What can you see Spot? by Eric Hill

My (just) two year old is loving What Can You See, Spot? at the moment. It's perfectly pitched for her and is working really well at giving her new vocabulary and also has a lovely repetition. It's quite a simple concept, placing Spot the dog in different places (countryside, beach, farm, home) and then asking the question 'what can you see?' The thing about it is that all the objects to spot are fun to look at, interesting to say and help to expand my toddlers vocabulary. I really think it's a pretty perfect example of a book of this kind!

Spot the dog is well known and we have enjoyed many of his books but this one is a real stand-out for us. Sadly the author Eric Hill died earlier this year but because he produced such a huge variety and quantity of books with Penguin, I'm sure we haven't seen the last of Spot. And of course so many of them are great backlisters which will stick around for many moons to come.

Elephant Wellyphant by Nick Sharratt

We've been having a lovely time with Elephant Wellyphant. It's hilarious and perfect to share with mixed age children. The link above is for the publisher's website but I don't think there is a link to buy so here is another one!

There are a few bits inside the book that mean you can't really leave your toddler alone with it - spinning wheel and pull out tabs etc but the whole premise is beautifully suited to 18 months plus although I'm sure you could use it with younger children too.

It's a very simple play on the word elephant. There's Smelliphant (pull a tab and out pops a 'parp' - greatly loved by my four year old!). A poorly, spotty Unwelliphant. A Cinderellaphant (turn the flap and there she is ready for the ball). And of course as the title suggests an elephant wearing wellies - a Wellyphant.

Nick Sharratt's fantastic artwork is perfect for this format and style of book and his sense of humour and the ridiculous can be seen to great effect here. Love it!

Pip and Posy: The Big Balloon by Axel Scheffler

Pip and Posy are lovely characters and great favourites in our house, they are good at holding both my one year old's attention and my four year old's (only just these days, mind you!).

In Pip and Posy: The Big Balloon Pip has a lovely red balloon that he is very proud of and takes to show Posy. But he accidentally lets go of it and they follow it until it eventually bursts. Thankfully Posy has a bright idea and saves the day by bringing out some bubbles. They have fun blowing them and watching them pop, as they are meant to! 

This is of particular interest to us because we have recently lost two balloons to the great outdoors. And there really is no greater sadness for a child than losing an exciting balloon that you have been clinging to and then watching it float up into the air. (My sadness is more that it is very bad to let something plastic and rubbery float off into the environment and add more to the mounds of plastic that litter our world.) But anyway we all felt very sad. So this book is wonderful and next time we lose a balloon (probably soon!) I'm sure my four year old will suggest we get the bubbles out!

Of course you'll recognise the artwork on this - it's the wonderful Axel Scheffler. The illustrations are lovely with gorgeous little details and lots to spot and talk about. 

This series is lovely for children who have started to want a bit more of a story and can sit down to listen (but wouldn't survive a full picture book text). Perfect from 18 months I would say!

100 First Animals by Little Tiger Kids

I was given this book by Little Tiger Books last year as part of their parent panel testing out books and doing reviews but at the time my youngest was 9 months so a bit little and my nearly 4 year old didn't seem that keen. So I didn't review it because I didn't have much to say!

But now! My 18th month old adores this book. It has umpteen flaps on each page with loads of different animals and because her language is exploding at the moment she's really interested in sounding out the animal names.

The flaps are integrated so much harder for little hands to pull off and the book is arranged thematically so you have 'farm animals', 'jungle animals', 'desert animals', 'pets' etc. Each flap lifts to show a close up, or maybe a mother and baby, of the animal pictured on the top. It's not the greatest surprise in the world but for this age group it works nicely.

It's a big sturdy book which uses photos instead of artwork and I think it works very well. There is something very cute about watching a toddler lug around a big book and then plonk themselves (usually right in your way!) and sit and read it totally absorbed.

Pip and Posy - The Little Puddle by Axel Scheffler

We've had the Pip and Posy app on my phone for quite a while now but for some reason we hadn't made it to the books themselves. By the by the app is brilliant - do download it if you can, it's full of puzzles and games.

Pip and Posy - The Little Puddle is a sweet picture book about two friends enjoying playing together and then one of them having a little accident! It's a lovely first picture book to read to children who are just starting to listen to stories. It's a bit young for Rosie really but she likes it. I wish we'd got this book when Rosie was potty training because it brings a great softly softly approach to the whole thing. It tells a very simple story and then leaves the child and adult to discuss what has happened. Of course the illustrations are completely gorgeous (it is Axel Scheffler after all). Rosie loves the fact that when Pip has to change he is a bit perturbed by the choice of dresses to wear but then happily wears one. The only niggle I had was that they end up in the bath (I thought he was just over to play?) but it does make for some very lovely pictures - of course it doesn't bother Rosie in the slightest!

I think we will be getting the rest of the series: The Super Scooter, The Big Balloon and The Snowy Day. And what is also nice is that Rosie's younger sister (just turned one) is becoming very interested in books and it won't be long before she will enjoy sitting and listening to a story and this level of text will be perfect for that.

Fancy Dress Farmyard by Nick Sharratt

'There's a party at the farmyard'! This is a fun vibrant picture book - it's actually a little young for my three and half year old but she still loves it. What's great is that it's suitable to read to both my children even with a three year age gap. It has rhyming text (tick for pre-speakers), bold contrasting colours (great for developing those eyes) and lots of interactivity (ideal for the 3 year old). Now to be perfectly honest the six month old doesn't do much more than sit on my knee and try to grab the book to shove in her mouth but I know that she is learning (deep down!) about what you do with a book and the great fun you can have with it.

