[binky] A surprising number of readers have been buying stuff through the Store,1 leading me to wonder, “What other tangible products do I have opinions about?”

It turns out, the tangible items I handle most these days are board books for my 17-month old daughter. She has her favorites; I have mine. I’ve taken the overlapping subset and created four new pages in the store with our mutual recommendations.

As a general word of advice for new parents, or those buying gifts for new parents: when it comes to books, think repetition. As you thumb through pages in the bookstore, ask yourself, “Will this provoke thoughts of murder-suicide upon the 50th reading?”

I’ve only included one book like that in my list, Sandra Boynton’s Perritos. It’s a counting book with dogs who bark in Spanish: “¡Jau! ¡Gau-Gau-Gau!” Fun at first, but really hard on the vocal cords after three times through.

The other books are generally great. I’m particularly partial to Leslie Patricelli’s books, the complete canon of which I now have memorized. Sometimes, stuck with a cranky toddler, I find myself “reading” the Binky book to her, flipping the invisible pages. It buys a few more minutes, which is sometimes all you need.

  1. For reference, my biggest week has been a whopping $43. Which more than covers the site’s hosting fees. But I’m not giving up my day job yet. ↩