Our Family’s Favorite Children’s Books
We are avid readers in our family and we love passing along the tradition and passion for reading to our child. We easily read at least ten books a day and I’ve seen how intentional quality reading has improved her development, vocabulary, and skills.
Below are some of our favorite books for children, I hope you and your family enjoy these reads! I am an Amazon Associate and purchases using these links earn me a comission. Thank you for supporting me and my family!
Note: I recommend for children 18 months and younger primarily using board books for the longevity of the book!
Board Books
- Little Blue Truck: One of our favorites since the beginning! A simple captivating storyline and illustrations for infants and toddlers with sound words and a simple lesson about caring for others.
- Goodnight Moon: A classic that provides lots of entertainment with contrast images.
- Guess How Much I Love You: We have three copies of this classic (two board books and a picture book)! Simple illustrations with a sweet bedtime story.
- Brown Bear, Brown Bear What Do You See?: Colors, animals, repetition…what more could you ask for!
- Polar Bear, Polar Bear What Did You Hear?: I never knew my special skillset as a parent would include animal sounds and this book is great example of that!
- If Animals Kissed Goodnight: An adorable book that came home with us from the hospital! One of our most read books, we love all of the animals and the loving way they are presented.
- If Animals Said I Love You: Another great book in the series with more new animals to enjoy!
- Snuggle Up, Sleepy Ones: A cute bedtime story with beautiful illustrations of safari animals.
- You’re My Little Cuddle Bug: Reminding our little ones of all the different ways we love them!
- The Very Hungry Caterpillar: A classic with bright colors and counting.
- I Love You Brighter than the Stars: Simple illustrations for a sweet bedtime book.
- Our Little Adventures Story Set: Beautifully illustrated with language concepts that may seemed advanced for little ones but truly encourages development. Don’t be afraid to use “challenging” language, that provides an opportunity to teach!
- Woodland Dance: simple and silly book about woodland animals!
- Thank You, God for Daddy: Show those papas some love with this book and reminders about the impact we have as a parent!
- Thank You, God for Mommy: This one is for the mamas! Your hard work and love doesn’t go unnoticed!
- Baby’s First Bible: couple sentence Bible stories with a handle for kids to carry it around.
- The ABCs of God Loves Me: A-Z words that describe God it is a longer book for times you want to provide longer entertainment.
- Moo, Baa, Fa La La La La: sing along to this farm animal version silly song!
- Snuggle Time Christmas Stories: a bedtime story book with the true meaning of Christmas.
- Jesus Calling for Little Ones: God has something to speak to you through all of life’s moments.
- Don’t Forget to Remember: we love this book so much! Wonderful illustrated with both animals and children in beautiful scenes with things to remember about God!
- Mr. Brown Can Moo! Can You?: lots of fun sounds to make alongside Mr. Brown. I’ve gotten many giggles while reading this book.
- The Tale of Peter Rabbit: a beautiful classic tale that captures every kids attention.
- I Love You Like No Otter: sweet animal puns about love.
- I Prayed for You: a sweet reminder to our little ones that they were wanted and loved before they were born.
- God Gave Us You: another reminder to our littles about being loved and wanted before birth.
- God Takes Care of Me: based on the verses from Psalm 23
- A Cub Story: beautifully illustrated story that shares the world through a bear cubs perspective.
- Along the Riverbank: an educational book about animals that live along the river.
Touch and Feel Board Books
- God Bless You & Good Night: Our first touch and feel book and this one has a delightful story, a wide variety of textures, and great illustrations. Truly a sensory experience for infants and toddlers!
- Old Macdonald Had a Farm Puppet Book: Not exactly a touch and feel book, but a puppet book that is dearly loved. Many car rides and outings have been saved by this book!
- Biscuit’s Pet and Play Farm Animals: A puppy and farm animals, in our house there aren’t many better combos! Different textures to experience and animal sounds.
- Biscuit’s Pet and Play Bedtime: Bedtime touch and feel book with a silly puppy.
- Bible Animals: slightly more subtle textures and only the animal names written in the book but it is great for infants. Could be used for tummy time entertainment.
- The Very Busy Spider’s Forest Friends: slightly more subtle textures and one lift the flap surprise at the end.
- Little Blue Truck’s Valentine: very very subtle texture differences. A sweet story for the holiday about friends and caring for others.
- Noisy Farm: touch and feel spots that also make farm animal sounds!
Lift the Flap Board Books
- Where’s Spot?: A search for Spot the puppy where each flap leads you to another animal. I would recommend waiting until your child is less likely to destroy this book 18 months+.
- The Very Busy Spider’s Forest Friends: only one flap.
- Little Blue Truck’s Valentine: only one page flap.
Noise Books
- Busy Noisy Farm: a farm story with prompts to follow along for each animal sound.
- Oink on the Farm!: facts about farm animals with realistic animal sounds.
- Noisy Farm: facts about farm animals with touch and feel button spots for each animal sound!
Picture Books
I recommend using these mostly 18+ months to avoid rapid destruction or to use with lots of supervision.
- Her First Bible: short rhyming bible stories with simple illustrations. We are just really getting into this one and are enjoying it! Also check out His First Bible for the boy version.
- Baby’s First Book of Prayers: a companion book to the one listed above. This one teaches children they can pray about anything!
- Goodnight Little Blue Truck: a sweet bedtime book in the series.
- I’m Glad for WhatI Have: an important lesson that life is not about buying new things and what you have but about having God and enjoying what He has given you!
- Our God is Bigger Than That: an adorable story involving farm animals and facing their fears with God.
- Baby Animal Stories: we have been loving this book and how it teaches about so many different animals with detailed stories and tons of illustrations. It truly is a treasury book, one that my husband even grew up reading!
- Hello, Little Dreamer: a message and the illustrations certainly encourage anyone to dream big and follow who God created you to be!
- The Shepard : the story of how a lowly Shepard was chosen to be a part of witnessing Jesus in the manager. A reminder that God uses everyone!
- Jesus Loves the Little Children: based on an episode of The Chosen series, it tells of Jesus’ love and kindness to children.
- Going to Sleep on the Farm: beautiful detailed pictures of the farm going to bed!
- The Rainbow Fish: a beautiful lesson about sharing with others and the joy and purpose that brings to life.
- Honeybee: an advanced and detailed book for young children but I find it helpful to introduce more in depth material. Children can learn faster and more than you realize! I also look forward to using this for homeschooling in the future!
- The Good News of Christmas:we adore this book and the message! A great gospel message for children and adults alike. We will be reading this every year during Christmas time but also throughout the year to remind us of the Good News!
This is a decently long list of books (and it really is just a start of all the ones we have read) and I will try to continue to come back regularly and update with some of our new favorite reads! Although we love to grow our home library collection and we think having one is important, don’t forget your library is also a great place to find these and discover more!
Comment and share some of your family’s favorite books below! And thank you for supporting my family with any links you use above!
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