One such gift was given to Mr Mirth by a very good friend of mine Gayle, it is the most fantastic fabric book called ‘My Zoo Book‘.

Fabric Books are a definitely a baby’s friend, they can be grabbed easily, they can be chewed, they can be washed and also, very importantly, they don’t hurt when they bump you on the nose or land on your toe. My Zoo Book is a particularly lovely fabric book because in addition to all those features, it is beautifully made and is full of something that children universally love….animals. The story is an adaptation of the children’s classic Dear Zoo and each page depicts a different animal which is revealed when your baba lifts the flap.

The applique animals are really beautiful and the pages are very colourful and tactile.

This book and others in the range are made by Fun To Learn in Newry (Northern Ireland) and are sold via their website and also through www.early-learner.com . Unfortunately neither website (nor indeed my own attempts at photos above) do this book justice so you’ll just have to take my word for how lovely it is. I think it is a really lovely present and thanks to its enduring charm (not to mention its machine-washability!) I am confident that it will be a favourite in our house for some time to come.

Thanks Gayle !!

This is a beautifully illustrated tale of a little termite who learns that although others may be better than you at certain things, everyone is especially good at something, you just have to find out what that something is. In our house, each page is poured over to identify all of the various insects and little creatures who are taking part in the ‘Great Insect Games’.  A lovely message and a lovely book.

This is the story of an accident prone little owl who gets lost. However, with the help of rabbit and frog, I’m glad to report that he is ultimately reunited with his mum. The illustrations in this book are really interesting, not your typical cartoon-ish drawings in primary colours. I really like this one.

Once you get your head (and mouth) around the various dinosaur names, this is a really fantastic book with an almost hypnotic rhyming text. Dinosaurumpus introduces us to all of the different types of dinosaurs who are on their way to what might be accurately described as a great big dinosaur disco. Its lots of fun to read and was a huge hit when Mr Moo brought it into creche earlier this year.

Bertie is a small boy with a long list of very dirty habits! This book will make you and your baba laugh as you follow Bertie through his day which involves some of the most disgusting childhood activities you can imagine! Your children will love his horrendous antics and will adore his horrified family’s response to each one…..”No Bertie, that’s dirty Bertie”.

For such a little boy, David manages to get himself into a lot of trouble! On each page of this book we see David getting up to something he shouldn’t be while his poor mum is constantly chastising him. Happily, in the last pages we see David repent for his naughty deeds and are reassured that even a naughty boy’s mum loves him very much. This book contains very few words, in fact for the most part the text is comprised of the two words “No, David!”, but the illustrations speak volumes and provide all the story that your babas will need. Mr Moo and Lollipop love pretending to be David’s mum and shouting “No, David” at each page.

Ben receives Penguin as a gift but, initially at least, Penguin doesn’t live up to Ben’s expectations. Then Penguin shows his true colours and they are worth waiting for. This book is both funny and heart warming, a real winner in my book.

The heroine of this book has come to tell us what will happen if we don’t eat our greens……bits of our body will start to fall off and will need to be stuck back on using vegetable glue. A truly cautionary tale! This book is illustrated in an oddly old fashioned but very endearing way, we love this story and always eat our vegetables !

This over-sized book is simply jammed full of fantastically illustrated animals and birds. The creatures are arranged into unusual groupings like ‘Underground’, ‘In the trees’ and ‘Horned’. You and your babas could happily spend hours peering at the huge almost encyclopedia-like pages of this book.

This is a visually beautiful book which combines art with fun. On each page there is an abstract design and hidden in each one is a person, an animal or a bird, all you have to do is ‘Spot It!”. We have a lot of fun with this book as we each race to be the first to point out the hidden creatures.

This is a fun pop-up book which follows a chatty wide-mouthed frog as he hops around meeting various other animals and asking them what they like to eat. Its all going well until he meets a crocodile who likes to eat wide-mouthed frogs and our hero suddenly becomes a little less talkative. The pop-ups in this book are fun and the huge one on the last page always makes for a happy ending.

]]> http://bababooty.com/2011/11/10-books-for-christmas/feed/ 0 http://bababooty.com/2010/07/audio-books-are-the-new-black/ http://bababooty.com/2010/07/audio-books-are-the-new-black/#comments Tue, 20 Jul 2010 22:46:11 +0000 Paula http://bababooty.com/?p=1604 Mr Moo loves stories. Every night at bed time, he selects three books (which is the number which we  ultimately manage to negotiate him down to from his opening gambit of seventy-four) and we snuggle up together while I read them to him. When I’m finished doing my version of Jackanory, he will inevitably beg for more stories “pleeeeeeeeaaaaaaaasssssssseeeeeeeeeeee”. At this point, I give him the option of either having his torch and a story book which he can ‘read’ himself or an audio book.

