Time for Bed

Review also includes:

Honk Honk! Baa Baa!, 978-1406343755

These two lively board books – one about bedtime routines, the other introducing animal noises – are the latest additions to the Baby Walker series.  At first glance they are deceptively simple but further scrutiny shows that this author illustrator knows exactly how to entrance the very young. First of all he understands that early stories are best regarded as transitional between toys and books.  So we find that the shaped pages can be turned and moved backwards and forwards with ease and are designed so that when all have been turned the combined edges of each page form a surprise final picture. The surprise in Time for Bed is a young child asleep under a colourful duvet.  In Honk Honk! Baa Baa! the same technique gives us a picture dominated by a large black and white cow that looks ready to spring off the page. I guarantee this will raise a chuckle.  A second strength is that the objects and animals in the pictures are not stylised but look like the things that they represent. And on every page  just the right colours are chosen for the background to let the main item truly live. Time for Bed shows building bricks and shapes in primary colours against a back ground of more neutral colours while the running dog in Honk Honk! Baa Baa! has a white coat that shines out from the scarlet and black background.  Books of this quality that offer the chance to re-savour experiences and learn about the world  in a playful way are likely to set a baby on the path to loving books.