Silly Goose and Daft Duck Try to Catch a Rainbow ¦ Ten in a Bed ¦ Goodbye, Hello!

DK have broken away from their photos-on-white-background style here to produce a series (currently 30 titles) of large square 'toddler-friendly' books with sturdy covers and tough untearable pages.

In Goodbye, Hello! Thompson's bright, page-filling watercolours support a banal text 'celebrating toddlers' excitint achievements'. Thus 'goodbay nappy, hello potty!' and so on throughout the day, until nap-time means 'no goodbyes... because it's always Hello, Ted!' Apart from being unrealistic - does anyone gather up the baby food to throw away when junior graduates to 'grown-up food'? - it is hard to know what a toddler's view of all this 'achievement' would be.

Silly Goose and Daft Duck live up to their epithets in a very silly story for an older toddler. Silly Goose's nest is 'too brown, and brown is boring' so off they go to find something pretty to cheer it up. Their uninspiring search (any toddler could do better) culminates in Clever Fox suggesting that they dig a hole to catch a rainbow - he will provide the net. They are rescued from their inevitable fate by Grizzly Bear with whom we leave them, still waiting for that elusive rainbow to fall into their hole. My tester, groomed on Rosie's Walk etc, now, at 3 1/2, knows that a fox means doom in storyland - but this concept is not as straightforward or obvious to toddlers as adult writers often imagine. The indeterminate ending is unsatisfactory for little ones too - the joke too obscure for the under 4s. The illustrations are cartoony and not entirely successful, though I liked Clever Fox's nonchalant presence.

In Ten in a Bed, Amelia wakes up with nine characterful soft toys. One by one she gets them up to share her activities as she parallels Mum and Dad dealing with her baby sibling. Ormerod's gentle observations of the baby's life, and of the imitative character of a pre-schooler's play, is as accurate as ever, though I was sad that she missed the opportunity to show a breastfeeding baby; the text however lacks the cadence necessary to echo the original song, and a few readings are needed to work out how best to read it aloud.

Although this is the best of an indifferent bunch, DK have still not hit the mark here - I feel they just do not understand the experience of 'toddlers' (whoever they are) and the elements needed for a really enriching read for this age group, who should not just be seen as an easy market.