Fabric
Fabric has been more or less overtaken by 'wipe-clean' plastic as the choice for first books in recent years, but cloth has much to recommend it in terms of texture and appeal. Now Lamaze has taken the humble cloth book and updated it for the 21st century. Its range for 'newborn and up' contains four very different books: Look Baby has a detachable rattle for a handle and four padded 'pages' with different images and words. The book is large enough to gain notice and sturdy enough to withstand use, priced 5.99.
Butterfly in the Sky comes with a padded butterfly, containing a rattle and attached to the front by Velcro and a ribbon. The butterfly can be matched up with the butterfly inside and compared with the other creatures throughout. Fabric and padding is soft enough to enable the book to be squeezed, sucked, stroked and cuddled as well as read, priced 3.99.
Discovery Farm is a substantial size and thickness and comes with integral fabric handle and clasp. This contains a lot of the features you would expect to find in a pop-up/flap book and incorporates a range of different textures: a fur chick, satin-feel egg; tractor with 'crackle sound' interior, felt sheep and a bags-of-corn flap back to show sleeping animals. This is a noisy, scrunchy book, priced 7.99.
Not strictly a fabric book, more of a board book with a removable fabric cover, Teddy's Toybox could be used with young babies and pre-schoolers. The contents of the toybox are described in follow-on rhyme and shown on each simply illustrated page, priced 3.99.
Telephone 020 8643 0320
Board
The best board books have rounded corners with reinforced spines and come in a variety of sizes. Encourage children to carry around the smaller format ones and look at them alone. Larger format books are ideal for groups: they don't flap about while you're pointing things out, they're light enough to hold up and images are big enough to be seen from a distance.
Mog board books from Collins have been in favour so long that some of their original fans must now be working in nurseries themselves. The secret of their success is simplicity, combined with just enough detail to keep young children interested.Judith Kerr's illustrations also appeal to adults: cute without being sentimental. There are four titles in the series: Mog and Me, Mog's Family of Cats, Mog in the Garden and Mog's Kittens, priced 2.99 each.
Telephone 020 8741 7070
A recent arrival on the celebrity cat scene is Cleo from Barefoot Books. Cleo appears in two titles: Cleo the Cat and Come Here, Cleo! and is illustrated (by Caroline Mockford) in a more stylised fashion than Mog, while still retaining recognisable cat characteristics. These books are large enough to show easily to a group and the cat's adventures last over 10 double-page spreads, time enough for everyone to become involved. Text is minimal, rhyming loosely and the spines of the books are satisfyingly chunky. Priced 4.99 each.
Telephone 0870 241 5031
The new 'All aboard' series by Peter Curry for Collins concentrates on transport. There are four in the series: Trains and Planes; Trucks and Diggers; Ships and Boats and Cars and Vans, and each provides a single image and word to identify each vehicle. Illustrations feature lots of different animals, sporting jolly expressions, as drivers and passengers. Priced 2.99 each.
Telephone as above
Oxford's collection of board books concentrates on everyday activities very young children should be keen to identify with. My Home is a pocket-sized book about picking up post, making rooms untidy, 'helping' with cooking and losing a sock. Sound familiar? Other titles in this series are My Colours; My Day; My Days Out; My Friends and My Games, priced 2.99 each.
Telephone 01865 267201
A chunkier offering is My Oxford Word Board Book. This providesa double-page spread for each subject and contains a large selection of illustrations, each with the appropriate word underneath. This is one that very young children will love to pore over. Priced 4.99.
Telephone as above
A slight deviation from the basic board-book format, but a board book all the same, Jumping Frog, from Little Tiger Press, includes a cut-out frog, which fits into the cover and is attached by ribbon. The frog is invited to jump on to each page to discover which animal is there and there are two large words to accompany each illustration, one to identify the animal and one to describe its action. The cut-out animal would help liven up a group session and children are bound to enjoy the 'quiz' at the end. If you are averse to jumping frogs you can have Hopping Rabbit instead. Priced 3.99 each.
Telephone 020 7385 6333
Lift-the-flapand pop-up books
This tends to be the all-singing/all-dancing area of book publishing but you need to choose pop-up and flap books with care. It's easy to be wooed by their sheer sophistication, but novelties can soon wear off and the interesting bits and bobs should not hold sway over illustration and story.
Let's Go, Anna! is the latest in the Anna series from Gullane (formerly David & Charles) and is designed to teach number from one to five. Anna is accident-prone throughout her shopping trip and each flap - placed conveniently on the left-hand side of each double-page spread - reveals the outcome of every mishap. The final spread concertinas out to allow easy counting of items bought and, again, lends itself well to group use. Priced 4.99.
Telephone 020 7616 7200
The Pop-up Rumble in the Jungle by Giles Andreae and David Wojtowycz is verging towards origami in terms of pop-up content, but its size is an aid to group sessions and it would probably be better reserved for these, with, perhaps, a helper to lift flaps. Each two-page spread reveals an animal with a humorous poem. Published by Orchard, priced 9.99.
Telephone 020 7739 2929
Flip Flap Farm and Flip Flap Ocean, from new author/illustrator Andrew Crowson, combine flaps with board-book format so children can operate the flaps without damage. These titles encourage children to 'mix and match' split pages to produce strange creatures while they get used to turning pages and handling a book. Priced 3.99 each from David Bennett.
Telephone 020 7738 0314
Another board book masquerading as a lift-the-flap is Where, oh where, is Baby Bear? By Debi Gliori. The flaps are particularly inventive and, because they are made from thinner card than the rest of the book, small hands can easily manipulate them. Published by Orchard, priced 4.99.
Telephone as above
