What Daddies Do Best

by Laura Joffe Numeroff, Lynn Munsinger

Celebrate Father's Day every day! This sturdy board book depicts everything daddies do best, from reading bedtime stories to making a snowman. In this abridged version of the best-selling hardcover, five animal pairs illustrate the special bond between fathers and their children.
Celebrate Father's Day every day! This sturdy board book depicts everything daddies do best, from reading bedtime stories to making a snowman. In this abridged version of the best-selling hardcover, five animal pairs illustrate the special bond between fathers and their children.

Genres: Picture Books, Childrens, Family, Storytime

22 pages, Board Book

First published January 1, 2001

About the author

Laura Joffe Numeroff is the NYT best-selling author of If You Give a Mouse a Cookie, What Mommies/Daddies Do Best and Raising a Hero. She was born in Brooklyn, New York and graduated from Pratt Institute. Laura grew up as the youngest of three girls, surrounded by art, music, and books. An avid animal lover, Laura has always wanted to write a book about service dogs. She now lives in Los Angeles, California.

Reviews

[J · Rating 1 out of 5]

I happened to come across this book after trying to find another one that I wanted to read so chose to read it just to get it out of the way and see if I was going to keep it. It didn't even take five minutes to get through while I was using it as a teasing guide to my husband since he doesn't read his girls to sleep even though apparently daddies do that best.

Anyways after getting up the next day I chose to pack the books up that I didn't want for the free library while finding the mommies copy. Just for comparison I chose to open it and flip through to see the differences but instead found that basically the two books are word-for-word the same with the exception of who the parent of choice is.

Meanwhile the illustrations are the same mixture of animal parents and their children although in different poises for each of these activities.

Even though the book could be right and factual as well as sweet I cannot stand the fact that the author couldn't come up with different original activities for each set of parents but just basically copied her own work to make a few more dollars.

[Becca Peterson · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a cute little book. It just lists something on each page that a child appreciates their father doing for them. Some examples are teaching them how to ride a bike or fixing things for them. It talks about the bond between a father and his children. This would be a cute book for fathers day or his birthday.

[Lynn Davidson · Rating 4 out of 5]

This little book highlights, with sweet illustrations, several things daddies do best with and for their children.

[Karawan · Rating 3 out of 5]

Found this in the church library this morning and read it to Gavin because I realized that we've seen so many "mommy and baby" books that it would be good for him to see one that highlighted the father-child relationship. (At the time I had no idea that there's an equivalent "What Mommies Do Best" book)

I liked the illustrations with various animal fathers and children. I liked that it seemed to show fathers interacting with both sons and daughters. And I laughed at the "giving the dog a bath" page where the father had a blow dryer trained on the dog. The activities are ones that most kids can relate to.

[Robert · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book showed up when my daughter was a baby. Eh . . . The idea is nice: what daddies do with their children. But it's contrived. The What Mommies Do Best is the exact same book with the word Mommy substituted for Daddy.

Even so, Fritz enjoyed turning the pages. Board books are good for a one-year-old.

'Tis a quick read. Nothing great, but nothing bad either.

[Jenny · Rating 4 out of 5]

Cute pictures, I like the different animals and facial expressions. I liked that they included baking a birthday cake since my husband loves doing that for our sons. A little disjointed (the last lines just seems kind of lame) at the end but overall I really liked it.

[Zach · Rating 3 out of 5]

2 in 1 book with "What Mommies Do Best" on the flip side of the book. Cute little book with mirrored text that mommies and daddies can do the same things, the only words that are different are 'mommies' and 'daddies' in each text.

[Katherine · Rating 4 out of 5]

Dani (2yo) currently reads this every day. Nearly every page has something she likes to comment on or act out.

We have had this book since our first child was born 10 years ago.