July 2000
Baby books: *18 months and over*
THIS MONTH’S FAVE RAVE:
Toddlerobics Animal Fun, by Zita Newcome
Like the first Toddlerobics book, this one is full of buoyancy. The eight toddlers taking part in the organised gym activities are encouraged to mimic animals, and the picture of them on their hands
and feet scuttling “Thisaway, thataway, across the sands”like crabs is very funny.
Variety is achieved by focusing on a different child or grouping:
“Roar! You’re a lion!” says one child facing another; “Snap!
You’re a croc!” responds the other, dressed in a yellow lion’s
suit.
For clarity, the animal the children are mimicing is always
featured on the same page. This is not a book for bedtime, but for a
well-focused playtime. You may prefer to stay seated and restrict your
involvement to calling out the rhymes, but your child definitely won’t
let you!
Published by Walker, £9.99
HONOURABLE MENTION:
Baby’s farmyard word book, by Abigail Pizer
This
large format board book contains lots of pictures and word labels
relating to things on a farm, ranging from a sweetly-illustrated lamb
and foal to some refreshingly unusual words and images.
There’s a page illustrating animal features, like a mouse’s
whiskers and a ram’s horns, and a page devoted to food that can be
grown on a farm, including potatoes, peas, and corn-on-the-cob. This
themed approach enables the book to work on several levels. For
example, the page that starts with “sunrise” shows lots of
children doing things on the farm like collecting eggs and cleaning
the tractor, with the matching verb underneath.
Mum of a 16-month-old comments: “This has become my daughter’s
favourite. She seems to like the fact that there are lots of little
pictures of animals. And she’s absolutely fascinated by the scarecrow.
I think she keeps trying to work out whether it’s a real person.”
Published by David Bennett Books, £6.99
For more books in this age range see our food/books/book_archive.asp">baby
books archive.
Also see this month’s books for babies:
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pregnancy and parenting books and videos.
