Introduction

Board books are the foundation of a valuable children's literature collection. They are the child's first exposure to books and often a parent's reintroduction to the rich realm of children's literature. Selecting high-quality titles and making them available to library patrons as early as infancy encourages literacy and language development, provides a bridge to a library's picture book collection, improves the child's chances for academic success later in life, increases an appreciation of literature into adulthood, and reinforces the growth of a community of future library users.

As book selectors and readers' advisors, children's librarians are familiar with the importance and incredible popularity of board books. Though as a genre the board book is relatively new to the children's literature scene, there has been no shortage of available titles since demand first burgeoned in the 1980s. Critical recognition of the format has been slower to emerge, however, as accepted standards for creating, evaluating, and selecting board books are still in the early stages of development themselves.

The background information and guidelines presented here are intended to help library staff develop board book collection policies, justify increased board book budgets, and ultimately, put those funds to good use. The research and recommendations may prove valuable in encouraging parents to share these unique books with their babies and toddlers, with the hope that, as awareness of and demand for quality titles in this genre increases, more and better board books will be available to the very young patrons of the future.

Ages and Stages

Birth to three-years-old is generally agreed to be the appropriate age range for board books. Within this range, however, the child's needs are changing rapidly, and different children will always be at different stages of development. What is appropriate for an infant at six months is usually not appropriate for an 18-month-old toddler, and what seems appropriate to one 18-month-old may not be to the next one. Familiarity with an individual child's developmental needs is almost as important to selectors and readers' advisors as familiarity with the literature. What follows in this section is a brief overview of key developmental stages, in the context of some recommended board books. Observation of the child and a reference interview with a parent or caregiver are most valuable to identifying the child's developmental needs and interests.

In Early Childhood Literature Sharing Programs in Libraries, Ann Carlson outlines the following behaviors in a child's first 14 months:

For infants especially, exploration is essential to early cognitive development. Newborns immediately begin to process and absorb the sights and sounds around them. Board books encourage visual, auditory, and tactile exploration predominantly, but they also allow babies to use all of their senses. The sturdy cardboard format holds up to grasping, dropping, tossing, and even tasting. A book gives the child an object on which to focus his or her sensory and motor activity. And reading aloud to a baby allows the child to focus on a favorite sound -- the sound of the caregiver's voice. Board books that encourage object discrimination are ideal for newborns, such as Tana Hoban's Black on White and White on Black. These books eliminate the visual "noise" of backgrounds, colors, and textures by providing babies with distinct shapes for their developing eyes to focus on, while the caregiver reads the word to be associated with each object.

Jean Piaget refers to infancy as the "sensorimotor stage," a time when the child is gaining knowledge of the world through his or her physical interaction with it. Once the book is a familiar object to the child, it opens into a world of other objects. As Kathleen Horning says in a 1997 Horn Book Magazine report, "Board Books Go Boom," "Rather than telling a detailed story, board books help babies begin to understand the idea of books: here is an object that has something to look at and something to say, and we make it work by opening it up and turning the pages like this. Once babies catch on to the idea of turning pages, they are generally very eager to do so." (Horning 158)

As memory and object permanence develop, into the second half of the first year, object identification, a popular formula in the genre, is well suited to this audience. Books like Helen Oxenbury's I See or Working, Hoban's What Is It?, and Baby in a Buggy from Monica Wellington's What Does Baby See? series offer pictures of familiar objects that babies will be visibly excited to recognize. Well-conceived board books for this stage also begin to illustrate how the objects depicted interact in the world, helping children develop schema or expecations about the world around them. Textured books may be introduced in this reaching-out stage.

Piaget and Carlson both set early language development at about seven months. Sound recognition and phonemic awareness, the foundation of language development, make the text as essential as the illustrations now. The child internalizes the sounds associated with a visually familiar object. Books featuring animal sounds are favorites in the early language stage. Repetition of words reinforces that association, as in Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What Do You See? by Bill Martin, Jr., and Eric Carle and Margaret Wise Brown's Goodnight Moon. Books about familiar people, such as Papa Papa by Jean Marzollo, Mommy and Me by Neil Ricklen, and Oxenbury's Family, are ideal for quiet bonding times.

