Parents' Guide to Make Way for Books

Parents looking for some support in creating meaningful interaction with their little ones will find lots of great resources here. Videos and short blurbs cover lots of ground in helping parents, like how to "read" to a small baby and how to create opportunities for "serve and return" interactions. It's important to note that although Make Way for Books does include content clearly directed at babies, the developers state in multiple ways that the app isn't meant to be handed over to kids to use on their own. Rather, it aims to be a tool that encourages parents to engage with their kids and helps them create rich interactions. To that end, parents may actually want to look at this app when they're not with their kids.

The digital books aren't all sophisticated, but they do have lots of great ideas for talking -- and if they get parents and kids to have a special back-and-forth discussion, that's really the most important thing here. Print book suggestions point parents to top-notch kids' books, but require them to get out and actually find the books. At the time of this review, only a few library systems were currently participating in the "available nearby" feature, though when that's expanded, it could be a great help. Overall organization could be a bit clearer, as it's easy to get lost tapping through all the linked material. Parents who have experience around finding books and discussing them with their kids may find a lot of the advice a bit basic, and the library isn't super extensive. But in general, Make Way for Books features really wonderful encouragement and modeling for parents.