Uttley lovely

We visited Granny this weekend at her new house in Suffolk, and came across a wonderful secondhand bookshop, in an old Methodist chapel in Westleton >http://www.chapelbooks.com/shop/chapel/index.html. The proprietor, resplendant in hat and pyjama bottoms, offered us tea and coffee as we browsed through higgledy piggledy shelves of treasures, stumbling across the occasional sculptures and eccentric objets.

I headed straight for the children's books, and had to restrain myself from pouncing on Louisa M Alcott. Definitely too soon to expect little a to sit through Little Women. But what an instant hit from memory lane to find a Little Grey Rabbit book, with its distinctive title type and layout, cover design, the line-drawn endpapers, and of course Margaret Tempest's beautiful illustrations.

We couldn't wait. We started reading in the car on the way to the beach. Fuzzypeg was an instant hit with little a. And if being in the bright sunshine of the beautiful countryside hadn't already made me want to run away from the big smoke, Little Grey Rabbit's adventures learning how to make lace had me yearning for a little green-doored cottage of my own. There is something so irresistible about hedgerow creatures dressed in Cath Kidston-esque outfits wishing on the moon.

It sounds twee, and I suppose if you were to be critical, then yes it is. But it's also surprisingly witty (Squirrel and Hare are the comic foil to Little Grey Rabbit's sensible country housewife) and gritty ('Let's cook him for dinner'). And I love this quote from the introduction: 'The country ways of Grey Rabbit were the country ways known to the author'.



Seems poor old little grey rabbit is out of print - how can this be? She is every bit as good as Beatrix Potter ...

The witching hour

Tonight, even though it's nowhere near either Hallowe'en or Christmas, we treated ourselves to The Nightmare Before Christmas.

I loved the film, and picked up this copy from the pulp shelf when I worked at Penguin - long before little a was even a twinkling in the eye. As far as I can remember, I hadn't opened it again until this Christmas.

It claims to be written by Tim Burton - I have no idea if a ghost was involved (no pun intended. Actually I hate it when people say that. It's like saying 'I don't mean to be rude but ...' Clearly the pun was intended, and clearly I had a clever self-conscious moment thinking oh how witty that would be. But anyway, back to the point). It's illustrated by him too, and he is clearly a talented and impressive man, even if he did manage to make Alice in Wonderland too scary for little a to watch until she's about 21.

If you're not afraid of a bit of gothic, and your child has a slightly strange attraction to skeletons*, then The Nightmare Before Christmas is a refreshing change to all schmaltzy Christmas ick that I gritted my teeth through this year. Do you find me still reading Just For You Blue Kangaroo or Angelina's Christmas as the tulips are blooming? No - they are safely tucked up with the stockings in the loft. The Nightmare is fun enough, and dark enough, to haunt us all year round.




*When little a was about two and a half, the Wellcome Institute held an exhibition of skeletons unearthed in London. There was a poster at the tube stop we saw each day, with a huge skull on it. She loved it. So I took her to the exhibition, and she loved that too. I revelled in the contrasts: bouncy toddler in a crowd of serious academics, full of life but fascinated by relics of death. Somehow it wasn't morbid at all, but felt like a celebration of life. I suppose because the bodies were displayed as insights into history. We bought a book there - Allan Ahlberg's Bump in the Night. Sad to say, not up there with Each Peach or Burglar Bill, but fun enough if you like your skeletons a little less, well, skeletal.

Confessions of a working mother

I haven't been home in time for stories once this week. Hate that.

When I was having a particularly low time in the work/life juggling act last year, my friend Katy sent me a copy of I don't Know How She Does It by Allison Pearson. I have to say my instant reaction was 'why do I want to read about this? I'm living it' - I wanted escape, not to have my nose rubbed in it.

But you know, it's funny and it's true and it makes you want to press it in to the hands of your husband and wail 'this is my life this is my life!' You're safe to do this, there's no way he'll read a book so pink, and when you've calmed down again you'll realise that maybe it's just as well because there's not a lot he can do to make things better.

Because the true cause of things feeling wrong is emotional, not circumstantial.

Six months on, a line from the book keeps coming back to me:'nobody told me'. It's so true, that nobody tells you how it will feel when you have to leave a sick child to go to an important meeting; nobody tells you how it will break your heart that you can't make the Christmas play, or rush in late and miss the crucial bit. Before your child is born, you think about them in terms of logistics. After you've met them, the worst thing is that you still have to plan everything as logistics, but all you really want to do is pour all your energy and love and creativity into them and to hell with all the careful plans.

