Charles Dickens's Oliver Twist

Jack and Holman Wang distill all of Oliver Twist into twelve needle-felted scenes, each paired with a single word. That's not much story — but the concept isn't really about story. It's about introducing the idea of great literature to babies and toddlers through extraordinary art: needle-felted scenes built as scale models and photographed, producing illustrations unlike anything else in the board book section. The darker threads of Dickens's original — child exploitation, murder, the criminal underworld — are completely absent, leaving only warmth. For literary-minded parents who want to share their enthusiasms with very small children, this is a charming and inventive gift. The honest note: at twelve words, this functions more as an art object than a narrative. But as an art object, it's a very good one.