#204: Joyful Rhyming Reads for Babies 0–3 — Books You’ll Actually Love Reading on Repeat

✨ Happy 2026! We made it through the holidays and now get that beautiful fresh-start energy that January brings. I am so here for it.

In today’s episode, I’m sharing my very favorite baby and toddler books — the ones we reach for again and again with our 16-month-old and our preschoolers, and honestly the ones our older kids still love, too.

Rather than focusing on a specific age, these are simply the books that:

• have a great rhythm or rhyme
• are fun to read aloud (over and over again!)
• have engaging illustrations
• and bring joy to our home library

Because you know that feeling when your child hands you a book… and the cadence is clunky, the story drags, or the pictures just don’t land? (Looking at you, Harold and the Purple Crayon — I know it’s a classic, but it’s just not my favorite 🫣)

So today, I’m sharing the opposite of that — the books that are genuinely delightful.

www.daraboxer.com

Transcript

New Year And Fresh Start

Dara Boxer 0:00

Hello everyone and welcome to the Raw on the Cooked, a weekly podcast that provides simple routines around the home plus raw and honest book reviews. My name is Dara. I'm a Midwestern stay-at-home mom to four young kids, and I thrive on simplicity. You guys, it is 2026. Happy New Year! Happy New Year. We're here. We made it. We all survived the holiday season. And now we get that beautiful, like fresh start energy that January brings, and I am just so here for it.

Why Rhyming, Flow, And Illustrations Matter

Dara Boxer 0:29

So today I thought it would be really fun to share my favorite baby books. These aren't necessarily like for a specific age. Um, I in my head, when I initially sat down to make this list, I wanted to write out a list of like all the books I love from like birth until the age of three, but that's a really big list. And a lot of the books I've already shared on my other series, Toddler Books We Love. I think I have three other episodes in that, and I'll go ahead and link those in the show notes if you wanted to re-listen to that. But what I noticed when compiling this list of zero to three is that I'm really, really drawn to books that rhyme, that sound good, that have a really good flow, that are fun to read, have beautiful illustrations, and like have like a really cute little fun story attached to it. Um, and just the books that I find myself wanting to read to our youngest. Our youngest is now 16 months, and even our older kids still really love a lot of these books. Our youngest son, he's a little over three at this point, and a lot of these books on my list are books that he loves to read as well. So I thought it would just be really fun to share it with you, just because I don't feel like these books like narrow down a specific age, but I just feel like they are ones that I love because they flow nicely. I mean, you know what it's like when a kid hands you a book and like it's just not like for example, Harold and the Purple Crayon, I just don't like it. I just it doesn't, it doesn't flow well for me. I'm not really a fan of the illustrations. I don't like the story. It doesn't like have a cute, like I don't know, I just don't like it. And I know it's a classic, I know it's on everybody's list, but I'm just not a fan, I'm sorry to say. Unpopular opinion. So I wanted to list out some of the books that I really love reading, specifically to my my uh 16-month-olds and my three-year-olds. But again, the older kids love listening to these books too. So I'm gonna go ahead and list them in order, not like a specific order, but I'm gonna start with my favorites.

Sandra Boynton Ride Or Die Picks

Dara Boxer 2:25

So my ride or die for a baby category book is Sandra Boynton. Like, I don't care what you say, she is just my like chef's kiss of a child's author. I love the going to bed book. That's like my one of my absolute favorites. I love Not the Hippopotamus, I love Barnyard Dance. That book is so much fun to sing and like actually dance to it. I love Wu Who You're Doing Great. That was a gift from our friend, and I love A to Z. So those five Sandra Boyton books are just like my top everything. Love it so much. Other books that are super fun to read and have really awesome illustrations are Red House, Treehouse, Little Bitty Brown

Songbooks, Repeats, And Burnout

Dara Boxer 3:03

Mouse. I I love to read There's a Hole in the Log on the Bottom of the Lake. That's like a camp song that you can, you know, it's like turn into a book. And then there are a couple of other, like, you know, staple songs that they've turned into books, like the Rafi collection, right? Like including Baby Beluga, Five Little Ducks, Down by the Bay, Shake My Sillies Out, Wheels on the Bus. I will say though, um, because you're like literally singing a song and it is accompanied by like pretty illustrations, our 16-month-old will have us read those books again and again and again and again. And after you read, you know, let's say Shake My Sillies out for the fifth time, you kind of want to burn it. So I will say that over Thanksgiving weekend, we decided to remove the Rafi books from her collection. So we just like no one wants to read Wheels on the Bus more than like four times. So those are now gone. Um, but uh prior to the stage where they want you to read it like 30 times in a row, those are really great books for the younger children crowd. Um, I personally don't like Dr.

Dr. Seuss: Pros, Cons, And Picks

Dara Boxer 4:05

Seuss that much. I think his illustrations are kind of creepy. I don't really like his stories, but there are a handful of like really fun rhyming ones that I will read. Um, and again, I think my three and five-year-old boys like this a little bit more than my 16-month-old, but they're still fun. A little on the lengthy side, but if you can stomach it, these are good to add in the rotation. Green Eggs and Ham, The Cat and the Hat, and 10 Apples up on top. And finally, Hand Hand Fingers Thumb is actually really fun to read, especially the board book because it's a little bit shorter. Okay, my next two favorite ones.

