Skip to main content

Five Faves: Books to Celebrate a New Baby

Image
By
It may come as no surprise to you that librarians love to give books as gifts. Whenever I know of friends or family getting ready to welcome a new baby to their family, I am always very excited to gift them a book for reading. Bonding with babies over books is one of my favorite joys. Here are five of my favorite books for celebrating a new arrival.

If I Could
Written by Matt Zurbo
Illustrated by Patrice Barton
New York: Roaring Brook Press, 2025. Picture Book.

The combination of the artwork and the touching words represent to me everything good about a parent/child relationship. There is so much hope and possibility and the potential for joy around every corner. This book brought tears to my eyes, and I plan to find a special reason to gift it to my adult children to let them know that this is still how I feel about them.

For a Girl Becoming
Written by Joy Harjo
Illustrated by Adriana Garcia
New York: Norton Young Readers, an imprint of W.W. Norton & Company, 2025. Picture Book.

My favorite part about this book was the connection between a new baby and the ancestors who came before her. The illustrator does a fabulous joy weaving the past and present together. I also appreciated the focus on the connection the human family has with nature, and the desire the family has to infuse their child taking good care of the earth. The book left me pondering on the beautiful connections families can make with each other, and how that is a lasting gift through multiple generations.

I'm Like a Tree and a Tree's Like Me
Written by Sylvaine Jaoui
Illustrated by Anne Crahay
New York: Enchanted Lion Books, 2025. Picture Book.

This book also has a solid message about the joy of nature and how that ties in to the gift of human life. A reader learns about things that both humans and plants need to survive and thrive. Before the end of the book, the author and illustrator chose to include beautiful illustrations that show a variety of children with different trees and it includes languages people speak in addition to English. It was very well done!

Everywhere You Are
Written by Victoria Monet
Illustrated by Alea Marley
New York: G.P. Putnam's Sons, 2025. Picture Book.

This is a beautiful rhyming book that I am sure will become a repeat read for many families with littles. Even before kids are old enough to understand what separation anxiety is, they will appreciate the lovely illustrations and comfort this book offers. 

The Baby Who Stayed Awake Forever
By Sandra Salsbury
New York: Doubleday Books for Young Readers, 2025. Picture Book.

Warm and fuzzy books have their place for gifting new parents. Sometimes a humorous book is also a great recommendation, which is why I picked this book as my final choice. I laughed so hard when I read it. New babies are such a gift and treasure, and they are exhausting. This book talks in a relatable way about the joy and struggle of nighttime routines. On some of my sleepless nights when my kids were babies, I think this book could have helped me have a laugh instead of a cry. 








Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Review: A Strange Thing Happened in Cherry Hall

By
A Strange Thing Happened in Cherry Hall By Jasmine Warga New York: Harper, 2024. Fiction. 211 pages. A painting has been stolen from the Penelope L. Brooks Museum and sixth-grader Rami Ahmed is worried he's the main suspect. His mother works at the museum as the lead custodian and Rami spends a lot of time hanging out at the museum while she works. On the day the painting went missing, the only people there were the security guard Ed, the cleaning crew, and Rami. Then, a mysterious girl appears in the museum. She floats around from room to room and only Rami can see her -- and she looks exactly like the girl from the missing painting. To prove his innocence and help figure out who the floating girl is, Rami partners up with an aspiring sleuth at school named Veda and the two dive into unexpected situations as they try to solve the mystery. This is a cozy mystery that is focused mostly on characters and ambiance and only a little on the mystery itself. Don't read this book if yo...
Post a Comment
Read more

Review: The Factory

By
The Factory By Catherine Egan New York, NY : Scholastic Inc., 2025. Fiction. 306 pages.  Thirteen-year-old Asher Doyle has been invited to join the Factory, a secretive research facility in the desert which ostensibly extracts renewable energy from the electromagnetic fields of its young recruits. But Asher soon realizes something sinister is going on. Kids are getting sick. The adults who run the Factory seem to be keeping secrets. And the extraction process is not only painful and exhausting, but existentially troubling. Asher makes a handful of new friends who help him with an investigation that turns into a resistance, which turns into...a cliffhanger! The Factory is a page-turning sci-fi with multidimensional characters, an intriguing plot, and refreshingly straight-forward writing. Egan weaves in detail about climate crises and social unrest, making the story's dystopian setting feel rich and plausible. With its sophisticated themes and accessible storytelling, I would recomm...
Post a Comment
Read more

Review: The Amazing Generation

By
The Amazing Generation: Your Guide to Fun and Freedom in a Screen-Filled World Written by Jonathan Haidt and Catherine Price  Illustrated by Cynthia Yuan Cheng New York: Rocky Pond Books, 2025. Informational. 226 pages.  In a kid-friendly adaptation of his best-selling book, The Anxious Generation , Jonathan Haidt teams up with Catherine Price, author of How to Break Up With Your Phone , to bring the power of good information directly to the hands of those that this issue affects most directly — kids on the cusp of getting their own smartphones. The book presents information about the drawbacks of having a smartphone and social media too soon in clear and easy-to-understand language, with eye-catching graphics and pop-outs. Throughout the book, quotes from real teens and young adults, called screen "rebels" by the authors, emphasize the points the authors are trying to make. Fictional characters are featured throughout in a graphic novel story, which further emphasizes the po...
Post a Comment
Read more