What are your favorite baby books and toys that include dads?

Guest post by Lolo
#I've got a parenting question!#Offbeat Papas#babies#books#toddlers
IMG_4202 (2) So many baby and toddler books and toys seem mama-centric — from the “Nothing’s Okay until Mommy comes home!” genre of books (Are You My Mother?, etc.) to puzzles or toys depicting only mother animals with their babies. I would love to share a more balanced view with my little boys. My toddler loves the Daddy Kisses and Daddy Hugs books, and I have found a few good toys that show male animals with babies, but I would love more options!

Can anyone recommend some great books or toys that depict father and/or male caregivers giving love and support to their children? — Lolo

Guest Post By: Lolo

I'm a mom of a 2-year old boy and a newborn living in Santa Monica, CA.

Comments on What are your favorite baby books and toys that include dads?

  1. My Dad Loves Me is a beautiful book with different animal dad-baby pairs, and a new verb on each page (my dad plays with me, my dad teaches me, my dad kisses me, etc.) We have it in board book format; I don’t know if there’s a hardcover or paperback. In Can’t You Sleep, Little Bear? Little Bear and Big Bear are both male, though no relationship is officially established.

  4. We have “Spot Loves his Dad” – Spot spends a day with dad – and “Daddies are for wild things”, which does have a couple of gender stereotypes in it, but is good fun. And my partner uses it as an excuse to discuss said stereotypes with his boys, so there’s that!

  5. As a former bookseller, my favorite two are “More, More, More, Said the Baby”–which kind of unspecifically includes Dad, but also shows VERY blended families. It’s by Vera Williams.
    The second is “The Daddy Mountain” by Jules Feiffer. It’s a hilarious picture book that shows a child (of unspecified gender) climbing Dad, starting at the bottom, and climbing all the way to the top of his head. SO FUN.

  6. More More More Said the Baby (http://www.amazon.com/More-Said-Baby-Caldecott-Honor/dp/0688147364) has both dads and moms. I loved it as a toddler and still love it today. It is a wonderful picture of love. I also LOVE the Rosemary Wells book Island Light (http://www.amazon.com/Island-Light-Voyage-Bunny-Planet/dp/0803711786/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1376551829&sr=1-1&keywords=island+light+rosemary+wells) which is about…spoilers…baking gingerbread in a lighthouse with the protagonist’s father. Also, no child is too young for the Will Smith song Just the Two of Us (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_WamkRSDeD8).

  7. ROBERT MUNSCH!!

    He’s a genius. Many many many of his books feature fathers. My favourite thing about his books are that they so subtly subversive when it comes to representing fathers in early childhood literature–and a variety of “otherness” as well!

    “David’s Father” is about a little boy who’s father is a giant. The boy says he’s adopted at one point and it’s completely accepted and not even really reacted to. No mother makes an appearance.

    “Something Good” is about a father who takes his three children shopping. The fact that’s the father is there and not the mother isn’t mentioned.

    Robert Munsch has several adopted children and they regularly make appearances as characters in his books. Robert Munsch includes representations of blended families, single-parent families, grandparents, disabled characters, racially diverse families (both whole representations and families that are racially mixed within themselves), and poor people. These all seem basic but a bit if perusing of early childhood literature provides a dearth of these representations, ESPECIALLY in the context where they are NOT the primary focus of the story. I highly recommend!

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