Kids Books
Bears, Crocodiles, a Silly Goose and more
Since having a baby I’ve been sprinkling recommendations for kids books throughout my letters - most recently in January with the magical 1940s Bruno Munari series. Here is a post dedicated to the topic with seven more recommendations that we’ve been enjoying as of late plus all the books I’ve mentioned in my letters thus far, compiled in a handy list at the bottom. It’s been a DELIGHT re-entering the world of children’s books by way of revisiting classics from my childhood (Madeleine, Babar etc.) and also discovering new titles. I look forward to sharing more as we build up our library.
Bears (1948) by Ruth Krauss, illustrated by Phyllis Rowand
After my baby was born I read somewhere that you should try to stare into each other’s eyes as much as possible in order to share brainwaves. Amongst the absolute onslaught of information you learn when pregnant and as a new parent, this has really stayed with me (that and babies ride on overripe strawberry waves). Fast forward fifteen months and one of the best endorphin rushes I know is saying “Brainwaves” and having Lucy immediately put her forehead to mine and we stare intently into each others eyes for however long she’ll do it (I’d never look away first!). This brings me to Ruth Krauss’s wonderfully simple book Bears (look for the edition illustrated by Phyllis Rowand - here’s a lot of 8 of them! I’d be tempted to buy it for gifts), which has the correct ratio of words to pictures for the attention span of a baby. The bears in this book do all sorts of things - they go ‘under chairs’, are ‘stepping in squares’, are ‘millionaires’ etc. Crucially, there is a spread where the bears are ‘giving stares’ and now when we get to this page Lucy will initiate ‘brainwaves’ with me on her own.
It’s worth looking up what other books Phyllis Rowand has illustrated, as I find her curlycue drawings are what really make this book so special.
A Pair of Crocodile Books:
Lucy recently went through a phase where everything on the ground went into her mouth and if you tried to retrieve it, you’d risk losing a finger to her twelve (!) teeth, causing us to refer to her as ‘the baby crocodile’ for a time (thankfully this phase seems to have ended). As a result, I have developed a soft spot for crocodiles. Here are two current favourites: