Seeing as I don’t have any knowledge of what goes in a baby’s library past my personal favorites, OH, THE PLACES YOU’LL GO and HORTON HEARS A WHO by Dr. Seuss, I thought I’d enlist your help in completing this little project of mine. 

So what are the must -have books that should be included in every child’s first library? To start off, I took a poll around the office and this is what everyone had to say:

Jane suggested BROWN BEAR, BROWN BEAR, WHAT DO YOU SEE?­­­ by Bill Martin and Eric Carle, and Jessica seconded that and added GOODNIGHT GORILLA by Peggy Rathmann.

Miriam and Michael both went with Dr. Seuss and Miriam suggested a couple more titles: THE VERY HUNGRY CATERPILLAR by Eric Carle and GUESS HOW MUCH I LOVE YOU by Sam McBratney.

Stacey’s daughters have loved TAP THE MAGIC TREE and TOUCH THE BRIGHTEST STAR by our very own Christie Matheson.

Jim’s go-to baby gift is Lane Smith’s IT’S A BOOK and IT’S A LITTLE BOOK.

Lauren suggested the hilarious classic ALEXANDER AND THE TERRIBLE, HORRIBLE, NO GOOD, VERY BAD DAY, and Lisa Brown’s amazing mommy gifts BABY MIX ME A DRINK, BABY MAKE ME BREAKFAST, BABY DO MY BAKING, and other entertaining titles in the Baby Be of Use series. 

As well as the classics- Sendak, Carle, McCloskey, Rosemary Wells, etc., John also enjoys ALL THE WORLD by Liz Scanlon, which is enjoyable for both parent and child. He also made a good suggestion about getting board books, so babies can play and chew on them!

 Eric added MADELINE by Ludwig Bemelmans to the list, and Mike  and Sharon love THE LITTLE ENGINE THAT COULD, GO DOG GO, and the Llama, Llama series.

Amy went with GOODNIGHT MOON by Margaret Wise Brown and Erin suggested the amazing classic, WHERE THE WILD THINGS ARE by Maurice Sendak.

Thanks to my wonderful DGLMians , I am off to pretty good start!  Are there any other titles you would like to add?

They’re not all new books, and they are wide-ranging in their categories. There really is something for everyone, even those of you who have small children will find Goodnight, Goodnight, Construction Site on the list! And read the descriptions by the staff at The Atlantic. They are quite entertaining.

How many of these have you read? And which books are you putting on your to-read list? I haven’t read nearly enough, but I will share a couple of my favorite books that I read last year. I thoroughly enjoyed The Husband’s Secret by Liane Moriarty in the commercial fiction department (with thanks to the lovely Amy Einhorn, who gave me a copy at our lunch date), and I was completely mesmerized by Susannah Cahalan’s memoir Brain on Fire on the nonfiction side. There are so many wonderful books published every year, and I look forward to reading as many as I can in the year to come!

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Just in time for the holidays, new staff recommendations from us here at DGLM to add to your shopping or wish lists!  Check ’em out!