Our favorite books for toddlers [2 to 3 years old]

Our favorite books for toddlers are colorful, fun, and meaningful. Overall, they have been helping us grow, both our firstborn and us as parents.

Reading to our daughter has almost always been a part of our family. It has helped us bond while it has also improved my storytelling, as well as her creativity and language skills, among many other things.

As parents, we don’t only want to read funny stories to her. Of course, we want these books to be engaging, but we want them to provide valuable lessons and learning opportunities, as well.

At home, we like to promote a bilingual learning environment because my husband and I are native Spanish speakers. In this regard, the books we choose for our daughter help us to enrich both English and Spanish vocabulary while connecting her with aspects of our culture, even with the smallest things, such as learning about traditional objects seen in our everyday life.

Finding the right selection of books for toddlers is exciting! It’s good to have a little bit of everything and use recommendations from trusted sources but remember: no one knows your child better than you do, so every book collection is unique. If you’re looking for book ideas for someone who is 2 to 3 years old, I rounded up a list of our favorites at the end of this post. If you want to check our selection right away, you can have a look here.

What are the benefits of reading to toddlers?

Reading to Isabel has been an enriching experience for our family. Moreover, it has helped us nurture positive habits both at home and while traveling. We don’t feel comfortable recurring to tablets and smartphones to distract our children. Sure, they’re helpful at times but we try to use them in moderation. Sometimes, when we travel together, it’s handy to have a selection of games and our favorite books.

We also incorporate reading as part of her bedtime routine, as a way to wind down after a long, energetic day. She always looks forward to cuddling up on the bed next to my husband or myself, to discover a new story or remember a favorite one.

Reading together helps us create an atmosphere of familiarity and comfort. Something that attention vampires like mobile devices can’t do by themselves.

Experts have found that reading to toddlers strengthens parent-children bonds while nurturing listening, creativity, problem-solving, and social skills among many others.

How to pick books for toddlers?

To enjoy a toddler book as a parent might seem counterintuitive. However, as parents, we’re responsible for the acting, voices, and all the interactions!

So, beyond the obvious, it’s important that we like books because of their content, their characters, as well as the life lessons they promote.

Of course, we can’t forget that our audience is very challenging. Toddlers will find colorful books with pictures more engaging. Additionally, they’ll feel more attracted by familiar characters and situations: animals, movie characters, objects, etc.

Tips for reading to your toddler

Storytelling is engaging in most settings, but I found some useful tips:

• Smile while reading: a smiling face establishes a powerful connection between you and your children. They’ll feel more compelled to pay attention. Additionally, you’ll feel better, more energetic, and funny voices will come out easier if you’re relaxed
• Read slowly: little children are learning how to pronounce and elaborate complex sentences while they’re hearing the story. Give them the chance to process all the information together by reading at an appropriate pace
• Recite rhymes and sing the songs: if there’s anything more powerful than a story is music! We have a good time singing together, and as our daughter learns the songs, it becomes more enjoyable and engaging
• Name and point to the objects in the book drawings: interactivity is key to keep your toddler engaged. Additionally, pointing the objects and naming them to boost children learning.
• Ask questions: another way to recover Isa’s attention and help her learn is to make questions about the book, the characters, or the drawings. We do it in a playful mood, and it entertains us.
• Translate as you go (bilingual trick!): most of our toddler’s books are in English. She understands a lot of things at this stage but still has trouble with sentences so we make a point to first read a part in English and then translate the idea into Spanish. Luckily, if we forget to do this, she reminds us as she’s eager to learn what each word means.

Our toddlers’ book selection

Reading to our firstborn has been quite an experience, and we’re loving it. We have an extensive selection, but I am sharing below her absolute favorites.

I hope you and your children can enjoy them as much as we do.

Letters A to Z (Canticos) by Susie Jaramillo

A to Z’s can be boring, but Canticos World’s version is among our daughter’s favorites. It’s a great alternative for bilingual kids since it features one word in each language for each letter. Their YouTube Series and Learning hub are also great companions to a bilingual education from the very first years.

Llama Llama – Gram and Grandpa by Anna Dewdney

A short story about visiting grandparents is a great way to recreate a nice and real experience. Moreover, it’s the first time Llama Llama stays away from mom, so it portrays nicely a significant moment for any toddler.

Book of Bible Stories by Tomie dePaola

Spirituality can be a complex topic to talk with a toddler, but Bible stories are a great way to deal with it.

DePaola’s book has beautiful and colorful drawings, along with an appropiate selection of stories for children. We also like that this book sticks to the scripture and is entertaining, without having to divert from the truth.

Waiting is not easy! (An Elephant and Piggie book) by Mo Willems

The relationship between Elephant and Piggie is funny and helps to understand the difference between energetic, and more patient people.

Moreover, learning the value (and difficulties) of waiting is a lifelong lesson for anyone, especially for toddlers!

Oh say can you say dino-saur? (The Cat in the Hat Learning Library) by Bonnie Worth and Steve Haefele

I’m sure that writing books for toddlers is challenging. But writing scientifically accurate ones, with complicated words like dinosaurs’ names is incredible. In this book, complicated words are challenging, but they’re funny too.

As entertaining as colossal monsters of the past can be, this book features good complex vocabulary and concepts. The best part is that it’s presented in a way that toddlers can deal with it, without patronizing or being dull.

She’s got this by Laurie Hernandez and Nina Mata

Persistence and hard work are fundamental values many have learned the hard way. I like this book because it tells this lesson through a relatable story. The pictures are beautiful, and our daughter could easily learn from Zoe (the protagonist) that talent is as important as getting back up after every setback.

It’s big sister time! by Nandini Ahuja and Catalina Echeverri

We probably have known or heard about the relationship changes when a toddler gets a new smaller sibling. This book isn’t only honest, but entertaining. The drawings are beautiful and its life-lesson is completely worthwhile.

¡Te lo regalo! by Gabriela Keselman and Nora Hilb

One of our Spanish-written favorites, ¡Te lo regalo! tells a story about a friend helping another with selfless altruism. It’s inspiring, yet down-to-earth.

Vámonos a… – Lil’ libros series

Before the Pandemic, we traveled quite a bit and we hope to do so in the future. We now travel rarely and traveling during the COVID-19 pandemic has become completely different (if you want to learn more about our experience, I wrote a blog post about it), so these books serve as a great way to escape to exciting locations from our living room.

The “Vámonos” series by Lil’ Libros is bilingual in English and Spanish featuring top Latin American cities. I think it’s a great way to share our traveling enthusiasm with our little ones. Moreover, it helps my daughter to learn more about different cultures, close to our Hispanic heritage.

Chicka Chicka Boom Boom by Bill Martin Jr, John Archambault, and Louis Ehlert

This book is a very simple and colorful way to learn the A to Z. The drawings are colorful and the story is very easy to grasp. Our daughter especially loves repeating the “chicka chicka boom boom” part!

Want to share your favorites?

As our firstborn grows, our littlest one will enjoy many of her big sister’s books and toys. Still, as we all have different personalities, I’m sure that baby Elena will probably have new personal favorites. I’d love to share her initial list once she starts showing a preference.

Share your favorites books for toddlers in the comments, and let me know what do you think!