Satoshi-K/Getty ImagesBook Week is a great opportunity for parents and carers to inspire a love of reading in babies and toddlers.But sometimes very young children aren’t very engaged when adults read to them. They may become distracted and restless. They can wriggle away, scrunch up the pages or seem more interested in putting the book in their mouth than listening to the story. This can make reading to little kids seem like a pointless exercise. Here’s how you can get the most out of storytime with babies and toddlers.How long should storytime go for?Research suggests reading with children gives them a head start in developing their literacy, cognitive and numeracy skills.Parents may wonder how long they need to read to children to see these benefits. But they don’t need to carve out large chunks of time from their schedules.A 2022 Australian study suggested babies who were read to for 11 or more minutes a day had stronger vocabulary skills by the time school started than those who were read to for 10 minutes or fewer each day.How to engage babies?For babies aged one to two years, it helps to keep story time one-to-one, and centred on the baby’s interests and daily routines. Parents can hold a baby’s attention by pointing to a picture and asking a related question such as:What’s that? That’s a puppy! Making connections between the meanings in the book and the baby’s own life can help them develop a greater understanding of the world. Parents might say:There’s a puppy. You have a puppy too! Babies communicate their positive feelings by moving towards the book, touching it, patting the pictures, smiling, laughing and making happy sounds.If a baby becomes restless or distracted during story time, it’s fine to stop reading and move onto something else.What are the best books for babies?To a baby, a book is an interesting object to explore, flip through, grab, chew or even sit on.When choosing a picture book, look for ones that babies can “do” something with, such as lifting flaps on pages or touching different textures. Babies relate to stories more when they include pictures of familiar things in their own lives such as eating dinner, having a bath, going to bed, and playing with a sibling. Books with simple rhymes and repetition are especially good as they help capture the baby’s attention.How about toddlers?Toddlers aged two to three years can become unsettled or distracted when asked to sit still and listen to a story.Here are a few ways parents can enhance storytime for them:use a range of different voices and vocal sound effects to exaggerate different characters, moods and moments throughout the storyincorporate gestures to capture the toddler’s attentionuse puppets and soft toys to act out characters and to add a new dimension to storytimeexplain the meaning of unusual words or pictures to help children make sense of the characters’ feelings and actionsdo repeated readings of your toddler’s favourite picture books so they can gain new insights over timeencourage your toddler to play with you in imaginary worlds inspired by a particularly loved picture book to help bring stories to life.Which books are good for toddlers?The best picture books touch the emotions of parents as well as their children.You could start by exploring picture books by authors such as Alison Lester, Rosemary Wells, Julia Donaldson, Helen Oxenbury, Martin Waddell, and Janet and Allan Ahlberg. These funny, gentle and wise picture books will enrich the lives of babies, toddlers and families. It’s also important to choose books that represent aspects of children’s own and other cultures.If parents and adults are unsure of where to start, they can visit local libraries, which often host storytime events for young children and parents. They are also a bountiful source of picture books for all tastes.Jane Torr does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.