My brain is turning into pink blancmange

Here's a plea to the grandparents: when your heart thrills with the thought of your granddaughter's little face when she sees the fabulously pink and sparkly bag of books you've given her for her birthday, spare a thought for your own poor child.

Did you really spend all that time and money on the very best education so that the fruit of your loins could read, night in, night out, the moralising adventures of Princess Poppy?

Argh, they are so sweet my teeth hurt to read them: Poppy and Saffron and Honey, and their adventures in Honeypot hill (or something, I may be misremembering and I can't bear to look at it again tonight to check).

I admit, I would have loved them when I was little a's age. The illustrations are sweetly pretty, they have engaging little letters in real envelopes at the front, and they do attempt to teach something of the ways of the world.

But do they stand up to being read again and again interminably for the whole of the month of January?

No, they do not.

Although little a's birthday was only on the 20th. That was a week ago. Has it really only been a week? She's threatening to take them on our half term holiday. I fear I will be lacking in new material for this blog for some time to come.

Time to bring in some Horrid Henry or Roald Dahl, because if my brain is turning to pink blancmange, what good can it be doing to the precious daughter?

Slightly Invisible

oooh oooh ooh there's a new Charlie and Lola! a real one - not one of the TV spin-offs but a real proper Lauren Child wrote the story and did the pictures one.

That, together with my sister giving little a the Lauren Child illustrated edition of Pippi Longstocking for Christmas, means we're starting 2011 on a reading high.

True, I may not have been this excited had I not been forced to read Just for You Blue Kangaroo every night for the past three weeks (thank goodness for Twelfth Night and the loft. That's twelfth night the last day of Christmas, not the Shakespeare play. I know I'm middle class, but I'm not that pushy. Yet)

So, back to Slightly Invisible. As you can tell, we're big Charlie & Lola fans in this house. I have a friend who won't read them because of the bad grammar, which gave me about a milisecond's pause for thought before I remembered reading Enid Blyton never did me any harm. I mean I work in publishing now, so my grammar must be fine isn't it?

Little a took the appearance of a new Charlie & Lola in her stride (I love that acceptance that the world is of course filled with magical things that come to you at regular intervals. When does that wear off? How can I get it back?). I think it might be my favourite one yet, but ask me again after I've read it 200 times ... And at the risk of going all publishing on you, it's got much more of a narrative arc than the previous books somehow, less full of cute phrases and a bit more grownup-feeling.

We liked spotting Soren Lorensen hidden in shiny varnish on each page.

Probably not a starter Charlie & Lola, I'd say, but if like us you've grown up with them over the past five years, it's a very very welcome new addition to our collection of favourites.

PS I'd better confess my interest here: I work for a sister company of Orchard books - but this is the first of their books I've knowingly reviewed here. In fact, such a fool am I that I had bought all the previous C&L books before I even realised the original Lauren Childs are published by Orchard. Hey ho, it keeps us all going I guess ...

The stories of Christmas

Oooh Christmas books down from the loft: Wibbly Pig and his itchy scarf, Angelina skating, Olivia the pig on Santa Watch. And our favourite, compulsory reading every night at the moment: Just for You, Blue Kangaroo. As delicious as mince pies and as cosy as a yule log fire. Still not quite there on the true meaning of Christmas, despite the madness of a nativity play in our living room on Monday, but I suppose there's a glimmer of hope in the message of Lily doing everything for her blue kangaroo, and him wanting to give something back in return.

Books and Christmas go together like holly and ivy. On woman's hour this week, I heard of a tradition of reading Dickens' Christmas Carol each year, starting on 1 December and finishing on Christmas Eve. That's one I mean to start next year. Move over, Wibbly ...

The true meaning of Christmas?

It bothers me that if you keep Christmas non-denominational you're not left with much aside from the presents.

I haven't worked out the answer to this problem yet, but when my sister suggested that, instead of drawing a Christmas card, I write a story, I thought I might give myself the challenge of coming up with something which captures what I think could be the true spirit of Christmas, without the baby Jesus.

We should take a moment here to realise that what my sister was actually saying was: face it, you can't draw, so while you might like the idea of giving your festive message the personal touch, the rest of us are wondering how we can politely not display your latest attempt at homemade greetings on the mantlepiece ...

