Your child is about to become a big brother or big sister, and underneath the excitement there's often something harder to hold: worry about being pushed aside, plain old jealousy, the question of where they'll fit once a baby takes up all the room. You pick the one that meets the feeling your child is actually having. Some are the softest welcome for the very youngest. One says right out loud that a big sibling can hate the new baby, and it's the funniest book here for exactly that reason. One answers 'where do babies come from' before your child asks you at the dinner table. And one is about a boy getting ready to welcome a sibling as his truest self. Read the notes, find the feeling, hand over that one.
Take one book off the shelf; what matters is naming the feeling first. Waiting for Baby is the softest way in, a board book for the youngest that just lets them feel included in the getting-ready. I Am a Big Brother and I Am a Big Sister are the short, steady reassurance books for a two- or three-year-old, and you hand over the one that matches. The New Baby, with Little Critter, is for the child deflated to find the baby can't play yet. Za-Za's Baby Brother sits honestly in the left-out feeling when the baby takes all the attention. There's Going to Be a Baby lets a thoughtful child say out loud that maybe they don't want the baby at all. Julius, the Baby of the World is the jealousy classic and the funniest thing here: Lilly the mouse openly hates her baby brother, said plainly and hilariously, and the book never once tells her she's wrong to. The Baby Tree is the where-do-babies-come-from book, gently and honestly answered. And When Aidan Became a Brother is about a boy, who happens to be transgender, wanting to do everything right for the coming baby. Different doors into the same big change.