Inclusion and play seem to be the watchwords for this roundup. Disabilities are no longer a spotlight feature in doz-ens of board books we combed through, but simply part of the landscape of roaring, rolling, racing, raucous children and child-substitutes, as in Jo Byatt’s wonderful gray raccoon, below. These books include children using cochlear implants, eye shields, prosthetics, wheelchairs, and other helpful tools and devices, but there is joy in absence: the text never points them out or even mentions them. Welcome to the world of children at play. Board books have never been so much fun.

Fiction

BRETT, Jan. The Mermaid. illus. by Jan Brett. 32p. Putnam. May 2024. Board. $9.99. ISBN 9780593695746.
PreS-Gr 2–It’s never too soon to start bringing toddlers and babies into the wondrous details of Brett’s books, so there is much to love about this sturdy 2017 retelling of Goldilocks’s story, now in a board book and therefore a portable, chewable form. The text has not been altered; in the waters just off Okinawa, Kiniro, a mermaid is drawn to a small seashell house. When she enters, she finds a table set for breakfast. She samples each dish, but prefers the smallest one and finishes it. Her puffer fish friend observes all, including her discovery by the octopus family when they return to their home. Vibrant illustrations in shades of turquoise, pink, green, and blue include fantastical border art, perhaps for older siblings to help explore. VERDICT This has always been a book to share, but now it’s ready for little hands. For folktale and fairy-tale shelves, too.

BYATT, Jo. Beach. illus. by Jo Byatt. 12p. (Raccoon Rambles). Child’s Play. Apr. 2024. Board. $6.99. ISBN 9781786288479.
Toddler-K–At the beach, the colors are bright, the water is cold, shells are plentiful, the wind is brisk enough to fly a kite, and for one small gray raccoon, a good rest means a good book and an apple! Byatt brings a small child’s day at the ocean down to basics, and whether onlookers have been to the beach or not, there is plenty to point out and learn about. Tide pools, a sandcastle, and time to go home means packing up. VERDICT Cheerful digital forms and the smiling host show toddlers that a first day waterside needs not be scary; ideal fare for the very young.

BYATT, Jo. City. illus. by Jo Byatt. 12p. (Raccoon Rambles). Child’s Play. Apr. 2024. Board. $6.99. ISBN 9781786288448.
Toddler-K–Like Parkand Beach, this board book uses simple forms to invite toddlers and preschoolers into familiar places, known to them or not yet. This time, the star of the “Raccoon Rambles” series shows them the way through the city. That child jumps in puddles, watches a river of water run down the gutter and into the storm drain, balances on the slippery brick wall, and holds an adult’s hand (at last, an adult in the little raccoon’s world) before crossing the street. At the end, as in all the books, there is a circular map showing the path of the day. VERDICT Those who have the other titles will not need this one, but the little raccoon is winsome and those adventures are so compelling.

BYATT, Jo. Home. illus. by Jo Byatt. 12p. (Raccoon Rambles). Child’s Play. Apr. 2024. Board. $6.99. ISBN 9781786288455.
Toddler-PreS–Like City, this “Raccoon Rambles” board book once again invites toddlers and preschoolers to join the small, gray critter to explore a familiar environment (this time, home) as if part of an exciting expedition. The raccoon never fails in a cheerful exploration of, for example, eating a soft-boiled egg with toast, changing from pajamas to play clothes, “Swish! Swash!” making a painting, reading to animal friends in a tent, or stretching out at bedtime. The use of a circular map at the end reminds onlookers of all the activities they have just witnessed. VERDICT These books charm, and this one is no exception. Purchase all or one by one as budgets allow.

BYATT, Jo. Park. illus. by Jo Byatt. 12p. (Raccoon Rambles). Child’s Play. Apr. 2024. Board. $6.99. ISBN 9781786288462.
Toddler-K–In the “Raccoon Rambles” series, a sweet outing to the park offers six succinct spreads on the gray raccoon’s day. This child needs a park bench for rest after sniffing flowers, enjoying ice cream (manners and “thank you” in place), going on the swing, playing ball, using the slide, and more. The various facial expressions tell caregivers and toddlers whether the mood is cheerful or introspective, for the day has many moments. VERDICT A tidy addition to a winning series, this is a perfect way to put preschoolers into the park before they get there, or to remind them, on rainy days, of a little piece of outdoors.