Julia Donaldson, Trucks, And Other Hits

Dara Boxer 4:39

I probably should have put Dr. Seuss at the bottom of the list, but that's okay. Um, I love Julia Donaldson. My like favorite books are The Gruffalo and Room on the Broom. I will read Room on the Broom any day of the week. It's so much fun. I love it. Little Blue Truck is also a really good one. I feel like that's gotten really popular, so much so that it's now like uh it has like a whole series. There's like a Christmas one and a Halloween one and other holidays. So that's how you know it's like gotten really popular. Um, My Octopus Arms is really good. Um, Goodnight, goodnight construction site. That series is really, really popular, especially with little boys. Uh Dinner at the Panda Palace will always be, you know, have a place in my heart. Um, The Littless Yak, One Leaf, Two Leaves Count With Me. Love that one. Bats at the Beach is another favorite. Uh Zanda Xander's Panda Party is um a little bit of a tongue twister, but it is so much fun to read. It's a really good one. Uh, the Madeline series, always a huge fan. Um, I would say just stick to the original ones. Like they're I think he like franchised now. His grandson is the new author, so just like beware. I know they have like a whole, whatever. I would just stick with probably like the original Madeline's. Uh, The Donut Chef by Bob Stockey is a good one. I like Goodnight Moon because it's a classic and I feel like it's important to have in there, but I don't, I feel like it doesn't like flow in the same kind, like it doesn't have the same cadence, you know what I mean? So I'm like, uh, I don't know, I could take it or leave it. It is one of my husband's favorites to read to our children, so I'm just, you know, it's gonna stay and remain in the list. And then we have um a goodnight St. Louis book that has like, you know, all the really awesome, you know, staples for our city.

Classics, City Goodnights, And Opinions

Dara Boxer 6:25

I'm sure these books are also franchised, and you could find like Goodnight Philadelphia or Goodnight Baltimore or wherever you're coming from. So I'm sure your city has a good night something. Um, so check that out.

Richard Scarry For Vocabulary Growth

Dara Boxer 6:36

And then finally, um, and these aren't necessarily like fun to read, but uh for a 16-month-old who's starting to learn to speak and grow their vocabulary, um, and my husband and I are on the same page with this. We both believe that Richard Scary's best word book ever, um Richard Scary's Cars and Trucks and Things That Go, and the best Lowly Worm Book Ever by Richard Scary are like the absolute best books to grow children's vocabulary, like really awesome illustrations. It's just very cut and dry. Like this is a fork, this is a cup, a stop sign, a plant, a rug. Just like pointing out literally what everything is in like different areas, like all the things you would find in a kitchen or in a classroom or you know, down at the farm. It's so good. So that has been a really good resource to help grow a child's vocabulary. And then finally, um, I should mention actually two more resources. So this is for kids that are a little bit older. I would say, I mean, you could they have them as early as two, but I would say like three is a little bit better to go. Um, I really love BrainQuest. I think that those they're like little, uh, they're not flashcards. They're like kind of like on a, oh my gosh, I'm like blanking on the term. Um, they're not flashcards, but it's like uh they're like stapled to not stapled, but they're like uh I don't know, I'm like completely blanking on the term. Um but basically you just kind of like ask questions and pictures and like oh which one is the circle? And it gets progressively harder. I remember doing these when I was a child, um, gosh, from like kindergarten on, and they go all the way through I think eighth grade.

BrainQuest And Sesame Street Dictionary

Dara Boxer 8:16

So obviously the questions get more intense than just like which one doesn't belong in this triangle series or you know, whatever it is, or like point to the blue shoe. Um, but I they're really fun. My kids have always loved playing with them. My 16-month-old is obviously still a little too young to whip it out. I mean, she can barely speak as it is, so probably gonna hold that off for a little while. But um, I do really love BrainQuest for like the preschool ages and even kindergarten, just to like really make sure that you know your child is like kindergarten ready, you know, they're like important things there. Um, and then lastly, for again building vocabulary, this was such a random find, Big Birds Sesame Street Dictionary. It's an eight-volume set. They don't make them anymore, so if you do find them, I think you're gonna have to go on like eBay or like some sort of like, you know, where you could get vintage items. They were made in the 70s, they or maybe the 80s, they are awesome. I feel like they teach your child just very difficult, complicated. I mean, English is a really complicated language. We have so many different ways of saying a word, or so many different spellings or variations, you know, there are like three there's you know, two different two like the like English is just very, very complicated. And so I think to be able to like have an actual definition with pictures and a very thorough, simple explanation of what it means uh outside uh versus inside, like it's it is such a good book. So I love that for the three-year-olds, like two to three-year-olds, I feel like it's like on the sweet spot. Um, we got these books. I found some of them in a library, um, like one of those like free little libraries, and I loved it so much that I ended up just ordering in a whole new set on eBay. Um, well, I say new, it's like vintage, but like a like a whole set of somebody's and then donating our other ones. And I ended up purchasing them um again on eBay for my cousin's child um because I just I thought they were so great.

Closing Thoughts On Fun, Flow, Re-Reads

Dara Boxer 10:17

So yeah, those are um those are the list of children's books that I just really, really love reading to like the zero to three crowd mainly, just because I mean it's cute to be like, you know, where's your nose kind of books, but I don't know. I just feel like reading should be fun, and it's just fun for me to sort of have like a like a cadency sing-song kind of book where like the flows really well, it's fun to read, the pictures are engaging, and your child likes it too, and you wouldn't mind reading it six times in a row. So those are sort of the books that I gravitate towards for the zero to three crowd. So thank you guys so much for tuning in. Um, we will catch you back here next week. Thanks. See you then.