The Best Books You’ll Love Reading With Your Kids

Joy Manning

If you’re looking for good preschool books that encourage kids to “read ” and interact with the book, you are in the right place. I love books that have simple, repetitive, and predictable phrases that kids can repeat, fill in the blank, and get kids excited to read.

I also love books that you can use with an adaptive device for kids that are not speaking so that they can help “read” the book too. Whether you’re pictures, a button, an iPad, or other device, giving kids access to be able to read and participate in interacting with the book is important.

So, here we go. Here is a list of some of my favorite books for preschoolers. I may add more themes later as well.

Books With Movement

This is a very interactive book with lots of good movement. Great for body awareness.

Vocabulary in this book: walking, dancing, leapfrog, singing, sleeping, tickling, pig, dog, loon, sheep

This is an interactive book that’s silly and fun.

This is one of the first books I remember my daughter doing all the actions to when she was little. Eric Carle has such great books.

This is a book that kids can have fun and be silly with. There are a lot of nonsense words as you find different ways to wokka-wokka.

Books About Animals

The first time I saw this book was when it was being used with an augmentative device. It has great repetition so that kids can participate. Themes: animals, adjectives

Little Blue Truck is one of my favorites. I love the rhyming, the themes, and the pictures. Themes: animals, friendship

I love using this book in class, even though I don’t love the pictures. It has predictable phrases that the kids can easily say, and goes through different animals and how you would greet them.

Lots of repetitive phrases that kids can predict. Talks about a granny, child, dog, cat, mouse, and flea.

I love to sing this book. It’s fun to read it to a tune and act it all out with kids.

Books About Colors & Shapes

A book about a camouflage lizard. Kids love finding the hidden lizard in the book.

This is a classic book. Kids just love this book, it’s a book that kids can memorize easily and read on their own. The main vocabulary are animals and colors.

Shape monster, shape monster, munch, munch, munch. How about a…triangle…for your lunch. This same phrase repeats for each shape. Makes for a great activity. I found this version on Teachers Pay Teachers. It does more than the basic shapes, it goes over some 3D shapes.

This book has a lot of words in it, so a lot of times I just make up my own words, especially if I’m working with kids who are just beginning to talk. I like to talk about all the food and colors and then to have an activity where the kids can make their own rainbow stew.

This is a cute book about what friends do to help each other. Themes: friendship, shapes

Books About Body & Clothes

I love to use this book for Halloween, and really any other time of year. Kids love to “read” this book and yell “go away!” Themes: body parts, colors

Great for themes about colors or clothes. Simple phrases kids can repeat. Blue hat, green hat, red hat…Oops! The turkey is always doing silly things that kids love.

Lots of repetition in this book as Froggy has to get dressed and undressed several times because he keeps missing something. I love using my felt set for this book.

This book would be good for clothes as well as community helpers or people in our community. Each pair of clothes has a riddle to help figure out who they belong to.

In this book we learn about our bodies and our 5 senses

Books About Holidays

There are so many versions now days of the old lady who swallowed…everything. This one is for Valentine’s day, but you can find one for halloween, Christmas, thanksgiving, etc.

I like to use this book for Easter time. It has catchy rhyming phrases and is fun to read.

A fun halloween book about friendship. Repetitive words that make it fun to read. Themes: halloween, friends, animals, objects

This is a lift-the-flap book. Each page has a rhyme and an animal dressed up behind a mask. The repetitive phrase says something like “under the mask, who do you see?” “Oink says the pig, it’s me, it’s me”

A silly book about turkeys falling down. Fun for thanksgiving. Themes: Thanksgiving, actions, counting

I like to use this book around Thanksgiving. It talks about so many things we can be thankful for.

My daughter received this book for Christmas last year, and it is just a sweet book.

I love using this as my Christmas book theme. It’s fun to wrap and unwrap presents as we read this book. Themes: Christmas, objects, adjectives

Books About Emotions

I love the Todd Parr books. They’re simple, colorful and fun. Theme: feelings and emotions

I like this book, but it definitely is more wordy than I usually use for younger kids. It goes through all kinds of different emotions.

If you can’t tell, I love Sandra Boynton books. This one has cute animals and lots of different emotions.

I like how Mr. Panda asks all his friends how they feel, and they not only say how they feel, but why they feel that way.

This book does a good job at explaining feelings and things that you may end up doing when you are feeling those emotions.