Bookstart on GMTV

Apologies for my disappearing act of late. I’ve been hugely busy with a poorly baby (much better now), building work going on in my house, Booktime work and also reading a manuscript that’s got some good potential. All a bit of whirlwind.

But I saw this today and couldn’t let it go unmentioned. Rosemary Clarke, the director of Bookstart chatting on the GMTV sofa about the importance of nursery rhymes ahead of National Bookstart Day tomorrow. Take a look if you didn’t catch it earlier today. Here’s the link.

A birthday feast of cake

I had my birthday recently and much to my delight all the lovely pressies that came my way were very cake themed – hurrah!

I got three very different books on baking and some super cake decorating equipment.

I am especially pleased with Jane Brocket’s Cherry Cake and Ginger Beer: A golden treasury of classic treats. The recipes are all inspired by favourite children’s books and it is absolutely the sort of book I wished I’d though to write myself.

There are lovely black and white illustrations throughout and half the fun when flicking through the pages, is trying to guess which children’s book they’ve come from.

I do wish though that there were some picture of the finished recipes, just because the images on Jane’s blog always look so tasty.

I also got this lovely cake stand and a gorgeous, gorgeous cake slice from Bombay Duck.

I already have the teaspoons to match the cake slice, but apparently there are butter knives too – how exciting! If the good folk at Bombay Duck happen to read this post – it would be a lovely idea to perhaps make some Vintage Teaparty cake forks? Just a thought!

Hungry now.

Harry Potter he ain’t

So Milo’s moving around a lot more now. Commando crawling as opposed to the traditional kind. I’m considering wrapping his tummy in dusters so he can be productive while on his way to destroying something else that I hadn’t considered baby proofing yet.

Unfortunately the wand like instrument in his hand isn’t his attempt to play at being Harry Potter. It is sadly the cane that once belonged to my Charlie Chaplin figurine that sits in a corner of our living room. He is a strong boy it would seem.

In another attempt at being a boy wizard, I discovered that Milo had “magically” made the flap on the monkey page of Dear Zoo disappear – into his mouth. Will this relentless eating of books ever end?

Funny it was this page really. Not sure the zoo would accept Milo though.

Yay – books are so fun!

Loving this post on Cupcakes for Clara!

Might have to get Milo copies of Elephant Wellyphant and Octopus Socktopus (Nick Sharratt) for his birthday which is coming up quicker than I like to think about. In November I’ll be the mum of a one year old. How did that happen?

Roald Dahl funny prize shortlist

The Roald Dahl funny prize shortlist has been announced today and it’s a really great bunch of books:

The Funniest Book for Children Aged Six and Under

The Great Dog Bottom Swap by Peter Bently, illus. Mei Matsuoka (Andersen Press)
Octopus Socktopus by Nick Sharratt (Alison Green Books)
Elephant Joe is a Spaceman! by David Wojtowycz (Alison Green Books)
Crocodiles Are the Best Animals of All! by Sean Taylor, illus. Hannah Shaw (Frances Lincoln)
Mr Pusskins Best in Show by Sam Lloyd (Orchard Books)
The Pencil by Allan Ahlberg, illus. Bruce Ingman (Walker Books)

The Funniest Book for Children Aged Seven to 14

The Galloping Ghost by Hilda Offen (Catnip Publishing)
Eating Things on Sticks by Anne Fine, illus. Kate Aldous (Doubleday)
Grubtown Tales: Stinking Rich and Just Plain Stinky by Philip Ardagh, illus. Jim Paillot (Faber and Faber)
The Boy in the Dress by David Walliams, illus. Quentin Blake (HarperCollins)
Purple Class and the Half-Eaten Sweater by Sean Taylor, illus. Helen Bate (Frances Lincoln)
Ribblestrop by Andy Mulligan (Simon & Schuster)

With David Walliams on the shortlist and Mini Grey, Michael Rosen, Louise Rennison, Andy Stanton and Bill Bailey all on the panel, I really wish the judging could be streamed live as it would be hilarious to watch!

August – month of birthdays

So for our little family, August is a bit of a month of birthdays. It is the turn of Milo’s dad today, it will be mine tomorrow and my mum’s birthday on Sunday (an expensive week for Milo when he is old enough to buy his own presents!).

Of course there has to be some cake. I made a coffee and walnut cake for Milo’s dad today.

Delia sponge (her sponges always come out great), coffee buttercream filling and a coffee glaze. Yum.

Whilst out shopping for pressies last week, I noticed that someone had wrapped up Liberty.

I bet they needed a lot of sellotape.

Booktrust early years shortlist announced

Booktrust have announced the shortlist for this years Early Years Awards. Full details can be found here on the Bookseller and here on the Booktrust website. If you can’t wait that long, here’s the shortlist:

Baby Book Award
Chick by Ed Vere (Puffin)
The Big Night-Night Book by Georgie Birkett (Red Fox)
Baby Loves: Tiger by Claire Dowe (Scholastic)
Five Little Ducks by Francesca Stich & Jemima Lumley, illus. Jason Chapman (Simon & Schuster)
Baby’s Very First Outdoors Book by Stella Baggott (Usborne)
That’s Not My Frog . . . by Fiona Watt, illus. Rachel Wells (Usborne)

