As our earlier entry, often it’s great to find a toddler book that you know you can reliably find several dozen more of to keep your brain from melting into a puddle of goo. However, it can also be great to find a good “one-off” book. Either for a gift, or change of pace, or just some elephant and piggie fatigue. Here are some winners in the Benalish household:

Escargo

Bonjour! This is an adorable story of a snail and his journey across the book and the sadness of how no one ever chooses the snail to be their favorite animal. There is a salad at the end of the book, a perfect salad with a light vinaigrette and *no carrots*. Or are there?!? Fun fourth-wall breaking and a great opportunity to try out your best French accent. “Au contraire! I can be very fast! I am the wind itself!”

Dragons love Tacos

A staple, so this is hardly an “under the radar” book, but a fun story of dragons, their well-known love for tacos, and best practices on holding a taco party to befriend said dragons. Just make sure you don’t have any spicy sauce. Has some fun “act along” bits “Hey dragons! How do you feel about spicy sauce??” that remain a hit.

The Rabbit Listened

This is a little more on the “let’s all just have a good cry together” spectrum, but it’s an adorable story on listening, frustration, feelings and all the rest. Frankly, it’s a pretty instructive read for the non-toddlers too. You mean I’m *not* supposed to leap straight to solving a problem? Sometimes I should just listen? Cosmic.

What do you do with a Problem?

I’m cheating slightly since there are some “sequels” (What do you do with an Opportunity, etc.) but another one of those, “Fun to read… yet also a very good reminder to adults on best practices of Being an Adult.” The art is really solid too: evocative to read and a good page turner.

The Five Forms

A young girl finds a book of ancient Chinese wushu (“kung-fu”) and chaos ensues! The author’s son is apparently a serious practitioner of wushu so the physiology of the difference stances and philosophy of the forms are all quite accurate. And while I’m probably at one extreme of enjoying a toddler practicing “Heron” and “Dragon” forms, I suspect many others might as well.