Peek-a-boo Forest by Lamaze

Peek-a-Boo Forest is a cloth book for young babies made by Lamaze.

We love this book! Maximilian received it as a gift and the 3D furry owl on the front cover immediately piqued his interest. The bright, colourful, cartoon-like illustrations are also very engaging.

Each of the colourful double pages asks a simple "Who is?" question and features a shaped flap behind which the "Peek-a-boo" animal is hiding. See the image below for an example - the animal is owl!

Although simple, each page features lots of images that provide learning and discussion opportunities with toddlers. As well as owl, there is a ladybird, tree, leaves, moon and stars and more in the image below.

The interactive flaps are made from crinkly fabric, which makes reading this a lovely tactile experience - Maximilian has always loved grabbing and turning the flaps.

The story is short, featuring just five animals: moose, owl, raccoon, bear and beaver, so it will engage even the shortest attention span. I also found the rhyming text very engaging and fun to read aloud.

This book is quirky and interesting for us as Australians, because it features animals from faraway places such as moose and beaver. My favourite page is the last one - "Who built this dam? What an achiever!" "Peek-a-boo! It's the beaver!" Ha ha!

Like all Lamaze products, this cloth book is very well made and has excellent construction which withstands even the most ferocious chewing and sucking! One of our first books which Maximilian still enjoys at over 19 months age - he still loves flipping the flaps and saying "boo" to the animals!

Along Came a Bedtime by Ian Whybrow and Guy Parker-Rees

Bear and baby bear are having a bath before bedtime when along comes a cheeky duck. Duck isn't ready for bed and so begins this romp of a story!

Along Came a Bedtime is a playful story featuring lots of fun animals and animal sounds that Maximilian really enjoys. All the favourite animals are here - bear, duck, cat, dog and cow!

The cheerful illustrations are perfect for this fun story - simple and colourful.

This book has great rhythm and rhyme. I love to read it aloud and Maximilian loves to chime in with all the words he knows. There are lots of animal sounds to engage your child throughout the story and I really love the way the baby bear talks in baby language - 'dop' for stop etc. I think this would really engage young children just learning to talk. We also love the repetitive counting : 1, 2, 3, go! Maximilian loves to count on his fingers then shout Go!

A simple but really fun book that we were lucky enough to stumble across at the library. Definitely one we'll add to our home library!

The Very Hungry Bear by Nick Bland

The Very Hungry Bear by Nick Bland definitely qualifies for Day 3 of the Book-a-Day challenge: A book you love to read aloud.

This is a terrific new instalment in Bland's books about Bear. He's been cranky, itchy and now he's hungry! I will look at the other titles later, but I think The Very Hungry Bear is my favourite so far.

Bear is not impressed when he reels in a polar bear while fishing for his breakfast - especially when the polar bear is eating all his fish! The polar bear's iceberg is shrinking and he cleverly persuades (bribes!) Bear to help find the polar bear a new home.

The reason I love to read this book aloud is the wonderful rhyming throughout it. There is a real rhythm to Bland's storytelling, and it really does make this book a pleasure to read aloud - Maximilian is always totally transfixed by it.

"Now a fish to a bear 

is like a chocolate eclair, 

it's INCREDIBLY hard to resist

So the thought of a pile

that would last for a while

was an offer too good to be missed!"

Lines like these simply roll off the tongue. The illustrations throughout the book are also extremely engaging: bright and colourful with expressively drawn characters. Bland uses decorative font and bold text to great advantage, and I found this really helpful with reading the text out loud - the bold text helps the reader to emphasise the syllables well for great effect when reading out loud (I'm not sure if Bland intended this, but is very clever and effective!) I think this would be really helpful for parents not used to reading books out loud.

Another wonderful book by an Australian picture book author - Nick Bland will definitely feature in other posts as we have many of his other titles too. He is a favourite in our house and definitely a name to remember.