BabaBooty.comFab finds for funky tots

I used to think that children’s books without words would be a total nightmare…the pressure of having to come up with an interesting story myself each night, no thank you! Surely that’s like buying a blank CD!. But ‘Welcome to the Zoo‘ obviously caught Santa’s eye because it arrived under our tree this Christmas with Mr Moo’s name on it and I love it (Santa will be pleased to hear that Mr Moo adores it too!). Ironically, its hard to put what Alison Jay’s book does into words but here goes:

The beautifully illustrated pictures track a family’s route through a very unusual zoo where the animals roam freely and get into all kinds of mischief.

The pictures below will give you a taste of the fantastic illustrations, there is just so much to look at you could spend a whole story time just looking at one page. You can focus on the family (which Mr Moo has decided represent us…though he did express some surprise that at just seven months, Lollipop was able to walk around the zoo ‘all by herself’!) as they make their way around the zoo but there are so many other things to do on each page. For example, you can track one beleaguered zoo keeper as he tries in vain to capture a delinquent ostrich or you can follow the movements of a rogue parrot-shaped balloon which gets separated from its young owner in the early pages but, through the intervention of a goose, is ultimately reunited with him.  If you run out of your own ideas, the last page contains several suggestions for things to look out for.

This really is a lovely book. One word of warning though, if you aren’t David Attenborough then I would suggest working on your animal identification skills to avoid a very awkward silence when your child asks “What’s that animal, mammy?”.

We have the hard-backed version which comes in at £9.89 but the board-book version is just £3.73.  Alison Jay has also published several other books and I will definitely be checking them out.

I am a total Chrisa-holic and so don’t need to ‘get into the mood’ for Christmas at this time of the year. If I’m honest, by around April I am already humming Christmas tunes. This year’s festive excitement really got going in our house in July when Mr Moo pulled Julia Donaldson’s Stick Man off the shelf and insisted that this be his bedtime story for about five weeks!!  By mid-August I had finally managed to divert him to more seasonal reading but as we are almost in December, I have once again pulled out my stash of Christmas books and now bedtime is full of Snowflakes, Christmas trees and Reindeer.   Mr Moo is loving it and, if I’m honest,  so am I.

Here are my favourite festive reads:

My absolute favourite Christmas book is Robert Sabuda’s take on The Night Before Christmas. If you haven’t seen any of Sabuda’s books before, prepare to be totally amazed. His pop-ups (or paper engineering as it called by those in the know) are stunning. The pop-ups themselves are mostly white which may sound a little dull but they are so detailed and they move so beautifully that they will not fail to wow. The pictures below will give you an idea of what its all about but its almost impossible to give a description which does it justice. Like with all pop-up books, there is potential for damage from eager little hands, but this is our third Christmas with ours and its still perfect, you just have to mind it a little more than most books.  On offer currently for just £12.99, this is a total bargain.

Another fabulous Sabuda Christmas book is his version of The Twelve Days of Christmas.

Again, the pop ups are fantastic and are not just literal interpretations of the verse, for example the five gold rings are hanging on the antlers of a huge reindeer which jumps out of the page at you (that description makes it sound a bit menacing but its not, I promise, see below). The very best thing about this book though is the last page (pictured on the right below). When you open this page, a huge Christmas tree appears festooned in all of the things presented by the mysterious ‘True Love’ over the course of the twelve days of Christmas. The tree is surrounded by presents which also pop up.  As you can see from the picture, this is very impressive but the piste de resistance is the fact that there are real lights on the Christmas tree!!  They are different colours and they twinkle….. A little tacky? Absolutely, but your child will adore them. Mr Moo gets so excited about this page that he barely looks at the twelve lords who are all a’leaping on the second last page and we have to turn off the lights to get the full effect. It’s a little bit of Christmas magic at bedtime and all for £11.47.

Less dramatic but no less endearing is Poppy Cat’s Christmas by Lara Jones. This book is just one of a vast array of Poppy Cat stories (many of which are in Mr Moo’s library). The story is simple, each page sets out something that Poppy Cat likes about getting ready for Christmas like up hanging up the stockings and making Christmas cards. There are flaps to lift and tabs to pull on each page which make this such an interactive read. Like Sabuda above, Jones saves the best thing till last. The final spread shows Poppy Cat’s favourite thing about Christmas, the Christmas tree  which pops up and not only has twinkling lights but also plays music….. a slightly high pitched rendition of Silent Night rings out while your baba looks on delighted.  The hardback version of this one comes in at £12.74.

Most parents know at least one of Julia Donaldson’s books and Stick Man very much follows her usual style of rhyming rhythmical text coupled with Alex Scheffler’s illustrations. The key to Stick Man’s identity is in his name, he’s a man who looks like, well, a stick. One morning he gets up early and leaving his wife and stick children at home he goes for a jog. The story follows Stick Man as he gets into all kind of scrapes because he gets mistaken for a stick. Not sounding like a very Christmassy story so far? Well, be patient, just when Stick Man thinks all hope of returning home is lost, who should he meet but Santa who has managed to get  himself stuck in a chimney. Following a daring rescue by Stick Man, Santa repays the favour by helping our hero get home. Although this isn’t a traditional Christmas tale, it is a lovely read and children do love Donaldson’s melodic way of telling a story. Mr Moo loves to finish each of the sentences for me when I read this and he thinks Santa’s predicament is hilarious. The paperback version of this book is available for an incredible £2.96 so give it a go.

I adore pop up books, I think that they really capture children’s attention and imagination and are a great way to get really young children interested in books.  I have a few favourite authors/paper engineers including Robert Sabuda, David Carter, Matthew Reinhart and Chuck Murphy. Their publications are more like works of art than books and its like a special occasion each time one of them is opened in our house.

Animal Babies A to Z is Chuck Murphy’s latest publication and it is beautiful. Inside the book, there are four pop-ups on every page. Behind each letter of the alphabet hides  an animal whose name starts with that letter together with their baby, e.g.a mother Elephant and a baby behind the letter E, etc. When you lift the letter, the animals pop up to see you.

As well as the usual animals there are also a few less well known creatures (vicunas, quetzels etc) so as well as learning the alphabet, you can learn a bit about some wildlife.

The pop-ups can be a little delicate but if you are careful this book will be a delight for many years. It will definitely help to teach young readers the alphabet and is a fantastic addition to any library.