Pre-School Award
If I Were You by Richard Hamilton, illus. Babette Cole (Bloomsbury)
Oliver Who Travelled Far and Wide by Mara Bergman, illus. Nick Maland (Hodder Children’s)
Sylvia and Bird by Catherine Rayner (Little Tiger Press)
Wow! Said the Owl by Tim Hopgood (Macmillan)
The Tail of the Whale by Ellie Patterson, illus. Christine Pym (Meadowside)
Miaow Said the Cow by Emma Dodd (Templar Publishing)

Best Emerging Illustrator
The Grump by Sarah Garson (Andersen Press)
Toot Toot Beep Beep by Emma Garcia (Boxer Books)
Box of Tricks by Katie Cleminson (Jonathan Cape)
Small Mouse Big City by Simon Prescott (Little Tiger Press)
The Haunted House by Kazuno Kohara (Macmillan)
Peas! by Andy Cullen, illus. Simon Rickerty (Puffin Books)

I find it a little odd on the Booktrust site that not all of the books have links to them. I’d have thought that they’d have reviewed them all ahead of the shortlist being announced. It looks a little biased otherwise.

Personally though, I’m especially pleased about Chick by Ed Vere being on there. Good luck to everyone who got nominated!

Eight month review (a bit late!) and Bookstart book pack

Milo and I picked up our Bookstart book pack last week. We were given it at Milo’s eight-month review, which he sailed through. It turns out he is very long for his age, which is surprising as we are both quite short! Anyway, needless to say I was very excited by him getting his pack at last, and I think he was too.

The Bookstart bag is a fairly common sight around these parts. I have been seeing mums wheeling their babies, toddlers and young children around with their bags attached to the buggy or slung over their shoulders for a while now. It looks almost like they belong to a little club. Whenever I saw a mum with one, they always had an older baby and seemed so much more experienced at this parenting stuff than I was. Now I have an older baby, but I still feel like there is an awful lot to learn!

Instead of worrying about bad naps, development stages, percentiles and the like, on our way back from the health visitor I put a blanket down on the grass in the park, took Milo out of his buggy and sat him down to enjoy his new bag of goodies. We received two books, Happy Dog, Sad Dog by Sam Lloyd and a Honey Hill book called Noisy Day. I really enjoyed reading Happy Dog, Sad Dog to him. The illustrations are bold and simple and it’s a great book for showing your little one the difference in moods, facial expressions and size. And you can be really expressive with it. He liked the big reveal at the end of Noisy Day when you lift the flaps and all the characters are playing their instruments in the band, but I didn’t find the illustrations quite had the same impact as the other title.

Books have so much more meaning to him now. He now reaches out for the touch and feel patches without prompting, settles in when we open Each Peach Pear Plum before his nap time, and bats the faces of the babies he sees in Tickle Tickle. He has definitely grown up a lot over the last nine months.

So I am now carrying my Bookstart bag around with me. And now we will always have some books ready for an impromptu picnic in the park.

It can’t be true…

Has Milo really stopped trying to eat his books and instead started to read them?

He seems engrossed.

Don’t be daft! Still, if he’s getting enjoyment out of them, then that’s all that really matters!

I can completely recommend Tickle Tickle by Helen Oxenbury as a fantastic bedtime read. Very simple and lovely rhymes with very few words and a lot of beautiful pictures of babies which I am sure that most little ones would enjoy to look at. Milo (when he is not trying to chew the corners) loves to bat the pictures with his hands.

Busy, but it’s all good!

I’m sorry that my posts have been few and far between recently! It’s been a bit of a busy time for me with work and all those summer events that suddenly start happening once June arrives.

We’ve had a lot of birthdays all requiring cake. We’ve also had a lot of visitors to see Milo (more cake), and a lovely wedding of a lovely friend. No cake for me to make for that, but I have taken some photos of the yummy cupcakes that they did have.

We have a couple of HUGE celebrations coming up over the next month or so, including my little cousin’s wedding at the end of August which we are all looking forward to.

I find that these big events grow steadily out of proportion in my head when there is a very little person to think of also. It is a military operation when planning to go anywhere for any length of time longer than an hour or so (enough milk, food, toys, when should he take his nap and where etc… etc…).

I found this post by Amy at Literacy Launchpad on making a homemade book to reassure your little one when they are not in familiar surroundings, an absolutely genius idea and something I will be doing as soon as I have a few minutes to spare. Milo is having a few separation anxiety issues at the moment which is making childcare a little exhausting for everyone involved, so ideas like this are brilliant. Keep them coming Amy!

On the work front I have been editing a couple of manuscripts, working hard on the Booktime and Bookstart blogs and also getting down to some proposal writing for some upcoming work at Booktime. Everything feels very busy, but it is all good and all worth it.

I haven’t had much time to read other blogs recently, but on the books front I have kept in touch with Literacy Launchpad, Library Mice, Puffin and Viv Schwartz. Nikalas Catlow, author of Do You Doodle? emailed to point me in the direction of his blog which I am loving! It is all about children’s book design and you can take a look at it here.

On the vintage front I’ve been checking into my regular favourites The Vintage Magpie, Little Cotton Rabbits, The Seventy Tree, Country Cottage Chic among others. Against all the madness in this house at the moment, these few precious minutes gazing at loveliness through the blog world are a welcome relief!

I also spotted this lovely new book by Peggy Porschen. I can’t decide whether to buy it or not. Her chocolate cake and ganache recipes are delicious and I made a wedding cake a few years ago using them so am very tempted by this new book. I have a birthday coming up soon – perhaps a few subtle hints?