My Dad's the Coolest by Rosie Smith and Bruce Whatley

Since Father's Day is just around the corner in Australia, I thought I'd look at another one of our favourite Dad books: My Dad's the Coolest.

Maximilian gave this book to his Dad as a Father's Day present last year. I like to give picture books to adults as gifts because it creates a wonderful excuse and opportunity for parent and child to spend some time together. And it's always nice to receive presents that tell you how cool you are!!

Like Some Dads, each page of this book features a different animal Dad and child and simple text about why that Dad is the coolest. I like this book because of the great range of animals it features, from the obvious (brave lion) to the bizarre (funny puffer fish). It is also a great celebration of the father-child bond and of the fun that all different kinds of dads have with their children.

My Dad's the Coolest has plain coloured pages with just a few words of text and facing pages with animal illustrations, again on plain coloured background. This is a really simple book, which is a refreshing change from the really busy, detailed full page illustrations in many picture books. Bruce Whatley's illustrations are terrific, and each picture shines with the love between the dad and child. If you haven't seen this book, it really is worth a look. With only a very small amount of text, My Dad's the Coolest is also suitable for even the youngest baby to enjoy reading with their dad.

If you are keen to get this book as a gift for the cool Dad in your child's world, I have also just found this awesome gift pack which includes the book My Dad's the Coolest in a mini hardback edition and a drink cooler - how cool is that?!? (Thought I'd throw in a dad joke there to finish with!)

Along Came a Bedtime by Ian Whybrow and Guy Parker-Rees

Bear and baby bear are having a bath before bedtime when along comes a cheeky duck. Duck isn't ready for bed and so begins this romp of a story!

Along Came a Bedtime is a playful story featuring lots of fun animals and animal sounds that Maximilian really enjoys. All the favourite animals are here - bear, duck, cat, dog and cow!

The cheerful illustrations are perfect for this fun story - simple and colourful.

This book has great rhythm and rhyme. I love to read it aloud and Maximilian loves to chime in with all the words he knows. There are lots of animal sounds to engage your child throughout the story and I really love the way the baby bear talks in baby language - 'dop' for stop etc. I think this would really engage young children just learning to talk. We also love the repetitive counting : 1, 2, 3, go! Maximilian loves to count on his fingers then shout Go!

A simple but really fun book that we were lucky enough to stumble across at the library. Definitely one we'll add to our home library!

Bug Me! by Jeanette Rowe

For some reason bugs became a bit of a theme when we were preparing Maximilian's nursery space. We have a bug mobile and several bug toys, so when I came across this cloth book while still pregnant, I couldn't resist adding it to our collection.

Bug Me is a very basic book for very young babies. 

Being a cloth book, it is perfect for chewing and sucking! The cover page also has a lovely crinkly texture which makes it attractive for grabbing and scrunching and squeezing.

There is no story in this book - each page simply features a picture of a bug with the word beneath the image eg. caterpillar, ladybird, spider. The images are stylized, cartoon like and very bright and colourful. This would appeal to very young babies limited vision and focus and boost their development. We also use it to sing songs such as Incy Wincy Spider.

This would make a great first book and is definitely suitable from birth. It's appeal lies in its colour and tactile qualities so is probably best for babies up to around 18 months age. We still read Bug Me occasionally and Maximilian still enjoys touching and crinkling the pages - now that Maximilian can say all the bug names in the book, he reads it to me!! We'll hand it over to Walther now so he can start enjoying it too.

Whose Baby Am I? by John Butler

Whose Baby Am I? is a simple and engaging picture book for very young children.

The words are very basic - each baby animal picture is captioned "whose baby am I?" and the following page has an image of the parent animal with the caption "I am x's baby".

The charm of this book lies in the absolutely delightful illustrations of baby animals and their parents. The pictures really are gorgeous and Maximilian loves to touch and stroke them because they look so good!!

Although the words are extremely simple, they can be used as a jumping off point for further discussion with older toddlers. For example, "that's Owl's baby. What noise does owl make?" The back of the book also includes a double page "Can you guess whose baby is whose?" for the child to match up the baby and parent animals and a page which names the baby animals, ie owlet, calf, etc.

We enjoy this book regularly but it probably doesn't have enough content for long lasting value - but is often Maximilian's choice at the moment (at 19 months of age). However, if you enjoy gorgeous illustrations it is definitely worth a look.