Must Have Books for Toddlers - If You Give Books by Laura Numeroff, Illustrated by Felicia Bond

These books are an absolute must for toddlers because they are so darn cute. When Ricky was just a baby, I took my bookstore gift card and bought all the Laura Numeroff books - If You Give a Mouse a Cookie, If You Give a Moose a Muffin, If You Give a Pig a Pancake, and If You Take a Mouse to School. We read them all the time - and he never gets tired of them.

All the books follow the same formula - one thing leads to another. Full of consequences and utter chaos but lots of fun. Felicia's Bond's illustrations are really cute and they trigger lots of vocabulary expansion since the illustrations are pretty detailed. There are lots of things to name.

Trouble At the Dinosaur Cafe by Brian Moses, Illustrated by Garry Parsons

An angry T-Rex comes into the happy Dinosaur Cafe and decides that he wants to eat the other dinosaurs. But Terry Triceratops saves the day!! This book is hilarious and reminds me of a western shoot-out. The illustrations are amazing and your child will ask to read this book again and again. I am a firm believer that illustrations need to be just as strong as the story in picture books in order to grab and sustain your child's attention. I think this book will be good for demonstrating sequencing when the time comes for Ricky. If your child is working with Sequencing activities in pre-school or kindergarten, this story has good examples of cause/effect relationships. If your child likes dinosaurs, add this book to your list!