That's Not My: what to read next

Books about children’s everyday experiences – shopping, playing, being at the park, trips out, pets, and friends – are a great way for them to start to understand the world around them. Child’s Play’s Wheels at Work series is huge fun and includes Construction, Farm, City and Emergency as themes. They all use flaps to ​‘show and reveal’ language and illustration that describes places and objects.

There are also Nicola Slater’s Hello books with publisher Nosy Crow, which feature charmingly retro illustrations, flaps, tactile pages, and interesting animal characters going to the zoo and the farm.

Elsewhere, Sophy Henn’s Ted series explores bedtime, playtime, teatime, going out, dressing up and storytime with a little boy in an appealing, colourful board book format which has reassuring, comforting tone to it.

Lastly, Who? A Celebration of Babies is a lovely reassuring read to share with little ones; they will enjoy spotting other members of the family such as Dada, Mama, Doggie, Gramma and Grandpa… and even a blankie.

Letters and numbers are standard fare for toddler board books, and it’s never too early to get your little ones familiar with them. Lucy Cousins’ Count With Little Fish takes an appealing little character and explores counting one to ten in an attractive but accessible board book, while 1,2,3 with Goose uses Laura Wall’s popular Goose character to help children to count alongside a simple narrative.

Jannie Ho’s Animal ABC and Vehicles ABC are bright and fun, with some interesting solutions for some of the letters (‘N is for Narwhal’, for instance), guaranteed to expand vocabulary.

Books that help toddlers start to learn colours, seasons, days of the week and so on are hugely popular with little ones, many of whom enjoy repetition, cycles of ​‘what comes next’ and the process of naming and learning ways to make sense of the world.

Elmer’s Weather, Colours and Friends have all recently been reformatted into attractive and sturdy tabbed board books that work very well for little hands, and the text is simple without being dull.

Alternatively, Susan Steggall, the queen of vehicle classification books for toddlers and pre-schoolers, has a lovely Colours book which presents colours via vehicles – perfect for those wheel-obsessed kids.

Finally, being a toddler means that there are LOTS of new things to learn about managing our daily lives.

Jo Lodge’s board books are always brilliant (the Mr Croc series comes highly recommended) and Campbell Books’ Wiggle and Giggle series includes Tiger Tiger, Time to Take a Bath and Giraffe, Giraffe, What Will You Wear Today? Each page has a slot that can be moved to make the animals do things, and onomatopoeic words on each page (such as ​‘Scrub!’) add an extra level of activity.

Whether it’s a ​‘rumble in your bumble’ or a ​‘sprinkle in your tinkle’, Super Pooper and Whizz Kid: Potty Power is a brilliant and fun guide to ​‘what to do when you need to go #1 or #2’. And, Jorg Muhle’s Little Rabbit series includes interactive board books that focus on self care for little ones in just the right way.

Those are some of our ideas – but what about you? What do you love reading?

Let us know by messaging us on social media @BookTrust using the hashtag #WhatToReadAfter