My First Cookbook: Fun recipes to cook together . . . with as much mixing, rolling, scrunching, andsquishing as possible! (America's Test Kitchen Kids)

Why it's worth it

An oversized, lay-flat book from America's Test Kitchen Kids built for ages five to eight. Pictograms sit alongside the written steps so emerging readers can follow along, and the recipes stay in no-cook and low-heat territory where little hands are safest.

It stays open on the counter, which sounds trivial until you've watched it matter. The oversized lay-flat format means a six-year-old keeps both hands on the mixing bowl instead of pinning the page down with an elbow. Published testing of children's cookbooks found lay-flat formats cut down on mid-recipe spills compared with hardcovers that close themselves. For the age group most likely to knock something over, that's the single best design choice in this book.

Pictograms let a kid who can't read fluently still run the recipe. Icons pair with the written steps, so a child tracks the sequence visually and picks up the words along the way. You'll still be nearby, but you won't be reading every line aloud. That shift, from your child watching you cook to your child cooking while you're in the room, is the whole reason to buy a book at this age.

From our review of 5 cookbooks for kids and beginner cooks, by Genevieve Dubois, Home & Living Expert

What we like

• +It stays open on the counter, which sounds trivial until you've watched it matter
• +Pictograms let a kid who can't read fluently still run the recipe
• +The recipes are chosen to keep heat and blades out of the picture
• +Same testing standard as the flagship books, in a package built for little kids

What to know

• –Your child will outgrow it in two or three years
• –The playful framing isn't for every family