Our 10 favorite children's books (ages 0-5)

When I was pregnant with my daughter I asked my husband to build a small shelf to store a few books in her room. I was picturing something very little and baby sized just to help us with setting up the nursery. But my husband ended up converting my childhood dresser into a very sturdy, large bookshelf, painted to perfectly match our nursery colors. It was pretty awesome.

At first I worried that we wouldn’t have enough books to fill this big bookshelf and it might look unused and out of place in her room. But we purchased a few story books, I brought over some of the books from my childhood that had been in my parent’s attic, and we have received many books as gifts over the last five years. Her bookshelf is literally overflowing with books. And they get a lot of use.

Since we are big lovers of books in this house, I thought I would share with you some of our favorite children’s books. This is in no way an exhaustive list of all of the books we read, but this is the list of books that I find myself reading over and over and over again to my kids, week after week.

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1. Snuggle Puppy – A Love Song by Sandra Boynton

Oh my goodness do my kids love this little book! And it’s one of my favorites too. It’s a sweet little love song from parent to child. This is a board book, but my five year old still loves to read this one.

2. Pajama Time by Sandra Boynton

Apparently we really like this author. This is another board book. Reading this book may involve a little singing, dancing, and a few giggles.

3. Shake a Leg! by Constance Allen

One more board book suggestion for you. This is one of my favorites for sure. It helps kids learn their body parts and involves movement to get the wiggles out. And who doesn’t love a Sesame Street book?

4. Fancy Nancy by Jane O’Connor

Fancy Nancy books are actually a whole series of books that my daughter loves. This is the original book and the first one that we read. If you have a daughter who loves girly stuff, sparkles, dress-up, and accessories, than she will love these books. I love that the books include lots of bigger words (and their meaning) to help improve a child’s budding vocabulary.

5. The New Adventures of Curious George by H. A. Rey

We love Curious George at our house, so this book is perfect. This is a big book with eight Curious George stories in it. I love taking these big books on vacations so we have a story to read every night, but only have to worry about bringing one book.

6. Clifford’s First School Day by Norman Bridwell

Do you remember Clifford the Big Red Dog? I had completely forgotten about these stories until we received this book for one of the kid’s birthdays. Now Clifford is on Netflix, so we can watch the shows too, but we really love reading the silly Clifford stories. (We actually have a slightly different book than the one pictured here, ours is apparently a Kohl’s special that includes a bonus story.)

7. Ladybug Girl and Bingo by David Soman and Jacky Davis

This is another series of books and we have now accumulated several Ladybug Girl books. These are fun books for me to read because they remind me of how the world looks through the eyes of a child. It’s big and everything is an adventure. The little girl in this book can sometimes get a little nervous or frustrated with this big scary world, but Ladybug Girl can tackle anything.

8. Fisher Price Little People – Let’s Go to the Zoo!

This book is an active book to read with the kids. There are flaps to lift and and kids learn about colors, animal sounds, counting, and action words. My kids love reading this book and the similar, Let’s Go to the Farm book.

9. Every Day With God – A Child’s Daily Bible

This was actually mine when I was a kid, so it’s probably hard to find new these days. But my daughter seems to love this book as much as I did. It is a daily children’s devotional that takes children through all of the major stories and concepts in the Bible in one year. There is a prayer for each day and a memory verse for each week. (If you follow me on Instagram, this is the “Bible” that my daughter recently decided she was going to read and underline every day, just like I do with my Bible.)

10. Highlights Magazines

I know, this isn’t really a book, but I couldn’t leave these out! My mother-in-law bought my kids each a subscription to their age group’s Highlights Magazines last year and they have loved them. They get so excited to get mail with their own name on it and they love the stories and activities in the magazines. My son gets the Hello Magazine for ages 0-2. These are small little square magazines with very durable pages. They don’t get ripped or destroyed by chewing, and they aren’t going to give paper cuts to small hands. They have short stories, poems, and a picture search, perfect for short attention spans and young brains.

My daughter gets the High Five magazine geared for ages 2-6. This is a normal magazine style publication (not the sturdy style for the Hello magazine). It comes with several stories to read, puzzles, recipes, and other activities. The kids love to look at their magazines even without a parent available to read them.

Our 10 favorite children’s books (ages 0-5)