Literary Baby Shower Gift

One of my sister's and my favorite gifts to give to babies and young children is books. At baby showers, especially, people seem to receive lots of clothes and toys - both of which are important, but the first won't last long because babies grow so fast and we prefer books to toys because we're both bookworms :). Recently, I visited my sister a few days before she was to attend a baby shower for a woman at her church and we put together the shower gift together.

First we went to the store and bought some classic baby books. Goodnight Moon and The Very Hungry Caterpillar were two of our personal favorites growing up.

Then we went to Marshall's and tried to find a basket that would look cute with all the books in it. We failed. But then we were walking down the aisles and I had the brilliant idea to buy this metal "S", which happens to be the baby's last initial, and stick it on top of the books, all tied up with a bow. Ashton loved it so we bought the letter. It was only $6, totally gorgeous, and about as decor-neutral as you can get with it's lovely dark silver finish.

Ashton had some ribbon at home that we used to tie the books and letter together and I think it turned out really cute!

I talked to my sister after the shower and she said her gift was a total hit. Success!!!

Favorite Children's Books

As a former English major and future English teacher, I (Adri) love to give books as gifts to my friends' children. I feel like kids always have an abundance of toys, but good books can sometimes be hard to find and I feel that good books are vital to developing a love of reading in children. Here are a few of my and my siblings' favorite books from when we were little. Most of the books here are fairly unique, so the odds that a young one in your life already has one of these books are pretty slim and would be a safe bet for a gift, in my opinion.

We absolutely loved the Max & Ruby series. The stories and illustrations are cute and fun and the fact that they're board books makes them appropriate for even the youngest kids.

My younger brother couldn't get enough of this book when he was 3-7 years old. We went to the library at least once a week back then, and every other time, he would check out  Airport. Everyone in our family had it memorized because we read it so many times!

Pretzel is a great story about a really long dachshund and his search for love. This was one we read over and over...and over again.

Mike Mulligan and His Steam Shovel is another great story. It's been so long since I've read it, that I don't quite remember what it's about. But, I do know that we kids and our parents loved it.