Simple Ideas with Profound Impact
BFK Book Review: Look Look!
If you’re looking for a great first book for a newborn then look no further than Look, Look! Babies are born with limited vision thus you want to expose them to books with clear, high-contrast images to stimulate and develop their vision.
Name of Book:
Summary of Book:
Look, Look! Children run, fish swim, stars shine . . . all for baby’s eyes to see. This sturdy board book, full of high-contrast black-and-white cut-paper art perfect for staring at, is just the thing for the eyes of the youngest babies. A few words in curving red type on each spread describe the scenes – a car races, a cat stretches, flowers bloom – and extend the book’s age appeal so that it will be fascinating to older babies, too. Striking and stylish, Look Look! is the ideal first board book for babies just beginning to look and learn. Peter Linenthal is an illustrator who has taught art in elementary schools for twenty years. (Summary courtesy of goodreads.com)
Book Category:
Children’s book
Recommended Age Range:
Newborn – 3 months. Note this is a younger age range than is listed by Barnes & Noble. They list the range as 3 months – 3 years. We find this book to be ideal right from birth due to it’s large black & white images and large print in red. We find that older babies & toddlers may have moved on from the simplicity of this book.
Why We Like It:
This book checks off all of our priorities for ideal books for very young babies.
As a reminder, we recommend books that fit the following criteria for newborn – 3 month olds: At this stage the most important thing is to have books with bright, big, contrasting pictures or shapes. They should be simple, only one picture per page, and the picture should have few details. The written information is not as important. Short duration is key here, so the book should have no words, one word, a couplet, or a phrase per page so you can flip through it fast. At this age the visual stimulation is more important than the auditory information.
Given that your priority in the first three months of life is visual stimulation, the large and interesting black & white photos in Look, Look! are ideal. There are limited words on a page and the ideas are very simple which makes it easy to read quickly. The board book also makes it easy to flip through quickly and also stands up to young babies who may be more interested in chewing on the book ;-).
This is also a great book to use for tummy time as the images catch a babies attention and provide a good distraction for baby and encourage baby to lift their head during tummy time as they get older and gain strength.
This is definitely one we think should be in every baby’s library from the start!
