24 Board Books for 1-Year-Olds to Chew, Pat and Point At

Your one-year-old grabs the book, turns it upside down and puts the corner in their mouth. That is reading at this age, and the best books for 1 year olds are made for it. The best board books for 1 year old readers have thick pages, one big picture and a face, flap or texture that rewards a small hand.

Here are 24 of them, each author and first-publication year checked, with easy ways to read them together.

What a 1-year-old does with a book

A 1-year-old looks, grabs, pats, chews and points, and every one of those counts. Around the first birthday, the CDC notes that babies this age like books with things they can feel or flaps they can lift, and it suggests describing the pictures on each page as you read (CDC, 1 year). By 18 months, its milestone list includes looking at a few pages in a book with you and pointing to show you something interesting (CDC, 18 months).

Words grow fast in this year. HealthyChildren.org, the American Academy of Pediatrics parent site, says first words often include the names of familiar people and favorite things, and that most toddlers know at least fifty spoken words by the end of the second year (HealthyChildren.org). A board book gives you a page to name things on, over and over.

Why chewing counts

Zero to Three lists page turning and chewing among the early literacy behaviors of babies and toddlers, next to pointing at pictures of familiar objects (Zero to Three). A chewed corner means your child is exploring the book. Wipe it, hand it back and keep going.

How to choose books for 1 year old, step by step

A good book for a 1-year-old is sturdy, short and built around one thing to see or do per page. Use these steps in a library or a shop.

1. Check the pages. Thick cardboard pages and rounded corners survive mouths, drops and a toddler's first tries at turning a page alone.
2. Look for faces. Babies study faces, so books with clear photos of other babies hold their gaze longer than busy scenes.
3. Count the pictures. One object or animal per page lets you name it and your child find it. A crowded spread gives a 1-year-old nowhere to look.
4. Find something to do. A flap to lift, fur to pat or a hole to peek through turns each page into a short game.
5. Listen for a beat. Rhymes, songs and a repeated line let your child hear the pattern long before they can say it.
6. Mix the types. A basket with faces, flaps, textures, rhymes and one bedtime book has something for every mood.

The part parents get wrong: buying for later

Parents often buy the beautiful picture books their child will love at four. Keep those on a high shelf for now. At one, a book has to survive being a toy, and the pages need to match what your child can do this month.

Best board books for 1 year old: faces and first words

Books with real faces and single objects are the easiest place to start, because your child sees something familiar on every page. These five keep the words short and the pictures clear.

• Global Babies (The Global Fund for Children, 2007). Photographs of babies from around the world, one face after another, made as a board book.
• Baby Faces (Margaret Miller, 1998). Color photographs of babies' facial expressions, one big face per page, for your child to study and copy.
• Peekaboo Morning (Rachel Isadora, 2002). A toddler plays peekaboo with the family from morning on, a game your child already knows.
• Hug (Jez Alborough, 2000). Bobo the little chimp sees other jungle animals hugging and looks for a hug of his own, with almost no words besides "hug".
• Black on White (Tana Hoban, 1993). High-contrast silhouettes of everyday objects, one per page, which the youngest readers can pick out easily.

Lift-the-flap and peekaboo books

Lift-the-flap books turn peekaboo into a page. Your child learns that something hidden is still there, which the CDC lists among the cognitive milestones near age one: looking for things they see you hide.

• Where's Spot? (Eric Hill, 1980). A mother dog searches the house for her puppy, and every flap hides a different animal.
• Dear Zoo (Rod Campbell, 1982). The zoo sends one pet after another in crates with flaps, until the right one arrives.
• Where Is Baby's Belly Button? (Karen Katz, 2000). Lift the flaps to find a baby's eyes, mouth, feet and belly button.
• Peek-a-Who? (Nina Laden, 2000). Die-cut windows and a short rhyme ask who is peeking through.
• Peepo! (Janet and Allan Ahlberg, 1981). A baby's day is seen through a round hole in the page, with a rhyme that ends in "Peepo!" each time.

Touch and feel books and rhymes to sing

Touch-and-feel books let a 1-year-old read with their fingers. Pat the Bunny, published in 1940, is described as the first touch-and-feel children's book (Wikipedia).

• Pat the Bunny (Dorothy Kunhardt, 1940). Your child pats the bunny's fur, feels Daddy's scratchy face and looks in a small mirror.
• That's Not My Puppy (Fiona Watt, illustrated by Rachel Wells, 1999). The first book in Usborne's touchy-feely series: each page has a texture patch and a puppy that is not quite right.
• Fuzzy Fuzzy Fuzzy! (Sandra Boynton, 2003). A touch-and-feel board book full of soft and silly animals.

