My Big Wimmelbook: My Busy Day

"I cannot remember where I first came across these books, but I absolutely adore them. There are about 14 books in the series and they’re all brilliant. All the grandchildren from age eight downwards still love them. The youngest one, who is 18 months, goes to nursery and I chose My Busy Day because it is set in a nursery. You’ve got the children arriving, and they’re having their breakfast in the nursery. Then you’ve got playtime outside, they go off to visit a farm and they do painting, water play, storytime, all those familiar activities. There are no words in it, it’s all illustrations. It’s a board book, but it’s a slightly larger format. There are lots of details in the pictures but I’ve found children from around 12 months upwards like looking at them. It’s amazing what little children can spot, they spot things that you don’t see at all, the smallest thing like the dog hiding behind a barrel. When I sit and read this book with my granddaughter she recognises things. I relate it to what she does in her day, does she go outside and play, does she nap like the little girl who’s always asleep in each of the pictures? At the front of each of these books there are 15 or so characters that then feature on each double-page spread. They’ve got the same clothes on so you can spot them, but they’re doing something different on each page. One of the other Wimmelbooks is Animals Around the World by Stefan Lohr and there’s a carrier pigeon. In the first picture, somebody has given it a letter and then on each of the other pages you have to spot this bird with the letter, then in the last picture the letter’s being handed over. I do different things with each grandchild with these books. With older children like my five year old grandson, he loves spotting things. We don’t spot all 15 characters because we’d be there for hours, we choose three or four things to spot in each picture. After a while they know where all the 15 characters are so you can extend that by choosing something yourself within the picture, something tucked in a corner and ask them to find it. If you ask them, for example, to find the sheep that’s rolling on the ground, that helps to develop their observational skills. For my eight year old grandchild I thought she would have grown out of these books by now but she sits with them and makes up stories with the people on the pages, with herself in the stories. The other thing is these books are interesting for adults to look at as well. Children do pick the same books all the time and when you’ve read the same book every day for six months, you think “oh, not this book again”. But these books have touches of humour in the pictures, there’s lots to talk about, and they are lovely illustrations so you find yourself not getting bored with them. You have to be a bit careful, because if you get bored that will come across when you’re reading. We don’t want children to be bored with reading, we want them to think of it as an exciting adventure every time we pick up a book. There is a huge amount you could do with them. You can do counting, you can talk about what’s happening on the pages, what children are doing in the pictures. This series has been my go-to gift for the children in my life that I buy presents for. I think these books should be more widely known because they’re brilliant, and excellent value for money as well. Sign up here for our newsletter featuring the best children’s and young adult books, as recommended by authors, teachers, librarians and, of course, kids. It was really hard to choose just five. I’ve not gone for the firm favourites that everybody knows. That’s not because they’re not any good, I just felt this was an opportunity to introduce slightly different books to parents. In terms of reading for babies I would just say it’s meant to be a fun time for you and the baby, so find something that you can both engage with and relax. As I said earlier, there’s no right or wrong way to read a book to a baby, but do read to them, every day."