Books | The Best Interactive Books For Children

It's no surprise that we love books in our house. Reading has been such an important aspect of my life and is an activity that the family regularly enjoy together. It's easy to think of books as being just bedtime stories but books have so many other valuable learning and playing aspects beyond just getting a child to sleep at night. Below is a small selection of our favourite interactive books.

*please note this post contains gifted items, all opinions remain unaltered by this. Words and opinions are my own.  Affiliate links maybe used. These may earn me a small commission but the reader will incur no cost. Thank you for supporting my blog.

That's Not My... Series by Fiona Watt

The 'That's Not My...' collection of books have become household favourites. It's practically a rite of passage that every child owns at least one! In our house we have Tiger, Monkey, Fox and Unicorn. The story line is basic, each book contains pages with the same text 'That's not my (animal/vehicle/person) it's (body part) is too (texture)'. Each bold coloured page has an image of the animal and a section of the image contains a textured panel related to the story, for example, That's not Tiger it's teeth are too bumpy contains an image of the tiger and it's teeth have been replaced with a bumpy textured cardboard.

On the surface these books seem basic but they actually offer a wide variety of learning opportunities. Animals, body parts and texture can all be discovered, as well as exploring the concepts of repetition, difference and memory. We love reading these books together as their simple structure gives young readers the opportunity to predict the texture or body part and feel as though they are reading along. These books are so much more than the 'touch and feel' books that they first appear to be. We love them.

Usborne Very First Questions and Answers Lift- The - Flap*

The Usborne My First Questions series are great interactive books for toddlers that are heading towards pre-school age. I thought as Iris got older she would outgrow interactive books but this series is great as it caters to her growing need to learn. Iris is usually very good at doing the essentials like brushing her teeth but now she's beginning to question the arbitrary things she used to follow blindly. Me telling her to clean her teeth is now no longer enough, she wants to understand why and as much as I try to explain she seems to respond better when it's something other than me doing the explaining. Books have always been a great source of knowledge for us and a great way of opening up a conversation. Discussing the things within the book felt more like having fun together rather than me convincing Iris she needs to brush her teeth! It's an entertaining way of being persuasive- I'm looking to order more of the collection to help Iris understand why she needs to eat a balanced diet rather than just snacks! 

*gifted item- Brand Rep for GrizzlyBooks 

Tales From Acorn Wood Lift The Flap by Julia Donaldson and Axel Scheffler

We are big fans of Julia Donaldson in our house so it's no surprise that the Tales From Acorn Wood books feature on our shelves. We tend to avoid reading interactive books at bedtime as they tend to be quite stimulating, we stick to more traditional stories as Iris find them more relaxing. I like that the Tales From Acorn Wood books are also illustrated by Axel Scheffler and so are familiar to the books we read at night. 

We really like that these books have an interesting story line as well as great interactive elements. Iris really enjoys knocking on the door before opening the flap. She's spent plenty of time enjoying these books and if you're looking for the ideal gift for toddlers then you can't go far wrong with a book from this collection. 

Books That Play Music and Sound

Interactive books aren't just about exploring words, pictures and textures. Some of Iris's favourite books

have been musical books. We love the igloo range of nursery rhymes as they often reflected what we were learning in our baby classes. It was lovely to come home and go over the familiar words and tunes and I really think they helped Iris to improve her vocabulary. I think books like this are probably more important than ever now as attending sing-a-long sessions is harder to do at the minute. We also have a great noisy farm book that helped Iris understand different animal sounds, she was mooing like a cow from a very early age! 

Books have given us so much and I could write about this topic for an infinite amount of time. We simply love books and there are so many great offerings out there. The world really is your oyster. These books are just some ideas from our experiences, the most important thing to take from this post aside from the book recommendations  is the myriad of benefits books bring to our children's lives and learning. Just pick up a book and see where it takes you...

What interactive books have been your childrens favourite?

Thanks For Reading,

 Do you love to read? Is there a must have book that you can't wait to share? Why not link your blog review posts up to my Books We've Been Reading blog link up?