Babyliography XI: Enter the Library

Jill Murphy, The Large Family: Five Stories in One

1986-2005 (collected 2011) / Hardback / 140 pages / UK

*

Peace At Last is a classic, so this cheap jumbo (do you see what I did there) collection from the same author seemed worth a try. Unfortunately, it's not very interesting. She pulls it out occasionally because it's there, but its attention-seeking widescreen format is just taking up space. It even made formatting this annoying.

Camilla Reid and Ingela P. Arrhenius, Peekaboo Apple

2020 / Library book / 10 pages / UK/Sweden

****

Interactive rhymes, cameos from less celebrated critters and a surprise ending made this an early favourite library book, now that's become a regular pass-time on our morning shifts.

Sam McBratney and Anita Jeram, Here I Am!: A Finger Puppet Book

2018 / Library book / 16 pages / UK

*

An entirely gimmicky spin-off starring popular breakout characters we don't know, I couldn't be bothered to do it properly through every repetitive page and she didn't seem interested either.

Lucy Cousins, Splish, Splash, Ducky!

2018 / Library book / 40 pages / UK

***

It's basically 'what haven't I anthropomorphised by now?', but she knows what she's doing and their vibrance is comforting. It's no Hooray for Fish or even a Peck Peck Peck, but it's better than that uncanny creep Maisy.

Unknown, Baby Touch: Peekaboo

2019 / Library book / 12 pages / Unknown

**

From misleadingly-textured rainbows to perilously-helicoptering babies, this is a looser free-for-all than the restrictive themed entries in the series. It might be beneath her already, but I'll never let that stop her enjoying herself. She was happy improvising a narrative for the tactile chaos while I scoured the trays for more appropriate/boring things.

Alrightreads: Comixxx

Alan Moore and Curt Swan, Superman: Whatever Happened to the Man of Tomorrow?

1986 (collected 1997) / Ebook / 47 pages / UK/USA

****

"It was him all the time! He just combed his hair and stuck on a pair of glasses!"

The pesky postmodern writer who made it impossible for classic comics to continue literally ends its most famous line with a winking celebration of an era and ensemble whose sillier members – like Elastic Lad, the Super dog, and a villain who name is an unpronouncable string of consonants – are indistinguishable from his later parodies. He had a point.

Neil Gaiman and artists, Batman: Whatever Happened to the Caped Crusader? – The Deluxe Edition

1989-2009 (collected 2010) / Ebook / 128 pages / UK/USA/Canada

***

Neil Gaiman drops back into comics to pay his predictable respects, padded out with his Bat miscellany. Not the classic it wants to be.

Al Ewing and Henry Flint, Zombo: Can I Eat You Please?

2009 (collected 2010) / Ebook / 100 pages / UK

****

"Baubles! Eating my face-- AAAAAGGGHHH!"

I guess 2000 AD's not been for kids for a while. Exactly the kind of morbid over-the-top comedy gorefest I found hilarious at 12, it's surprisingly tense before an increasing fixation on pathetic parodies of specific 2009 light entertainment British telly spoils it.

Fave: 'Zombo'

Emily Carroll, Through the Woods

2014 / Ebook / 208 pages / Canada

****

It didn't have the chance to haunt my own childhood, but it's more vicarious creeps to pass down if I really need to add one more to that precarious pile.

Faves: 'Our Neighbor's House,' 'His Face All Red.'

Ian Edginton and I. N. J. Culbard, Brass Sun: The Wheel of Worlds

2012-14 (collected 2014) / Ebook / 208 pages / UK

***

The clockwork solar system setting was irresistible, shame about the plot and art. Still, the point-'n'-click adventure game potential is staggering.

Alrightreads: Games III

Various, The Official Sonic the Hedgehog Yearbooks

1992-93 / Ebooks / 124 pages / UK

**

More excitable guff for the nostalgic British Sonicmania time capsule, along with the comic, the newspaper strips and the Ladybird books and similarly high quality. The unnecessary closed-caption translations of cool dude expressions was the best part.

