How adorable are board books? And now that I’m living Nana Life, I’m enjoying them even more. These books, by the way, are all granddaughter-approved; fun additional notes in the reviews.
Baby Animal Mazes, by Susann Hoffmann, (Feb. 2026, Twirl Books), $16.99, ISBN: 9782408061951
Ages 2-4
Baby animals need our help! Baby Duck, Baby Bear, Baby Fox, Baby Rabbit, and Babies Blue and Orange Bird have places they need to go, but their paths are missing big pieces from them: fortunately, readers have those pieces and can connect the paths by choosing one. So much fun for toddlers and preschoolers, this sturdy board book has three easy-to-remove pieces with different pieces to connect the mazes in the book. It’s an exciting introduction to problem-solving and foundational math skills. Pieces store easily in the book for the next time. Each spread provides a little story to each baby animal’s dilemma and cheers players on. Illustrations are bright and colorful, perfect for young learners. Sunshine (my nickname for Granddaughter) is only 10 months old but enjoyed playing with the maze pieces and was happy to see the animals, so if your little is younger than 2, show them the book! The board book pages will hold up. If you’re using this in a public library or school library, better to keep this one for storytime reference or playtime, when it’ll be cleaned up and put back afterwards. It’s great fun for a Family Place play area or storytime!
Clack-Clack, Little Crab! (Clickety Clack), by Amy Blay, (March 2026, Twirl Books), $14.99, ISBN: 9782408061807
Ages Birth-3
Little Crab wakes up and wants to play with friends! This board book proves to be great fun for littles of all ages with side pulls on each spread that make a clacking sound, just like Little Crab’s claws, and a reveal of a new underwater friend. The text plays with sounds like “swish swosh”, “scritch, scratch, scritch”, “splish, splash, splish”, “plip, plop”, “WHEEEEEE”, and, naturally, “click-clack”. Each pull of the side handles awakens sleepy snails, starfish, and fish, ready to play with Little Crab. Bold and colorful illustration pair with activity-driven text; combined with the sound and activity of the click-clack side pull, this is a feast for toddler senses. Clack-Clack, Little Crab! is a companion to Crack-Crack, Who is That? (2022). The pulls and pages are sturdy and will hold up to a lot of pulling and play, so put this in a circulating collection and watch the kids light up. Sunshine thoroughly enjoys this book and has figured out pretty quickly how to pull on the side pulls to get the “click-clack”.
Big Brain Puzzles: Plant Pandemonium!, by Camille Pichon, (March 2026, Twirl Books), $14.99, ISBN: 9782408061814
Ages 6+
A board book for bigger kids! Plant Pandemonium! contains 45 different garden challenges within its 10 pages: puzzles involve lifting flaps to grow a group of plants; sliding puzzle pieces together to help earthworms dig underground tunnels, and pulling tabs to organize a group of butterflies’ flying order. Each challenge has three levels to complete, giving readers a wealth of brain teasers to develop math and reasoning skills. The pages are sturdy but a cautionary suggestion to keep this out of your board book sections; littler hands risk tearing flaps and pulls. Little ones can use the book for play and exploration (Sunshine did – she likes the worms best so far), but for repeated use, you’re going to want to keep a separate copy in your Nonfiction sections for kindergarten and elementary students’ use. This is a fun one; I hope we get more Big Brain Puzzles in the future.
T. Rex (Ultimate Discovery), by Raphaële Glaux/Illustrated by Amélie Falière, (March 2026, Twirl Books), $10.99, ISBN: 9791027613885
Birth-3
Okay, this is the one I was waiting for: is it Sunshine’s favorite, or is it mine? BOTH. Ultimate Discovery is a spin-off of Twirl’s Ultimate Spotlight series, just perfect for littler learners. Here, a T. Rex teaches readers about their prehistoric life, from hatching to hunting. Each spread has sliding panels that reveal a baby T. Rex hatching from its egg; opening and closing their massive jaws, and allowing a Triceratops to charge at them. Descriptive text is brief and enticing, providing interesting details about the dinosaur; additional vocabulary runs throughout, including names of other dinosaurs, names of flora, and dino attributes. Sunshine loves playing with the slides and I’ve managed to get one “RAHR!” out of her so far. This one will hold up to multiple reads; put it in your board book collections. Kids love dinos!
Mom Read It 