Reddit mentions of My Big Animal Book (My Big Board Books)

The Big Animal Book is Jane's favorite right now. She likes it when I make animal sounds -- especially the pig and the wolf. She also likes Little Owl's Night, which is so sweetly illustrated and has such cute little things happening in the pictures. (Badger steals bear's fish! Skunk can't find snails to eat, but they are right behind him!)

I mostly try to avoid flaps because they seem to get torn off when I'm not looking.

A book (or a few books) are nice. You could go with some traditional story books, or learning books. My daughter loves looking at books. These are some of her favorites:

http://www.amazon.com/First-100-Words-Bright-Baby/dp/B000F7BPCU/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1312305286&sr=1-1

http://www.amazon.com/Animal-Book-casebound-Board-Books/dp/0312511078/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1312305354&sr=1-1

http://www.amazon.com/Biscuit-Alyssa-Satin-Capucilli/dp/0064442128/ref=sr_1_7?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1312305382&sr=1-7
(there are lots of "Biscuit" books, this is just one)

Another suggesting is LeapFrog's Violet. It's a toy (I know your bro said no toys), but I have to tell you that my daughter LOVES Violet. You can program her to know your niece's name and say it and sing songs with her name in it. You can change the songs that are played, Violet's "favorite" colors, foods, etc to match with whatever your niece is into at the time and so much more. My daughter (22 months) goes through phases where she's literally attached at the hip with the thing. Here's a link: http://www.amazon.com/LeapFrog-19157-My-Pal-Violet/dp/B001W35I8I/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1312305595&sr=1-1

Another idea is to get one of those Hallmark recordable books and record yourself reading a story to your niece. I did that for my daughter's 1st birthday (there's a little dedication section too) and my husband did one for Christmas. Here's another link: http://www.hallmark.com/online/in-stores/storybooks/recordable-storybooks/

All of these things are $30 and under, so hopefully you can find something to fit your budget. :)

Yay for babies!!!

Something for my daughter

Something for your niece

Maybe something like this or this. They're not strictly Science, per se, but they can open up a conversation that leans that way.