First Words: Best Books for 1 Year Olds

Top 15 Best Books for 1-Year-Olds 2023

1. Best Overall Book: First 100 Words by Roger Priddy

Quick Facts

• Age Range: 1 – 3 years
• Number of Pages: 24 pages

Babies are continually working on their vocabulary, and the First 100 Words is a fun way to help them learn about the world around them. It has colorful photographs that illustrate each word, and the real-world examples help babies better understand what each thing means. The categories are things that babies should learn about, like colors, animals, things that go, bath time, and food.

First 100 Words is a padded board book that’s easy for your baby to hold and look through. It doesn’t have flaps, but you can easily make this book interactive for your baby. You can relate each of the pictures to things around your house, and as your baby starts to learn the words, you can ask them to point out each item.

The board book is a little smaller than an adult’s hand, and it forces the pictures to be crowded together, which is overwhelming for some babies—if you expect this to a problem, Baby Touch and Feel Animals by DK is another fun board book that isn’t quite as jam packed.

2. Best Counting Book: The Very Hungry Caterpillar by Eric Carle

Quick Facts

• Age Range: 3 months – 5 years
• Number of Pages: 26 pages

The Very Hungry Caterpillar is a classic story of a caterpillar who spends most of the book eating through various pieces of fruit and other foods until he finally makes a lovely cocoon. Your baby will love sticking their little finger into the holes the caterpillar makes in all of the food, counting along the way. The bright colors and Eric Carle’s iconic collage-style illustrations make this a story you and your baby will love to read together.

We love the board book version of this story because it’s the perfect size for your baby. It’s also much more durable than paper pages. The Very Hungry Caterpillar is a fun way to teach counting if your baby puts their finger in each of the holes. Because of how the pages are cut for the pieces of fruit, toddlers can flip through them too quickly and miss the whole point of counting.

3. Best Lift the Flap Book: Where’s Spot? by Eric Hill

Quick Facts

• Age Range: 1 – 3 years
• Number of Pages: 22 pages

With simple words and sentences, Where’s Spot? is a classic baby book. Spot’s mom, Sally, has lost track of her pup and looks through the whole house to find him. In each place she looks, animals that have no business being in a house (like a bear, hippo, and snake) are hiding instead. Where’s Spot? is a lift-the-flap book, so your little one will not only love seeing all the animals in silly places, but they’ll also delight in lifting the flaps to find them!

This version is a sturdy board book that’s the perfect size for little hands to hold. It’s also more durable than the hardcover or paperback, and your baby will like looking through the book by themselves nearly as much as reading it with you. You can use Where’s Spot? to teach your little one about different animals, and they’ll enjoy the peek-a-book fun. The only problem with flaps, though, is that toddlers to rip them off eventually. The flaps on this book are thick and glued well, but they’re not entirely toddler-proof.

4. Best Premium Book Set: My First Learning Library Box Set

Quick Facts

• Age Range: 1 – 3 years
• Number of Pages: 440 pages

If you need books to fill your baby’s library, then this set makes an excellent educational addition. The My First Learning Library Box Set includes twenty books that teach your baby first words. The books are about babies, people at work, fruit, farm animals & pets, vegetables, flowers, toys, colors, alphabet, shapes, baby objects, sea animals, opposites, things at home, birds, numbers, food, transport, baby animals, and wild animals.

This set of books has photographs of real things to help your baby learn how to identify everything from food to wild animals. We like that the pictures are on a simple white background with the word written below them, so they stand out nicely. The board books are durable, and they’re the perfect size for your baby’s little hands. Some of the words might be unfamiliar to Americans, such as “capsicum” instead of “bell pepper.”

5. Best Cloth Book Set: BabyBibi Color Recognition Soft Books Set

Quick Facts

• Age Range: 3 months+
• Number of Pages: 63 pages

The Baby Bibi Color Recognition cloth books are perfect for one-year-olds because they’re soft and chewable, but they’re also engaging. There are nine cloth books packaged in an easy-to-open (and wrap!) box, so they make the perfect gift. The books come in nine different colors: yellow, orange, red, brown, pink, purple, blue, green, and black and white. Each book features animals, food, or common things you’ll find in that color.

You can use these books to teach about colors, first words, animals, and food. Babies love the crinkle-paper texture found in the books’ front and back pages, and the paper helps to get your baby’s attention. The vibrant colors and cute characters make the books a lot of fun for babies to look through and play with.