Anyway, back to the case in hand. Walking in snowy Norfolk at the weekend, a story began to form itself in my head. (and by the way, may I add here that making up stories in your head as you walk sure beats worrying about work or Christmas shopping. From now on the moment some annoying niggle threatens to detract from a beautiful view, I shall be bopping it on the head with a 'once upon a time').

Home from work tonight just in the nick of time for a goodnight kiss and a wheedle for a story, I thought I'd road-test my new tale on my toughest critic. I won't tell it to you here - but in a nutshell I was rather chuffed with myself for using snow as a metaphor for the ephemeral nature of consumerism. But in a way I thought an almost-five-year-old might understand.

'But you can't bring snow inside mummy, it would melt. You'd have to have a very very cold room'
'Yes, yes you would. And she did. she had a very cold room'
[more story, at the end of which the snow does indeed melt]
'It's all right though because next time it snowed she'd have lots of snow again'

I'm getting the sense that my metaphor is just a little bit too subtle.

So this year, expect a card carrying the message:

Once upon a time there was a little girl who just wanted more and more stuff and refused to take no for an answer until her parents got so annoyed all they bought her for Christmas was a lump of coal. It didn't make her understand what Christmas was all about, but it made them feel better. The End.

Admire the view, and think of a story ...

The Funniest Book in the Whole World

I love these expressions that are creeping in to our lives now school has begun. I never quite know how much little a knows what they mean.

So, apparently, John Burningham's THE SHOPPING BASKET is the funniest book in the whole world.

We did chortle a little. But we didn't laugh our heads off. It's great for quirky, gawky illustration, lots of animals and good lists of fruit for counting. We were late for bedtime tonight though, so no time for counting here. Poor old Steven had to be in quite a rush to run all those errands for his mum ...

Mainly because I did want to have time to read MADELINE.

Away for a grown-ups only break in Norfolk for the weekend, I was delighted to see Madeline nestled into a beautiful window display in the bookshop in Burnham Market to take home (middle class? moi?). I don't know why it feels like a perfect read for the time of year, especially this year when snow has fallen so early. There's nothing Christmassy about the tale, and yet it feels so wintry and festive. Perfect for tucking up warm and dreaming of Paris.

Although little a is now worried about her appendix. Let's hope that laughter is the best therapy ...

Cat and Mouse

What is it about kids wanting to be animals? In the past week I've swung wildly between 'mummy cat' and 'owner' but the pretty constant theme is little a as kitten. This makes barking orders to stay in bed quite difficult - a bark doesn't carry so much meaning when it has to come out as a meow.

And it's added an entertaining new spin to Angelina's Royal Wedding (how apt! perhaps little a is a psychic cat! I can roll her out for the olympics now that the world cup octopus is sadly no longer with us). We still relish the twee stories and drool at the tasty wedding feast. But we also gobble up the mouselings as they prance across the page.

Most satisfying.

All together now: Meeeowp!

No strings

My lovely friend Paul pulled some strings to get us tickets to see Disney on Ice at the O2 recently. Little a was transported. The princesses, of course, were a big hit - no surprises there - but the lasting favourite has been Pinocchio.

The scene didn't stand out particularly at the time, aside from the scary whale. (We're going through a bit of fear-discovery I think. She was scared by the supposedly comic opening scene with Goofy and the Zamboni - leaping into my lap, wailing and clutching at me as though Godzilla himself was stalking the blue plastic seats). Since then, though, we've been subjected to 'I've got no strings on me' played on repeat interminably.

It's maybe a price worth paying. I've been inspired to dig out the original tale and put straight my sketchy recollections of fairies, foxes and donkeys. Little a seems captivated by the idea of a boy brought to life by love. It brings out in her the same reaction as a game we used to play with a big cardboard box: a special delivery arriving on my doorstep of my very own 'real girl'. Of course Pinocchio must have been there all along in my subconscious. And it seems to me a good first introduction to the birds and the bees. Not the act of creation itself, but the feelings you hope will accompany it.

Hmmm, that's deeper than I meant to go when I started to write about this jolly song that's going to be annoyingly lodged in my head all week. But it's true. And a lesson I'm a lot more comfortable with than the 'find-a-prince-and-kill-your-stepmother' messages of most of our storytelling inheritance ...