When a book's language is rhythmic, the text adds the dimension of how sounds flow to make words, how words work together to make sentences, and how sentences build to make stories, rhymes, and poems. Nursery rhymes, chants, and songs are favorites of babies and caregivers at this stage, including the board book series adaptation of Iona Opie and Rosemary Wells's My Very First Mother Goose, Lucy Cousins's series of Mother Goose rhymes, the soothing lyrics of Hush, Little Baby with Sylvia Long's illustrations, or Michael Hague's dynamic Teddy Bear, Teddy Bear.

As mobility sets the child's world in motion approaching 12 months, exploration is physically extended and the child is no longer a "captive audience" for books. Active phrases and pictures begin to attract the child's attention. Byron Barton's or Donald Crews's vehicle books, P.D. Eastman's Go, Dog, Go, and Ann Taylor's Baby Dance get the child zooming into toddlerhood. Interaction with the books using flaps encourages both motor skills and the growing need to explore. Photographs of other babies in action fascinate babies and toddlers alike. Margaret Miller's Look Baby! series encourages them to be as animated and imaginative as the children depicted in the book.

Pattern and repetition in the text are still essential to one- and two-year-olds, though plot may begin to develop and illustrations may become more defined, with more depth and setting. By between 12 to 15 months, many children may be eager for a sustained but simple story. Rosemary Wells's Max and Ruby books are charming starter stories, as are Eric Hill's first Spot books. Familiar routines such as bathtime, bedtime, dressing, or eating often serve as the basis for successful plots, since toddlers are settling into their own routines at about this age.

As language develops, parents are often eager to introduce more advanced object identification books, such as the rows of photographed objects in DK's My First Board Book series, and also concept books. While books about colors and shapes may be appropriate to an audience from 18 to 24 months, including Lois Ehlert's richly constructed Color Zoo, counting and alphabet books are best when they are introduced within the context of familiar objects or patterns, as Ellen Stoll Walsh does with Mouse Count. Board books provide an excellent medium to gently introduce early learning concepts, but most toddlers will not master the concepts until later. Many concept books in the board format, designed for drill and practice, are not sensitive to this developmental reality.

Often books for two- and three-year-olds neglect one of the most essential developments at this stage, the development of imaginative play. Piaget refers to it as fantasy play, while Jerome Bruner stresses that through the early use of play, with words as well as objects, toddlers are expanding their imaginations and charting the possibilities in the world they know. Ideally, a steady diet of playful books has already opened the toddler's mind to Bruner's "possible worlds," and books for two's and three's encourage further cognitive exploration. Text that prompts the listener to finish a line or anticipate events, which Anne Grossnickle Hines uses in What Can You Do in the Snow? and others in this playful seasonal series, and illustrations that depart from expected color schemes and line work, like Denise Fleming's wildly active Lunch, foster the toddler's imaginative powers. Playing with familiar concepts and themes prepares them for fantastic characters and situations to come as they progress to picture books.

Babies and Books

Board books are not the only developmentally appropriate books, of course. Babies respond to books of all shapes and sizes. Studies as recently as the 1970s began to document such responses, which children's librarians had observed much earlier than that, and current research on babies' neurological development emphasizes these earlier findings. In a School Library Journal feature from November 1999, Sue McCleaf Nespeca summarizes, "Neurological research and brain-imaging techniques have confirmed what many have long suspected: children's earliest experiences -- especially in the first three years -- are as crucial to brain development as genetic inheritance....Simply put, children's brains will not develop properly unless they receive warm, responsive care and ongoing stimulation" (Nespeca 49). While this clinical research typically does not single out the source of this stimulation, it seems obvious to librarians that consistent book-sharing experiences would provide for babies' neurological needs nicely.