Parents will appreciate that these books are washable, too—just rinse them in cold water. The size is small enough that babies can hold them easily, and they fit well in your diaper bag to keep your baby entertained away from home. Some of the colors are harder to distinguish, though. The yellows contain oranges, which can be confusing, and the brown book looks more reddish than brown, but overall, this is an excellent set.

6. Best Lift the Flap Book: Where Is Baby’s Belly Button? by Karen Katz

Quick Facts

• Age Range: 1 – 4 years
• Number of Pages: 14 pages

This lift-the-flap book has Karen Katz’s characteristic folk-art inspired illustrations that are beautiful and engaging. Your baby will love the peek-a-boo game of lifting the flaps in this interactive book. You can use the book to teach your baby how to find their eyes, mouth, feet, hands, and of course, their belly button.

The book asks simple questions and answers with short phrases to help your baby understand. The bright colors are lots of fun to look at, and the board book is sturdy and can stand up to a toddler’s enthusiastic reading. The flaps are on the thinner side, though, so they get bent easily and can get torn, so if you’ve got a particularly destructive baby you should probably choose something more durable like Lamaze Peek-A-Boo Forest.

7. Best Touch and Feel Book: See, Touch, Feel by Roger Priddy

Quick Facts

• Age Range: 3 months – 2 years
• Number of Pages: 16 pages

Babies love to explore the world around them, and See, Touch, Feel by Roger Priddy helps them do that as they read along with you. The book is full of sensory activities like a mirror to look at, a drum to tap, a swirly snail shell to trace, and a fluffy teddy bear tummy to feel.

This large board book has thick pages, so it’s easy for babies to turn them independently. The book uses bright colors and a mix of baby-friendly illustrations and real-life photographs to hold your baby’s attention. Though See, Feel, Touch has lots to look at, it doesn’t have many different textures for your baby to feel. Except for the teddy bear and the mirror, all the other textures are just variations of raised paper.

8. Best Cloth Book: Lamaze Peek-A-Boo Forest

Quick Facts

• Age Range: 6 months +
• Number of Pages: 5 pages

The Lamaze Peek-A-Boo Forest is the perfect, soft book to read to your baby with engaging flaps and cute animals. Unlike most cloth books that typically just have one or two words per page, Peek-A-Boo Forest tells a story with fun rhymes. You can play a game of peek-a-boo with your baby as you read about different animal habitats.

Peek-A-Boo Forest is lightweight and comfortable for your baby to hold and play with on their own. The flaps are crinkly, which is always engaging for babies. Cloth books do get dirty quickly, especially if your baby tends to drool and spit up—if that sounds likely, you may want to consider an interactive board book like this four-book set by Ginger Swift instead.

9. Best Bedtime Book: Kiss Good Night by Amy Hest

Quick Facts

• Age Range: 1 – 5 years
• Number of Pages: 30 pages

Kiss Good Night is all about the bedtime routine. Baby bear Sam is tucked in with his favorite blanket and his stuffed animals. He’s read a book and drunk his milk, but there’s just one thing his mother is forgetting to do before Sam can finally go to sleep. The title says it all, and your little toddler will delight in reading this story again and again. Everything about this book is soothing, from the cozy color palette to the repetition and familiar word choices.

The durable board book version of this sweet story ensures that it’ll hold up to the nightly readings, even if your little one demands you read it five times in a row. Every baby needs a good bedtime story, and this is one that’s sure to become a favorite. Though we love the repetitive sentences that are typical of a bedtime routine, some of them are awkwardly worded. When you’re reading the story out loud, it’s easy to trip over some of the words because of the way the sentences are arranged.

10. Best Lift the Flap Book Set: Four Chunky Lift a Flap Books by Ginger Swift

Quick Facts

• Age Range: 3 months – 5 years
• Number of Pages: 48 pages

If your baby can’t get enough of lift-the-flap books, then this set of four is perfect. It includes Little Green Frog, Little Yellow Bee, Little Red Barn, and Little Blue Boat. All four books teach colors and first words with cute, engaging characters. The books show animals in their natural environments, and your baby will love to find each animal hiding under the flaps! The books are beautifully illustrated with bright colors, and the prose is short and engaging.

These books are chunky board books with thick flaps that are not only easy for baby’s hands to open, but they’re also durable. The flaps are the same type of material as the board book, so unless you have a miniature bodybuilder for a baby, they’re not going to tear them! The illustrations, while beautiful, are a bit busy for babies. Sometimes busier scenes with lots of images can be overwhelming for babies and lose their interest.