Recently he has consistently been opting for audio books and so I have expanded our modest collection of story CDs. At first, we used the CDs which came with a few of his story books but these proved to be a little too short for Mr Moo (I would have just settled down with a cup a tea and my laptop when I would hear shouts from Mr Moo’s bedroom of “put it on again Mammy!”). Instead, we now use cds with collections of stories on them and Mr Moo just loves them and drifts happily off to sleep in the world of the hundred acre wood or Peter Rabbit’s burrow.

So far, my absolute favourite audio books are these dramatisations of Winnie The Pooh and The House at Pooh Corner (I am happy to report that Mr Moo is also a huge fan!):

£8.07

£8.55

These adaptations of the classic A A Milne stories are read by a phenomenal cast. Here’s a list of some of the main stars:

Pooh – Stephen Fry
Piglet – Jane Horrocks
Eeyore – Geoffrey Palmer
Kanga – Judi Dench
Owl – Michael Williams

Combine these immediately recognisable voices with sprinklings of music and understated but effective sound effects and you’ll find yourself unable to turn these CDs off. They really are special (although admittedly I was a Pooh fan to start off with!). They are fantastic for long journeys in the car (each box contains two CDs so they are a great length) and are great value for money.

Mr Moo’s other favourites include stories from Charlie and Lola, Fireman Sam and Beatrix Potter (which also has an impressive cast) but I really do have a soft spot for that ‘Bear of very little brain’.

I’m not quite controlling enough to implement any type of formal lending system to record who we lend each book to (not sure how Mr Moo’s friends would respond to receiving overdue notices!) but I would like to make sure that if one of our books goes astray and someone finds it, they will know that its ours and send it on its way home to us.

So this week I decided to buy a few bookplates for the babas. Bookplates are such a lovely old fashioned tradition and are a fantastic way to personalise a book.  There are plenty of different types to chose from but I wanted something that wasn’t too formal (some of the  ‘Ex Libris’ versions were a little too grown up for books which, in some cases, only have about five or six words on each page!) and also something that came already personalised.

In the end, I opted for personalised bookplates from a lovely Etsy shop called Oiseaux:

I got the Vintage Blue Bird one for Lollipop:

and the Animal Band one for Mr Moo.

They are so gorgeous, I really love the vintage feel of these two designs. These particular bookplates need to be glued on but you can get ones that are adhesive-backed (so they are just like stickers). You can even get personalised rubber stamps.

There’s a bookplate out there to suit everyone’s taste and pocket so get looking. Here are a few to get you started:

No more lost books……

I am not ashamed to admit that, in the case of Dogger, I completely judged this book by its cover. When I was younger I used to adore the “My Naughty Little Sister” series. These books were written by Dorothy Edwards but they were brimming with fabulous illustrations by Shirley Hughes. So when I saw the front cover of Dogger, I immediately recognised Ms Hughes’ work. In this book, which was originally published in 1977, Shirley has written the story as well as drawn the wonderfully detailed illustrations.

Dogger tells the story of a boy called Dave who gets  temporarily separated from his beloved toy dog (the eponymous Dogger). Dave’s happiness (and his favourite toy) are restored when his older sister Bella steps in with an act of great kindness. The story itself is not a particularly imaginative or innovative one but its the way that it is told that is so wonderful – Hughes has a real gift for identifying with very young children and explaining how they feel. At one point in the story, Dave and his family are at the School Fair. Dave, who is already feeling very upset because he can’t find Dogger, watches as his sister Bella wins the three legged race and then wins first prize in the raffle which is an enormous teddy bear. Hughes tells us that Dave doesn’t like that teddy bear at all, in fact, he doesn’t like Bella very much at that moment because she keeps winning things.  Isn’t this just exactly how any little man would feel in the circumstances? Mr Moo already loves this story and points at Bella asking ‘is that Bella who keeps winning things?’.

The illustrations are very seventies but to me, this totally adds to the charm, I love Dave’s mum’s headscarf and her special green dress for the Summer Fair, Baby Joe’s push chair is no Bugaboo and Bella’s short shorts are just like the pairs my sister and I used to wear. There’s an innocent and wholesome charm about this tale of sibling love and I just adore it. Dogger won the Kate Greenway medal in 1977 and its easy to see why. Pick up a copy from Amazon for just £3.99Stg.

They are so honest and literal, it’s wonderful. Mr Moo is what one might describe as a ‘chatty’ little man, he always has something to say and he has been keeping us entertained with his discourse ever since he first found his voice. Some of the things he says are hilarious, some are poignant, some are just bizarre and I have been looking for a way to record these special utterances. For example, one of my favourite quotes followed a viewing of the film Kung Fu Panda when Mr Moo turned around to Mr McSpendy, took a long look at him and sighed “You will never be the Dragon Warrior Daddy”. Having his limitations so accurately assessed by a two and a half year old will perhaps not be one of  Mr McSpendy’s most treasured memories but the rest of us loved this moment.

I recently came across a book called My Quotable Kid which is just what I have been looking for. This book is a journal in which you can record all of the wonderful things that your baba says.

The journal is made up of specially formatted pages with spaces to insert each quote together with the details of when and where it was uttered and your baba’s age when they said it.

