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Best books for toddlers: The only 22 books you need

Toddlerhood is a time of challenges, but it's also a time of great curiosity—and the perfect time to spark a lifelong love of reading in your little one.

Reading with your toddler not only boosts brain power, but creates a special bond between you and your child that you'll always treasure. Toddlers want nothing more than to learn about the world around them, and books are a great way to introduce them to everything from basic concepts to big emotions.

Here are our picks for the 22 must-haves for every toddler library!

Timeless classics

These classic stories will forever hold a special place in your heart—and your children's.

1. Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What Do You See?

The iconic collage art and melodic, repetitive text make this board book an endearing classic.

Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What Do You See?
$6.09, Amazon

Big feelings

Little toddlers have BIG feelings. These books perfectly capture toddler emotions, while also teaching little ones how to cope with them.

6. The Feelings Book 

Todd Parr's signature vibrant illustrations help toddlers easily identify—and work through—the many big emotions they feel.

The Feelings Book
$5.97, Amazon

Skill builders

Numbers, letters, colors, and more—the toddler years are filled with watching in awe as your little ones learn about the world around them. Here are our favorite books to help them along the way!

12. First 100 Board Box Set 

These chunky board books are perfect for little learners. The clear, bright photo illustrations and basic concepts (word, animals, + numbers) are a great way to build early skills.

First 100 Board Book Box Set
$12.95, Amazon

Ways to say I love you

There's nothing sweeter than watching your toddler learn all the ways to say I love you. These books perfectly capture that sweet sentiment!

16. Guess How Much I Love You? 

Your little one will love to hear how much she's loved while reading this sweet, quiet classic.

Guess How Much I Love You?
$5.49, Amazon

Silly Stories

You'll love to laugh along with your little one through all of these silly stories!

19. The Pout-Pout Fish

The playful rhymes and silly adventures of the pout-pout fish will make your little one—and you!—laugh out loud.

The Pout-Pout Fish
$5.79, Amazon

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We quit screen time completely—and it saved our kids

How much time our kids spend in front of a screen is something we have almost always been “strict" about in our household.

Generally speaking, we're not big TV watchers and our kids don't own tablets or iPads, so limiting screen time for our children (usually around the American Academy of Pediatrics guidelines) has proven to be a reasonable practice for us.

It wasn't until this past summer when I started working from home full time that I found myself stretching an hour to an hour and a half or allowing just one more episode of Pokemon so I could get in a few more emails quietly. (#MomGuilt)

I also realized that I wasn't counting when we passively had the news on in the background as TV time and that we weren't always setting a stellar example for our kids as we tended to use our phones during what should have been family time.

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