There are lots of books for babies in the bookstores. Fairy tales and funny, yet educational stories about almost everything in the world, are designed in the form of cardboard books with thick pages and rounded corners. Simple plots, lots of pictures – almost all of us read them back in our childhood. They look attractive and are safe for reading and chewing.
But for some reason parents stopped enjoying the simplicity and naivety of fairy tales and switched to the BabyLit series. What is it? Well, basically, books, which belong to BabyLit series, feature the most popular and important classic literary works, which are adapted for young minds of toddlers and babies. Nevertheless, instead of diving into depths of plot, babies will explore such topics, as colors, counting or concepts like diversity (or opposites, or other).
Talking of design of such books: they are wonderfully decorated and their graphic is quite complex. Classics, published by BabyLit series, are mostly designed by talented contemporary artists.
It is surely stupid to hope, that a 3-year old would get something for himself out of the plot of such a book, as, for example, “Sense and Sensibility”. It is also quite questionable if a child could even understand the title of this work (because even when talking of adults, not all of them do). But using the adapted version of the book in order to study colors or numbers? Priceless.
Why classics anyways? In order to develop child’s aesthetic taste! Linda Bubon, an owner of a bookstore Women & Children First, which is located in Chicago, states the following: “If we’re going to play classical music to our babies in the womb and teach them foreign languages at an early age, then we’re going to want to expose babies to fine art and literature. Now we know there are things we can do to stimulate the mind of a baby.”
Besides, it is much more interesting for parents to interact with their child while reading and showing them pictures of adapted classic book, than while reading some ridiculous story about the adventures of puppies, or vegetables, or pieces of furniture. Children tend to like some books so much, that parents have to reread them again and again. It is obvious, that rereading, for example, adapted “Moby-Dick” is less annoying, than rereading plotless “Angry Birds” story. At least, adapted classics, even after losing the complexity of their plot, still recall some memories on how nice it was to read the full story.
