Listography - Books and Babies

Ever since Isla was very little I have always read to her, reading is one of my favourite past times and I very much hope that she follows in my foot steps. I've blogged about the importance of reading on my Library  post recently. Reading really does fire up the imagination and I loved becoming immersed in a book especially on winter days. I grew up in the 80's, in the days when TVs in kids bedrooms started becoming popular, but I just didn't want one! I was happy listening to tapes (!) and reading books - does that make me a geek?!

The following 3 books are regularly thumbed in our house, and we never tire of them!

The Very Hungry Caterpillar by Eric Carle

We love this book, Isla has had it read to her millions of times practically since birth! The colours are beautiful and when she was really little she just loved putting her fingers in all the holes that the caterpillar made in the food. I like to get her to point out all the things that she recognises - the cakes on the last day of the caterpillars gorge-fest are her current favourite!

Dear Zoo by Rod Campbell

A really nice lift the flap book that helps babies to recognise animals and it gives me the chance to ad-lib and do all the animal noises. Isla's favourite of my animal impressions is when I pretend to spit like a camel! OK, not very ladylike but it gets a laugh every time!!

Spot's Noisy Night by Eric Hill

Spot goes camping with his friends and they have a very disturbed night what with owl's 'twowittwowooing' and frogs leaping around the tent! This one is so fun and brilliant because throughout the story there are sounds to play and for each of the sounds is a puzzle piece that your child can fit into the pages. This is such a great interactive book and is the latest in a line of Spot books that we own.



The next two books are obviously a bit too advanced for Isla right now, but they are two favourites of mine from when I was a child and I really hope she takes to them like I did. When I was at primary school I had to write book reviews of all the books I read and I've still got the folder up in Mum and Dad's loft! I read so much, I was a book worm, so choosing just these two was a struggle because I could have gone for Ramona and Beezus or Pippi Longstocking and actually all Roald Dahl books hold a special place in my book loving heart, so it was hard to pick one of his.

The Enchanted Wood by Enid Blyton

This series of books by Enid Blyton are just pure fantasy. I loved Moonface and Silky the fairy. Through the Faraway Tree they showed us magical lands and all manner of creatures. My favourite of all the lands is 'The Land of Take What You Want'
where, as the name suggests, you can take whatever you want for free!


Thinking about this book has made me feel all nostalgic about the Enid Blyton books I used to own, they all had hard covers and the pages felt so good (does that sound weird!?).


I'd love for Isla to get lost in these books imagining that she is visiting all these wonderful places. They are so escapist and can really help you forget about the real world...

The Twits by Roald Dahl

This is one of my favourite Roald Dahl books (along with The Witches, Georges Marvellous Medicine...). The descriptions of Mr and Mrs Twit are fantastic and I always loved how Mr Twit was just so extra disgusting with food in his beard and you could almost smell how unclean they were from the descriptions. They hate children and they torment animals but as is the case in all Roald Dahl's books the mean characters always get their come uppance!

Roald Dahl's books also have the extra benefit that they have gorgeous illustrations by Quentin Blake - something I have blogged about previously here.

One of my things I want to do at some time in the future is go to the Roald Dahl museum, something to save for when Isla is older.

This post is part of the Listography Linky that Kate Takes 5 runs every week. Pop over to her blog to see her book suggestions and also a whole host of others!

Favourite Illustrations - Nursery Decor Ideas

Before Isla arrived and I had time on my hands to plan her new bedroom I put my mind to how I could make it a bit different from the usual pink fest (we knew we were having a girl), and so I started to think about some of the things I loved when I was growing up and what came to mind first was how I loved the stories of Roald Dahl. They fired up my imagination and I consumed his books like I do chocolate nowadays! As well as the wonderful stories I also adored the illustrations by Quentin Blake that went with the books and I believe that their partnership was amazing, they really complented eachother.

I can't wait until Isla can devour my favourite Roald Dahl stories, The Twits, George's Marvellous Medicine and Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. In the meantime though I wanted to impress on her my love of Quentin Blake's illustrations and so she has 3 of his framed prints in her nursery, my favourite one being of the Oompa Loompa's. We also have Matilda and Sophie and the BFG. We bought these from the webstore online at The Roald Dahl Museum. She knows their names and they get a 'night - night' at bedtime along with the menagerie of soft toys and all the wall sticker animals (see previous post Gorgeous Wall Stickers).

Perhaps you have favourite childhood characters that you could somehow incorporate into your little ones nursery decor? Another favourite of mine was Rhubarb and Custard and I've framed 2 cute greetings cards I found of them that I instantly I loved and they are also hanging up above her cot.

I love how Isla's room has a variety of things to look at and I hope as she grows up she loves it too.