Not every book on the kids' shelves at the bookstore looks like a book. Some have wheels. Others have stuffed arms and legs. Books like Woof invite babies to push buttons while Look at Me, with its mask shape, begs toddlers to lift it up to their faces for a game of peek-a-boo. Some parents resist these books—how is it reading, if it's also a game? How is it a book, if it's a bath toy too?

But it is. It's a book, and it's reading. When a book doubles as a toy, it becomes even more lovable, and that encourages your baby to learn to love books in every form. Books with multiple uses hold kids' attention longer, and welcome repeat approaches. A child who rarely sits still for reading may enjoy pushing a book shaped like a truck, and might be more willing to explore the pictures and words that toy truck has to offer. A baby who has just learned to use her fingers and hands can explore Play Shapes when someone is reading the words to her, or on her own.

Not everything your child enjoys needs to be (or will be) a great classic of children's literature. Books that are toys teach children to find joy in a book, and that's a lesson that stays with them. It may seem like a stretch to suggest that a toddler's love affair with Meow will make it easier for her to read Great Expectations for a high school English class, but it just may be true. To her, a book is a book. A kid who grows up with books of all sorts may be able to keep an open mind about even the most intimidating tomes.

Books are evolving every day as technology changes. Is that a phone, or a book? Is that a comic, or a novel? Is it a book if it comes on your computer or downloads to your eReader? Even books for adult readers have letters, puzzles, and recipes. If you can read it, it's a book. If it's a book, you can love it. And if, like a kid with Look at Me, you can run through the house looking through its eyeholes and making monkey noises, all the better.