Board Books as Concept Books

It stands to reason that a lot of board books are what we call concept books: they serve the purpose of teaching a concept like colors, numbers, letters, etc. Needless to say, they can get a bit redundant sometimes, but there are a few out there that are absolutely fantastic. And they're tiny for tiny hands!

The board book that opened my eyes to the creativity of the genre is definitely Hippopposites by Janik Coat.

Janik use a hippo to demonstrate straightforward opposites like small and large and more difficult concepts like light and heavy. It’s a really clever book, with one hippo on the left side of the spread to demonstrate one concept, and another contrasting hippo on the right:

I also adore Jennifer Adams’ and Alison Oliver’s BabyLit Primers like Dracula (a counting primer), Alice in Wonderland (colors), Wuthering Heights (weather), Sense & Sensibility (opposites), and the more.

Adams and Oliver work together seamlessly to weave classic literature and basic primer concepts:

From The Jungle Book

From Anna Karenina

While every book is a primer, they never forgo the design aspect, and every image Oliver creates is frame-worthy.

Pantone has a stunning color concepts book illustrated by Helen Dardik.

Not only do we learn what "purple" is, but we learn that there are varying shades of purple.

It's exciting to see a book take color concepts past the usual ROY G BIV and actually show us that colors come in all sorts of shades.

A fresh, unique way to discuss color concepts, indeed.

For those of you who haven't seen, I FINALLY posted my top 10 books of 2015!