Literacy studies have extended this research to chart babies' exposure to books and how it influences later success school. In "Take Two Board Books, and Call Me in the Morning" (SLJ June 1999), Sari Feldman writes of the findings, "Children who are regularly read to receive the stimulation and information they need to prepare them for school, and, ultimately, for satisfying lives. Children's librarians, of course, have known this for a long time. Finally, the rest of us are beginning to catch up."

In the majority of these studies, the parent-child interaction is paramount at this early age. A positive experience of being read to is the most significant factor to later success with reading and school. What is read is typically not specified, and one book format over another is rarely recommended. No librarian or educator, however, is going to recommend reading a newspaper or grocery list to a baby as long as books have been created to meet their unique needs and are accessible through the public library.

This caveat is the basis for reading programs that attempt to reach parents before or soon after a baby's birth, train them in reading aloud to their babies, and often offer gift books to get them started. Partnered with obstetric and pediatric clinicians, or with hospitals and clinics, the programs are usually geared to at-risk children and their families. These programs support the notion that the sooner a parent introduces a child to books, the better the child's chances for success with reading, school, and later in life:

Reach Out and Read (Boston Medical Center)
Born to Read (ALSC)
Beginning with Books (Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh)

Library programs surfaced to support this emphasis as well. Many libraries sponsor their own gift-book programs. Infant storytimes and lapsit programs for infants, toddlers, and their parents have become available in response to public awareness of these findings. Board book collections have grown to support these programs.

The Birth and Growth of Baby Books

Board books first appeared in the late 1960s, before most of this early literacy research was conducted. The idea of creating books for children under the age of four was a novelty, and the first offerings, produced by trade publishers, were received as such, more as toddler toys than as "real" books.

1968 - Familiar Objects Baby Sees and Plays With (Follett)
1969 - ABC and Counting (Golden)
1975 - Big and Little (Random)

These titles, among the early entries in the format, were basic concept books with an emphasis on pointing and identification, developmentally valuable but not of considerable literary or artistic merit, according to librarian Jeanne Marie Clancy in a 1989 SLJ article entitled, "Board Books Come of Age." (Clancy 34).

1979 - Rosemary Wells's four Max and Ruby books: Max's First Word, Max's Suit, Max's Ride, and Max's Toys (Dial)

The first truly successful attempt at a story in board book format came from Dial in 1979, with Rosemary Wells's first four Max and Ruby board books: Max's First Word, Max's Suit, Max's Ride, and Max's Toys. These are charming stories about the playful exploits of a baby bunny and his older sister, ideal for this format. Wells's plots are wonderfully simple and humorous, a joy not only for children to hear but also for parents to read. The series received critical acclaim, setting a standard that is still strived for today. Board books had achieved the recognition of their first foray into literature.

1981 - Helen Oxenbury's first five-volume set: Dressing, Family, Friends, Playing, Working (Simon & Schuster)
1982 - Helen Oxenbury's five-volume set: Good Night, Good Morning; Beach Day; Monkey See, Monkey Do; Mother's Helper; Shopping Trip (Dial)
1982 - Sandra Boynton's Moo, Baa, La, La, La (Simon & Schuster)

In Great Britain Helen Oxenbury was developing her five-volume board book set, which features illustrations of diaper-clad babies and toddlers engaged in everyday activities on a white background. Her second set of board books, containing a simple but sustained plot, was released in the U.S. by Dial in 1982, the same year Sandra Boynton's adorable animal characters sounded off upon entering the board book market with Moo, Baa, La, La, La from Simon & Schuster.

