Most first-words books pick pretty words. This one picks the right ones. Licensed speech therapist Tabitha Paige chose every word in Scribble Scrabble around the consonant sounds babies develop first, the m, b, p and t sounds a mouth can actually manage before it manages anything else. That is the difference between a book a child looks at and a book a child talks back to.

A small mouse leads the way through hand-painted art, bright color and simple shapes, turning a vocabulary lesson into an adventure your toddler asks to repeat. Shapes and words arrive together, so recognition builds on two tracks at once.

Sturdy board pages, a friendly 6.3 inch square, and a cover pretty enough to hand over at a baby shower without wrapping it in anything clever.