Sandra Boynton

Our collection of Sandra Boynton books

While I spend a lot of time reading for my own enjoyment, I also spend a significant amount of time reading to my daughter. Out of all the children's books we own and have borrowed from our local library, the books she loves the most are all written by Sandra Boynton. I'm not sure exactly why she likes them as she is not old enough to communicate anything beyond "mama" and "dada", though her smiles and giggles of delight when I start to read Boynton's books, communicate her love for them well enough. My daughter's favorite book is "Snuggle Puppy", which is a love song from a parent to their child and has become one of my favorite children's books too.

My daughter turning the pages of "Snuggle Puppy" as I read it to her

As a parent, I am glad my daughter shares my love for reading and has excellent taste in books. Boynton's books are colorful, oftentimes silly, and have great messages in them. Many of Boynton’s books talk about daily routines like getting ready for bed and talk about healthy routines like brushing teeth and taking baths. I find myself often quoting lines from the books as I help my daughter through our nightly routine of brushing our teeth and putting on pajamas.

I also like how all of the characters in Boynton’s books are either animals are dinosaurs. It helps teach about inclusiveness in a subtle way and provides a good opportunity for me to be silly and teach and make animal sounds.

I love that a good portion of them have songs to go with them or have song versions of them. The songs are usually as silly as the books, but a good handful of them are catchy and pretty good. I will often rotate between singing the books to my daughter and reading them. Of course, her favorite song is also Snuggle Puppy and works wonders in calming her down if she is distraught.

If you have a child in your life that you buy books for or read books with I highly recommend any one of Sandra Boynton’s books. I have no doubt that they will love her books as much as my kiddo loves them.