Sunday, June 01, 2008

Hairy, silly, slimy and a little naughty

Back in my days working in a public library, I'd always heard the children's librarian recommend Babette Cole's picture books to parents. At the time of course, I was childless and therefore I never expected such information to hibernate in the back of my mind, only to resurface when TLM was born.

We've just borrowed several of her books recently from the library and - good gods, but Babette Cole is funny. It's partly the irreverent subject matter, partly her hilarious drawings of snot, hairy man-fairies and strangely-shaped heads. TLM is currently getting lots of giggles from The Hairy Book, The Slime Book and The Silly Book (or perhaps she just enjoys imitating the peculiar laugh I affect for her amusement). I think she enjoyed Mummy Never Told Me too, but after the first time we read it together, I'm too scared to show it her again. It has, like, a picture of naked and spindly mummy and daddy in their bedroom, supposedly hoping for some childfree lurve, while the narrator wonder why his parents sometimes lock him out of their room. I can't be sure it's age-appropriate.

I don't know about TLM, but I reckon it's be worth getting all her books out just for my own reading pleasure.

1 comment:

Angela said...

Yes some books are to strange for toddlers
but just right for mommys