There are plenty of good reasons to read aloud to your baby.

Research shows that sharing picture books with young children encourages the development of early literacy and language skills.

Sharing books also encourages the formation of strong parent-child attachment and it introduces more varied vocabulary than simply talking.

But probably the best reason to read to your baby is because it’s fun.

Who wouldn’t enjoy honking, clanking and vrooming their way through a title like Cars Go by Steve Light?

Or taking a humorous look at baby’s basic functions in Eat, Sleep, Poop by Alexandra Penfold?

These and ten other titles make up this year’s Best Books for Babies.  Other books chosen for the list include a collection of Mother Goose rhymes, books that focus on simple concepts, others that feature familiar animals and an engaging look at a baby boy’s mini-adventure with his dad.

The Best Books for Babies list is created annually by a committee of local librarians, child development experts and community members. They read, share and evaluate a lot of books in order to identify those that they believe offer the most to the youngest listeners, babies birth to 18 months.

Some committee members are brand new, others have been enjoying this process since 2000—so don’t forget to check out some of the past titles too.

Lisa is the Coordinator of Children’s Collections at the Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh. She’s the lucky person who gets to pick out all of the cool stuff for kids that the Carnegie has to offer. Although she understands the importance of technology and selects e-books and audios along with books, movies, music and more, she remains cheerfully low-tech in her off time.