The rhymes are short and not always that wonderful! But my three year old loves to finish them off for me or even recite them in total (sigh - yes it's one of those, we've read it every night for the last month. It's going to be time to hide it soon!). She also loves to shout out who is hiding beneath the fancy dress costume and when we lift the flap to reveal we make the animal noise, for the benefit of the 6 month old.

At the end of the book you lift the flaps of the barn and all the animals in their fancy dress are revealed. We then always have a heated discussion which goes like this:

'Mummy, which would you like to be?' 

'I'd like to be the pirate.'

'No, Mummy, you can be the princess or the fairy.'

'But I want to be the pirate.'

'Girls can't be pirates.' (shouting!)

'Girls can be anything they want to be.'

'No, you have to be the fairy.'

'Ok, but girls really can be anything they want.'

(frowning!)

'And boys can too, ok?'

'No, mummy. I'm the princess and you're the fairy.' (pause) 'Daddy can be the pirate.' 

(groan)

I think I've even been guilty of saying 'girl power' in one of these discussions before. I just cannot believe that my daughter can be so gender specific! It will get better won't it? I won't be having this argument when she's twelve (to pick an age randomly!). One of the first times we had this discussion she got so upset she started to cry about it. I don't think I ever envisaged having a daughter sobbing her heart out about not being a princess when I first had kids.

For all the crazy politics that go with this book it's definitely one of our current favourites and as I mentioned it is great to read with different aged children. 

One Little Baby by Richard Dungworth and Jane Massey

I was sent this book for Rosie to share with her baby sister and we liked it so much I thought I'd do a blog post on it.

It's a simple picture book of a day in the life of a baby from waking up and getting dressed to going to the park, having tea and going to bed. There are the obligatory moments that every parent will recognise, the falling over with a bump and needing a cuddle, the tea on the head (spaghetti trailing down baby's face anyone?!), although this baby seems to go to sleep straight away. I'm going to read it straight away again to mine and see if they'll take the hint. All in all it's very very cute!

I love the delicate illustrations and how they stand out so beautifully on the page. The line work is fantastic and the restrained use of colour means it makes a lot more of an impact. The text is gently rhyming, almost how you would talk to your baby throughout the day (if you were a super-parent!) and compliments the illustrations beautifully.

It's a really nice first picture book to share with a baby or as we did with a toddler and a new baby.

Chocolate Mousse for Greedy Goose by Julia Donaldson and Nick Sharratt

This is quite a young book which you could share with a child who is younger than two but we came to it a bit later and still really enjoy it!

It's a rolling rhyme which goes through a dinner party of sorts introducing all sorts of different animals and their different characters (shy gazelle, fussy duck, angry rabbit) and some different foods (carrots, macaroni, chocolate mousse!) until they all end up asleep. It's a bit crazy and feels quite like a collection of words forced together but somehow it does work and with the payoff of being able to whisper 'sleep' at the end Rosie really enjoys reading it.

Big Book of My World by Kali Stileman

We were given Big Book of My World a while ago and at first I didn't think that Rosie liked it that much but I think that maybe she was a little young for it and has grown into it now. Or maybe we're more used to reading hardback storybooks and we found the idea of a non-fiction book hard at first.

On the back cover it says 'It's a one-stop, fun shop to give every toddler the best start on the road to learning.' It definitely is jam-packed with content! First concepts are well covered and first words and pretty much everything really! Rosie calls it the 'Owl book' and there are a lot of owls in it, including one to find on every double page.

What I'm finding at the moment is that we're dipping into it every day and spending at least ten minutes looking at a couple of pages. It's not the type of book you would read from cover to cover but it's definitely our favourite to have a quick dip into at the moment! It's probably also worth mentioning that it won an award at the Right Start Best Toy Awards 2011.

I'm hoping there is an app on the horizon since some of the spreads must have been designed with them in mind. We're already trying to drag and drop some of the items from edges of the 'First Word' scenes to complete them. And I can totally see the artwork animated. Hurry up Random House!

Kali Stileman is also the author/illustrator of the lovely Peely Wally book which was shortlisted for the Red House Book Awards and is being distributed by Booktrust's Books for Babies scheme in 2012. I do believe there is a follow-up to Peely Wally coming later this year as well!

Toddler Touch First Words and First Numbers

The Toddler Touch series has been developed to lead on from Ladybird's very successful Baby Touch series. There are currently two books: First Words and First Numbers. I've used them with Rosie and she's really enjoyed them but she's more into her stories at the moment and they are also slightly young for her. I think they are more suitable for 1-2 years old. It's probably also the format. Board books with touch and feels just don't hold Rosie's attention in the way they used to (she's now 2 and a half). It's interesting finding this out with your own child. When I was working in book publishing I would merrily propose board books for much older ages! She does like books with bits you can remove however! I hate them! They end up all over the house. Another thing I never realised when I was busy making books that had about 50 removable pieces in them!

But although they don't hold her attention as much as they would if she was a bit younger she definitely enjoys exploring the books with their lift-the-flaps and touch-and-feel trails. And she particularly likes to display her counting skills with the First Numbers. Each book has a trail to follow, apart from just being good fun they are there to encourage pre-writing skills, if you can follow a twisty line with your finger then it's one step towards using a pencil.

First Words follows themes and displays them in engaging ways. The Food theme is arranged as a teddy bears picnic and the Outside theme is arranged as a walk around a park. It works well since you can use them to generate discussions and ask your child what they like best and what they would choose etc.

I think the design and illustrations work really well for these books and they look fresh and fun. They're easy to use and clear in what they're setting out to do.

I do have to put in a small caveat here and admit they are written by me. So I am going to be biased towards them! I don't gain from any sale of them though so although it's slight self-promotion it's not for monetary purposes.