Board Books for Toddlers—and Grownups Too

I had the great and joyful privilege of spending ten days earlier this year with my little granddaughter, who was not yet two at the time. She has figured out how a book works.

You open it up. You turn the pages. You talk to the book. Sometimes you prop it up and look over the edge, so you can keep a sharp eye on what might be going on beyond its covers. Maybe that’s just in case something important gets away. When you are all done, turning and talking in both directions, you close the book and hand it to a grownup and demand that this person read it to you. Ideally several times over.

One hot favorite was moi moi: Look at Me! by Jun Ichihara, edited by Kazuo Hiraki. That is to say, Dr. Kazuo Hiraki, who oversees the Hiraki Lab for baby studies at the University of Tokyo, where he measures babies’ eye motion and brain activity to assess their development and self-awareness. He has coauthored four Moimoi series books in Japan. You can see an image of the Japanese edition on illustrator Jun Ichihara’s web site.

Four? I can’t wait to see the other three, only one of which I know is due out in an English translation next year.

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