Make this Your First Gruffalo

My niece reaches the grand age of 1 next week and I have the perfect present for her - a set of My First Gruffalo (Julia Donaldson & Axel Scheffler, Macmillan) books. Of course they won't actually be her first Gruffalo books at all as I gave her a lovely copy complete with buttons to press and sounds to hear at christmas. she may not be old enough yet to fully appreciate them but she does love hearing the story, seeing the pictures and even trying to turn the pages!

The four My First Gruffalo books are therefore perfect for they will help her to begin to learn her Colours, Numbers, Opposites and even Animal Actions as she grows. Better than this though becasue they are tough and chunky board books she can handle them herself without the worry of torn pages.

Each book features well-known and loved characters from the stories using each of them in an apprpriate way. For example in Colours the red fox is on his own but opposite a bright red page with the word RED and a few other red pictures from the story. GREEN appears opposite a nice tall tree from the forest and so on for the five colours featured.

In Opposites the BIG Gruffalo is opposite a small mouse. A happy mouse with his acorn faces a sad mouse without the acorn. In this book there are six Opposites for children to learn. Five numbers will find the reader counting the characters on each page with the words to learn to read too and animal actions will find children and their parents making some wonderful noises!

What is there not to enjoy about the Gruffalo and even more so now that there is a wonderful set of books with all our favourite charcters helping babies and toddlers to learn and take their very first steps into reading and understanding.

I know my niece and her parents will have great fun with this bright, colourful, durable and edcuational set of books, I hope you do too!

Babies galore!

Very young children have been the focus of my life recently for there have been two additions to my growing family – both of my sisters have very recently had children. My youngest sister has had her first, a little baby girl who is now one month old. My other sister has had a third, a little boy who is now two weeks old. This is a perfect excuse of course to need to read and review yet more books for babies and toddlers for they are always in need of recommendations and just to prove that no-one is ever too young for a book the youngest sister and her husband have been reading Room on the Broom and the Gruffalo to their daughter already whilst they are now in need of a book of nursery rhymes having making the shocking admission that they know none!

I don’t have a nursery rhyme book to recommend to them here but there are two books that I think they will love!

The first is Sing a Song of Bottoms by Jean Willis & Adam Stower (Puffin) is a wonderfully bright laugh-out-loud, rhyming, read-along story of bottoms from a hugely talented team! Bottoms are one thing that we are all closely acquainted with, especially new parents! In this book bottoms of all shapes and sizes are celebrated with joy whilst the narrator tries to establish exactly whose bottom should win aprize. I won't give away the wonderful ending but encourage you all to read this charming and hilarious story with its brilliantly clever and witty text as well as hilarious and cleverly captured bottoms in all their glory this book is a riot of colour and life, perfect for the eyes and ears of all little readers and listeners!

At the other end of the body there is of course the head and whilst many of Adam Stower’s bottoms have pants, Millie’s head has a hat. In Satoshi Kitamura’s Millie’s Marvellous Hat we find hats of all shapes and sizes varying depending on…. well the imagination of their wearer of course!

Millie falls in love with a beautiful hat and its perfect fit encourages her to decide to make a purchase, its “five hundred and ninety-nine pounds and ninety-nine pence” price tag is somewhat prohibitive but the shopkeeper is certainly resourceful and the wonderful box with its empty potential certainly inspires Millie. I loved the title of this book – reminding me as it does of my own sister Millie. All about using the imagination and being a little bit daring this is a book for lovers of distinctive and colourful illustrations, great stories and a little thought will enjoy the journey this book takes them on through parks, streets and interiors.

Creative, comic and fun both these books are about being an individual and having fun – what better message for two new mums and their growing families – plus two great books to read!

Books and Babies

I have babies on the brain at the moment becoming an Auntie once again. Firstly, three weeks ago came my first gorgeous little niece, Myla and just four days ago an as yet unnamed but very cute little nephew. With this in mind I have been planning which bocks to give them to start them off on their lifetime of reading and I am quite honestly spoilt for choice. This has been compounded (in a wonderful way) after having spent a lovely evening at Walker books in the company of John Burningham and Helen Oxenbury talking about their collaboration on There's Going to be a Baby and also feasting my eyes on some brilliant new books coming later this year (plus let us not forget the wonderful spread of nibbles provided by Walker's fantastic in-house chef!)

So to the books...

There's Going to be a Baby has been at least ten years in the planning not least because both John and Helen are very busy people but also because they could not quite decide on the respective story and pictures either. The result of such a long term collaboration is a book that has huge appeal to readers of all ages, is incredibly important for its contribution to both picture books and graphic novels with its traditional story and picture pages as well as pages concentrating solely on pictures of the baby and its possible antics! It is subtle in presentation yet captures the imagination with its life and vibrancy, a funny, warm and moving story, with a subtle edge to it. Certainly one to share with the whole family and one that has been well worth the wait.

Other books that were mentioned during the course of the evening will find their way into Armadillo very soon but just to whet your appetites there is an exciting collaboration with Cannogate bringing some of the best young adult fiction to a new audience with Yann Martel, Matt Haig and Niccolo Ammanti for starters. Fun family romps in The Great Space Race by Joshua Mowll, games to play with the Laureate in Play the Shape Game and even family tress to investigate with Be A Genealogy Detective. This and much more are to come from Walker Books in 2010 so be sure to watch this space for more news...