We go through it observing every detail. The first two pages, with the savannah in the sunrise (?), are mesmerising: the small hippo ears coming out of the tall grass, the two monkeys hugging up in the tree, the bugs climbing up the grass stalks. One time when we went through the different dances the animals do, we took advantage to play music to little gosling; he was swaying to the waltz and even now keeps counting to himself: 1-2-cha-cha-cha. He’s sad when Gerald leaves the dance sad and alone… ohhhh… loves it when the cricket comes in (“cri cri” becomes “chi chi”) and is intrigued by Gerald closing the eyes to listen to the sounds of nature or being ecstatic when he realises he can dance. A very enjoyable reading over and over and over again and many opportunities to learn about animals, music, emotions.

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I thought the vocabulary was too advanced for 1-2  year olds, but little gosling enjoys it and he finishes the verses on his own by now. The illustrations are very playful and remind me of “Cars”. The Crane Truck going to sleep holding a tiny teddy bear and Cement Mixer taking a shower and covering himself with the tiniest and cutest little blanket are so precious. And I love the message it sends that work, however hard, is supposed to be fun and enjoyable. All machines are so happy (and tired) at the end of day and little gosling quickly picked up on it. 

Going past construction sites, we always stop and watch the different machines. He likes to look at them and recognises them from the book; he wishes they would move and when they do, he is oftentimes scared. Just today one excavator suddenly started moving in the direction where we were standing and he immediately said “bye bye” very alarmed and off we went.

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We have fun when we read this book together. Little gosling likes the boy’s panda (currently one of the top favourite animals), so he is carefully looking for him and pointing him on every page. He is very empathetic to the sad boy, sadness and happiness being the two emotions he has been learning to identify these days. He is eagerly looking for the dragonflies, because he loves the Romanian word for it, “libelula” (he knows that’s the book where he first saw it) and he has been copying the illustrator’s way of drawing the sun. It suits his level of ability and he draws that kind of sun over and over again in many different colours, even black :))). 

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Little gosling had a phase when he was turning the pages straight to the Emperor penguins in Antarctica. He loved penguins. Then, after playing with a toy camel at his granny’s place, he would go to the desert page. After spending time in the countryside, collecting the eggs laid by the hen, he would look with interest at how chicks hatch from eggs. He laughs at the jungle page, where a parrot loudly shrieks “sqwak”, roars pointing at the tiger and makes me sing Culture Beat’s Karma Chameleon when he sees the chameleon, swinging his head from side to side to the rhythm. Also, it is the only book we have with bats and fireflies and crocodiles , and the lift the flap surprise at the end of the book generates excitement every time. 

Some weeks ago, we were naming animals and out of nowhere he points to the crocodile, saying its name with a different accent and starts clapping his hands . It could not be Romanian, there was no context for it. Thus, it must have been something he had learnt at the nursery. He’s been going to a nursery in French since last November. The next day, when I picked him up at the nursery, I asked whether they had been singing a song about crocodiles, and that is how I came to learn “Ah les crocodiles”, which we now sing as part of the daily round-up of nursery rhymes. Thank God for youtube !

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We started with the Easter themed one, which is easier (recommended for 2+). It took him a bit to understand what needed to be done and in the beginning mommy helped along, breaking down the illustrations into smaller pictures and asking about each item “is it here?”, but he quickly got the hang of it. He keeps playing the “is it here?” game on his own and almost chants “noooo” in reply . He found confusing at first to search for items depicting drawings or framed pictures of one of the characters, he was always pointing to the character, but he got it eventually. I was so amazed he could identify nuances of the same colour! And wow, what an observation sense and visual memory he has! These are great tools to help with that. 

