The Best Gifts for a New Baby Boy?

The Best Gifts for a New Baby Boy?

The Best Gifts for a New Baby Boy?

By Lee Harrison, Publisher

Sure, you want to buy your new baby boy footballs and baseball gloves. That's normal. That's great. You should do it. But those gifts are really for you. If you really want to make an indelible mark on his life, however, the right answer is PICTURE BOOKS, and lots of them. For other than loving and feeding your boy and giving him shelter, teaching him to love books and to read well are probably the most important things you can do for him. Once he becomes a good reader, all doors are open, and everything else should begin to fall into place. And that's true whether he eventually becomes a teacher, a scientist, an artist, a businessman, a plumber, a cop, or chooses any other line of work entirely.

So, where to begin? Start building him a great picture book library as soon as he comes home. I've placed information on 25 Classic Picture books (plus a lot more) that could be the foundation of his First Library on my web site, http://boysbestbooks.com. This collection is adapted from a list published by the New York Public Library and includes books that were almost certainly read to you along with a bunch of new ones.

I've selected favorites from my childhood Mike Mulligan and His Steam Shovel and The Story of Ferdinand (the bull), and of course Mother Goose along with my son's early favorites: Goodnight Moon, Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day, Make Way for Ducklings, Where the Wild Things Are, and In the Night Kitchen.

But we also read lots of others that aren't on the NYPL list. These included: Russle (about a wayward Racoon who doesn't spell very well), the always endearing Frog and Toad books, The Bremen-town Musicians, and all books by Richard Scarry, Sesame Street, and Dr. Seuss! Do check them out at http://boysbestbooks.com.

Note: some of these are truly what you might call "A Boy's 1st Books," i.e., written for parents and grandparents to read to Pre-Readers, yet some may be for boys a tad older, let's call them Early Readers. You have to use your judgment there. But as soon as your boy can express himself, do ask him questions about the books you read to him: Did he like it? What part did he like best and why? But don't force-feed him! You want him to enjoy listening to you read, and gradually to want to learn to read himself. We did. In fact, our son would carry several picture books to us, drop them at our feet, and say simply: "Read to me."

So make reading his 1st Books fun and interesting and please don't worry or get discouraged if he wants to hear the same ones over and over even if you're bored to death. Hey, the Ivy League admission process is a long way off, and these years go by very quickly.

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