Little Nutbrown Hare wants to know he is loved, so he holds on to his father's ears to make sure he is listening and says, guess how much I love you. What follows is a competition neither of them can win. He stretches his arms; Big Nutbrown Hare has longer arms. He hops as high as he can; his father hops higher. It goes on until the little one is almost too sleepy to think anymore and looks out past the thornbushes into the big dark night, because nothing could be farther than the sky.

Sam McBratney and Anita Jeram published that in 1994 and it has been the book people give at the birth of a child ever since. This is the board edition Candlewick built for the youngest readers of it: 24 thick pages at 5.94 by 5.19 in, small enough for a one year old to carry around by herself and solid enough to survive it.

Anita Jeram's watercolor hares are the reason it reads so quietly. There is no crowd, no plot and no noise, just two hares on a green bank, so a child who cannot follow a story yet can still follow the pictures, and a parent reading it at the end of the day is not being asked to perform.

Board book, 24 pages, 5.94 by 5.19 in with a 0.54 in spine, by Sam McBratney, illustrated by Anita Jeram. Candlewick Press, 2019. ISBN-13 9781536210637. Publisher age guidance: 0 to 3 years.

For the same small person a year on, Happy Birthday!: A Peter Rabbit Tale is the other classic-character board book we keep for this age: Beatrix Potter's rabbits, sixteen board pages, and a first-birthday present that survives being carried around.

The other Candlewick bedtime classic we keep in a padded board edition is Owl Babies, Martin Waddell and Patrick Benson's story of three owlets waiting in the dark for their mother to come home.