The Easter book tells a cute little story about a chick, Piou-Piou, who loves Easter and dreams about becoming an Easter bunny when he grows up. He sets out to help the Easter bunny in painting the eggs and hiding them for the egg hunt. It is sweet, beautifully colored and a lovely introduction to the motifs and joys of the Easter holiday. Each double-sided page includes one para of text (in French) and asks kids to observe and find four items in the attached illustration: lots of decorated eggs, chicks, bunnies, sheep, birds, flowers and bells. Little gosling would ask to “read piou-piou”, brings the book, opens to the pages he wants and simply says “read that” and then he plays to finding the items. He loves finding the Easter eggs. 

The one with the seasons is quite a big format, but still easy to grasp for a toddler, and includes nine pretty double-paged illustrations filled with seasonal motifs, animals and happenings, two per season (three for summer). On each of them, kids are encouraged to identify seven items (animals, plants, activities) as well as observe what a cute little mouse is up to. There is no story, which provides so much space for story lines and language development, and the names of the items are written down (some of them, quite usefully so, with the book being in French). Again, I found this a useful, interactive introduction to seasons for my toddler. Particularly as for each season, one of the illustrations depicts the transformations the same garden goes through, in terms of tree foliage, colours, fruits, vegetables, animals. There’s a lot of information on these pages, without it feeling crammed. The favourites so far (love at first sight) were the depictions of a blue dragon-fly (“libellule” in French, “libelula” in Romanian – one of the favourite words, currently) and one of the spring illustrations showing toddlers enjoying a picnic “à la française“,  with different cheeses, baguette and strawberries. He stares at it and we inevitably end up enjoying together a platter of cheese, fruits and cashew nuts. What a treat! 

Little gosling keeps repeating the books – yes, he found all the items in both and when we go through them now he points to them in no time. But I’m already looking at other search and find books, of different sizes and different themes….

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Little gosling would ask for polar bear. Funnily, when we start reading the book, “Polar bear’s gone, but where did he go?”, little gosling points the finger to the bear’s ears blending into the ice giggling, “there!!!”. I wonder for a moment whether he will want to stop, but we always go on to finish the story.

Some of the activities he is portrayed engaging in are decidedly wintery, but others less, like canoeing or snorkeling. One also gets to meet some other polar friends. Curling with penguins was an early favourite, back when little gosling was into penguins. Recently, we’ve spent more time on the dinner with the seal and the walrus, diseccating the dinner table; the pizza the seal is having is such a show stealer. My absolute favourite is the “deep conversation about the holes in his socks” with the “smart Arctic fox”. Sometimes daddy mimes the different activities whilst mommy is reading, causing all sorts of giggles and squeaks. 

Little gosling was hooked on it from the beginning (he was around 1). The language is simple and accessible from very early on, the rhyme is entertaining, the colours are vivid and the forever smiling bear exhudes friendliness and invites himself in for whatever activity. I also enjoy reading it and inadvertently and very quickly creeps into one’s memory. 

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I found it in my local bookshop in South Africa, where we were living at the time. I bought it for its strong local flavour. Not in the least because Ricky’s animal toy friends are from the local fauna: lion – his sleep buddy, elephant, cheetah. It has a touch of the Lion King about it, featuring a beloved ruling lion family and an orderly and protective animal kingdom. It also helps reinforce in a natural way baby’s awareness of racial diversity, which I find important.

Baby loves the suspense and emotion in the dialogue and the animal illustrations. He likes the image of Ricky jumping into the water to go after lion cub; he is presently attempting to jump with both feet off the ground and particularly fond of jumping altogether. By the time Ricky hugs the wet and shivering lion cub, he is climbing in my arms and hugging mommy tight. Impossible not to love reading the book together! 

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“Lighthouse” is one of little gosling’s favourite words presently. He saw one in “The storm whale in winter” by Benji Davies and he keeps asking for the book “with Noi”and flips impatiently through the pages to get to the lighthouse. 

It’s the sequel to “The Storm Whale”, which we haven’t read.. yet. But it’s a heartwarming, easy to follow story nevertheless which speaks to the strong bond between a little boy, Noi, and his dad, to friendship, to gratefulness and to good happening to those who do good. When his dad is late from his last fishing outing before the winter sets in, Noi goes out to sea to find him; lost and scared, he is brought back to safety by the whale he saved months earlier. 