The mid-1980s saw the first major growth spurt in board books, as publishers attracted established picture book authors and illustrators to the format. Connie Epstein, in Horn Book Magazine's column "A Publisher's Perspective," claims that some editors were encouraging authors and artists to "think young," while looking for books that exhibit "discipline to exclude the extraneous; use of simple, clear color; and the ability to create an emotional relationship between characters" (Epstein 612). Technologically, printing advances allowed these chunky books to be produced less expensively. Publishers ordered large print runs and sold most of the board books for between $2.95 to $4.95 (Epstein 610). Board books could be found in many homes, and as demand grew, so did the number of releases.

1985 - Tana Hoban's 1, 2, 3 and What Is It? (Greenwillow)
1985 - Rosemary Wells's second set in the Max and Ruby series: Max's Bedtime, Max's Bath, Max's Birthday, Max's Breakfast
1985 - Cyndy Szekeres's Hide and Seek Duck (Golden)
1986 - Eric Hill's Spot's First Words (Putnam)
1987 - Eric Hill's Where's Spot (Putnam)
1987 - Nancy Tafuri's Where We Sleep (Greenwillow)

Demographically, the market was booming with the population. In a Publishers Weekly article from September 2001, Leonard Marcus reflects, "The baby boom of the 1980s and '90s created the largest retail market for children's books ever. In 1992, 4.1 million births were registered in the United States, as compared with 3.2 million in the late 1970s. The new crop of college-educated parents were eager to instill a love of reading in their children."

1991 - Margaret Wise Brown's The Runaway Bunny and Goodnight Moon adapted (HarperCollins)
1993 - Sandra Boynton's Boynton on Board books: One, Two Three!, Barnyard Dance, Birthday Monsters, Oh My Oh My Oh Dinosaurs (Little Simon)
1994 - Eric Carle's The Very Hungry Caterpillar adapted (Philomel)
1995 - Bruce Degen's Jamberry adapted (Harperfestival)
1995 - reissue of Sandra Boynton's Moo, Baa, La La La, Opposites, But Not the Hippopotamus (Little Simon)
1996 - Dr. Suess's Mr. Brown Can Moo, Can You? adapted (Random House)
1997 - Iona Opie and Rosemary Wells's collaboration on the My Very First Mother Goose Board Book series (Candlewick)

Demand remained high through the 1990s, but quality did not necessarily burgeon with it. Instead, an unfortunate trend of adapting classic picture books to board book format burst onto the scene, marking a regression in the genre. "To meet the rising demand for books for the youngest ages, countless picture books were reformatted as board books--whether or not the new format made editorial sense," Marcus states.

Though adaptation worked for some books, such as Margaret Wise Brown's Goodnight Moon; Donald Crews's Freight Train; Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What Do You See? by Bill Martin, Jr., and Eric Carle; and Bruce Degen's Jamberry, it failed in adaptations that had to be abridged, cropped, and condensed into a format for tiny hands, such as Chicka Chicka ABC by Bill Martin, Jr., and John Archambault, which even some toddlers have noticed is missing its uplifting ending. Additionally, some picture books contain too much text and content, or concepts and themes that are too advanced to be appropriate for this age group, including Rainbow Fish by Marcus Pfister, Ezra Jack Keats's Snowy Day, or Lois Ehlert's Eating the Alphabet.

Kathleen T. Horning lamented in 1997 over the eight missing illustrations and disrupted pace in the board book edition of Sam McBratney's Guess How Much I Love You. She asks, "Why publish an inferior board book edition of a book that succeeds perfectly well on its own as a picture book? Sadly, the only obvious answer is: because it will sell. Why should publishers limit themselves to selling something only once when it can easily be repackaged and sold a second time?" (Horning 157) At the same time, Horning points out, fewer original books were being created with babies' needs and interests in mind. "In the rush to repackage board books, it seems that the ultimate audience for board books has been entirely disregarded."

By 1998 publishers had toned down their adaptation frenzy, as Karen Raugust reported in Publishers Weekly. Though sales executives claimed that "'four- and five-year-olds still like to hold board books,'" retailers admitted that repackaged books sold best when the stories appealed to children under three (Raugust 30-31). A more developmentally conscious approach among publishers meant fewer adaptations in the already saturated market, and it also sparked the creation of more original titles for that audience.

