
By: Laura Gehl, ill. Gareth Lucas
Published: 2021
Barnyard animals—move over! Odd Beasts introduces babies and toddlers to more unusual species, including the glass frog with transparent skin and the pangolin—the only mammal with scales! Gentle rhyming verses provide the comforting repetition that little ones crave, even as their minds are opened to new and fascinating creatures from around the world. Age range: 2 - 4 years
Call Number: JBoardbk (Board books are not reservable.)
Title: Odd Birds: Meet Nature's Weirdest Flock
By: Laura Gehl, ill. Gareth Lucas
Published: 2022
First off, this book is gorgeous. Gareth Lucas is just bending over backwards to make even those deeply ugly condors look like avian gods. The selection of the birds themselves is often surprising and interesting (I had no idea that oilbirds used echolocation). And THEN you get to the back of the book and see photographs of the real birds with facts for older readers. Did I mention that the text in the book is perfect for the youngest of kids? “A booby has blue feet”. If you get only one board book in your collection this year, make it this one. Seriously. Age Range: 2- 4 years
Call Number: JBoardbk (Board books are not reservable.)
Title: Peekaboo Ocean
By: Surya Sajnani
Published: 2022
The crinkle books. Imagine a fabric book, but some of the pages are filled with a crinkly material that make a soft crunching sound every time you move them. Though impossible to circulate in libraries, I was impressed with the “Wee Gallery Range” series coming out from Quarto Group! The blurb for Peekaboo Ocean is "Open out the soft pages of this beautiful, sensory-rich organic cloth book to explore the world of the sea, and play peekaboo with Whale, Oyster, and Ray Fish!"
Age Range: 0 - 6 mo. (Also check out Peekaboo Forest.)
No call number because this is not a library title.
Title: Rainbows in Bloom: Discovering Colors with Flowers
By: Darroch and Michael Putnam
Published: 2021
Vibrant, clear, and fun, this is a groundbreaking photography-based board book from Putnam Flowers, NYC's preeminent florist. The first thing you see when you open it up is a rainbow of colors. Turn another page and a red flower is on the left-hand side and an orange flower on the right. Lift their respective pages and you are treated to a broad spectrum of other flowers, fruits, insects that show how red can morph into orange. At the end you get the full rainbow of colors put together on the pages . Brilliant and beautiful. More of this, please! Age Range: 2- 5 years
Call Number: J Boardbk (Board books are not reservable.)
Title: Rainy Days
By: Deborah Kerbel, ill. Miki Sato
Published: April 19, 2022
I cannot resist a clever bit of paper cutting. This book is bound to be a favorite each time a rainy day comes along. And, as a parent myself who indulged the outdoorsy whims of my own tots long ago, I appreciate lines like, “Freezing rain; we complain,” which shows a kid and dog INSIDE on a sleety nasty day. Layered paper illustrations by Sato expertly provide the color you need in a book with such gray skies. Age Range: 1-3 years
Call Number: JBoardbk (Board books are not reservable.)
Title: Shark Block
By: Christopher Franceschelli, ill. Peski Studio
Published: 2021
Block Books, if you haven’t encountered them before, are these board books of near ludicrous proportions. Like little square bricks, they pack themselves full of information. Prepared to reject it, I flipped through the pages, only to find myself engrossed and sucked in. All your usual favorites are here, as well as a slew of lesser known sharks. It’s unafraid to appeal to older kids, and with a text like this one you may find your older kids reading this to the young ones and enjoying every last minute of it. Age Range: 0-3 years
Call Number: JBoardbk (Board books are not reservable.)
Title: Slow Down . . . on Your Doorstep: Calming Nature Stories for Little Ones
By: Rachel Williams (Author), Freya Hartas (Illustrator)
Published: August 2, 2022
Discover a magical world of nature on your doorstep. Charming rhyming verse presents six mindful moments—including a squirrel burying a nut and a rainbow forming on a rainy day—to the youngest readers. Age Range: 1 - 3 years
JBoardbook (Board books are not reservable)
Title: Wildflowers Grow
By: Amber Hendricks
Published: March 8, 2022
Underground, seeds sleep until spring. Rain comes, seeds sprout, and flowers burst into bloom! Amber Hendricks' short expressive lines with repeated action words make this poem perfect for sharing with babies and toddlers, and Gavin Scott's warm, cozy illustrations encourage all ages to appreciate nature. Age Range: 0 - 3 years
Call Number:JBoardbk (Board books are not reservable.)