But the other truth that shines to me is that the pressure comes so much from ourselves. It's not about what's best for the child: god knows little a is healthy and happy, and chucks my energy and love and creativity back in my face most of the time; and it's not even about what work demands of us. It's that we think we should be able not to have it all, but to do it all. We want to be perfect mothers and perfect career girls. It's the perfectionism that does us in.

So, give yourself a break. Read Allison Pearson. Laugh, cry, and then go back to crazy multi-tasking.

the future of bedtime?

This week I bought the app of Guess How Much I Love You?

A review in The Bookseller promised 'you need never read a bedtime story again' which seemed a little sad to me.

Little a might disagree though. Essentially, it's an audiobook and ebook combined: you press the button to turn the pages, which appear just as they do in the book, and a recorded voice reads the text for you.

It has rather a nice feature which allows you to record your own reading. Brilliant, I thought, at last my outstandind reading abilities can be recorded for posterity.

Not so. We now have half a customized version of Guess How Much I love You? Featuring my dulcet tones overlaid with the wails of little a: 'I want the MAAAAAN! No mummy no! you're not LISTENING TO MEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!!!!'

She loves pressing the button. She loves the man.

I hate the sticky fingers on my precious iphone and being upstaged by a recording.

But most of all I hate that this charming story with its elegant illustrations has become appealing because of gadgetry when what I always loved about it was the chance to curl up with my own little nutbrown hare and tell her I loved her to the moon and back. Get the app if you must, but please enjoy the book as well ...

sugar plum fairies

A confession: I'm starting to worry about just how girly and wrapped in cotton wool little a is becoming.

I started with the best intentions. I avoided pink and nurtured her instincts to climb to the very top of whatever tall thing she could find.

But pink was the first colour she recognised, auntie's gift of blue shoes induced a tantrum that could be heard in Camden - and she loves ballet in the way it seems only little girls can (Billy Elliot doesn't seem to have had a great deal of impact on our patch of SE London).

It really struck home to me this week on our trip to the Tower of London with our friends and their son. When he corrected my authoritative discussion of the catapult in the moat by the entrance by pointing out that it is in fact a trebouchet, I realised I was totally out of my league. Resplendent in knightly armour of purest plastic, he galloped around, sword in air, shouting 'chaaaaarge' at passing groups of gormless teen tourists, while little a skipped the corridors singing about princesses. Should I worry about this? Is it just the natural order of things asserting itself? Or should I have embraced the opportunity to discuss the finer points of warmongering and kingship in a hope that our bloodthirsty surroundings might shake some of the sequins out of her head?

I definitely shouldn't be reading her Angelina Ballerina. But I can't resist. The intricate illustrations, filled with cottages and chintz and home-made jam, remind me of the brambly hedge stories I loved as a child (must try and track some of those down ...) and the mouselings' adventures are sweetly pretty in every way. Billy Elliot would approve, I'd think: it seems there isn't a problem in the world that can't be solved by a delightful ballet dance.

As well as the books, there is the live English National Ballet show, which entranced little a when we saw it last summer, and a beautifully intricate pop-up house with paper dolls, that can keep her occupied for half an hour at a time.

Next week, I promise, I'll read her something macho. But this week we're being girly and frou-frou and dressing mainly in pink froth.



We chose Angelina and the Royal Wedding on our trip to http://www.primrosehillbooks.com/ today. Such a lovely lovely bookshop. Could almost have been conjured up by Angelina's creators Katharine Holabird and Helen Craig - just what a bookshop should be.

happy feelings make you fly

Bookstart http://www.bookstart.org.uk/Home is the most amazing initiative. Free books for pre-school children at key stages seems to me to be an impossibly generous and imaginative scheme.

Given my profession, little a is if anything over-exposed to books. She's devouring stories and learning letters at an alarming rate. We've even considered Steiner education just to hold her literacy back (they don't formally teach children to read until age six or seven. I like this - let their imaginations run riot while they can, I say). I wish there was an equivalent scheme for sporty things.*

I'm especially grateful to Bookstart because one of those nice free books in our most recent treasure chest box was Some Dogs Do. Ooh it's lovely.

Do dogs fly? Well ... some dogs don't and some dogs do!



