It's a Star!

Twinkle Twinkle Little Star illustrated by Tracey Moroney

A simple illustrated board book version of the well known song, featuring a polar bear looking up at the star while he plays and then gets ready for bed, and ending with him dreaming about meeting the star.

This was the very first book that Mitchell actually sat on my lap to listen to! Admittedly it took months to get to that point. Months of singing the song while turning the pages, and pointing to the star, (teddy, sled, windmills, bees, etc.) on the pages while he wriggled to get down, and bounced around the room, racing back to my knee to look at the pages, and off again.

But finally he became intrigued with the detail on the pages, and began to find the teddy on the page, or look for the bees on the lampshade. (It took several months before he'd respond to requests to find the star!)

The illustrations are charming and surprisingly full of detail for such a small board book - only 10 pages, and 12 cm tall. I think that the size is part of it's appeal, as it's easy for very small hands to hold and turn pages, and board pages mean it survives even the roughest handling. Mitchell still asks for it now, and enjoys turning the pages, and telling me what he sees on each page.

I've just found out that Tracey Moroney is a NZ illustrator, I'll have to look out for more of her work.

Puff, Puff, Toot Toot

Down by the station by Will Hillenbrand.

This was one of my earliest success stories with Mitchell. As he didn't like being read to, but loved being sung to, I kept my eyes open for illustrated songs; and this was one of the first I came across.

Early in the morning the train travels around the zoo picking up the baby animals to go to the Children's Zoo. So you have the drawcard of cute baby animals as well as the singing.

The illustrations are sufficiently bold to work for large groups of children, with lovely large double page spreads of each stop on the train's journey; and also have lots of interesting detail that Mitchell picked up on after many readings (what the naughty monkey is doing on each page, where is the balloon?, clues to the next animal enclosure on the right of each page page spread, etc.)

My only criticism, is that the scansion of the rhyme is 'off' when each animal is described (there should be 4 syllables, and are only 2), but it's easy enough to add in another descriptive word (sleepy panda, pink chick, seal pup, etc.)

The recommended age range is 4-8 -- but it worked brilliantly for my 18 month old (with Mama turning the pages)

This continues to be a favourite, and is still as beloved well over a year after the first reading.

Of course, I can't actually read this story to Mitchell, I have to sing it!