Let’s Go Home, Baby Shark. illus. by Carolina Búzio. 8p. (Let’s Go Home). Nosy Crow. May 2024. Board. $10.99. ISBN 9798887770543.
Toddler-PreS–“Let’s go home, baby shark” is the book’s opening line. The left side of the spread shows all the things baby shark might see, from a jellyfish to a turtle to some seaweed, while the right side has baby shark itself on an S-shaped simple sliding mechanism that toddlers can use a finger or two to move toward home and family. The next spread features a baby crab and the same structure; what follows is a baby octopus and a baby puffin. The variety of flora, fauna, clouds, or rocks that children can locate will keep them captivated. VERDICT A gentle game of seek-and-find, a few motor skill exercises, but mostly the reward that at the end of a path, home awaits. A very sweet book.

CHEN, Kat. Play with Me. illus. by Lorraine Nam. 24p. (A Playdate Book). Penguin Workshop/Rise X. Apr. 2024. Board. $8.99. ISBN 9780593659717.
PreS-K–A child introduced to “you” as Ellison—no gender provided but with a mop of black hair, kind wide-set eyes, and alabaster skin—waves in onlookers, asking “your name,” and asking if you’d like to join Rabbit and Ellison for a picnic. Cookies are offered: “Which cookie do you want?/ Mmmmm! You picked a good one!” At the end, you help clean up and the day is finished. With the help of a caregiver or educator, it’s easy to imagine children interacting with the “play with me” text and answering the simple queries, as well as taking in the etiquette and the flow of the play date. Nam’s illustrations have the look of cut-paper and felted textures, making this board book as welcoming as a day in the park. VERDICT So much good cheer, in such a small package, this is sure to find a ready audience for story hours or one-on-one.

Five Enormous Dinosaurs. illus. by Annie Kubler & Sarah Dellow. 12p. (Baby Rhyme Time). Child’s Play. Apr. 2024. Board. $6.99. ISBN 9781786287571.
Toddler-PreS–This is the kind of diminishing song structure that children love: “Five enormous dinosaurs letting out a roar! (ROOAAR!) One stomped away . . . an then there were FOUR!” Here, the dinosaurs are preschoolers in colorful costumes, from a navy-blue triceratops to a denim-colored T. rex. The children show a fantastic range of physical characteristics that represent classrooms everywhere: one child uses a prosthetic leg, while the T. rex has one lens of their eyeglasses in use masked with a festive polka-dot shield. The range of skin tones and hair color, too, reflects real-life preschoolers as all five children continue to participate despite the countdown to “NONE!” VERDICT Lapsitters or listeners, no one will be able to resist chiming in, and everyone is going to want one of these costumes. A must.

Little Lion, Where Are You? illus. by Ekaterina Trukhan. 12p. (Baby Faces). Nosy Crow. Jun. 2024. Board. $9.99. ISBN 9798887770390.
PreS-Gr 1–Trukhan can be counted upon to deliver a search-and-find that toddlers will love and even kindergartners will sit still for. Here, a brightly painted little lion on the cover seems to be the one asking, “Little giraffe, Little giraffe, where are you?/ Here I am! Here I am!/ Where are you?” says a giraffe with a blue kerchief. Will children fold down the flap to reveal the mirror to find that they are the ones asking the animals questions and being found? A hippo, a zebra, and that lion finish the game before baby is asked, “where are you?” VERDICT A child-pleaser, worthy of repeat readings, as baby after baby will want to see a familiar face behind the animal’s own smiling one.

LLOYD-JONES, Sally. Strong: Psalm 1. illus. by Jago. 18p. Zonderkidz. Feb. 2024. Board. $12.99. ISBN 9780310151517.
Toddler-K–Lloyd-Jones’s book doesn’t waste any time on an intro: “By a stream is a good place for a little tree to be.” Jago, in a pastoral scene, shows a balding older white man with a fringe of gray hair with a shovel, a dark brown-skinned woman with brown hair in a bun, using a cane, and two slightly lighter brown-skinned children with black hair busily panting a birch with its telltale black-and-white bark. The next spread takes onlookers of the left page to a beach where a Black girl with a black bob and a blond boy with tan skin swing from a palm tree leaning over the water, while on the right is a stand of bamboo and three more children, with just as varying skin tones and hairstyles. The landscapes change, but the tree or “trees” live by water, deciduous or baobab, winter, spring, summer, or fall, and now we come to Psalm 1, where readers are the tree, and the water is God. VERDICT For those who observe, this is a simple and powerful metaphor for the presence of an omniscient and benevolent force, and one that will make children feel safe and loved. Librarians should purchase as needed.

