Half Pint Pixie

We have read almost all of the toddler/younger children books in our little village library and the combination of the recent cold weather and my recent cough that kept us housebound has left us (well me really) bored of all our current books (I can read them all with my eyes closed now). The city library is fabulous, there is a huge children’s area but we don’t tend to get into the city very often in this wet weather.

So we are stocking up on a big pile of new books. I love buying books, LP loves reading them and they are the one toy (along with Lego blocks) that I think you can never have too much of. A few months ago, LP only looked at the pictures, now she reads the stories to us by describing the pictures, she picks out the letters that she recognises and in the future when she can read, the books will take on a whole new excitement for her. And then they can get passed onto the next child!

So yeah, you can never have too many books I have a few arriving soon from my online shopping but I thought I would also venture into a real world bookshop as we have some book vouchers that need using up.

So myself & Littlepixie took our voucher up to our local book shop today and I have to say I was shocked at the poor quality of the children’s books there. The children’s books (for the under 5 ages) are on one big display wall, so it looks impressive, 4 columns of shelves, each with 4 rows, giving me 16 shelves of potential new books.

16 shelves – So ignoring the 3 shelves devoted to Hannah Montana (who the heck is she anyway?), the 3 shelves of Disney’s princess books, the 2 Thomas the tank engine shelves, the 3 Dora shelves and the 1 young baby book shelf left us with very little to actually browse through. So what did we come away with? Just 2 books, and that was after 20 minutes of searching! Back to the interwebs I go!

I choose a lot of my books based on other people’s recommendations so I shall return the favour and share some of our current favourites with you all, in case any of you are looking for new books too! And we are still enjoying all the books I shared with you a few months ago too, so I can still heartily recommend all of them too (even though I can recite them in my sleep now)! We have swapped a few of the older ones out for a while & will swap them back in again in a few weeks when no doubt they will be welcomed with much gusto!

Ready? Here we go (presented in roughly the same order as I picked them up off the floor during a tidying spree )…

• Chugga Chugga Choo Choo by Kevin Lewis -  Like her parents, Littlepixie adores trains. This lovely book follows the adventures of a little toy train loaded with freight as it chugs through the marvelous landscape of a little boy’s playroom. (boardbook)

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• Choo Choo by Petr Horacek -  Are we seeing a theme yet? Another book about trains, this time we’re on a train going through exciting tunnels and mountains to get to the sea! The pages in this book are shaped like the landscape, with holes for the tunnel entrance and exit. (boardbook)

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• Brown bear, brown bear, what do you see? by Bill Martin Jr. & Eric Carle – A blue horse?? This is a fun book with many improbably coloured animals all looking at each other. LP enjoys shouting out all the animals names and colours and thinks it is all utterly hilarious! (boardbook)

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• I am a little whale by Francois Crozat – LP loves whales and this book is very popular here. It shows a baby whale being born, nursing and migrating with its family. We also have I am a little kangaroo which is another much-loved book. We do have 2 issues with this series of books, firstly they are not very accurate portrayals of the animals and secondly the large boardbook version is very heavy for little hands but these mini ones have very sharp paper pages that have wounded me once so far! (mini hardback w/ paper pages)

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• From Head to Toe by Eric Carle - A big paper book, this is so much fun. We all line up and read out the lines and do the actions “Can you do it? I can do it!”. Lots of fun. I would highly recommend the bigger size that I accidentally bought as you can prop up the book for everyone to see the actions. (Large paper book)

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• Strawberries are red by Petr Horacek – By the same author as “Choo choo”, this book also uses cutout pages to good effect. Each page has a different coloured fruit culminating in a fruit basket full of a rainbow of fruit! Yummy. We discovered this book whilst browsing through Disposable Aardvarks‘ list of book recommendations for veggie kids. (boardbook)

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• Winnie the Pooh’s A to Z by Ferguson, Langley & Wakeman – We have had this book in our collection for many, many years. Nobody remembers when or why we got it but LP found it in our “library room” one day and claimed it for her own. It has little rhymes for each letter and it is really sweet. (teeny hardback with paper pages)

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• Muddle Pirates by Stephen Gulbis – Coincidentally at the same time that Isil recommended Muddle Farm on my previous book post, Mr.HPP bought Muddle Pirates for LP. It’s great fun, we have lost of few of the pirates on various train journeys and about a week ago they all moved out of the book and are currently all living on an LP-coloured-in printout of a desert island stuck on our freezer Lots of fun for everyone! (magnetic cardboard book)

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• Colours & Opposites by Tony Potter & Dubravka Kolanovic – These books both have little wheels that you turn. In “Opposites” you match up the little picture on the wheel with the picture on the page. In “Colours” you match the colour on the wheel with the picture on the page. LP likes these books but finds the colour one a little frustrating, the problem with it is that the wheel colours are solid print colours whereas the pictures are like crayon sketches so the colours don’t actually match! (boardbooks with wheels)

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• Alphapets by Ladybird – LP’s very first Ladybird book, I’m not sure if that is a big thing in other countries but in Ireland we were all raised on Ladybird books This is a Alphabet book, each page has a funny drawing and a line like “Mm – Molly has a Monster on her Mat”. It’s all very edu-taining but LP ignores that aspect and concentrates on laughing at the pictures! This was the book we got in the real world bookshop today btw (hardback w/paper pages)

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• Handa’s Surprise by Eileen Browne – A story set in Kenya about a little girl who brings a basket of fruit to her friend, only along the way each fruit is eaten by a different animal. Lovely colours and a surprise ending make this a very exciting read! (large paperback)

