It’s fair to say we’re a bookish family. At least, I am bookish and my daughter is bookish, but my husband prefers films and computer games, only picking up reading material on a beach when there’s “nothing else to do”. Anyway, this post isn’t about encouraging a 32 year old man to read, it’s about toddlers.

So.

We were sent a bundle of books to review by Maverick Books recently. It’s one of those parcels that you just don’t open right before bedtime, because the excitement is sure to mean a hyper two year old who will not sleep before 8pm. Did I mention that she LOVES books?

As much as she loves books, she loves the books she knows and isn’t much interested in the ones she doesn’t. It tends to take a week or two of a book being on her shelf before my daughter will deign to pick it up. And she’s VERY particular about her bedtime reading. This is the reason that tonight has been the first evening where we’ve actually sat down and read the books sent to us.

Tonight’s bedtime was accompanied by The Jelly That Wouldn’t Wobble, written by Angela Mitchell and The Fearsome Beasite, written by Giles Paley-Phillips.

Both books grabbed Frog’s attention for the entire duration, to the extent that she asked for them again when we’d finished. She’s the master of delaying tactics at bedtime.

The Jelly That Wouldn’t Wobble is a fun book about (you can guess) a jelly that wouldn’t wobble. The elderly and diva-like princess is the star of the book, shouting at the overworked chef to sort the problem before she banishes his creation to a punishment of melting.

Frog loved the bright, colourful pictures in the book and laughed along with the “Wibble, wobble” type of language. Being a fan of jelly, she just couldn’t understand why it wouldn’t wobble.

Secretly, I was a bit disappointed the stubborn jelly was duped into wobbling and being eaten at the end, as I rather liked his fighting spirit. Frog disagreed though, rubbing her belly with a “Yum, yum” at the end.

The Fearsome Beastie came next. This is a book not for the faint-hearted, so I wouldn’t recommend it for kids with a more sensitive disposition. About a (again, you can guess) “fearsome beastie” that lives in a cave and comes out at night hunting for children, it has shades of the Three Little Pigs about it. After scoffing a few gullible children, he meets his end when a no-nonsense granny comes to the rescue with an axe, freeing the kids from his tummy and turning him into stew.

Now, my daughter’s only two years old and has been known to be a bit of a scaredy cat at times. She cowers at all manner of things, but shouts with glee in equal measure at others. In short, her scaredy quirks are unpredictable. What I think she won’t like, she often loves with a passion.

This book is one of them.

As I read the words to her and showed her the dark picture of the menacing beastie, her eyes lit up. I think she quite liked him actually. She thought the idea of gran coming to the rescue absolutely hilarious and asked me to explain why HER “Mar Mar” doesn’t make beastie stew.

I guess it goes to show that with books and encouraging young kids to read, often anything goes. Afterall, what does mum know anyway?

***

We were sent these books for the purpose of this review. Please see my disclosure page for more information.

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Dear Frog,

As I write this it’s January 2013. You are two and a half years old and tucked up fast asleep in bed.

But by the time (if) you come to read this letter and story by yourself, these days of toddler dictatorship will likely be a distant memory.

Gone will be the evenings when you liked a bedtime story from your mum. I expect you’re now into having “your own space” and find me desperately uncool. Sorry about that.

As uncool as I probably am, I’d like to tell you a story. It’s one you like at the age of two.

This story wasn’t written down in a book. There are no pictures, except for the ones in your head. It’s a story I made up a couple of weeks ago when you couldn’t get to sleep.

It’s now your favourite and you regularly ask for it. Much to your delight, I’ll sit by your bed and stroke the hair away from your face while I softly tell you about the house made of sand. Over and over again. (You’re not very good at accepting when the story has come to an end.)

Anyway, here it is.

***

The Sand House

Freya was two years old. She had a mummy and a daddy and a cuddly toy she liked to call Geoffrey. He was new.

Freya lived in a very old house. It was so old it had wonky walls and rickety floorboards. The house was near fields and a river. But there was no beach. Freya liked the beach.

In the summer, Freya would sit in a sandpit in her little garden and pretend she was at the beach, but it wasn’t the same. There was no sea for starters. And no shells.

One morning Freya woke up to find her mummy and daddy very busy, trying to pack all her favourite things into a big suitcase. “No Mummy!” She cried. She didn’t like her things being messed with.

“We’re going on an adventure to visit your grandparents in their new house,” explained Freya’s mum. “Now be good and sit still in your car seat”.

Freya stopped fidgeting and looked out of the car window. She saw fields and bikes and trees before drifting off to sleep.

When she woke up, she could hear something loud and rumbly.

Whoosh. Whoosh. Whoosh.

Freya was scared. She opened one eye and saw lots and lots of blue. There was blue sky and blue water. Everywhere.

“Wake up Freya,” said Freya’s daddy. “This is the seaside.”

