Our annual Best Books for Babies list is created to encourage parents and caregivers to read aloud to their babies. It’s also meant to motivate authors, illustrators, and publishers to produce even more quality materials for babies ages birth to 18 months.

This year we looked at a lot of books, as usual, and wound up including 12 titles on our list of the ten Best Books for Babies. We know how to do math—we just found two sets of two books that met our criteria—and we didn’t want to have to choose between them.

Some titles on the list are from publishers who have been well represented over the years. Since the first Best Books for Babies list in 2000, more than two dozen titles from Candlewick Press have been selected.

This year Candlewick is represented by three titles. Alma Head to Toe/Alma de Pies a Cabeza is a bilingual board book in Spanish and English. Good Night, Little Fish is a bright and bold board book with a rhythmic text, and Train has sturdy tabs to push and pull.

Books from Charlesbridge have also appeared on previous lists. This year they are represented by another outing for a familiar friend in Leo on a Hike. Last year, Clarion Books, a division of HarperCollins had two titles on the list. This year their utterly adorable The Babies and Bunnies book is sure to charm readers and listeners.

Titles from DK, little bee books, Nosy Crow and priddy books round out our list.

Click to see the complete list of this year’s Best Books for Babies and don’t forget to check out our previous lists to see a stellar line-up of great books for babies from publishers large and small.