I bought the book in an airport bookstore (in a coastal city, precisely) more than a year ago. I liked the storyline; found the context (a single dad, a fisherman and a whale) quite singular; and I could not resist the cuteness of Noi and the whales’ baby faces. 

Baby was not very interested for quite a long time. I enjoyed reading the story to him notwithstanding. However, there was a time, he must have been 10-11 months old, when he would spend minutes looking at the depiction of the family of whales coming from deep sea up towards the boat in which Noi was sitting alone. On one occasion, I put baby down to sleep for the night and went out as a couple – a very rare occurrence. My parents were staying over. And luck has it baby woke up soon after we left and refused to go back to sleep. Only thing that managed to soothe him was the image of the whales, which he stared at for quite a while before moving on to play with his grannies for two hours more before we got home. Presently, he seems more attracted to the drama of Noi waiting for his dad and going out to search for him (thanks to mommy’s theatrical interpretation, no doubt) and to the lighthouse, of course.. 

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I got the Ladybird big book of “Favourite Nursery Rhymes” months before he turned one. I was looking for short poems to recite or sing to him before bedtime or when he needed soothing. Very soon he wanted to play at turning the pages. It’s quite a sturdy book and the pages can withstand some baby action, but his very young, uncontrolled and imprecise movements quickly made some victims. Nothing that mommy could not easily fix with some scotchtape, though. I would read the rhymes that most appealed to me. My favourites were the three little kittens who had lost their mittens and the owl and the pussycat who were married by a turkey on a faraway island. 

When little gosling was about 16-17 months, he started bringing rhymes from “school”. First one he asked for was “Baa, baa black sheep”. For months it was one of his favourites. He would come to me and ask “ba ba” or later “sing ba ba”, whilst moving the weight of his body from the left to the right foot and reverse. Then came “Mary had a little lamb”, to keep to the same animal family. Good thing one can listen to them on youtube to learn the melody. As a non-native English speaker, I was not familiar with them. 

“Head, shoulders, knees and toes” came next, exercise included. We do it together, facing each other, and never just once. This is a particularly entertaining one (at least for us, parents). He can locate the different body parts in the song, but struggles to keep up touching them with the singing of the song, no matter how slowly I sing it. He tries to anyway. He manages to sing and do the first and last movements of the verse (head…. toes…..eyes….nose). And he has fun throughout. 

“Incy wincy spider” followed. The idea of up-down and sun coming out was what retained baby’s attention. And now he asks for the song every time we encounter a spider in other books (“sing that”, he would say to me, pointing to the spider). 

“Hey diddle diddle” is the current favourite. He knows all the nouns in the poem, but none of the connectors. He wants to repeat it so many times, as if he wanted to learn it by heart. He listens carefully and, like filling in blanks, I take a pause and let him say the nouns: cat… fiddle…cow jump…moon…dog…(ha ha – cause I add wherever I can, funny sounds)…fun…dish… way (his version of “away”)…spoon!!!! The last word is always said with excitement, almost victoriously. 

He finds the sound of “cock-a-doodle-doo” funny. He’s so happy when he shouts “cock-a-dooo”!!! Then we play the same game, I recite it and he completes with the last word of each verse (shoe…. “fiddlestitch”…doo!!!). 

At “Two little dicky birds”, he likes the ample arm movements we do when we tell Peter and Paul to fly away or come back. 

He also has his favourite songs in Romanian – the one with the fox (“Vulpe tu mi-ai furat gasca” or “Oac, oac, diridiridam”) and he recently started bringing home songs in French from school. 

We have fun reciting or singing nursery rhymes. We learn words, repeat them, move around theatrically, add animal sounds, laugh a lot. They are also one of our tools to have music in our daily routine. 

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