beautiful creatures

I've been dreading the start of homework, it seemed to mark the end of innocence more even than sending little a off to fend for herself in the world of big school, too-large skirt flapping below her knees.

But when we peeled back the velcro of her 'postal system' school bookbag to find a reading log, fithusband and I were actually quite excited. This is the kind of homework we can do.

Also, little a is choosing her own books to read and that's really interesting to see. Thus we've been introduced to the excellent Grumpalump (with perfect timing - that very weekend we saw a hot air balloon right up close); and a less excellent book about pirates (afraid I can't remember what it's called). And - as if we weren't spoilt enough with all this new reading matter - she came home this week with a bag from the Booktrust with two books, to keep! Much excitement.

And so it's been a couple of weeks of weird and wonderful animals, from 'the mole rolled' and 'the bear stared' in the grumpalump, to Eric Carle's slow, slow, slow Sloth. Like most people, I grew up with The Very Hungry Caterpillar, but this was my first encounter with his sloth: and a menagerie of unfamiliar animals - a peccary, a quetzal, a cock-of-the-rock.

Tonight, to extend the theme, we dusted off Curious George goes camping; in which he gets the wrong end of a skunk with some stinky results. I'm not sure how I feel about Curious George - for a start, he was cruelly snatched from the jungle in book one and now lives in Manhattan with the man in the yellow hat. They're definitely tales from a different age.

But in spite of this new exotic array of beasts, Big Dog, Little Dog remain the number one favourites. Unlike George they're standing the test of time - and more importantly, the test of being read night after night.