*I'm being unfair. There is of course the swim4life scheme, which gives little a the chance to go swimming for free at our local, freezing, mouldy and stained pool. Rather like handing out mildewed second-hand-books in terms of inspiring us to take part, I fear.
And on the subject of Steiner - of course I'm being flippant. If I was rich enough not to work but still have the money, she'd be there with all the tiger lilies and elvises, playing with wooden toys and learning to weave.

mum's the word

When I draw myself with Astrid (I don't want you to imagine high art here, we're talking skillfully executed stick people) I never draw glasses. Even though I've worn them more than half my life, I still don't think of myself as a glasses-wearer.

And it's the same when I'm reading stories. I'm never thinking of myself as the parent figure. I'm still there as the child, having the adventure, being eaten by the monster, or flying with the snowman.

And that's why, although I love The Tiger Who Came to Tea, it's also come as a shock to me. Look at Sophie's mummy, in her cardy and comfy shoes, not uttering a word of protest as the tiger scoffs every last one of her (no doubt) beautifully home-made cakes, her only concern being that there's no food left for daddy's tea. Is that me? Is that really me?

Or - worse - the slipper-shod mother in Raymond Briggs' divine The Snowman and the comfy-trouser-wearing mum in Penelope Lively's magical Two Bears and Joe. If mothers are present at all in these stories, they're the plumper-of-pillows, plonker-of-food, breaking-of-dreams figure in the background, slightly harried looking and always frumpy.

I think I may have to go on a mission now to find a mother-figure to aspire to. Until then I'm going to stick with projecting myself on to the lovely carefree children instead. So, like Sophie, I'm thrilled that a tiger drank all my bath water, that I got to eat sausages and chips and icecream at the local caff for tea, and I'm hoping one day he might come back to see us again some day.


(very sorry to see that Two Bears and Joe doesn't seem to be in print any more. If you can get hold of a copy, it's absolutely lovely: a little boy spends the day with imaginary bears, playing in the snow of his parents' bed, climbing the bannister forests, hiding in the bears' cave under the stairs, beautifully illustrated. Definitely worth 7p or whatever the second hand sellers are offering it for)

milk and existentialism

It's never too early to start them with a little surrealism, I say.

I'm off work this week, joining the league of bewildered normally working parents trying to pretend they know how to look after their own children in the school holidays. So at half seven this morning, rather than lying on the floor having a screaming tantrum about socks (me, not her: she doesn't care that she isn't wearing any, we're running late, and I have a meeting at half nine), little a and I were still snuggled up in bed, and reading Bob & Co by Delphine Durand.

I think I can be safe in saying this is not, and probably never will be, a classic of children's literature. It's a quirky little book, to say the least. Another Tate bookshop find, and I must have been reeling from some particularly intense artistic experience at the time.

Now, I must warn you, if you're of a religious disposition and likely to be offended by the depiction of God as a small pink blob, then this isn't for you.

We like it, though. 'God has a girl voice' apparently. He's pink. Go figure.

It's basically the story of the beginning of the world, and prompts in my four-year-old such existential insights as
'when the emptiness is full, it's the fullness'
This will surely stand her in good stead at dinner parties in the future.

It feels like a good top-and-tailing of the day that one of little a's bedtime story selection for tonight was Maurice Sendak's The Night Kitchen. As my good friend Os puts it 'he's not just where the wild things are' and how right she is. I remember this book so strongly from my childhood, not because we had it at home (Maurice Sendak was only where the wild things are in our house, as it happened) but for the embarrassing fact that me and my friend (not Os I hasten to add) were delighted by the fact that you can see his willy ...

little a takes the nudity in her stride. In fact I'm not sure she even notices it. But we do have an ongoing dispute about whether the correct reading is 'slid down the side' (of the milk bottle) or 'slid down the slide'. Perhaps Mr Sendak did indeed leave out the 'l' by mistake.

Either way, it is a riot of surrealism, a dream of a book (literally) and the illustrations of Mickey flying over a city of milk bottles and flour shakers have been clearly etched in my memory from my willy-giggling girlhood. little a takes great relish in belting out 'quiet down there!' and 'cock-a-doodle-doo!' and is very keen on the idea of cake for breakfast every day. In her dreams ...



