The Best Baby Animal Books for Kids

A hatchling tumbles out of the nest and asks a kitten, a hen, a dog, a cow, and a steam shovel the same urgent question.

Mr. and Mrs. Mallard search all over Boston for a safe place to raise eight ducklings, then stop traffic to get them there.

Sarah, Percy, and Bill wake in the dark to an empty branch and have to talk themselves through their mother’s absence.

A kitten sees her first full moon, decides it is a bowl of milk, and cannot be talked out of it.

Twenty-two newborn animals describe what they had to manage on day one—swim, walk, hide, climb, or simply hold on.

A young fruit bat knocked from her mother’s grip is raised by birds and learns to sleep, eat, and fly all wrong.

A grumpy bear who cooks eggs for dinner accidentally hatches four goslings who will not stop calling him mama.

Mister Seahorse carries his eggs in a pouch and meets a parade of fish fathers doing the same job differently.

A Little Golden Book of calves, ducklings, lambs, foals, kittens, and piglets, painted by the illustrator of Charlotte’s Web.

Little Hoot would like to go to bed at a reasonable hour. His owl parents insist he stay up and play.

Five ducklings following their mother through town drop one by one into a storm drain, and the whole village turns out to fish them back.

A newborn calf faces two years of nursing, a trunk with 40,000 muscles she cannot yet operate, and a herd of aunts to learn from.

A monkey detective takes five cases, follows five clues, and struggles every single time to get his pants on.

A barn kitten finally finds a home, then gets lost in a snowstorm and has to survive long enough to be found.

Seven fox kits ask an old storyteller for something scary and get a linked cycle about two kits, a rabid beast, and a witch.