1998 - Margaret Miller's Look Baby! books: Baby Faces, What's on My Head?, I Like Colors, Get Ready, Baby, Baby Food, Me and My Bear (Little Simon)
1998 - Charles Reasoner's MiniBites series: Alphabite, Color Crunch, Number Munch, Shapes for Lunch (Grosset & Dunlap)
1999 - Rosemary Wells' Bingo in the Bunny Reads Back series (Scholastic)
1999 - Joyce Carol Thomas's You Are My Perfect Baby (HarperFestival)
2000 - Lisa Campbell Ernst's Cat's Play (Viking)

Wells's Bingo is designed to encourage phonemic awareness through alternating word beginnings. Thomas's sweet text and illustrations helps the adult reader express feelings of nurturing, comfort, and care. Board books featuring colorful photography of babies at play, including Miller's Look Baby! books and Holloway's Water Babies have drawn a very young appeal recently among infants learning to focus on faces and read expressions. The genre continues to grow as it recognizes the needs and interests of its audience.

As Connie Epstein had predicted in 1985, "No matter how the demographics of population age groups change in the future, however, new respect for infant learning powers seems here to stay. Perhaps fewer baby books will be needed if and when the birthrate levels off once more, but never again will parents, teachers, and librarians want to wait until a child is out of babyhood to start exposing him or her to books" (Epstein 612).

Board Books in Libraries

Board books entered only a handful of libraries in the 1970s, as literacy research findings were initially disseminated and in response to what Clancy called "an avalanche of requests from a new generation of eager mothers." She adds that what were referred to as "cardboard books" were of low status and even lower quality:

Most were of the supermarket variety--short catalogues of familiar objects with mediocre illustrations. A few featured lengthy retellings of fairy tales illustrated with garish photographs of puppets. Board books were simply not considered appropriate library materials (Clancy 34).

With the release of Wells's Max and Ruby books in 1979 and the Oxenbury series and Boynton's first board book in the early 1980s, librarians at last had exceptional titles to satisfy demand. Another handful of progressive libraries added these critically recognized titles to their picture book collections, but issues with the format's quality lingered. Perhaps librarians had not completely embraced the importance of the format to its intended audience, or they considered the books consumer products, reasonably priced enough that parents could purchase copies for home use.

Even into the mid-1980s, prior to the first significant boom in board books, a vast majority of libraries still did not hold even the lauded titles. A 1985 Kirkus review of Tana Hoban's 1, 2, 3 praises the book as a certain draw, "a looking-and-learning knockout," but adds the disclaimer, "Many libraries of course steer clear of board books--and there'd be no place to put a pocket except on the back cover." The review suggests quality issues lingered into the mid-1980s, above and beyond the processing issues, which Clancy echoes,

At first glance, even a rank amateur knows that board books are not made with libraries in mind. There are no blank endpapers, and the glossy pages cannot be rubber stamped. Occasionally the book actually ends on the back cover. Thus, pockets and identifying marks are a real challenge (Clancy 34).

A survey of children's librarians in November 2001 on Prairienet's PUBYAC listserve indicates that a majority of libraries polled began adding board books to their collections in the mid- to late-1980s, as more appropriately developed titles became available and were supported by accepted review sources. A few respondents' libraries began offering board books early in the 1990s, one "in the past five years," and another just started circulating a small collection in 2000.

Currently the libraries surveyed hold an average of just under 600 items. One reported a considerable collection of 2,000 board books, while another circulates 1,560 items. A library that held just 25 items in its board book collection early in 2001 now offers 605 titles.

Demand, often dependent on population demographics, was conclusively high and increasing over the past year. Circulation statistics were not consistently reported, but the figures that were reported point to heavy usage, with roughly more than half the items checked out at any given time. Two respondents claimed their board book circulation rivaled their most popular collections, videos and CD-ROMs.

