Win a copy of Baby It's You and Baby Let's Play by Ruth Redford (me!) and illustrated by Ami-Lou Sharpe

I going to derail my blog slightly here and talk about my own books - which are published today! Yipee!

They are called Baby It's You:

and Baby Let's Play:

They are baby activity books in the shape of board books with touch and feels elements for parent and baby to share together. I am very excited about them! You can buy the 0-6 month one here and the 6-12 month one here. And if you prefer to buy direct from the publisher rather than Amazon you can also find them here.

Each page has suggestions of activities that you might try with your young baby and also sweet illustrations and tactile patches so the baby can engage with the book. Things like making a treasure basket/box with everyday items that your baby can explore. One of the main things I've tried to do is make it as interactive as possible so the parent will be chatting to the baby the whole time using the book as a prompt.

When I conceived the idea and scribbled everything down it really didn't look a lot like it does today. See below!

So yes, I know my drawing is really quite awful but hopefully you can see what I was trying to get at. Anyway the publisher at Random House (who to my great fortune I know quite well and used to work for, no point denying that one!) could see my vision for these books and decided to commission them. 

After many creative meetings with the editorial department and designers we reached a look we were all happy with and the books were contracted to be published. But that's not really half the battle. Once a book is contracted all the internal wheels inside the publishing house need to start turning. The editor has to work with production to make sure the book is going to be to the highest standard possible and for the best value. They need to get projected sales figures from the sales department and from the foreign rights department and they generally need to get everyone on board and excited about the books. And at this point there wasn't really much I could do to help things along. I made a video showing how the book could be used by a parent and baby and it was used by the rights department to sell it to the international markets. I chipped in with a few unique selling points and a bit of copy where needed but that was about it.

But now they are published and I can do stuff! Like write this blog and use the twitter feed @BabyLetsPlay to promote activity fun with babies. I'm hopefully doing an event with Norwich Waterstones in a few weeks time. And if that goes well I will probably do more, please contact me if you'd like me to do one.

And if you'd like to win a copy of the books please put a comment why you'd like them in the boxes below and I will choose someone to receive them. (That seems dreadfully narcissistic but I can't think of how else to do it!)

All about Fairytales!

We've been going a bit fairytale crazy recently and most of Rosie's playing involves being a 'charming girl' (Cinderella app - thank you Nosy Crow!), a billy goat gruff, a scary wolf who's going to eat everyone up and a handsome prince. It's all mixed up into one big fairytale of it's own!

Goldilocks and the Three Bears by Emma Chichester Clark is one of our favourite retellings. I really love the way that Emma Chichester Clark has breathed new life into this classic and I adore the house on the top of the hill in the forest that the bears live in. It's a Swiss dream!

For the younger child just starting out with stories the Ladybird Touch and Feel Fairy Tales are great. The text is very short and they have touch and feel bits for the young baby to explore. They work from when your baby is one year. They also have text which has extra bits to point out and talk about with your baby running along the bottom of each page.

We were give The Gingerbread Man by Father Christmas at Harrods and it's a great retelling with lovely artwork. The collection of Ladybird First Favourite Tales is quite extensive so you can generally find your favourite fairy tale amongst them. We intend to collect them all!

The Lift-the-flap Fairy Tales from Macmillan illustrated by Nick Sharratt and written by Stephen Tucker are funny, quirky and great for 2+ years old. The flaps add a great dimension to the stories and they're nice and tough too! The text is funny and rhymes making it great to read aloud.

We also have First Picture Fairytales from Usborne, illustrated by Jo Litchfield and written by Felicity Brooks. This contains eight different fairytales including Little Red Riding Hood, Cinderella and Jack and the Beanstalk. Because it only has room to tell the story in two pages the stories are quite short. I find that Rosie likes to 'read' this by herself and I grow impatient reading a whole story in just two pages so that suits me!

So that's our little collection, we also love all the 'take-offs' of fairytales you get as well. Mini Grey springs to mind! I'm sure there are many more great retellings of fairytales for this age group out there. What are your favourites?