Bryn Savage

Sandra Grimm is one of the best German authors for babies and toddlers and she’s also very prolific. In fact, you could outfit a very satisfactory toddler library with only her books. Her books follow the standard German pedagogical approach to focus on daily life of toddlers in the earliest years.

As Grimm has been publishing for decades, many of her books available on the secondhand market (e.g. Abe Books). Here are a few favorites: 

1. Meine alleresten Geschichten is a charming anthology of short stories showing sweet and humorous scenes from the daily lives of toddlers. In it, the children bake a cake with mama, taking a bath with papa’s help, negotiate play with friends, etc. Like all the books in the Meine erste Kinderbibliothek series, it is a nice, large book with thick, brightly illustrated cardboard pages.
2. Mein kleiner Streichelzoo – Books with fabric and interactive elements are great for little ones. This one has sweet rhymes about meeting animals in a petting zoo and many nice textures.
3. Wer macht Miau? Wer bellt Wau-wau? This title has somewhat more complex rhymes than Mein kleiner Streichelzoo, and also has very nice illustrations.
4. Der kleine Bär series: a sweet fluffy anthropomorphic bear has normal toddler adventures like learning to use the potty and going to bed. One of our favorites is Musst du Pipi, kleiner Bär?, which doubles as a good night story, as the little bear goes to bed in the second half of the book.
5. Mein erstes Sachen Suchen series: Grimm has written a number of these popular Wimmelbücher (“search and find” books) for babies 12 months and older on topics like automobiles (Fahrzeuge), shopping (Einkaufen), the farm (Bauernhof), and animals (Tiere). The Sachen Suchen series are some of the best Wimmelbuch titles for nonnative speakers, because each image is paired with text that caregivers can read aloud as well as the articles for each item the kids are looking for in the image.
6. Tiptoi Suchen und Entdecken series: Meine Welt, Fahrzeuge, Die Jahreszeiten. This series is similar to the one just discussed, but is for toddlers age two to three years and is special because it includes interactive elements that can be accessed by using the Tiptoi pen to tap on different elements in the picture.