David Land, Phil Amara and Francisco Ruiz Velasco, Diablo: Tales of Sanctuary

2001 / Ecomic / 64 pages / USA/Mexico

***

An anthology of generic shorts dedicated to most of the character classes, with enough monster cameos and other references to satiate fans, if not particularly enthral them. The mini production gallery at the end was the best part, mind.

Yoshitaka Amano, Dawn: The Worlds of Final Fantasy

2009 / Ebook / 116 pages / Japan

***

Disappointingly only covering the early games that I never played, the lack of any text commentary for these doodles means I never knew what I was looking at, but it was still pretty nice.

Andrew Schartmann, Koji Kondo's Super Mario Bros. Soundtrack

2015 / Ebook / 168 pages / USA

***

With only 90 seconds' worth of original music to cover, historical context makes up much of the necessary padding before bending our ears down for a closer listen than any other book in the series.

Jon Del Arroz, Star Realms: Rescue Run

2016 / Ebook / 284 pages / USA

***

I found the deckbuilding card game's sci-fi theme more amusingly generic than inspired, but at least one author felt compelled to set a suitably bogstandard space espionage thriller there. I'd still get a tingle when a familiar ship class or base was name-dropped, it's pathetic.

Alrightgames: The X-Files – Circle of Truth

The X-Files: Circle of Truth

2018 / Tile placement card game / 2 players / USA

***

A wild west themed card game gets gracelessly repackaged with the most generic X-Files theme possible and bundled in Loot Crates subscribed to by morons. Still, it was some cheap eBay salvage, it doesn't take up space and the agent cards could be good for lazy cosplay or espionage.

Alrightgames: Star Realms – Gambit Set

Star Realms: Gambit Set

2014 / Deckbuilding card game supplement / 1-4 players / USA

****

The expansion packs you can find for the price of a ready meal tend to be the least exciting ones initially, as it makes sense that they'd have more to get rid of. But building your collection based on arbitrary pricing can prove more rewarding than fixating on getting all the slightly different ships and bases when new mechanics change the game substantially.

These are similar yet different enough to the Scenarios to be piled on and theoretically make games more fun (if you're the kind of frivolous freak who plays this serious sport at that level). The bonus material of a versatile ship (x3 copies) and two solo/co-op bosses also adds more value than they'd bother to in subsequent packs and should help delay the gratification of splashing out on the big Frontiers set for longer. You know, unless it's on sale.

Alrightgames: Star Realms – Scenarios

Star Realms: Scenarios

2018 / Deckbuilding card game supplement / 2-4 players / USA

***

Part of the limited appeal of Star Realms is its honed efficiency, so while it's always nice to have more cards, I've never been interested in extortionate expansion packs that add complications for the sake of grifting gullible and/or compulsive fans.

But then Rarewaves was flogging a bunch of unsold packs, and this one seemed like it could be a worthwhile addition to mix things up / ruin games at a reasonable 8.5p per card. Admittedly still more expensive than just writing the rule variants down on a piece of paper and pointing at one randomly, but where does that DIY route end?

It's the most optional of extras, but they fit nicely into the box. When I'm grasping at compliments like that, you know it's a winner!

Alrightgames: Atmosfear – The Ultimate Conflict

Atmosfear: The Ultimate Conflict

1997 / Video strategy board game / 3-6 players / Australia

****

I'd planned to buy the late-childhood favourite again when my daughter was old enough to either be interested or not traumatised by the glowing eyes staring at her from the side of the box wherever she was in the room and making her childhood a living nightmare, but then a family reunion and curiosity over a good bundle deal* won out over responsible parenting. (I can always hide it in a cupboard... but maybe that's even worse?)

