How to Choose & Buy Books for Children

Children's Books are very hard to define and categorize, there is no set genre of books for children to enjoy. From the time immemorial, children have always loved reading books, either in the form of comics, story books, picture books or rhymes books. Books are their best companion and give them knowledge and pleasure of reading as well. Children love to read and get complete information on different aspects of life. Every child spends a lot of time with books in their school and college lives, so books are a very important part of their life. However, the story books, fiction novels and fairy tales have always been a great source of entertainment and education for children. Books help children understand different subjects in a simple and lucid way.

Every child begins his journey into the world of knowledge and wisdom with great books. Starting with the first level nursery rhymes and picture books till the complex problems of intermediate math and science, books provide knowledge to children. Education without books cannot be imagined, hence, books are extremely important for every child. Children books are full of interesting facts, colorful pictures to support the text and this all is presented in a fun way so that kid’s can learn and know about the world. Books always help in giving knowledge and creating awareness among children.

Adventure and Mystery books are very popular among teenagers. The best fantasy books for teenagers have characters which take them to the world of imagination in which they imprison themselves with their magical and wonderful and sumptuous entertaining anecdotes. The story books give us a very wonderful way to teach small and significant life lessons to children. Stories give them the true knowledge of morals and values through forms of imagination. But it is necessary to choose and buy books according to age and knowledge of the child, because children books are designed and written after keeping the age groups of the children in mind.

Select Books According to Age

As a parent, you should help your child to make a wise decision when choosing books for your kids. Children often do not like to be told what book they should read, but it is certainly not advisable to always let the children pick their books on their own. Books often come with an age range and genre, but it is important to keep in mind that the parents know their children best, therefore, they are the best judge and have the right to choose books for their kids.

Books as Per Age

There are different types of books according to the age of the children. Generally, these are called baby books, kids’ books, toddler’s books,  preschooler’s books, primary school books, and secondary school books. Baby books are meant for children in 0 – 2 years of age. Since children of this age are not able to read, that’s why these books contain large images with bright colors. Toddler’s Books are meant for 2 – 3 year old children and these books contain more images and lesser text. This actually is the perfect age to teach kids to start reading and learning. The next category of books is known as preschooler’s books which are meant for kids in the age group of 3 – 5 years. Children of this age are able to read on their own, or with a little help of parents. In these books there are still a little number of images, but a little more of text to read.

Books According to Genres

There are different genres of books which are chosen by the children. Genres can be determined by different techniques, tones, contents and by length. There are different types of children books in the market viz., pictures books, board books, concept books, pattern books, rhymes books, phonics books, number books, and wordless books.

Genres also can have different sub genres. Now according to the sub genre children books can be of myths, fables, legends and fairy tales, fantasy, realistic fiction, school story, non-fiction and biographical story.

In order to raise interest of children in reading books, it is necessary to research and find books for children with a topic that interests him or her very much. As we have discussed above in this article, that children most likely enjoy reading or listening to the stories they can relate to. Books with short stories or a chapter wise story book appeal more to children as they get short breaks throughout the reading. If your child complains that the book is too hard to read, encourage him by reading some of the pages yourself with him. You also can alternate and have him read a page and you read the next one, this way your child will really enjoy his reading and most importantly you can guide him on his pronunciation while reading and also guide them if they gets stuck on any word for its meaning.

However, there are many book stores online and offline where you can go and shop for children books from various reputed publishers and authors. But, I would suggest that it’s better to do some homework before making actual purchase of books, especially for children i.e., search on internet for the best children books, read reviews about them written by others and then make your mind to buy that.

We would like readers to share their valuable comments and experiences whatever they feel while buying books for their children, so that others reading this article may also learn something from you.