I Love You Through and Through is a cute book with adorable illustrations. It rhymes and I think my kiddos liked hearing a book entirely focused on how much I love them.

The Belly Button Book: Pretty much anything by this author is excellent. The book has rhymes, a cute little song to sing, and hippos. We also get a kick out of the focus on belly buttons.

I’m a Dirty Dinosaur: If you have boys (and maybe girls too), then you probably have struggled with getting them clean. This book is really cute and there’s a lot of repetitive parts that let the kids “read” along.

Don’t Let the Pigeon Stay Up Late: Like all of the pigeon books, these are cute and pigeon is always doing naughty things. The kids can fill in the “noooooo…” parts which is fun for them. So you’ll read pigeon’s line, “Can I get a drink of water before bed?” and the kids say “Noooooo….” My kids absolutely adore this and I think it’s fun because this is exactly our routine every night before THEY go to bed.

How Do Dinosaurs Love Their Dogs?: I love all of the dinosaur books. They’re cute and they have lessons within the book. They talk about the things you DON’T do to your dog and the things you SHOULD do for your dog. I find this particularly useful at this age because the boys still had pretty bad boundaries with our dogs. It’s nice to have a book that reinforces the proper way to treat pets. Of course, we do a lot of talking outside of reading about how to treat the dogs which I talk a bit about that in my post, Introducing Your Dog to a New Baby.

The Very Hungry Caterpillar: This is a book that the kids love due to the bright illustrations and it’s also easy for them to “read.” This is great for preparing them to read later on. If you LOVE this book, make sure to check out the Hungry Caterpillar Baby Costume that I made that’s perfect for a baby in a sling carrier (for the cocoon)!

The Little Blue Truck: This has trucks and animals, including lots of animal sounds. It rhymes too. My boys love all of the Little Blue Truck books. They all have a little lesson in them.

Five Little Monkeys: My kids think these books (there’s a couple) are hysterical. They’re very repetitive which again- good for early reading skills and fun for the kids to “read along.” I have been making my own audiobooks of our favorite books for the kids for a while and I actually have a recording of my mom reading this book- which is sort of hilarious because she keeps pausing with commentary about how awful the 5 little monkeys’ mom is. Honestly… in terms of bad parenting… mama monkey in these books sleeps through her kids baking a cake and starting an oven fire and the firefighters coming (in a different book) so there’s that.

Bear with Me: A friend bought my son this book when he was about to be a big brother. This is a great book about becoming a big brother and would probably work with adoption or foster care too. It talks about a little boy who is frustrated about the bad things about having a new brother, then realizes there’s a lot of good things too.

Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What Do You See?: Another favorite book with lots of fun illustrations. The mix of colors in these Eric Carle books are just neat. My kids love them because they’re repetitive and I usually make animal noises to go along for each page. They like to help read.

Counting Little Geckos: This is a cute book that rhymes and works on counting. Also, there’s geckos and they’re adorable.

Dinosaur Roar!: Super cute book that I got at a yard sale. It rhymes and it’s all about opposites so that’s great for young kids.

I Love You, Stinky Face: It’s a cute book with a little boy asking his mama a lot of “but mama would you love me IF’s.”

Thank You Prayer: Definitely a cute book if you want to work in a short prayer that’s easy for the kids to understand. We do longer prayers now, but for a while this was a really great alternative because I know the wiggle factor on boys can sometimes make it difficult to get through longer prayers. Plus it has illustrations to go along with the prayers.

Work, Dogs, Work: I love these books. The kids love to find the cat hiding in most of the illustrations and it is alllll about trucks.

Little Duck Finger Puppet Book: This one is a super short book with a small finger puppet inside. My kids loved kissing the duck and it's a fun one that they love listening to over and over.

Where Do Diggers Sleep at Night?: This super cute book rhymes and has all sorts of cute diggers and trucks in it.

My Truck is Stuck: Cute book that rhymes and has a number of vehicles trying to help get the truck out of a hole.

No Probllama! There's llamas! They're doing silly things. So it's fun.

Hippos Go Berserk: LOVE this book. There's hippos and counting.

The last favorite books are the ones I made for them with photos of their favorite toys and people. These are well loved and it's a fun way to help them learn words. They can see and recognize everything and everyone in the photos!