You need only step into our living room to suss out that we are a family of readers. Two floor-to-ceiling bookcases lean against one wall, stuffed with books for every member of the family. I am a total book obsessive, so the biggest chunk of these is mine, and even then those are just the ones in my collection that I haven't read yet. But the Milkman and the boys also have their own shelves - one of the first things I did after Mini Milk's birth was to dig out Half Pint's old baby favourites to be enjoyed again!I want to pass my book addiction on to my kids (and it seems to be working so far with Half Pint), and so keep Mini Milk's books where he can reach them. I want them to be just as accessible to him as toys, though he is quite hard on them so I may have to move some of the more delicate ones for now and build up our board book stash to fill the gaps! Generally, all Mini Milk is interested in doing just yet is to pull them all off the shelf, and he is such an active baby that he doesn't often sit still long enough for us to read a full story together! But they are part of his environment, and so that's a good start.
He does love to turn pages though, and recently has started to show an interest in two books in particular that we were very generously sent by Tick Tock books. At first, I thought they were a bit too old for him so added them to his shelf with thoughts of coming back to them in a few months. And I have to admit that as they aren't stories, I wouldn't have picked them for Mini Milk myself. But...he loves them! They have actually made me re-think the sort of books I would chose for him. Looking back, some of his brother's favourite books were non-fiction picture books too - I remember one in particular which was shaped like a truck and even had wheels!
We've had the books for a good few weeks now, and Mini Milk will specifically bring them to us to share with him, or sit by himself looking through the pages. He even recognises things in My First 100 Words - particularly the lovely bright images of foods or toys similar to his own - and I can see that this is helping him make sense of his world. My Big Truck Book is by far his favourite of the two though, but I suppose that is to be expected when he has a mechanic, motor racing fans and petrol heads in his bloodline!
The images in both books are sharp, colourful and have a good variety of sizes, positioning and subjects. I think this is the big grab for Mini Milk, as there is so much to explore on each page. From a practical point of view they have good quality pages and must be sturdily bound, as Mini Milk fair flings them about and can be quite rough on the pages and they are still intact!
As Christmas approaches, I will definitely be looking at other similar books for Mini Milk. The books by Tick Tock seem very good value and they have a lot in their range, so I think Santa may be looking to them for some inspiration this year, and in years to come.
I offered to review these books in return for our copies, but all views in this entry and in the blog in general are completely my own.
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