The simple magic of Goodnight Moon and more...

We're continuing our chat today about books to read to our kids in that first year of their lives and curating shelves for a lifetime. This is Part 2 of a 3 part series that is looking at books for your baby's first year. In Part 1 we looked at what we called the extreme baby months and we touched on the touchy feeling books that your child would want to explore, starting at around that 6 week mark. Today I delve deeply into some books that will inspire wonder and magic in you and your child. As always, this episode is proudly brought to you by overwhelmed adults the world over who have no time for judgement but could do with some help in choosing books for the kids in their lives. 

https://teatalesandtomes.wordpress.com/2025/04/01/episode-2-curating-my-babys-bookshelf-in-that-first-year/ 

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Podcast music by Lundstroem (Episode 1 onwards) and Audionautix (TTAT Trailer). Podcast edited by Timothy Wiggill.

Transcript

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Hello bookish friends, this is Natasha and you're listening to the Tea Tales in Tomes podcast where we are living our favorite lives talking books and drinking hot beverages. So grab a cuppa and let's talk books. I do apologize for the gulping sounds. I'm genuinely drinking my hot tea and talking books with you. So we're continuing our chat today about books to read to our kids in that first year and also curating shelves for a lifetime. This is part two of a three-part series that is looking at books for your baby's first year. In part one, we looked at what we called the extreme baby months, which is newborn to about three months. Totally arbitrary, right? And we touched on the touchy-feely books that your child would want to explore starting around that six-week mark. As always, this episode is proudly brought to you by overwhelmed adults the world over who have no time for judgment, but could do with some help in choosing books for the kids in their lives. Let's jump right in. So last week I ended with saying that while baby touchy-feely books or books meant for that age group, air quotes, are excellent, we must not fall into the trap of only buying these type of books. A simple reason is that it will make us adults hate reading them and possibly hate reading altogether. So I've experienced this with my own kids and it can be a very melancholy feeling, especially if you've built this idea of your reading life with your child being this amazing thing. So we don't want reading aloud to feel daunting because all the research shows that reading is critical for our kids. Let's hop off right here and chat a bit now about why we are actually reading to our kids. So what you are doing in these early years of reading is simply building a lifelong connection with your child through books. You are not trying to teach your child how to read. You are not trying to make them learn lessons or morals through books. We are not doing any of those typically academic things. In these early weeks and months, and yours even, you are simply associating books and stories with warm feelings of love and closeness. So Jim Trelease, in his book, The Read Aloud Handbook, says it perfectly. Every time we read to a child, we are sending a pleasure message to the child's brain. So in the mind of little children, Reading Allowed Time means mom or dad or gran, insert any other caregiver, is with me and focused on me, and we are sharing something together, and in this case, a story. What you are doing is showing your child what a love of reading looks like, that books are to be cherished, and you are cultivating a lifelong love of story. all of those other things, learning how to read, developing empathy through stories, becoming amazing communicators, early success at school will follow when your child associates books with the presence of their primary caregivers and the bubble of love that reading aloud time creates. It's really that simple. It's reading aloud equals social connection. That's it. Now, if you hate it because you are just going, look at this sheep, look at this silky ribbon, look at the shiny star, which is typical of those early board books, you will hate this experience and your child will know. Your little person, as you are very well aware, is brilliant and pretty perceptive that way. So you are going to want to make sure that your shelves have books that elicit joy in you as well. That when you are going to spend the time reading, you are able to find something that will bring a smile to your face and to theirs. So let's talk about removing the friction of the boring for adults books and find the stuff that's going to get you looking forward to read a lot of time. Interestingly, These books that I am now going to talk to you about that you might start to want to add to your shelf will be perfect for these early months, but trust me, they will likely keep forever. Not just because, you know, they're good books and they're on all of these lists, but because you and your children will cherish these books forever. They are books that have such staying power because of their sheer brilliance. So first up, I have to say, that you must get a book of nursery rhymes. I can tell you that I personally have needed this with my kids. I might be in the minority, but I certainly did not know the words for all the nursery rhymes. So having a board book of nursery rhymes with beautiful pictures that my child loved looking at changed my life. So I would read them or sing them with my kids on my lap and my child would was completely taken in. And to be honest, both still are, even at eight and five years old. So what a wonderful way to bond with your little one, parents and caregivers. So if I show you our book of nursery rhymes, it's an absolute mess. Its