I Love Cats

This one is pure delight. A little girl in purple pajamas runs through every kind of cat she loves — stripey cats, spotted cats, flipping cats, dreaming cats — and Barney Saltzberg's bouncy rhymes make it almost impossible to read aloud without smiling. The bold, expressive illustrations match the energy of the text, and the whole thing clips along at exactly the right pace for toddler attention spans. It's also available in a bilingual Spanish-English edition, which is a genuine plus. The honest caveat is that there's no narrative arc here — it's more of a joyful list poem than a story — so older preschoolers may outgrow it quickly. But for the one-to-three crowd, this is a read-aloud you'll be asked to repeat.