Now I had no idea until told by my daughter that books in black and white are recommended for young babies as this catches their eye and they focus in on same and I thought well fancy that. All these lurid and bright books and toys with spots on etc obviously not in fashion any more and, so, I was deeeelighted when those lovely people at Bloomsbury sent me a set of four gorgeous little books called Hello Animals! Hello Bugs! Hello, Let's Go! and Hello, World! for review.
Well, toddled off to London with these in my bag so that Florence could take a look at these and give me her opinion. And I have to tell you now, they went down very well indeed. Propped one up in front of her and she zoomed in on it straight away and her eyes lit up and she started looking and then kicking her feet and smiling. I would not have believed it if I had not seen it but they certainly attracted her attention big time. Mark you she is my granddaughter and is obviously a genius....
As you can see, these books are delightful. All in black and white with a splash of colour on each page they introduce animals, creepy crawlies (I didn't care for this one much, but did not phase Florence....), vehicles and familiar objeccts. These books are by Smriti Prasadam and Emily Bolam and "are perfect books for the youngest children as babies will respond to the high contrast shapes, patterns and pictures"
Well this baby certainly did.
Now, what I want to know is when is summer going to arrive? Yeh, I know it is meant to be now, but I am sitting here for the second day in a row with my heating on, a jumper and a scarf and trying to get warm. There is a chill wind and I am getting a bit fed up with it all. I am spending a lot of time surfing the net at the moment and looking yearningly at holidays in sunny climes for later on in the summer (if I can even be bothered to face airports and volcanic ash), but I really would appreciate being a tad warmer right now.
I hope wherever you are, it is hotter than here in the UK.
Oh and just thought you might like to know, that I gave up on Wolf Hall last night. I was reading it in a rather tepid fashion and it is in the PRESENT TENSE and I thought, you know what, life is too short, I wasted about two weeks of my life lurching through A S Byatt's The Children's Book as I thought I should, and I really disliked it and so I thought to hell with it. I donated it today, along with another huge bagful of books, to the NSPCC book sale which is held locally every year and books are left at designated collection points in Colchester. I am lucky in that my local supermarket is one of these points and I make sure that anything I am not going to keep or pass on, goes to this terrific sale which raises such a huge amount for this worthy cause. So, sure HIlary Mantel will be delighted to hear it will be doing somebody some good, even if it is not me.
Au reservoir