corners are eaten. The book has been stuck back together with glue and tape because it's been handled so much by those fumbling fingers. But never in a million years will I ever replace this book. My early years as a mother and my children's first year on this planet is fundamentally tied up to this book of nursery rhymes. And that's magic. So please get yourself one. And when you are browsing, For that perfect nursery rhyme book, I would say look for those brightly colored pictures. Look for a board book preferably because you know they have those fumbly fingers. And if you can get one that has an audio version attached, either a CD, I know that's really, really archaic and I'm showing my age, or maybe a QR code that you can scan, that will be great so that even if you don't know the tunes to them, that was me, you'll have some help. Help is always welcome in those early years. Am I right? Secondly, do yourself a favor and buy a copy of Goodnight Moon by Margaret Wise Brown. I'm not the biggest fan of saying go out and get a book because we did say that this is a gentle part of the listening world and that seems a little bit bossy. But bookish friends, go out and get this book for your shelves. Good Night Moon is where it's at. So I find book lists questionable at the best of times, but truly all of the lists was telling me that this is the one to read. So I eventually bit the bullet in those early years and was super excited to see what the high was about, and when I first read it, I think I was that comic book character with furrowed brows and a giant question mark above my head, because after that first read, I could genuinely not fathom what all the fuss was about. The text to me was super simple with no actual plot. The colors were not immediately beautiful to my adult sensibilities, all flat red and green and not really, you know, not something that I really was going to pour over. The words were not overly poetic or anything. And I didn't really appreciate it for what it was. Interestingly, for those exact reasons, when the book was first published over 75 years ago, it was actually not accepted into libraries because the adults who make those decisions about these sorts of things felt that it lacked, air quotes, moralistic direction. Anywho, I had the book, so I decided to try it out on my child during read-aloud time, expecting it to be a complete and total dud. But it was love at first read between my child and Goodnight Moon. Okay, thesis time. So delving as deep as I have into the world of kids lit, I'm currently in the Marianas trenches, loving every minute of it. I can now probably examine why Margaret Wise Brown is nothing short of genius. This is one of those really rare books written entirely for kids by someone who has a real and true understanding of the world and psychology of children. In a nutshell, this book sees a little bunny being put to bed by an older caregiver. The bunny lies in bed in the room and slowly says goodnight to everything in the room. Something like goodnight moon, goodnight stars in the red balloon, Goodnight comb, goodnight brush, and goodnight to the old lady whispering hush. The room is large and is filled with everyday things that kids associate with, and there are also pictures and items that are echoes to other familiar stories and rhymes. For example, there's a picture of the three little bears on the wall. So here's the thing. Kids love and need high-contrast images. This book has it. Those flat green and red colors are perfect for kids at this young age. Kids love predictability and repetition. This book has that in spades. Kids need to relate to the things they're looking at in the stories they're reading. And this book has all the everyday items that make up a kid's life. Convinced yet? Do you need more analysis? I can do that. So the words, Margaret Wise Brown's words, have the sweet, lulling cadence perfect for bedtime, and it will stay with you in the most beautiful way. The more I think about it, the more I feel that this book does actually have a moral. And the moral of this story is that adults need to truly listen to our kids, not just for who we think they ought to be, but for who they actually are. I don't want to belabor this point. Okay, who am I kidding? All I'm doing is belaboring this point. This is a book that I can still read to my kids and they are still filled with wonder and they are eight and five years old. How you read it through every reread, through the days and the weeks, the months, and even the years might change. So we started off reading it from beginning to end like a normal book. We've also played games of trying to find interesting things in the room that may not be part of the text. We've discussed astronomy and nursery rhymes while dissecting the pictures. And sometimes we have just looked at the bunny going to sleep and imagined what he will do in the morning when he wakes up. So right here, bookish friends, is pure unadulterated magic. This is a book that you will not regret adding to your shelves. Okay, enough about me waxing lyrical about Goodnight Moon. What are some of the other books that will bring you joy, but that will also be glimmers for your little reader? So in my opinion, no little kid's bookshelf will be complete without without a book by Mary Murphy. Our personal favorite is A Kiss Like This, which again is a very simple picture book, but with a bunch of animals talking about how they kiss. It's a mom and child book and it's incredibly sweet. The sounds you can make, the picture of hearts flipping through the pages as you and your baby are lying down, you holding the book above your heads and reading this book while also showering your little one with kisses is very, very special. Before you stress about grabbing a page and pencil to write any of this down, I will make a full list of books mentioned