11. Best Padded Board Book: Baby Touch and Feel: Animals by DK

Quick Facts

• Age Range: 3 months – 2 years
• Number of Pages: 14 pages

Baby Touch and Feel: Animals is the best baby book for teaching your baby about animals. It has a good mix of familiar and more exotic animals. Your baby can touch the puppy’s soft fur, the kitten’s ball of yarn, or the rabbit’s belly. They can also feel smooth water drops from an elephant’s trunk, the bumpy leg of a starfish, or the soft hair on a chimp.

Pictures of real animals, bright colors, and simple words hold your baby’s attention. We love that it’s a chunky board book with pages thick enough for your baby to turn on their own. The cover is also padded, so it’s comfy for little hands to hold. The textures are fun, but there isn’t much variety. Other than faux fur or bumpy surfaces, there are only shiny areas on the page to feel.

12. Best Animal Sounds Book: Moo, Baa, La La La! by Sandra Boynton

Quick Facts

• Age Range: 3 months – 3 years
• Number of Pages: 14 pages

Moo, Baa, La La La! teaches babies about animal sounds in such a fun way. The illustrations are cartoon-style and will definitely bring a smile to their faces. You can use this book to teach your little one what cows, sheep, pigs, dogs, horses, and ducks say. Singing pigs, though, say, “La, la, la.”

The simple sentences and drawings are perfect for engaging your baby and helping them understand animal sounds. Rhyming words help your baby remember the words, so don’t be surprised if they start reading it back to you! The board book is a comfortable size for baby hands, and the pages are sturdy enough for baby teeth. After the first joke with the singing pigs, the book only has animal sounds, so it might not hold the attention of older toddlers.

13. Best Peek-a-Book: Peek-a WHO? by Nina Laden

Quick Facts

• Age Range: 3 months – 5 years
• Number of Pages: 10 pages

Peek-a-WHO? invites babies and toddlers to guess who’s hiding behind the die-cut hole. The pages show a hint of what’s hiding, like the black and white of a cow, the spooky green of a ghost, or the many different colors and stripes of zoo animals. The colorful illustrations will draw your baby in, and they’ll love the guessing game. What will really delight your baby, though, is when the book ends with the question, “Peek-a-who?” and a mirror. Even your baby is part of the book!

This story’s board book version is more durable than the hardcover, but the pages are still thinner than some of the chunkier books. It also doesn’t have flaps, which can be disappointing for toddlers who are going through a flap phase. Still, this book is lots of fun to read together.

14. Best Eric Carle Book for Babies: The Very Hungry Caterpillar’s ABC Book

Quick Facts

• Age Range: 1 – 3 years
• Number of Pages: 30 pages

The Very Hungry Caterpillar’s ABC Book is the perfect way to teach your baby the alphabet and to recognize animals. The animals and letters are printed in bright colors on a white background, which are easy for babies to see. Along with the twenty-six letters of the alphabet, you’ll find some unusual animals alongside more common ones, such as the vulture for “v” and the Xolo for “X.”

The board book is capable of standing up to lots of page-turning and drooling. It’s a good size, too. Another version of Eric Carle’s alphabet book features uppercase letters, but it’s harder to find as a board book. We wished the ABC Book contained both uppercase and lowercase letters, but unfortunately, they only have the lowercase.

15. Best Truck Book: Pop-Up Peekaboo! Things That Go by DK

Quick Facts

• Age Range: Up to 4 years
• Number of Pages: 12 pages

If your baby or toddler is drawn to anything truck, then they’ll love this simple sensory book. Baby Touch and Feel Trucks has different types of trucks like cement mixers, fire trucks, and a dump truck. Like the Baby Touch and Feel Animals, the trucks are photos on colorful backgrounds to help your baby learn to identify them the next time you’re on the road. Simple words and phrases make this book easy for your baby to understand, though it’s not the most fun to read aloud.

This padded board book has thick pages that are easy for your baby to turn so they can look through the book on their own. Some of the textures in the book are bumpy or have grooves, but the vast majority are simply shiny and sparkly. It’s still a fun book for babies or toddlers who love trucks, but it’s not particularly exciting from a touch-and-feel aspect, so if that’s the sole reason you’re considering the book you may want to look at See, Touch, Feel by Roger Priddy instead.