PS two more, non-book things: our 'quality mummy time' outing today was to the Enchanted Palace at Kensington Palace and I thoroughly recommend it. I'm not a big fan of stately homes and royal palaces and the like: I think houses are for living in and don't get why you'd want to peer through the precious gloom at dark and dainty chairs you're not allowed to sit in even if you're an old gent with a gammy leg. But the Palace is being renovated, and in a flight of imagination rather than covering the place in dustsheets they've welcomed a team of artists who have created a magical installation that brings the palace, and the plight of princesses, to life. This is a gothic fairytale of an educational trip, take a look if you can: http://www.hrp.org.uk/KensingtonPalace/stories/palacehighlights/EnchantedPalace.aspx?EventDate=&Step=View (There's also the brilliant pirate ship and Princess Diana Memorial Playground a five minute walk away, and the delicious cakes of The Orangery to make it pretty much a perfect day out)

And part two: a proud mother moment as little a has taken her first solo pedals on her 'wobbly bike'. 'Don't let go until we're past the houses, mummy!' How to tell her? This is suburbia. The houses never end ... We now measure distance not in miles or km, but SDH or Semi Detached House. She has today cycled, unsupported, a full SDH. Tomorrow, perhaps, she'll learn how to brake.

If you're wanting to grow your own fledgling Lance Armstrong, the pedal free balance bikes are brilliant. We've got to this point without stabilisers, and after only about 50 SDH of back-breaking pushing. (thank you, Auntie C - best 2nd birthday present ever!)

potato lids

Oh what a lovely treat a Milly Molly Mandy story is. Like the Cranford or Larkrise (the first series) of children's books.

A charity shop find, our edition is a boxed set of the four books that were rolled in to one omnibus in the ex-library book my sister and I adored as children. I was so excited when I found it (thank you, Cats Protection League ...) but thought little a, at four, would probably be too young for longer stories with no pictures. I underestimated her though. Or perhaps I underestimated the charming simplicity of the tales.

Tonight, we read Milly Molly Mandy Enjoys a Visit, in which Little-Friend-Susan comes to stay, they share a yellow candy stick, wave to Billy Blunt from the pony trap, and eat potato lids by the fire. Oooh it's like being wrapped up in a cosy blanket and given a big hug. All's well in the world.

I'm sure it's all very girly, but I'm not ashamed. Little a is captivated, and the pictures, few and far between as they are, act as good stopping points if required: and she gives a little squeak of excitement when we turn the page and there's a little black and white line drawing to pore over.

I have to confess to indulging in a (I'm sure terrible) West Country accent for Muvver and co. Though the critics were out tonight:

'Is Mrs Moggs Little-friend-Susan's daddy? [no, she's a Mrs, so she's a lady. She's LFS's mummy] but she's got a boy voice [a boy voice? oh no, did I do it wrong?] yes you did a boy voice'

Glad to know my attempts at character differentiation aren't going un-noticed ...




And if you'd like some background reading, this inspires me to recommend anything by Jane Brockett. They're my own grown up version of Milly Molly Mandy. She has a gorgeous blog at http://www.yarnstorm.blogs.com/ and her book, Cherry Cakes and Ginger Beer, includes the potato lids recipes. My favourite though, and insomnia cure, is The Gentle Art of Domesticity. I read it and dream of having the time to make beautiful things.

happy bunny

Miffy is just insufferably smug and middle class. Mrs Bunny wears twinset and pearls, Mr Bunny sports a suit and buys everyone lemonade after a lovely day at the park. Read the first Miffy and there's some very very strange quasireligious message going on there: little white bunny as Christ? most odd.

We don't have that one, I'm glad to say: but Miffy goes to the Park was a big favourite for a while, and having to read it every night was a horror.

So I steered little a tonight towards Miffy the Artist, which turns out to be a Tate publication (no surprise, since I bought it on one of our yummy mummy cultural outings to the Tate Modern). It's positively scintillating by comparison. And little a does love Miffy.

'She likes the lots of miffies. Because she's a miffy'

And there is something totally irresistible about that little cross for a mouth ...

FOUR stories tonight: brilliant that they still seem to work as bribery. Goldilocks and the three bears came to the rescue during the weekly nit safari. Hurrah for the old nursery tales that you can spin out as long as you need them to be during a tedious task. Quite a lot of wrangling and dispute though: no mummy, the bears wore shoes [who's telling the story? They put on their wellies] at grandma's house they wore shoes ... no the bed wasn't lumpy it was TOO HARD.