Board book budgets, while usually indiscernable from a department's picture book budget, are currently between $200 to $500 at libraries that track collection in a separate fund. Respondents estimated they spend 2 to 3 percent of their youth collection budgets on board books. Even considering that the books are less expensive, and generally half of the budget is spent on replacement copies, the disparity seems unusual for such a heavily used collection.

Selection Concerns

While the current board book market is rife with options for selectors, quality and suitability are still significant concerns. Publishers continue to capitalize on the format's popularity, and for every exceptional new book that is released, multiple flawed or objectionable titles are also made available. Though adaptation of picture books has slowed to some extent, publishers are still repackaging and reformatting their top sellers, regardless of their appropriateness to the board book genre.

A call to end this practice resounds from nearly every PUBYAC librarian surveyed. A selection of the wide-ranging commentary on this subject follows:

Intellectual quality of the books is another matter; of particular concern to our department are the picture books intended for older preschoolers that have been put into board book form, but are not suitable for the board book audience. We avoid buying these. Publishers always seem to want to take the easy way out, whether it serves children or not! -Willa Jean Harner, M.L.S., Head, Junior Department, Tiffin-Seneca Public Library

My pet hate is board books which are actually reprinted picture books - or any other bb which are far too wordy for the target audience. -Pam Gravenor, Children's and Young Adults' Librarian, Nelson Public Library, Nelson, New Zealand

You have to really watch out for what you get.  Many publishers have now figured out that board books are a license to print money, and they are re-configuring their picture book holdings in to that format.  An outstanding example of books that should not have been made into board books are the Angelina Mouse titles.  There is way too much text and convoluted story for the board book age reader, yet there they now are, and out of print in the right format.  The publisher should be paddled! -Gayle Richardson, Seattle Public Library

Some publishers understand that board books are a unique format and that artists can create for that format just as they create for the standard picture book format.  Artists probably understand this better than anyone. Helen Oxenbury and Rosemary Wells are examples--they have created new material for each format.  The sooner we start thinking of board books as more than mere adaptations of something in another format the better, in my opinion. And the bottom line is the same old things:  the right book for the child at the right time and of course, the best quality too. -Carol Baughman, Children's and Youth Services Consultant, Kentucky Department for Libraries and Archives

Traditional review sources are used to select board books, but the number of favorable reviews does not provide for the frenetic demand for new board books in libraries. Board book reviews only began making consistent appearances in School Library Journal and Booklist in the past five years. SLJ still identifies board books in the wide-ranging preschool category of its youth fiction reviews, while Booklist typically lists board books within more specific age ranges. In 1997, Kathleen Horning commented in Horn Book Magazine, "Perhaps we have never given true board books much in the way of critical attention. We have probably been a little too quick in the past to write them off as insignificant, unimportant, or ephemeral, not real books, after all. But is there more to true board books than mere form?" (Horning 157-8). Increased attention from these authorities, even if it is negative or reproving, may contribute to weeding the less conscientious publishers from the genre.

One concern is that there are more marks against the books than there are positive evaluative criteria. Selectors and reviewers are oriented toward searching for what to avoid in board books. Busy books and text-heavy books are not suitable to the format and audience. The art may have too much detail for the size. Concept books are often still one-dimensional in form and function. Board books featuring licensed characters, while extremely popular, are usually flat, saccharine, or void of compelling story. Thankfully, there is no established formula for an exceptional board book, but there seems to be a long list of ingredients for what makes a failed board book.

Of particular interest to libraries is the fact that board books must withstand heavy circulation. Flap books, pop-ups, moveable pieces, and other novelties are almost entirely out of the question according to many collection policies, unless they are exceptionally designed to take a beating, as the Spot flap books seem to be. Physically, the books cannot be too small, in spite of the fact that infants love the books that fit nicely in their hands, because they are as easily lost in libraries as they are in patrons' homes. Board book hygiene is another significant concern for libraries, which often have to clean the books between circulations.

