Sure, there are lots of books you can read to your baby from the library or the bookstore. But don’t forget you can also make your own!

Since babies at Veronika’s age (7 months old) are primarily interested in the visuals, it’s fun to make a book with no words. I used images cut from magazines and catalogs, but your own photos can work well, too! Since the story has no words, you can change it up every time.

I chose simple images, limited somewhat by which magazines I had around to cut up. Soon we had stories about a butterfly who moved into a house and then…

Just use your imagination from there!

Try to find photos that depict familiar objects. As we “read” about the desk and chair in the story, for example, I took her over to the desk and chair in our apartment and pointed out that they were the same.

Same goes for the picture of a little girl in our story. “Girl,” I told her, and pointed to the picture and then to Veronika. “Same!”

This book is also great because a big sibling can “read” it to the baby, even if not yet a reader! I loved looking over to see Travis was making up stories for her.

In sum, a great idea, and we’ll be adding to our “story” as I cut up more catalogs.