in this episode in the show notes and on Instagram, so go check that out. An award-winning book that we have loved is called Kitten's First Full Moon by Kevin Henkes. This is a tale of adventure about a little kitten that mistakes the full moon for a bowl of milk, and it is as sweet as it sounds. The illustrations are all in black and white, and the book is in a board book format, two things that make it perfect for those littlest book dragons because of their need for those high-contrast images which I've mentioned before, and their slightly uncoordinated pause. So we see this little furry fiend go on a hunch through the night for this bowl of milk, which is actually the full moon. And some of you might know that my eldest also goes by the code name Moongazer, and that's entirely because after reading Kitten's First Full Moon, we would make a point of going outside and looking at the moon, and it became one of his favorite pastimes. Even when he woke up at 4am for a feed, he would want us to sit on the upstairs balcony, read Kitten's First Full Moon and gaze at the night sky looking at the moon. And isn't this the whole reason we read to our children? Building these beautiful core memories. Now the next two recommendations for your shelves for a lifetime are books that speak to a very strange childhood phenomenon. Can anyone please tell me why kids are so fascinated by animal sounds? They absolutely love it, and they especially love when their adults make these animal sounds, and the stranger, the better. So because we at Tea Tales and Tomes love meeting kids where they are at, you won't go wrong with Dr. Seuss's Mr. Brown Can Move, Can You?, The brilliance of Dr. Seuss requires another whole episode. In Mr. Brown Can Move, you have rhyming text, familiar sounds, and some super wacky sounds that adults can laugh at as we read this to our kids. Another amazing book centering animatopeic animal sounds that has really stood the test of time in my home and that is holding on by threads and tape because we still read it so much is Hush, a Thai lullaby by Minh Phong Ho. This book... The story is set in rural Thailand and sees a mother asking various animals like a mosquito, a frog, monkey, elephant and some others not to wake her sleeping baby. So those sounds, the wee wee of a mosquito or the hum pra of an elephant's trumpet will keep your kids riveted and you will be asked to read this over and over and over again. So fair warning to you if you get this. The tones of the illustrations are all earthy There's a rice barn and lush forests about. And it is actually a really delightful look at life in rural Thailand. And when you look a little closer with your kids, you'll actually see that while the mom is trying to quieten down all these farm and wild animals, the baby is actually gallivanting around the house, not sleeping at all. So there's a really cute irony right there. Lastly, I'm going to go in the direction of some serious cheese. If you ever felt like you cannot adequately express exactly how special your little person is or how you feel about them, you might want to try out Nancy Tillman. I believe that her books are more for adults than for children, even though they are board books and picture books and by all accounts, clearly for kids. I say this because through beautiful rhyming text, she gives voice to our feelings of love and awe and wonder for our children. If I'm to be very honest, my kids, when they were quite little, weren't entirely enamored by my Nancy Tillman books. They do enjoy it a lot more now. But back then when I read it to them, I could see that it didn't really interest them that much. But it was so, so good for my soul. It's brought tears to my eyes in my softer moments. Even the images are gorgeous and something that adults will truly appreciate and pour over. I actually read something from the author recently that said that kids have such a small window in which they have no barriers to being told that they are loved. They are so open to accepting our feelings of love at this very young age. And Nancy Tillman says that she loves being able to give adults the vocabulary to express this. Some titles of hers, of Nancy Tillman's, that you might want to start with are On the night you were born, or wherever you go, my love will find you. So that's on the night you were born, and wherever you go, my love will find you. Bookish friends, I could give you many, many more book recommendations, but here at Tea Tales and Tomes, our aim is to reduce the overwhelm and not to add. Bull Martin Jr., Eric Carle, Tim Hopgood, Alice Shurtle, Sandra Boynton, Ruth Spiro, Nina Layden are just some of the other authors that write brilliantly entertaining books for these early months and years. And if you go to the show notes, you're going to find all of these recommendations. Also, Very importantly, remember that you know yourself and you know your child. So when you are in the bookstore or in the library and you see a book that calls out to you, they do that, you know, I encourage you to pick it up and read a few pages out loud. Not all books are equal, but if you find that reading that particular book out loud is enjoyable and if you feel that it is something that will be a good fit for your family, why not get it for your shelves? This episode was merely an attempt to reduce the noise and maybe give you some tips as to what you are looking for and give you books that I've found to be long-lasting shelf occupiers. In part three, the last and final part of the series of books for that first year, we will be looking at box sets and author collections. So those really great and prolific authors whose books are always Awesome go-tos when you are browsing in libraries and bookstores. Thank you for being here, talking books with me, and don't forget to join me next week for more bookish wonder.