Space, an issue at most libraries, is less of a problem with these tiny books, especially since a good portion of the collection will be circulating at any given time. Organization and access, however, often conflict. To make the books accessible to toddlers, order is often sacrificed.

Board book selectors spend their collection time and funds on mending and discards, often merely maintaining the collection rather than developing it. Most board books have short lifespans, surviving through only one print run. Even popular books--ones that are circulating well and gaining a following--may be irreplaceable after they've been fully used. Only the board books that are truly regarded as classics (and some of the best-selling picture book adaptations, interestingly enough) survive going out of print. New editions of these classics may still be revised, though not always for the better, or the print quality may suffer in multiple or massive runs.

In the absence of reviews, selectors may have to buy new titles through bookstore browsing, vendor recommendations, or, sight unseen, from catalogs. Bookmen's Board Books is a catalog source many selectors use, depending on the distributor's selection for an overview of what is available.

Selection Criteria

Librarians and critics alike must remain committed to the highest standards when it comes to these books, for how can we afford for baby's first books to be anything but the very best? -Jeanne Marie Clancy (1989)

A basic checklist for board book selectors, condensed from standards set forth in the research, in review journals, and among the PUBYAC survey respondents, these criteria are geared toward selections for the very youngest audiences, primarily under the age of 12 to 18 months. A degree of complexity of text or vocabulary, depth and detail of illustration or design, and variation in character and format can be added for toddlers between 18 and 36 months.

Board Book Bibliographies

• Must-Haves
  * Boynton, Sandra. Moo, Baa, La La La. Simon & Shuster, 1982, rev. ed. Little Simon, 1995.
  * Brown, Margaret Wise. Goodnight Moon. HarperCollins, 1991.
  * Carle, Eric. The Very Hungry Caterpillar. Philomel, 1994.
  * Cousins, Lucy. Farm Animals. Candlewick, 1999.
  Jack and Jill and Other Nursery Rhymes. Dutton, 1996.
  Pet Animals. Candlewick, 1999.
  * Crews, Donald. Freight Train. Beech Tree, 1996.
  * Degen, Bruce. Jamberry. Harperfestival, 1995.
  * Ernst, Lisa Campbell. Cat's Play. Viking, 2000.
  * Hill, Eric. Where's Spot? Putnam, 1987.
  * Hoban, Tana. Black on White. Greenwillow, 1993.
  Red, Blue, Yellow Shoe. Greenwillow, 1986. rev. ed. Greenwillow, 1994.
  White on Black. Greenwillow, 1993.
  * Hughes, Shirley. Playing. Candlewick, 1997.
  * Martin, Bill, Jr., and Eric Carle (ill.) Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What Do You See? Holt, 1984.
  * Miller, Margaret. Baby Faces. Little Simon, 1998.
  What's on My Head? Little Simon, 1998.
  * Opie, Iona (ed.) and Rosemary Wells (ill.). Humpty Dumpty: And Other Rhymes. Candlewick, 1997.
  Pussycat Pussycat: And Other Rhymes. Candlewick, 1997.
  Wee Willie Winkie: And Other Rhymes. Candlewick, 1997.
  * Oxenbury, Helen. Say Goodnight. Little Simon, 1999.
  Working. Simon & Shuster. 1981.
  * Tafuri, Nancy. Where We Sleep. Greenwillow, 1987.
  * Wellington, Monica. Baby in a Buggy. Dutton, 1995.
  * Wells, Rosemary. Max's First Word. Dial, 1979. rev. ed. Dial, 1998.
  Max's Bedtime. Dial, 1985. rev. ed. Dial, 1998