Time was I could tell tales however I liked and little a could be counted on to be filled with wonder. Nobody warns you how EARLY the rebellion and independence starts. But you know, with it comes the most amazing creativity and great personality. And little a tells herself stories all the time. Only child thing? I don't know, but I love to listen in.

And before I turn in, a word for the deeply brilliant Monkey and Me by Emily Gravett. She is the most beautiful beautiful artist. I utterly admire Roger Hargreaves and Dick Bruna for the simplicity and boldness of their illustrations, but Emily Gravett captures the spirit and character in a style reminiscent of Ernest Shepherd or Edward Ardizzone (ooh must discover some of his!).

The story is simplicity itself: monkey and me monkey and me monkey and me we went to see we went to see some ... [all together now] ... penguins! little a knows it so well now she's shouting out the animals before I even turn the page. But I love the way the clues are in the illustrations: monkey and me are leaping for the kangaroos, hanging upside down for the bats. And it's perfect for bedtime: you can have a last burst of energy yelling 'elephants!' before winding down to falling asleep over tea on the last page. I'd say this, and orange pear apple bear (which I've always coveted but never owned) are absolute essentials for the collection.

'She fell asleep with still a mouthful!'

Extraordinary long arms

Ahh lovely, Friday morning. No work, so little a snuggles in my bed for stories before we start the day.

Mr Tickle - never a good choice at bed time, too much over-excitement, long tickly arms at the ready. Very fun for a sunny morning.

What's so brilliant about the Mr Men is that they haven't dated at all. Who knew Mr Tickle was No.1 in the series? I found myself quite excited about tracking down Mr Happy, Mr Silly, Mr Bump again. And Mr Small and those fantastic brogues ...

No way of knowing if When a Zeeder Met a Xyder will turn out to be as timeless, but it's a really sweet story of finding love in unexpected places. My friend gave it to little a for her second birthday with an inscription saying it was one for when she's a bit older, and I can well imagine it being given as a first love gift. I'm sure all the heavy symbolism isn't making much impression at the moment but she likes the cute drawings, there's a good rhythm to the rhyming, and a big PAZOOM! for little a to shout out, and lots of little xyderzees to count at the end. A nice new discovery.

A patchwork elephant

I'm going to say the BOO!!!!!

Who doesn't love Elmer? Those cheeky elephant smiles and bright colours are impossible to resist.

Little a, little pedant, likes to point out that all the elephants on the first page aren't actually 'all the same colour' - one of them is blue. But she still knows that one isn't Elmer. Even when Elmer's painted himself elephant colour, it's easy to tell him apart. Brilliant character in those elephant faces.

And if you insist on being educational with your bedtime stories, then there are plenty of opportunities to name the colours, count the elephants, learn animal names, even develop your budding fashionista skills by choosing favourite patterns (I like the yellow elephant with red hearts, little a likes that one and that one and that one and that one ...)

So, Elmer is every bit as good as I remember it being as a child. For some reason, I particularly remember the picture of him rolling in the grey berries to make himself elephant colour.

But actually it's not my favourite David McKee [little a loves the picture of him that's on the last page of our edition: that's the man what wrote this book, mummy. He drawed it too. Glad to see our love of books is helping with her grammar, then]. That's Not Now, Bernard. I used to take great delight reading it to little a on the bus in our commuting days. Ever the performer (show-off) my husband always points out that I don't need to read quite so LOUDLY, but Not Now Bernard is too good to keep to yourself.

Elmer and Bernard both have messages. Elmer's is one much beloved by children's storytellers - it's okay to be different - but told in a delicious and entertaining way. Not Now Bernard has a message too, but this one is for the parents. And that's what I love about it. Little a (strangely unperturbed by the monster eating Bernard) just likes the story. I like it for the great 70s wallpaper and furniture in the pictures, but mainly because it's a big reminder to pay attention to your children: they're not always vying for your attention to be annoying. And is watering a plant honestly a better way to spend your time?

So stop the housework and take a moment to read Elmer instead!




(I've linked to the Little Treasures version of Not Now, Bernard - all the better for reading loudly on the bus! Pop it in your pocket for entertainment emergencies ...)

The Bears Who Stayed Indoors

It's a grey Easter Monday and grandma is reading to little a: The Bears Who Stayed Indoors. What could be more appropriate?

Perhaps we should make a spaceship and fly to the moon.

