How to Buy Children's Books Which Excite and Educate
Your Child

You enter the book store full of anticipation. You follow the signs eagerly to the children’s section. You stop.

There are rows upon rows of books neatly laid out in front of you. Inspiring, inviting book covers appeal to you from every direction. Your shoulders sag. How on earth are you going to decide which of these appealing children's story books to buy?

We’ve all been there. Choice is wonderful, unless there is too much of it. What you need is a strategy to your book buying. A plan.

The best strategy is to buy children's books which will be entertaining for your child but which will also provide some educational or cultural improvement. Look for interesting content, appealing illustrations, varied vocabulary and predictable language patterns, all of which will entertain your child. Then think about the book length and number of words on each page. Try choosing progressively longer books so that you gradually lengthen your child’s attention span. Choose books with varying subject matter to expose your child to new ideas and experiences. Also be aware of the language style and try selecting books which introduce your child to different types of literature.

Keep reading to find out how, by paying attention to each of these aspects, you can buy children's books which are perfect for your child.

What Makes A Children's Book Entertaining?

First and foremost you need to buy children's books which are entertaining for your child. If your child isn't intrigued or excited by a book they will not be interested in reading it, or in having it read to them. Here are a number of guidelines which can help you buy children's books which are destined to become favorites:

• Interesting Content Children love surprise and excitement so buy children's books which offer both these and engross your child in the story. Look for identifiable characters, a captivating story and an element of intrigue or surprise.

• Appealing Illustrations Children notice the illustrations in a book before they start hearing the story. The pictures provide the first indication of the meaning of the book. While you are reading the words of a picture book, your child will be looking at the pictures and will probably see many little details which you would never notice. In the best picture books the pictures and the words complement eachother, with the illustrations often adding more to the story, and sometimes even saying something totally different from the words.
  

  In some wordless picture books the illustrations are so powerful that no words are needed at all. These books can be very enjoyable whatever your child's age - the youngest are able to 'read' the book all by themselves and the older ones can develop their storytelling skills.

• Varied but Accessible Vocabulary The vast majority of words in the English language are not used commonly in speech. The best way to expose your child to these ‘rare’ words is through reading to her. A children’s book contains more than three times the number of rare words than an adult would generally use talking to a three year old child. And the more your child hears these words, the more likely she is to remember them. This is worth recalling when your child asks you to read the same book for the twentieth time - you may be bored silly but you are helping her to develop a rich vocabulary!

• Predictable Language Patterns Children love books with the three R’s: rhyme, rhythm and repetition. Children love to predict what word comes next and rhyming books help them to do that. They also love the structure provided by rhythm and repetition within the book.
  

  Children's poems are a wonderful way of introducing rhythm and rhyme to your child.

• Large Type Children need to be able to see the words, and the spaces between words, clearly.

• Simple Message A book with a simple message or learning point will leave the child with something to mull over after the book is finished.

Attention Span

When choosing a book for your child, think about how long her attention span is. Buy children's books which lengthen her attention span. The amount of text on the page should increase as your child’s attention span increases. Start with short picture books with only a few words on each page. As your child becomes comfortable with these, choose longer picture books which may have to be read over more than one sitting. Then try short novels, also known as chapter books since they are broken into short chapters. Finally, when your child is ready, you can choose full-length novels, which are over 100 pages.

Consciously try to expand your child’s attention span by introducing her to longer and longer books when you think she is ready. If your four year old avidly listens to long picture books, try a chapter book and see how she gets on. If she enjoys it, read chapter books as well as picture books. My son loved Charlie and the Chocolate Factory when I read it to him at the age of four. The chapters are short enough to provide plenty of stopping opportunities when concentration wavers.

Once your child is reading novels, don’t forget about picture books, however. They still contain great stories and if your child enjoys them, she will still be learning from them. There are some great picture books perfectly suited to older readers.

Subject Matter

Reading books with your child about subjects she knows little or nothing about is a great way of expanding her background knowledge and opening her mind to the complex and vast world out there. Buy children's books about families living in other countries to expose your child to other cultures. Introduce her to how different her childhood could have been. Or try factual or story books about bugs, bats, animals, art, mechanical things or unusual professions, for example.

As well as preparing her for the day when her horizons naturally widen and she has to confront these subjects head-on, diverse background knowledge will also help her directly when she is learning to read. Rather than read every word, fluent readers make predictions about some of the words based on what they know would make sense. This enables them to focus on the meaning of what they are reading, rather than concentrating on reading every individual word. Without any background knowledge on the subject, however, a child finds it difficult to make accurate predictions and so finds it harder to read fluently.

Language Style

Different types of literature have different language styles. Shakespeare doesn’t exactly sound the same as Roald Dahl, but also Roald Dahl is very different from Hans Christian Andersen. Expose your child to different language styles to provide variety in her reading material.

A familiarity with different types of literature will also help her become a fluent reader. If you are familiar with a particular language pattern, it is easier to make predictions while you are reading and so you gain more meaning from what you read. Buy children's books in different language styles so your child becomes familiar with the conventions of different genre.

Finally, remember also that if you live near a good library it isn’t actually necessary to buy children's books in any great quantity. With some books children only need to read them a few times to digest the information from them which they want. Just buy the books which your child comes back to again and again and really loves.

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