• "More, More, More"
  * Barton, Byron. Trucks. HarperCollins, 1998.
  * Carle, Eric. The Very Hungry Caterpillar. Philomel, 1994.
  * Ehlert, Lois. Color Zoo. HarperCollins, 1997.
  * Hurd, Thacher. Zoom City. HarperColliins, 1998.
  * Katz, Karen. Where Is Baby’s Belly Button? Little Simon, 2000.
  * Hudson, Cheryl Willis. Good Morning Baby. Cartwheel, 1997.
  * Kitamura, Satoshi. Dog Is Thirsty. Farrar, 1996.
  * Leslie, Amanda. Flappy, Waggy, Wiggly. Dutton, 1999.
  * Marzollo, Jean. Papa Papa. HarperCollins, 2000.
  * Miller, Margaret. Baby Food. Little Simon, 1998.
  * Ormerod, Jan. Rock-A-Baby. Dutton, 1998.
  * Wells, Rosemary. Bingo. Scholastic, 1998.
  Itsy Bitsy Spider. Scholastic, 1998.
  * Williams, Vera B. "More, More, More," Said the Baby: Three Love Stories. Greenwillow, 1990.

• Gems (PUBYAC recommendations)
  * Brown, Margaret Wise. Bumble Bee. HarperCollins, 1999.
  * Cousins, Lucy. Maisy's Colors. Penguin Putnam, 1999.
  * Cowley, Joy. Mrs. Wishy-Washy. Philomel, 1999.
  * Cummings, Pat. My Aunt Came Back. HarperCollins, 1998.
  * Emberley, Rebecca. My Colors/Mis Colores. Little Brown, 2000.
  * Ernst, Lisa Campbell. Bear's Day. Viking, 2000.
  * Fox, Christyan and Diane. Count to Ten, PiggyWiggy. Handprint, 2001.
  * Greenfield, Eloise. Big Friend, Little Friend. Black Butterfly, 1991.
  * Hines, Anna Grossnickle. What Can You Do in the Snow? Greenwillow, 1999.
  * Inkpen, Mick. Wibbly Pig Is Happy. Viking, 2000.
  * MacKinnon, Debbie. Tom's Train. Dial, 1997.
  * McDonnell, Flora. Flora McDonnell's ABC. Candlewick, 2001.
  * Simmons, Jane. Go to Sleep, Daisy. Little Brown, 1999.
  * Staake, Bob. My Little Opposites Book. Little Simon, 2001.
  * Yee, Wong Herbert. Here Come Train Mice! Houghton Mifflin, 2000.
  * Ziefert, Harriet. Daddies Are for Catching Fireflies. Puffin, 1999.

Works Cited

Baughman, Carol. "Board books." E-mail to the author. 26 Nov 2001.

Bruner, Jerome. Actual Minds, Possible Worlds. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press, 1986.

Carlson, Ann D. Early Childhood Literature Sharing Programs in Libraries. Hamden, Connecticut: Library Professional Publications, 1985.

Clancy, Jeanne Marie. "Board Books Come of Age." School Library Journal. July 1989: 34-35.

Corsaro, Julie. "Books for Babies." Book Links. July 1998: 25-30.

Epstein, Connie C. "A Publisher's Perspective." The Horn Book Magazine 61 (Sept/Oct 1985): 610-613.

Feldman, Sari and Robert Needlman. "Take Two Board Books and Call Me in the Morning." School Library Journal. June 1999: 30-33.

Gravenor, Pam. "RE: board books." E-mail to the author. 27 Nov 2001.

Greene, Ellin. Books, Babies and Libraries. Chicago: American Library Association, 1991.

Harner, Willa Jean. "Board books survey." E-mail to the author. 24 Nov 2001.

Horning, Kathleen T. "Board Books Go Boom." The Horn Book Magazine 73 (Mar/Apr 1997): 156-60.

Horning, Kathleen T. From Cover to Cover: Evaluating and Reviewing Children's Books. New York: HarperCollins, 1997.

Knoth, Maeve Visser. "Reading Aloud to Very Young Children." Book Links. July 1998: 22-24.

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Compiled by Brian Conway
for LIS 303LEA
Last updated 5 Dec 2001