That afternoon Freya played on the beach. She built castles of sand and collected shells, placing them carefully in a little plastic bucket. She dipped her toes in the cold sea and laughed as the waves tickled her feet.

Freya spent every day doing the same thing. She played on the beach with her mum and dad, her grandma and her granddad.

But then it was time to go home, back to her little house by the river and the field. She didn’t want to go. She wanted to stay by the sea always.

As the sea whispered and whooshed, Freya’s daddy had an idea. “I could make a house!” he said. “We can’t afford a big house on the hill, but I could make one right here, on the sand.”

And with that, he got to work. Freya’s dad worked all night.

While she slept in her warm, cosy bed at grandma’s house, Freya’s daddy made lots of bricks of sand and placed them one on top of the other. By the time Freya woke up in the morning, she had a new house. It was a big house, made entirely of sand.

As Freya walked around her new sand house she gasped with excitement. She had a sand bed and a sand window, a sand rug and a sand chair.

Every night, Freya fell to sleep as the waves Whoosh Whooshed and the moon made patterns that danced on the water.

The house wasn’t perfect though. Freya often found sand in her cereal and socks. Her sand bed was a bit itchy and she could never shut the sand window to keep out the Whoosh Whoosh of the sea.

After a while, Freya decided she didn’t want to live in a sand house any more. Packing up her suitcase, she waved goodbye to her mummy and daddy and moved in next door with her grandparents, back to her warm and cosy bed.

Unfortunately, there wasn’t enough room for everyone.

Freya’s mummy and daddy had to make do with sandy cereal and sandy socks forever more. But sometimes, when Freya was feeling generous, she’d bring them a sandwich for breakfast from Grandma’s house.

She was nice like that.

** The End **

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Yeah, that.

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Look at her. Gorgeous, snuggly, tired, placid little thing.

*Sigh*

And here she was the other night (this is pretty much a true reflection of what she’s been like every night for the past two weeks):

Yep. She took the photo herself.

Yep. She didn’t go to bed for at least two hours after it was taken.

Yep. I am a little bit tired.

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As if being served like a queen on demand, sleeping for three hours every day and spending the rest of the time playing wasn’t good enough, Frog now has a new pair of pyjamas to make her life complete.

These aren’t just any old pyjamas. No siree. These are organic Merino wool ruby-red pyjamas from Cambridge Baby, complete with an embroidered sheep…

When I received this gorgeous all-in-one to review, I was a little sceptical. I mean, Merino wool? For a baby? Is it really necessary?

But I am a changed woman.

Although compared to your run-of-the-mill baby fabrics Merino wool doesn’t feel ultra soft, it really really is. So soft. It keeps Frog warm in her drafty bedroom, but is breathable so she doesn’t get too hot. And I get eco-points for it being organic too.

While we’re on the subject of eco, the nickel-free poppers are another winner, as is the sizing which is deliberately generous to house even the bulkiest cloth nappy.

I’m sold. And so is Frog…

***

The Merino wool Babygrow is available to buy from Cambridge Baby from £33.00

Disclaimer: I received no payment for this post, although I did get a babygrow to review. And it was really rather lovely.

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It’s all to do with the bedtime. Frog was given some books for her 1^st birthday, you see. Special books. Books which have an important place in my own childhood.

I’ve already banged on about how there’s been a story before bed since Frog was about four months old. Up until now, it’s always been the same one: Bedtime with Humphrey.

Don’t get me wrong. Humphrey’s a lovely little elephant and all that. But nine months of him is enough for anyone. By my calculations, we’ve read this book at least 270 times – I now know it off by heart. So it was time for a change.

After nearly two weeks of hell at bedtime, with Frog refusing to give in and go to sleep, preferring to shout and scream and wail in a (rather overly dramatic fashion) “Mamamamama”, I thought I’d bring a bit of Dogger to the bedtime table.

For those of you unfamiliar with children’s books, this isn’t some kind of seedy story about the act of driving to unfamiliar country roads to watch strangers do naughty things to each other (read: Dogging for that).

It’s a gorgeous book by Shirley Hughes about a boy who loses his favourite toy. I won’t spoil the ending, but if you grew up in the late 70s or 80s, you’ll probably know it anyway.

And just like magic, after an evening of Humphrey (we’re not quite ready to completely let go yet) and Dogger, Frog went to sleep. No tears. No dramatic wails. Just quiet thumb-sucking and blissful sleep.

So the next night we tried a bit of Peace At Last, another one of my childhood favourites. And what do you know? Result.

Tonight we’re going to introduce the Ahlberg’s classic Peepo! And there’s a whole list of other old faithfuls waiting in line after that.

But you can never have too many books. So what were your favourite childhood reads? Maybe I’ll add them to Frog’s bedtime reading list – we’re still looking for one to knock Humphrey off the top spot.

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