Average Price: $19.99
Author: Clare Beaton
Age Range: 0-4
Official URL: http://www.barefoot-books.com
Rating:

My son loves books that have a lot of every-day items that he can recognize, especially now that he’s learning to speak and loves having words repeated as he points at items and asks “this?”

“Baby’s First Book” by Clare Beaton is a wonderful book for a baby who likes to look at things, or a young child that is starting to to be curious about words.

CONTENT

The content of this book is suitable for the attention span of a very young child. Short nursery rhymes are followed by illustrations of common every-day objects such as “My summer clothes” and “My toy chest”. The rhymes are a mix of lesser-known rhymes and more popular rhymes such as “Pat a Cake”. Each rhyme has a brief description of the body movements that can accompany the rhyme. Other pages show things that appeal to children such as “Animal noises” or “Animals with big teeth”. Yet other pages picture a panoramic of a scene that appeals to the imagination of a child. My son, who usually takes a while to warm up to a new book, immediately allowed me to read this from front to back, and then wanted to read it again. And again. And again. But without the anxious page-turning that books sometimes cause. Instead he seemed to study each page, asking what each item was and repeating back an approximation of what I had said.

ILLUSTRATIONS/STYLE

The illustrations are all hand-sewn. Yes. Sewn. Each illustration is built with different vintage cloths, patterns, stitches and embellishments such as buttons, beads, or ribbons. It is all rather charming and has the style of arts and crafts. This imaginative style is comforting and appealing to children as it the style is very simple and soft and every illustration is somehow familiar.

BINDING

This book is hardcover and has a textured red “linen” style binding that is visible along the spine of the book and that extends out about an inch or so. The cover is a semi-gloss off-white that shows a variety of the illustrations that you will find inside. This book is of very high quality and will last a long time as long as you don’t have a child that is an intentional page-ripper. While it is not a board book and I wouldn’t leave him to read unsupervised, my little guy was able to sit and turn the pages himself with all of his 18-month-old clumsy roughness and the pages didn’t crease or rip.

One extra thing to note about this book is that the paper used in this book are ancient-forest friendly.

BOTTOM LINE

Clare Beaton and the folks at Barefoot Books are obviously intimately familiar with the rhythms and visuals that appeal to young children. They have managed to create a wonderful volume of gentle images and activities that is suitable for the youngest of babies to the most rambunctious of toddlers. Its homespun simplicity is refreshing in this increasingly complicated world where more and more children’s books are based on “licensed” content from mega-companies, and which use illustrations created with high-end technology. There’s a comforting charm to this book that both I and my son find truly appealing. The title “Baby’s First Book” is simple and accurate but at the same time it drastically understates the widespread appeal of this book. I highly recommend this book to parents, particularly if your child has a hard time sitting still for story time.