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• Hooray for Fish! by Lucy Cousins – LP loves “under the sea” stories and this book is perfect! Bright illustrations and rhyming text make for a fun read and you meet lots of exciting fishy folk along the way (even an ele-fish with a trunk!)  (large paperback)

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• The New Alphabet of Animals by Christopher Wormell – I found this by following a link from a link from a link on Amazon, and it caught my attention. The pictures in it are lovely, they are not bright drawings, you can see the armadillo one here which give you a good idea of the style. The book has plenty of obscure animals and birds (I even learned a few new ones – like zorilla!). (boardbook)

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• My favourite nursery rhymes by Ladybird – Another ladybird book, this one is all the usual nursery rhymes with lovely illustrations. LP enjoys nursery rhymes, she knows a fair few of them already and she is enjoying discovering the new ones in here! (hardback w/paper pages)

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• Each breath a smile by Thich Nhat Hanh & Sister Thuc Nghiem – This beautiful book is LP’s new favourite bedtime book. It is a very restful book, with calming, meditative text and pictures. An lovely book to read in bed snuggled up to daddy after a hyper action-filled day (large paperback)

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And in my secret cotton bag hidden under my desk there are a few new books waiting to be brought out on rainy days. I’ve had a peek at them and methinks Littlepixie will enjoy them greatly…

• Rumble in the Jungle by Giles Andreae & David Wojtowycz – Animals, jungles, rhymes, bright colours and crazy capers! Methinks this splendid book will also be very well received by LP. A big thanks to drnoreenak who recommended this in the comments on my previous book post! (large paperback)

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• Magic Train Ride by Sally Crabtree & Sonia Esplugas – A very splendid book from the wonderful Barefoot Books, this is all about a magical train journey! We have this hidden and we will give it to LP on our exciting underwater Eurostar train trip to Disneyland Paris in April, woo hoo! (large paperback)

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• Room on the broom by Julia Donaldson & Axel Scheffler – We are big fans of Julia Donaldson’s books in the HPP household and this one is a very fun adventure indeed with a witch and a dragon and lots of animals! This book was highly recommended by many of the lovely Babywearing Ireland ladies (boardbook)

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There are two books currently winging their way to us, which I am looking forward to having a peek at too:

• Are you a ladybug? by Judy Allen & Tudor Humphries – Ladybird/ladybug.. tomato/tomayto… aahhh the wondrous differences that make up our world! LP is fascinated by ladybirds so I think she will enjoy this a lot, especially when the ladybirds return to our garden and we can go looking for them! Thanks to JumbleberryMama for the recommendation! (paperback)

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• Chicka Chicka ABC by Bill Martin Jr, John Archambault, Lois Ehlert – LP is taking a big interest in the alphabet these days and I think she will enjoy this book. I read about it on New Mommy Rant and thought it looked like lots of fun, so a big thank you to Danielle (boardbook)

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Littlepixie has also gotten very interested in puzzle games and jigsaws. She happily plays with them while I cook these days, so that is wonderful! I love the Early Learning Centre puzzles, they are strong and good quality but they can be expensive so I keep my eyes peeled for sales and bargains whenever I am in town and I have started a little collection of small puzzles and jigsaws to bring out on those rainy dreary days! They are also great emergency presents to have on standby for forgotten birthdays!

A few of LP’s current favourite puzzle games & jigsaws are:

• Whose baby? Early Learning Centre – A “match the baby & mammy pairs” puzzle. All the pictures are photographs and LP loves them. There is a good mixture of very easy baby & mammy pairs like zebras and more complex pairs (where the baby & mammy look different) like swans. LP picks up each baby and asks “Where’s best friend mammy?” while she searches for their mammy, very sweet.

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• Dinosaurs Early Learning Centre – 6 individual dinosaur puzzles in a tin box. I love tins and LP loves dinosaurs so this is a big hit! The dinos are all sufficiently different that it is easy for LP to work out which pieces go together, which is good because otherwise 6 mixed up puzzles in one tin might prove very frustrating!

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• Find the rhyme Early Learning Centre – Another pair-matching puzzle, this matches rhyming pairs “a bear… on a chair” “a bee.. by a tree”. The first piece has the animal and the second piece has a scene containing the animal. It’s good fun and LP enjoys all the rhymes in it. There are 20 pairs in it which is a little overwhelming at first so I snuck 1/2 of them away for a few weeks and then brought them out to much acclaim! (note to self.. in the future do not hide pieces that are shown on the box, LP will work out what you are up to!)

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• Me and You by Ana Martin Larranaga – We got this as a Christmas present from LP’s great granny and it is a fun little set. There is a board book and 9 blocks in the bag. Each page has a different baby with their mammy or daddy, a little rhyme and a full page picture. Then you build the same picture out of the blocks. LP loves it but gets a little frustrated by the fact that the blocks don’t stay together like other puzzles!

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• In the Night Garden jigsaw Early Learning Centre – This was a Christmas present and was LP’s first real full-sized jigsaw. She really loves it and I think because she knows all the characters it made working out the jigsaw very easy for her.

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So would any of you like to recommend any other fun reads or puzzles for book-loving toddlers?

I’ve given the amazon.com links where available (or amazon.co.uk) so you can look inside the books and read reviews. I tend to buy most of LP’s books online as our local bookstores are fleecing us pricewise! Recently, I have been using The Book Depository or play.com for my online book buying as they can often be cheaper than Amazon (especially when you add shipping to Ireland). It’s worth shopping around for special offers, especially if you’re buying a few books, so I’m not loyal to any one store, fickle customer that I am