Bloomsbury have a reputation for high class modern fiction as well as other genres, but one aspect of this publishing house which is fairly unknown, at least to me, is their children's list. I have been the beneficiary of some of their books as I have been able to test them out on Florence and she loved a very early set of books especially for babies and Florence looked at these in her cot - see my link to my review here.
As she has grown older she has had the chance to 'review' some Bloomsbury titles and so far has loved all of them. I can only guess at this you understand, some of the earlier ones were chewed/gummed happily and I have had to read some of the others over and over again, while other books in her collection have been rejected, so I am taking that as a good sign. My post on these books is here
So far Florence loves The Hungry Caterpillar (or Capillar as she calls it), is there any child out there who does not, the Mog books, the Paddington books and anything to do with The Night Garden. So far the Ahlbergs have been pushed away when thrust upon her by an eager Grandma, but she is not interested in those at the moment so will leave as I am sure she will come to them later. I do hope so, Burglar Bill is one of my favourites, let alone anybody else's...
On my recent visit to Bloomers for their wonderful tea and chat, I came away with another two books and will be taking them up today for Florence to give them the once over. I will report back. The two titles are:
On my way to the Bath by Sarah Maizes. Livi does not like baths. Baths are boring so on the way to her bath she makes up lots of adventures, she slithers off the sofa like a snake, she imagines she is in a parade playing the tuba, she says hello to her guinea pigs, she fights her way through a jungle and so on. All the time her mum is calling Get in the Bath Now!! Great fun but as Florence loves her bath and we usually have a problem getting her out rather than in, we may have to read this backwards. Only kidding.
The second is In the Garden by Felix Hayes. We have the story of Monkey and Robot looking after a garden and putting in seeds to see what grows. Bright illustrations and some press out gardening shapes at the back of the book which I know Florence will home in on. Wonder what she will make of it.
I am off to London in an hour or two and have made a cheesy chicken and leek bake for lunch for Florence and I tomorrow she is a good trencher woman and woofs her food down which is rather satisfying. No doubt she will get fussy later but at the moment she seems to eat everything we give her. Looking forward to my hug, I am putting her to bed tonight and am pretty sure that tomorrow morning I will hear her tearing down the landing yelling Bammer Bammer and thump she will be on my bed. Is there anything nicer than having a tiny, warm, happy child snuggling and giggling down in bed with you?
I don't think so..
