Nursery Book List

Books are magical tools which can be used to comfort and calm before a rest, educate and teach during a topic time or inspire and fire the imagination ready for creative activities. Therefore, no nursery is complete without a good range of books from soft cloth, board or wipe-clean books for the very young, to early readers for pre-schoolers.

Inspire a Love of Books from an Early Age

Children positively love to have stories read to them, to look at the pictures and when a little older, start to learn to read for themselves. The first stories told to children can stay with them for ever and become much loved favourites, even when they are adults themselves reading to their own children.

Wide Selection of Books Available

Of course there is an endless choice of wonderful books for the 0-5 age group available and any good publisher, local bookstore or library would be happy to give advice as to which books might be popular with younger children; however here are some pointers to building a library:

General Information Books

As nurseries teach children more about the world around them, it is useful to have a selection of general information books available covering such subjects as:

• The Human Body
• Me and My Family
• Children of the World
• Any Dorling-Kindersley ‘cross-section’ or information books
• Different Countries
• The World
• Religions
• Animals, Science and Nature

Topic Books

Most nurseries plan activities around different topics that they might be exploring with the children. Good books for use during these sessions might be:

• Festivals
• Christmas
• Easter
• Seasons and the Weather
• Time
• Transport and Jobs
• Countries
• Food and Farming

Music and Movement Books

A rich way for children to learn and develop new skills is through the medium of music and movement. Words are imprinted using rhymes and actions and the flow of language can be seen to be fun and playful as well as expressive. Books to have on the shelf should include the following:

• Nursery Rhymes
• Action Songs
• Poems
• Chanting Games
• Counting Rhymes
• Clapping Games

Books for Looking

Small children are often fascinated by small things and different worlds and will pour over pictures for some time. What better way, then, to get them really looking at a book, then by making it into a game. Whether teaching kids the shape of letters or how to find information from an illustration, the following books will lead to hours of quiet concentration!

• Alphabet Books
• Counting Books
• Spotting Books – such as Usborne’s 1001 Things to Spot series
• Where’s Wally series
• Eye-Spy series

Children’s Classics

Every parent has their favourite children’s book – ones that they possibly read to their children when they were young, or one which they just think is cleverly written and charmingly illustrated. Good children’s books are too numerous to mention here, but here are a few popular classics:

• Winnie The Witch series by Valerie Thomas
• Horrid Henry series by Francesca Simon
• The Gruffalo by Julia Donaldson
• Giraffes Can’t Dance by Giles Andreae and Guy Parker-Rees
• The Very Hungry Caterpillar – Eric Carle
• Guess How Much I Love You by Sam McBratney
• Owl Babies by Martin Waddell and Patrick Benson
• We’re Going on a Bear Hunt by Michael Rosen

Above all, a child’s early response to and relationship with, books should be a special time. Allow them time to choose books, have time to explore them, handle them and talk about them with you and watch them soak it up!