Books

Reach Out and Reach of the University of Michigan has a wide variety of books with age ranges from birth to five years.

Birth to 6 months

Newborns are not especially interested in any specific type of book, but what they do need is warm, nurturing language-rich time with caregivers.  Books can provide caregivers a script to spend that critical time with their babies.  Read anything and everything aloud, narrate what you are doing throughout the day, and snuggle up to sing, talk, and spend time face-to-face with your little one.  Young babies also benefit from high-contrast black and white images and books, as they help support and strengthen eye development.  Making reading a part of your routine, starting at birth, helps build healthy habits that last a lifetime.

6-12 months

Babies like small, brightly colored board books with photos of other babies and familiar objects like balls, bottles, etc. They like the same book over and over, especially ones with rhymes and songs.

12-18 months

Younger toddlers like sturdy board books they can handle and carry with few words on the page. They enjoy books with photos and pictures of children doing familiar things like sleeping, eating, and playing and themes like food, trucks, animals, and children. They like books that teach them to say goodbye and hello with simple rhymes or predictable text. Toddlers like to choose and hold the same book over and over, especially at bedtime.

18-36 months

Older toddlers like word books with board and paper pages with rhymes, rhythms, and repetitious text (books they can learn by heart). They like silly and funny books about children and families, making friends, food, animals, and trucks.

3-5 years

Preschoolers like books that tell stories: books about kids that look like them and live like them (going to school and making friends) and books about different places and different ways of living. They like counting, alphabet, and vocabulary books; ones with simple text they can memorize, especially at bedtime.

Bilingual and Tactile Books

To better serve all families, ROR-UM stocks books in languages other than English, often in a bilingual format. ROR-UM is proud to provide pediatric clinics with bilingual books including the following languages: 

  • Arabic 

  • Bengali 

  • Cambodian 

  • Chinese 

  • French 

  • Hindi 

  • Japanese 

  • Korean 

  • Spanish 

  • Russian 

  • Polish 

  • Portuguese 

  • Vietnamese 

Pediatric clinic staff keep ROR updated on the needs of their patients, and ROR-UM also strives to provide clinics with books for the visually-impaired, including many touch-and-feel tactile books, allowing all patients to enjoy and interact with books in a variety of ways.