I mentioned in my 2021 goals post that I was stopping star ratings for baby books, as it hardly seems fair given they’re judged on an entirely different metric than books where the story is the focus. But I still want to highlight some of the amazing board books and picture books that are coming out, so I’m introducing a new feature! Kitten Corner will be a less structured round-up of the things I’ve been reading with my little one – I hope you enjoy it. Books in these posts will be marked with a star if they were sent to me for review.
We’re all about the interactive books at the moment! If it has a flap, slider, or textured bit to grab, it’ll be a hit. The very first ones we tried, and a collection we love, is Nosy Crow’s Felt Flaps series by Ingela P Arrhenius – recently we’ve been loving Where’s Mr Narwhal? and Where’s Mrs Tiger?*. The bright colours, simple artwork, and huge soft flaps make these great for babies just starting to be interested in grabbing books. Each of the books has four animals (or people – I’ve previously reviewed Where’s Mrs Queen?*) to find, and a final flap that hides a mirror – you wouldn’t think something so short could provide so many hours of fun!
Books with fuzzy bits are something that have only just come into the spotlight here – I’ve been encouraging my baby to touch the That’s Not My… books for a while, but he’s only started to go for them himself in the last few weeks! One of my favourites is That’s Not My Bat, written by Fiona Watt and illustrated by Rachel Wells, because the bats are just too cute, but we’re also fans of That’s Not My Robot and many of the others. More recently, I received Who Said Cheep?* by Becky Davies and Yi-Hsuan Wu from Little Tiger to review, and it was an instant hit! This book combines feely patches with flaps – each noise-making animal is hidden behind another, wrong, animal with a little bit of texture poking through a cut-out in the flap, and the combination is apparently hilarious. We get giggles whenever we read this one!
Probably my favourite of all the current interactive series at the moment is the new Peekaboo series by Camilla Reid and Ingela P Arrhenius (again! She’s so talented!). We received Peekaboo Apple* and Peekaboo Bear* just before Christmas, and I was wowed by the clever design, simple but effective rhymes, and fantastic construction quality. Some of the sliders are a little bit advanced for an eight-month old who hasn’t quite got the precision of older hands yet, but they’re so much fun to work, even for an adult, and they have a lot of humour in the art, too. Peekaboo Love* just arrived last week, and is already a new favourite, with some brilliantly cute images!
I know not all of you who follow me are parents or are interested in baby books, but I hope this new feature is helpful to some of you! I’d love to know what your favourite books to read with a baby are!
A Cat, A Book, and A Cup of Tea 