Last month I began to participate in a mother/daughter book group with my mom, sister and a family friend with her younger daughter. My sister and I are grown, but talking about a novel with our friends reminded me that in just a few short years my littles will be discovering some of our favorite classics! For now, while Anne prefers to literally rather than metaphorically devour books, we’ve been reading baby versions. Lit for Little Hands and BabyLit are two board book adaptation series we’ve tried. For this post, I’ll be focusing on Anne of Green Gables by Lit for Little Hands and Jane Eyre by BabyLit.

I have most experience with BabyLit. Each book focuses on a different topic, like colors, shapes, counting or sounds. They feature simple illustrations and no plot line, but have occasional quotes from the source material. Jane Eyre: A Counting Primer keeps a dark, somber color palette and contains portraits of the main characters as well as other thematic illustrations. Millie really enjoyed reading it, but as an adult I do not particularly enjoy reading them; the lack of storyline or even many words makes it difficult to read aloud. I do like them as cute baby shower gifts, vivid yet simple illustrations for babies or solo reading time for toddlers.

The only book I’ve read by Lit for Little Hands is their Anne of Green Gables. I like the interactive features, because it’s really fun for my toddler to lift the flaps and move little characters up and down (maybe too fun– poor Minnie May was ripped out of the book!) I also enjoy that there are more quotations from the original source, and that it follows a (simplified) story. My biggest objection is to the illustrations; for some reason I find the characters creepy. My toddler seems to enjoy this one more than BabyLit.

Either series makes for cute gifts and is fun to share with littles. Reading the originals together with littles is super fun. (We’re currently listening to The Hobbit and Trumpet of the Swan for our bedtime read-alouds!) But for now, I enjoy having these as an option in our library.