Favorite Books for Baby Showers

This is a comment I posted on the wonderful Nerdy Book Club blog. 

Being quite a bit older than you, Annie, I have favorites I give at baby showers, too. Your list is impressive, indeed. Pat the Bunny by Dorothy Kunhardt, is one of the original "touchy-feely" baby books, copyright 1940. And the plush bunny can be found in stores to accompany the book. It's a bit politically incorrect...dad's scratchy beard, etc., but it is still beloved. But the books I make sure I give to new parents are Brad Meltzer's Heroes for My Son and Heroes for My Daughter. They are one page, often one paragraph, bios of famous people that are Brad's favorites. My daughter tells me that she often tears up during the reading. He also writes biographies of famous people for children. The illustrations of the famous person stays a child throughout the book. My grandloves, 7 & 4, LOVE all of these books. Another GREAT book for babies up to adults, especially if you love dogs, is Ball by Mary Sullivan. The only word in the whole book is "ball" but her hilarious illustrations perfectly show the life of a family's dog. If you have ever had a dog, you laugh at all the things the dog does...his dream sequence is a hoot! The next book she wrote is titled Treat...just as cute! Deborah Underwood's the Quiet Book and The Loud Book are great baby/toddler books, too. Being a former librarian and now a grandparent, I could go on and on and on.