Meet the Friends. 10p. (Monpoké). Scholastic. May 2024. Board. $9.99. ISBN 9781339007793.
PreS-K–Monpoké Island, where the Pokémon friends live, has become the setting for a series of board books. This one hardly makes sense. Die-cut pages, when the book is closed, offer a peek at each one; thumbing through the pages gives onlookers the full name and the general ID: “Here’s Piplup! Piplup is a little blue Pokémon.” Piplup looks like a puffin. Next comes Rowlette, then Dedenne, Gengar, Ludicolo, Pikachu, Mimikyu, and Smeargle. That’s the book. VERDICT Pass. This board book doesn’t even pretend to engage readers or their caregivers.

Pokémon Playtime: A Touch and Feel Adventure.10p. (Monpoké). Scholastic. Feb. 2024. Board. $10.99. ISBN 9781339007786.
Toddler-K–For any parent who has ever thought that Pokémon was too commercial, too cartoony, too much, too everywhere, here comes the soft version of Pikachu and Dedenne, a small rodent Pokémon, against simple, almost toddler-drawn landscapes (straight, green rectangle below, square of blue above). Pikachu finds food and toddlers can touch it; the lemon or berry will be bumpy under small fingers. Dedenne finds a beach ball, and this is puffy and pliable (but sturdy). Eevee finds flowers (these are soft to touch) and Gengar eats the candy it finds so preschoolers get the tactile, crinkly candy wrappers. It’s a short book, but younger children will love having first access to the characters that their older siblings already know and collect. VERDICT Not essential but plenty cute.

SCHERTLE, Alice. Little Blue Truck Feeling Happy: A Touch-and-Feel Book. illus. by John Joseph. 12p. (Little Blue Truck). HarperCollins/Clarion. Mar. 2024. Board. $14.99. ISBN 9780063342705.
Toddler-K–“Little Blue Truck is on the road,/ taking a drive with good friend Toad./ Ride along with Little Blue./ Toad can touch things—/ you can too!” A sheep, pig, duck, black hen, squirrel, and bird keep the truck company, too, in Joseph’s version of Jill McElmurry’s old-fashioned watercolorlike illustrations, which will be completely familiar to fans of the “Little Blue Truck” series. Textures are the topic: feathers for Hen and Duck, fluffy for Sheep, etc. Throughout, Blue’s wide eyes (headlights) look on mutely. VERDICT For fans of the series, this textured treat will provide good vocabulary choices as well as the idea of grouping by touch.

SMITH, Craig. Where’s Wonky Donkey?. illus. by Katz Cowley. 10p. Scholastic/Cartwheel. Mar. 2024. Board. $8.99. ISBN 9781339051062.
Toddler-PreS–A classic search-and-find lift-the-flap comes to life in just about 10 sweet spreads as Dinky Donkey gazes at toddlers, imploring them to help her find her dad, Wonky Donkey. “Is he behind the bush?” The shape is just about as simple as it comes, scalloped edges with the hint that something is behind it. No. It’s a friendly caterpillar, and what onlookers glimpsed was an antennae. More questions follow, and an elephant, hummingbird, and unicorn join the search, providing plenty of opportunities to point and name. The tone never gets desperate or worrisome, and it’s a board book! All comes right in the end. VERDICT A lovely, domestic search with just enough suspense, the flaps may not stand up to heavy circulation but could work for story hours or in supervised settings.

Nonfiction

BEER, Sophie. How to Say Hello. illus. by Sophie Beer. 24p. Hardie Grant/Bright Light. Mar. 2024. Board. $11.99. ISBN 9781760507879.
PreS-Gr 1–Beer distills a common childhood fear down to the basics in this comical and still tender guide. In dynamic illustrations that would be at home in a graphic novel or on a cartoon channel, she shows worried strangers on a train, a working mother (judge by day, good kisses by night), how elbow bumps go a long way toward hello, hugs between an older Black woman and an exuberant pale-skinned child (party hats help here), fist bumps, and more. Disability is presented (a child uses a wheelchair, some participants are visually impaired, a soccer/football player has a visible cochlear implant) in natural settings, and a range of skin colors and family makeups. VERDICT With so many ways to say hello, simply having this book on hand is a great way to get preschoolers talking about how to include everyone.