Rhyme and song books come next. Your child cannot say the words yet, but they hear the beat, bounce to it and start to wait for the line they know.

• Moo, Baa, La La La! (Sandra Boynton, 1982). Animals and the sounds they make, with three singing pigs in the middle.
• Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What Do You See? (Bill Martin Jr., illustrated by Eric Carle, 1967). One question on every page, with a new animal and color each time.
• Each Peach Pear Plum (Janet and Allan Ahlberg, 1978). An I-spy rhyme with nursery-rhyme characters hidden in each picture.
• Jamberry (Bruce Degen, 1983). A boy and a big bear go berry picking in a bouncy, made-up rhyme.
• Where Is the Green Sheep? (Mem Fox, illustrated by Judy Horacek, 2004). Sheep of every kind on every page, and one green sheep to find at the end.
• Baby Beluga (Raffi, illustrated by Ashley Wolff, 1990). The song as an illustrated book, so you can sing it while you turn the pages.

Bedtime books for one year olds

Bedtime books for one year olds should be quiet, short and the same every night. Repetition helps the book become part of the routine.

• Goodnight Moon (Margaret Wise Brown, illustrated by Clement Hurd, 1947). A little rabbit says goodnight to everything in the great green room.
• The Going to Bed Book (Sandra Boynton, 1982). Animals on a boat take a bath, brush their teeth and go to sleep.
• Pajama Time! (Sandra Boynton, 2000). A rhyming pajama party that ends in bed.
• Guess How Much I Love You (Sam McBratney, illustrated by Anita Jeram, 1994). Little Nutbrown Hare and Big Nutbrown Hare try to show how much they love each other.
• I Love You Through and Through (Bernadette Rossetti-Shustak, illustrated by Caroline Jayne Church, 2005). A short rhyme that tells a child they are loved in every mood.

All 24 books at a glance

All 24 picks are here side by side, so you can see which type your basket is missing. If your child is close to two, the books for 2 year olds list is the next step.

Busy books and books for 1 year old boys and girls

Busy books, also called quiet books, are fabric or felt books with buttons, zippers, snaps and shapes to move. For a 1-year-old, choose one with large pieces sewn on firmly and nothing small enough to come off and go into a mouth.

Parents often search for books for a 1 year old boy or a 1 year old girl. The answer is the same list: at this age children of any gender reach for faces, animals, sounds and textures. Follow what your own child points at.

How to read with a 1-year-old

Reading with a 1-year-old is a short game you play many times a day. A few minutes is enough, and you can stop the moment your child crawls away.

Sit your child on your lap or face to face on the floor. Name what is on the page, point to it and wait for your child to look or point back.

Let your child turn the pages, even two at once, and skip any page they want to skip. Read the same favorite as often as they bring it to you. For more on the habit, see how to foster a love for books in toddlers and which read-aloud books for kids sound best out loud.

Reach Out and Read, the only literacy model endorsed by the American Academy of Pediatrics, works through well-child visits so doctors can encourage reading from the earliest years (Reach Out and Read). Ask your pediatrician about it at the next checkup.

A book with your own child in it also catches a 1-year-old's eye. KidTeller turns your child's photo into the illustrated hero of a short, repetitive story for ages 0 to 2, which you can play in your own recorded voice in the app or order as a printed softcover book.

Try itCreate a personalized storybookYour child's name and photo, a story in minutes

If your child loves dinosaurs, try these short dinosaur stories for 1-year-olds at bedtime.

Mistakes that cut story time short

• Reading every word: a 1-year-old follows the pictures. Name one thing per page and move on.
• Taking the book away when it goes in the mouth: chewing is part of how your child explores. Give a board book they can chew.
• Waiting for a calm child: a wriggly child still listens. Read while they play on the floor nearby.
• Keeping books out of reach: a low basket your child can open alone gets used all day.
• Rotating too fast: keep the favorite and swap the others every few weeks.

Your checklist for books for 1 year olds

• Board pages: every book in the basket survives chewing and bending.
• One thing per page: a face, an animal or an object your child can find.
• Something to do: a flap, a texture, a peephole or a rhyme in each book.
• A mix of types: faces, flaps, touch, song and one bedtime book.
• Every day: a few minutes, several times a day, with the same favorites.

When the board books start to feel easy, the books for 3 year olds list shows where the next stage goes.