Black and White Board Books for Babies
During the first year of your babies life so many changes happen and the baby that you arrived home with rapidly changes into a toddler. In that time one of the best ways to spend some quality time that will have an impact on them later is to share your love of reading. Today we’re sharing some of those very first books that we read together with our children when they were newborn babies. Unlike some of the later books that we shared together and will share in the future with you – these books are less about the story, the rhymes, the words and more about the simple black and white images that are used. So here we go our recommendation of Black and White Board Books Ideal for Sharing with Newborns and Young Babies.
Why Black and White Board Books
When babies are first born they have poor vision, in fact, at the most they can see around 20 – 30cm away from their face and colour recognition isn’t fully developed until they are around 5 months old when they will be seeing the full range of colours that we do.
So during the first month to two months although I spent a lot of time reading to both my kids and it would be anything just so that they got used to reading together and hearing my voice the books that I showed my babies as they lay in my arms or on the floor were mostly black and white.
I bought a couple but most of them I loaned from the library as I know the black and white book phase was relatively short and didn’t want to end up with loads of books.
I’ve included my favourites below, they are linked to Amazon, however, you can check your local library catalogue to see if you can loan them from there as well.
Black and White Board Books Ideal for Sharing with Newborns and Young Babies
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A really good board book to start off with is Spots and Dots in the Art Baby series. Because a baby’s eyesight is so poor initially using patterns is ideal the shapes in this book are easy for them to focus on and you can spend time taking their little fingers and tracing the shapes in the book adding another sensory element on top of your voice and the images.
- Used Book in Good Condition
- Picthall, Chez (Author)
- English (Publication Language)
- 10 Pages – 04/01/2007 (Publication Date) – Cooper Square Publishing Llc (Publisher)
Look Look! by Peter Linenthal has simple contrasting images with faces included like the sun on the front cover above which are great for babies as they will already be familiar with your face shape and expressions. This book is part of a collection Peter has produced and as much as I like animals, outside and objects this one contains a little of it all so if I was going to buy just one of his books it would be this one.
- Sturdy board book, full of high-contrast black-and-white cut-paper art.
- Look, look! Children run, fish swim, stars shine . . . all for baby’s eyes to see.
- Ideal first board book for babies just beginning to look and learn.
- Contains 18 pages and measures 6.37″ x 6.49″.
- Recommended for ages 0 – 3 years.
I really liked this Hello, Animals! board book by Smriti Prasadam it featured 10 animals that you would expect children to know and has lovely high contrast images ideal to share with your baby. Don’t forget as you do it so roar, growl and neigh as this will add to the noises and sounds that your newborn will start to recognise over the coming months.
- Used Book in Good Condition
- Prasadam, Smriti (Author)
- English (Publication Language)
- 10 Pages – 09/07/2010 (Publication Date) – Tiger Tales (Publisher)
This Baby’s Handbook contains 20 popular nursery rhymes accompanied by clear black and white images. For me, this would be my top pick of black and white board books for newborns if I was looking to buy a book instead of loan from the library. It has the rhymes that are fantastic for language development as well as the high contrast images that are great for babies as their vision develops. Plus, if you are anything like me then when the baby arrives you have to search for Rhymes to Sing with your Baby just to find the words to those that you sang as a child.
- Martin, Dayna (Author)
- English (Publication Language)
- 48 Pages – 07/11/2017 (Publication Date) – Engage Books (Publisher)
Another one I enjoy sharing with babies is Hello Ocean Friends by Violet Lemay – probably the Marine Biologist in me. But the images on the pages are really fun to look at and as babies grow you can start to point out more things to them.
- English (Publication Language)
- 20 Pages – 04/01/2015 (Publication Date) – duopress (Publisher)
More Black and White Board Books for Babies
The ones above are ones that I have peeked at and chosen as my favourite however there are many more and these others have come as runners up and are worth keeping your eye out for.
More Ideas, Activities and Advice for your Newborn and Young Baby
Simple Activities to do with your Newborn in the first month as well as what to expect during those first few days at home with your baby.
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Cerys Parker
Cerys is a marine biologist, environmental educator, teacher, mum, and home educator from the UK. She loves getting creative, whether it is with simple and easy crafts and ideas, activities to make learning fun, or delicious recipes that you and your kids can cook together you'll find them all shared here on Rainy Day Mum.