Category: German for Kids
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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…
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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…
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Audio content is vital to kids’ language learning. There’s just something about singing and listening to stories that will do wonders for your child’s comprehension, accent, and even productive vocabulary. However, in today’s world, finding a way to safely and simply serve up audio content is not so easy… access to streaming devices via a…
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To round out your child’s media diet, you can add some fun resources, including Tiptoi interactive books and games. Tiptoi is a German product made by the famous Ravensburger publishing house, which makes puzzles, games, and children’s books (Tiptoi website). The Tiptoi pen contains software and a speaker, which kids can use to interact with…
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There are so many good resources for kids’ audio content in German, including German media apps, libraries, and global streaming platforms. The German media stations stand out in particular for their excellent quality, curation and value; the global platforms have a lot of good content, but require more scrutiny. Library Apps: Many libraries also pay…
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Katharina Bußhoff’s Mika series is a must for 18-36 months. The stories are about a young toddler boy named Mika and his everyday life. They are truly funny and very simple, perfect for toddlers just starting to engage with books. The series is available in two formats, a large board book with multiple images on…
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There’s a huge amount of German kids eBooks, audiobooks and magazines that can be gotten for free from publicly supported media sources or as part of common subscription services. The top free resources for eBooks and digital magazines are Onleihe and Libby, while you can purchase eBooks and digital magazines through Barnes and Noble and…
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One of the easiest ways to build a collection quickly is to buy a few sets of Pixi books, which come in bundles of eight small softcover picture books (a little under 4”x4”) for less than $20. There are sets that all related to a theme (e.g. the farm, good night, winter, vehicles, Christmas, Easter)…
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One of the biggest challenges families face is actually getting print books. It is definitely possible to buy a large range of used and new physical German media online, if you know what you are looking for. It can be hard to purchase new books, as the major German booksellers such as Thalia or Dussmann…
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While rarely extensive, local public libraries can be good sources for recent German books. Often you will find that children’s print books in world languages are grouped at one or two libraries. For example, the Seattle Public Library has about 400 physical books and DVDs as well as digital resources (catalog link), but all are…