There is also a special page at the front into which you can insert a photo of your baba. The journal has lots of pages and plenty of space so you can create a really special record for your child as they grow up. It will be one of those keepsakes which you can pull out at all your baba’s major milestones (21st birthday, wedding etc) for embarrassment purposes!

This book isn’t that easy to find but you can get it from Amazon for approximately £9.

Charley Harper was an American Modernist artist who died in 2007 but who was best known for his highly stylized wildlife prints, posters and book illustrations. I think that his drawings are really beautiful and are a lot more interesting that your typical children’s illustrations. The box of his flash cards contains 26 cards with each one depicting a letter of the alphabet together with a really beautiful illustration of a creature whose name begins with that letter, so A is for Ape, B is for Bird etc. They will have any toddler who is keen on wildlife delighted to learn to recognise the letters of the alphabet.

The flash cards also serve a dual prupose, flip them over and they make up two large floor puzzles, one puzzle is an abstract underwater scene while the other is a picture of vast collection of wildlife.

 The flash cards come in a sturdy but attractive cardboard storage box so they don’t have to live scattered all over your baba’s bedroom floor! A box of  cards is just £7.26 from Amazon.

Sticker books aren’t expensive and they are easy to roll up and tuck into your handbag or changing bag.  So sit back and enjoy that slice of chocolate tart and go ahead and order that latte. It sure beats having to bribe them with ice cream!

Here are a few good value options (they’re all under £3 each) :

Bon Appetit!

Its all written in lovely lyrical verse which means it is easy to read and lovely to listen to. Guy Parker-Rees’ illustrations are lovely and (much to Mr Moo’s delight) the pages are full of animals. Plus, social-conscience-mammy is happy too because there is a lovely message to be taken from the book – It’s ok to be yourself. I’m not saying that Gerald is going to change the world but a little giraffe wisdom can’t do any harm!

This book would be a lovely addition to your baba’s library. It’s £3.58 for the paperback version.

Mo Willems is an American childrens’ author, illustrator and animator. Before writing his fantastic children’s books, Willems spent ten years working on Sesame Street and won no less than six Emmys for his efforts. His books are clever, funny and, well, just different from your everyday kids’ books.

Knuffle Bunny (pronounced Kuh-nuffle) and Knuffle Bunny Too tell the stories of two landmark events in the life of Trixie ( our heroine) and her favourite toy (the eponymous Knuffle Bunny). In the first book, Trixie and her daddy take a trip to the laundromat where the unfortunate Knuffle Bunny goes missing. The story describes how Trixie, who is unable to talk at this stage, tries to let her daddy know that something is wrong. In the second book, Trixie takes her ‘one-of-a-kind’ Knuffle Bunny to school to show her friends only to discover that her classmate Sonja also has a Knuffle Bunny.  Just when you think Trixie’s day couldn’t get any worse, she ends up going home with the wrong bunny and only discovers the mix up in the middle of the night.

Willems animates the books himself by superimposing funky cartoons on to black and white photos of real backdrops (streetscapes, classrooms, laundromats etc), it sounds a little odd but I really like it. Written installments of the story appear as usual on each page but there is so much more to these tales than just the words – the illustrations add so much and in places tell parts of the story which the words do not.  Willems’ writing is subtle, clever and above all, very amusing.  His language truly reflects that of children and their often exasperated parents and his descriptions are genius, for example, see the below extract from Knuffle Bunny:

Isn’t ‘boneless’ the best description for that thing that all young children do…one minute you are holding the hand of a happy toddler, the next they are howling, its as though some one has removed their skeleton and you are left hanging on to a mass of limp flesh that won’t walk, sit or respond in any way to your desperate pleas for rigidity. Another favourite extract is from Knuffle Bunny Too when Trixie marches into her parents bedroom in the middle of the night to demand their assistance ..”Trixie’s daddy tried to explain what 2.30am means”. Both Knuffle Bunny books have won Caldecott Honors and both have appeared in the New York Times Bestsellers’ List (so its not just me who likes them!). They are currently £4.67 for Knuffle Bunny and £5.24 for Knuffle Bunny Too so give them a go. They would make lovely presents too.

Willems also writes the Pigeon series of books which are really fantastic. These are short books following the adventures of  a determined, self-assured and yet endearing bird called, well, called ‘The Pigeon’. The animations are so simple and yet often hilarious and The Pigeon’s dialogue is really clever. These books all involve the reader (its your responsibility not to let The Pigeon to stay up late etc) and having the characters talk directly to you adds a lovely dimension to these books which Mr Moo just adores. The extracts below will give you an idea of what to expect.

Have a look at the pigeons’ attempt to pursuade you to let him stay up late and drive the bus (below):

The board book versions of Don’t Let the Pigeon Stay up Late, Don’t let the Pigeon Drive the Bus, The Pigeon Has Feelings Too and The Pigeon Finds a Hot Dog are super value (ranging between £3.56 and £3.65). These really are great little books.

Check out the Mo Willems website, its choc full of good stuff.