EVERETT, Elizabeth. Twinkle, Twinkle, Nighttime Sky. illus. by Beatriz Castro. 24p. (Skytime: Bk. 2). Platypus Media. Feb. 2024. Board. $11.96. ISBN 9781958629376.
K-Gr 1–This entry in the “Skytime” series offers an interstellar tour for the smallest lapsitter. Everett set her solid facts to the tune of “Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star,” but failed to nail the rhyme scan: “Twinkle, twinkle, nighttime sky./ What secrets do you hide so high?” Three children roast marshmallows as they sing: a boy with black hair and tan skin, a child using glasses, with brown hair and light skin, and a Black girl in overalls with dark hair with reddish tints. Use the book as a simple guide to the sky and don’t attempt to make this rhythmically flow: “You seem to go on for forever and more./ We invented the telescope to help us explore.” VERDICT This may connect kindergartners to their future selves, and certainly makes sky exploration seem within reach.

FORESTER, J.D. Triceratops. illus. by Sarah Rebar. 10p. (My Tiny Dino Library). Grosset. Mar. 2024. Board. $7.99. ISBN 9780593660348.
Toddler-PreS–This series addition is a straightforward story about a teal-blue triceratops that has three horns, of course, but this is how we teach toddlers to count! “I’m searching for shrubs and plants to eat./ That makes me a ‘herbivore’ because I don’t eat meat!” VERDICT Amiable dino-lore in a tidy die-cut package, this is a bouncy nonfiction book of facts for the very youngest of fans.

MAGSAMEN, Sandra. Love My Selfie!. illus. by Sandra Magsamen. 10p. (A Let’s Play Board Book). Scholastic/Cartwheel. May 2024. Board. $12.99. ISBN 9781339043234.
PreS-Gr 1–In the “Let’s Play” series, children can take that first step toward genuine self-absorption—the selfie, which in this case is a cardboard board book camera with a die-cut “lens” that is really a mirror. Charming parent-child twosomes of animals—blue elephants, lovestruck giraffes surrounded by hearts, plus an orange chick with three little yellow chicks—keep the tone light. Are cameras a thing in most homes? Isn’t a selfie about the phone? This is fun, no matter how it’s cut. VERDICT A play camera, more toy than book, and not essential but certainly harmless.

SONDKER, Juree. Woo Woo Baby: Yoga. illus. by Neil Clark. 22p. Gibbs Smith. Mar. 2024. Board. $14.99. ISBN 9781423665434.
PreS-Gr 1–With companion books Woo Woo Baby: Meditation and Woo Woo Baby: Breathing, or in libraries where baby yoga classes are already part of story hour, here’s a board book to help convince caregivers how much fun it can be! All the critical poses are here, including Tree, Kitty Cat, Five-Pointed Star, and Butterfly, demonstrated by blocky, digitally created children who run from slender to round, alabaster to deep brown in skin color, with ginger hair, tucked-away brown locks, fades, twists, and doggy ears. The text briefly explains the meaning of yoga, or union, to help mind and body come together as well as to be in tune with one’s surroundings. VERDICT It’s a great start for preschoolers up to early elementary children. Even alone, a child could try out the poses with friends.

TEKIELA, Stan. Forest Mamas & Babies. photos by Stan Tekiela. 22p. (Mamas and Babies). Adventure Publications. Mar. 2024. Board. $9.95. ISBN 9781647553579.
PreS-Gr 1–In the “Mamas & Babies” series that includes Lake, Mountain, and Prairie, this one gives toddlers through early elementary children a true life, full-color photographic glimpse of parents and offspring in nine species. Tekeila’s pictures are expressively intended to draw onlookers in, with abundant natural settings—the gray wolf pup seems to have stepped out of a dirt den and into the field of wildflowers. Fox, porcupine (and its porcupette!), white-tailed deer, northern raccoon, cougar and cub, gray squirrel, opossum and joey, black bear, and moose make an appearance, with bright borders amping up the design. VERDICT Toddler’s first National Geographic! This is a no-nonsense guide to the wild, accessible and engaging.

ZOMMER, Yuval. Little Snail’s Book of Bugs. illus. by Yuval Zommer. 24p. Thames & Hudson. Apr. 2024. Board. $9.99. ISBN 9780500653456.
Toddler-K–Despite a light fictional coating, this is terrific nonfiction for lapsitters. In scenes with the look of fine watercolors or vintage seed packets, but more dynamic, Little Snail explores. He glides away, giving lie to the idea that snails are slow—this is a quick tour. He spies the ladybugs fluttering over flowers, the honey bees buzzing around honeycombs, and checks out the flies at a picnic, before finding the ants on the march. Centipedes, crickets, spiders and more—this is a tour of bugs, done so beautifully that there is no ick factor, just appreciation for all the work that goes on in the garden. VERDICT A glorious way to introduce children to bugs; the renderings are realistic enough to teach and the facts each are solid.

Kimberly Olson Fakih is SLJ’s executive editor of reviews.