Bryn Savage

Markus Osterwalder’s Bobo Siebenschläfer series is a very successful series for very young children. With the first books published in the 1980s, it’s a long running classic. The oldest books have charmingly amateur illustrations, in my opinion, but also seem very authentic — as if someone followed a real young child around and saw the world through their eyes.

The format of the books is unique in that each sentence is tied to an image, making it very easy for young children to follow along and integrate new vocabulary. Bobo is quite silly and parents sometimes find the old fashioned gender roles annoying, but the series automatically connects with most young children.

The books are very available on the secondhand market or Amazon.com (set of four Maxi Pixis, set of 8 Pixi books, original collection) and have also been turned into a cartoon series (YouTube, German Netflix) and audiobooks (Spotify).