No longer the tiny little one that only snuggles in your arms, now your baby has turned a year old, how do we go about choosing suitable Mandarin books for them?

Illustrations

Babies at 1 year old still won’t be able to understand much or read anything by themselves. Parents will still be the one doing all the reading while pointing at the illustration to the baby. Therefore, being able to only ‘read’ the graphic, we will want to find books that have large, clear and colorful illustrations.

Interactive Features

However, at this stage, babies start to show more interaction with the surrounding, they will start to reach out for objects and people around them. Hence, look for books that offer interactive features that encourage the participation of the baby’s five senses.

Some examples are books with Lift-A-flap, holes and textured surface for touch; books with puppet and mirror for visual; crunchy crinkle book or button book with audio for hearing and even books that come with a teether for some mouth movement!

Book Material

Now that they are a little more hands-on and like to takes everything they held into the mouth, I would highly suggest getting a book made of a material that is safe for the mouth and able to withstand a certain amount of saliva and tearing like cloth and fabric book.

Board books that have both cover and all pages printed on thick paper board is also a good choice

Book Content

Although the baby might or might not grasp a little of understanding here and there of the story content as we read to them a dozen of time and when he/she heading to the later part of the year, it is still important for parents to choose a story with suitable content for them.

The story should be easy to understand. We don’t need any exciting storylines or story with a lot of characters, just keep it simple for the baby to remember as we read to them repeatedly. And yes, repetition is a golden factor for early learning. Not only should we read to them the same story once in a while, but it is also great to find a book that contains repetition such as character encountering repetitive events or repeating a particular phrase throughout the story.

Last Updated: 8th May 2020
Image Credit: Unsplash

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