I love The Bears. The storybooks don't seem to be in print any more, but the illustrations are fantastic - bright primary colours, full of character and charm - and the stories seem very Amistead Maupin somehow: 5 boy bears: Charles, John, Andrew, William, Robert and their dalmation Fred all live together and go on adventures. We also have The Bears Who Went to the Seaside.

Charles would always rather read than join in. William is always hungry. Fred is often forgotten.

little a is the only one who can tell the bears apart.

You can still seem to find boardbooks, which give you the joy of the pictures, if not the full Bears Who ... experience

the pobble who has no toes

little a is tonight fast asleep in my childhood room.

A short post, because I want to be sleeping too ... but her choice tonight was The Pobble who Had No Toes. It's not one I remember, certainly not in the way that many of my books feel like old friends. But Edward Lear is definitely a part of me - Moses supposes his toeses is roses is one of the few poems I know by heart.

This particular edition is illustrated with weird, slightly disturbing pictures. I'll check the artist's name in the morning. Something about books from the early seventies that often seem to have rather too adult illustration styles to them. But little a doesn't seem to mind.

And I do like the idea of eggs and buttercups fried with fish ...

Morning update:
The illustrator is Kevin W Maddison. The edition is out of print now: a brief search on Amazon shows I could sell my edition for $86.54 (not that I'd want to), or I can buy a classics edition of Edward Lear. I'll have a look out for a nice illustrated edition, so watch this space.

Charlie Cook's Favourite Book

Once upon a time there was a boy
called Charlie Cook
Who curled up in a cosy chair
and read his favourite book ...

This may be my favourite Julia Donaldson/Axel Scheffler so I was very pleased by little a's choice tonight

It's a brilliantly woven story, classic Julia Donaldson rhymes which make it easy to read aloud, and lovely visual jokes in Axel Scheffler's illustrations (look at the spines of the books in the endpapers, the running heads on each spread, the 'prison library' stamp on the burglar page - make me smile every time)

little a verdict:

pirates have earrings and spotty chins [that's stubble] actually I think they're freckles

she likes to shout out "Charlie Cook" and read along the end of the rhyming couplets
And on the final page, we name all the characters surrounding Charlie's chair (for extra fun, compare the illustration at the beginning, and see if you can spot the visual clues hidden there ...)

Are you sitting comfortably?

My father reading me stories is one of the strongest memories of my childhood.

Now that I have a daughter of my own, reading to her is my favourite thing. I work in publishing, I love books, but also, in my dream life, I'd be an actress. So there's nothing better than curling up with her, and belting out a great story, comedy accents and all.

It can be hard, though, can't it, to find the good ones? There are a lot of rubbish children's books out there. No wonder every star thinks they can write one. So often, when I'm reading, I'm thinking 'I could do better than this'. And I probably could. But you know what, I could never write The Gruffalo, or Guess How Much I Love You, or the Milly-Molly-Mandy Stories.

When little a chooses Dora (aka Borer the Explorer), my heart sinks - despite the chance to indulge my terrible Spanish accent. But anything by Julia Donaldson, I can read it again and again.

And that's it, isn't it? our kids love stories. Their imaginations are running wild, the whole time. What I love is when the books we find set my imagination running wild, too.

So often I find myself with my friends reminiscing about the books we loved. We can spend hours listing them, revelling in the memories of first discovering them, and retelling the adventures of characters who seem almost more real than our own childhood friends. And it's so exciting to recommend an undiscovered book to someone new: there's such a vicarious thrill in thinking how happy they'll feel when they read it for the first time.

So when I found myself getting very over-excited with jhw (my boss) the other day about The Family from One End Street, and feeling sorrow at the passing of Tales on Half Moon Lane (lovely bookshop in Primrose Hill), I thought - why not make a little space online, to recommend the books I loved, and celebrate rediscovering them, or finding new ones, with little a?

My daughter is four now, so I'll do a bit of catching up, tell you the books we've loved up till now. And then we'll go on our journey of discovery together. She's growing up so fast, I want to hold on to every minute. But at the same time, I'm so excited that soon she'll be old enough to read CS Lewis, and Robert Westall, and Susan Cooper.

My childhood favourites will be a big part of this, of course, but I also want to find new stories. I'll ask my family and friends for their favourites. And I'll see if the stories I remember have stood the test of time. Will I still love them? Will little a love the same ones?