Additional design and illustrations by Rachael Parfitt Hunt.

Published by Dorling Kindersley, 2017.

As I’ve come to expect from Dorling Kindersley, this large format board book is beautiful to look at and produced to a very high standard. 100 First Words is aimed at babies and toddlers, and covers all the familiar things that little children are interested in from pets and toys to objects around the home and things that go. The words are divided into sections. Some focus on everyday routines: mealtime and food, bath time and bedtime. Other sections look at the world outside and include wild animals and life on the farm. There are also pages showing colours, clothes and the body.

Each word that your child is introduced to has an image and a label. Some of the pictures are illustrations, some are photographs. Personally, I would have preferred it if all the images were photographs. I think these are easier for young children to recognise and relate to. The pages are colourful and eye-catching with bold backgrounds and a clear, easy to read font.

My 17-month-old son, Sam, really likes this book. He returns to it again and again, and it’s one that he chooses for us to read. He will bring it to me, sit on my lap and turn the pages. He points at the different pictures and grunts – this is his pre-talking way of asking me to name the object. He looks and listens and is taking everything in. We read the book most days in this way. The repetition is building his vocabulary and now when the process is reversed and I ask, for example, ‘Where’s the fire engine?’ he is able to point to the correct picture. He also makes links between the objects in the book and things that he can see in our house or through the window.

This is a great book for early language development, and is lots of fun to read together.

Rating: 💙💙💙💙

Suitable from birth.

Thank you to Dorling Kindersley for sending me this book to review.