Paintings by Virginia Johnson
$8.95 (board book), 22 pages
A mother watches her newborn, and wonders about all that he sees and feels in this tender poem originally published in 1999 as a picture book.
"This new baby / sleeps in my arms / like a moon / sleeping on a cloud," the mother muses, as she holds him close, her face touching his.
Later, she says, as he drifts into a dreamworld in father's lap, he's "like a hawk drifting through the sky."
For a time the baby's still, then something stirs inside him, disquiets him, "the sound of hawks' wings lifting," and he lets out a cry, deep from inside.
His wail challenges his unrest, and "chases old ghosts / back into the shadows." Then his body relaxes once more, his eyes open "like two moons / shining on a lake," and he rests limply over his father's shoulder.
Later as the sun rises like a big orange balloon, mother takes him out in his stroller, aware that so much is new to him, and she wonders what he's thinking.
"This new baby stares at the sun, this new baby searches for his toes / what this new baby finds / what this new baby knows."
Johnson's delicate watercolors match the text's wondrous quality, a feeling of being blissfully lost in one's thoughts.
Created by David Carter
$14.99 (board book set), 64 pages, ages 4-8
Boys and bugs. It's one of life's sure things.
It seems as soon as boys can walk, they're hunkering down with a hand in the path of a roly poly, trying to coax it up for a ride.
And you know what that means. It's just a matter of time before they're carrying them inside, asking if their bugs can stay.
As parents, we love to see them enthralled in nature, but wouldn't it be nice if some of the bugs in their hands weren't so real, yet still moved about as if they were?
Well, the bugs in Carter's adorable set of four pop-up books do just that. They flap and crawl, while introducing toddlers to the basics of colors, opposites, counting, and up and down.
Paper centipedes, butterflies, beetles and bees play peek-a-boo with readers, unfurling their wings, sliding out of hiding places, even playing on a seesaw.
Among them, a striped red beetle with spiraling antennae that unwind as the page opens and a pointing finger bug (a human hand with eyes and feelers) that pops out of a box to direct the way to the right and left.
Every bug has a goofy, lovable look, capped off with oversized eyes, and is brightly colored with stripes, polka-dots, checks, swirls and even tie-dye patterns.
Perfect for little hands, the movable art is simple and sturdy, and can be closed quickly without wings or feelers getting bent.
Written & illustrated by Joyce Wan
$6.99 (board book), 14 pages
Babies have us the moment we see them. One look at those cheeks and eyes, and we get all melty inside.
And when they're our babies? Well, we think we'll burst from happiness, or as the idiom curiously goes, we'll "just eat them up," every little toe.
In this adorable board book, Wan plays off that familiar expression and the intoxicating feeling we get from babies with words we reach for to show our affection.
Cupcake, gumdrop, sweet pea, cutie-pie, peanut and pumpkin -- phrases that convey how deliciously cute babies are and when read aloud, have our lips scrunching into a pucker.
Every endearment is used in a phrase, then paired with a rosy-cheeked picture of what it represents. Each has big dot eyes and tiny curved mouths that capture the sweetness of a baby.
The cutie pie is topped with a swirl of whipped cream to resemble a baby's first curl of hair, while the sweet pea peeks out of his pod as contentedly as a baby snuggled in Momma's sling.
One look at these adorable foods and you'll feel like you could just, well, eat this book up!
Don't miss Wan's other darling book in the series, We Belong Together, about the bonds of parent and child.
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