The Harbingers was still good fun in all its excessively-frilled roll-'n'-move ticking-clock ghost-train cheese, but we hadn't been missing anything with the Soul Rangers expansion. With lazy inverted rules, barely distinguishable playing pieces and an appalling video, you'd be better off improvising some house rules with the regular game if you're that bored.

• The Harbingers: ****
• The Soul Rangers: **

* A few missing keystones and a playing piece were an inconsequential inevitability. My childhood Scrabble was in much worse nick. It's only a rubbish Soul Ranger anyway.

Alrightgames: 4 in a Line Travel Pack

4 in a Line Travel Pack

1974 / Connection board game / 2 players / Chinese version

***

Cheap, international-postage-discount padding for the birthday pile, before being deemed not worthy of saving up for the day and giving it early to try to wean her off dropping things down the radiator.

She'll get a proper version one day, if she likes it or when this inevitably breaks. It's not a game that begs for a travel version, since you'd just lose the fiddly pieces, and I remember stacking the yellows and pretending they're gold being one of the main appeals from my own childhood.

I enjoyed the blurb calling it an 'exploited wisdom game' as a euphemism for intellectual property theft.

Babyliography X

Unknown, ABC Train Jigsaw Book

2007 / Jigsaw board book / 18 pages / UK

****

She was going to get some kind of alphabet jigsaw now she can precociously do both, and this combines it with animals and a choo-choo, triple win. They presumably came up with this one first before stretching the numbers 1-10 across 26 puzzle pieces in the 123 Train, she prefers this one.

Various, The Hutchinson Treasury of Children's Literature

Collected 1995 / Hardback / 512 pages / Various

*****

Current favourites:

• I Want My Potty
• A Dark, Dark Tale
• Hallo! How Are You?
• Alfie's Feet

Unknown, Peppa Pig: Peppa's Treasury of Tales – 6 books in 1

2016 / Hardback / 144 pages / UK

**

As artistically lacking as they are, she reaches for her other Peppa bumper treasury every time she's told not to interfere with Daddy's laptop, as she enjoys being lectured over and over without taking it in, so I thought a book with a visit to the dentist would be useful propaganda for her first check-up. It's become her new favourite book, never mind.

Heather Amery and Stephen Cartwright, The Usborne Fairytale Jigsaw Book

2004 / Jigsaw book / 16 pages / UK

***

She's grown into her fairy tales book now (and prefers the animal ones over the princesses, good on her). For want of More Fairy Tales, I thought this would make a nice interactive companion, even if buying second hand from a bulk seller there were inevitably missing pieces. I'll pretend it was her fault.

Neil Gaiman and Adam Rex, Chu's Day at the Beach

2015 / Paperback / 32 pages / UK/USA

***

The more sustained and surreal sequel for kids growing up with the series in real time. He's grooming his future readers and I'm all for it.

On the Omnibuses: September

Beatrix Potter, The Complete Tales

The Tale of Peter Rabbit (1901) ****

I can't remember whether I was really into this as a child, but it's nostalgic all the same and idyllically rural when it's not being an exciting action movie.

The Tale of Squirrel Nutkin (1903) ***

Points for the lovely and imaginative illustrations, but I was more ticked off than the owl.

The Tailor of Gloucester (1903) ***

Not really her story and too long to read to a toddler. It's quite nice, regardless.

The Tale of Benjamin Bunny (1904) **

Unnecessary cash-in sequel, unless you were really concerned about Peter's loose threads.

The Tale of Two Bad Mice (1904) ****

Honourable thieves get pranked by a doll's house. Good, clean fun.

The Tale of Mrs. Tiggy-Winkle (1905) *

They've gone from antiquated cute to insufferably twee now. They don't even have recognisable animal characteristics any more. And the names, eugh.

The Tale of the Pie and the Patty-Pan (1905) *

Being a Stewart Lee fan, you'd think I'd enjoy a brief joke being stretched to its unbearable limit.

The Tale of Mr. Jeremy Fisher (1906) **

The most action since Peter Rabbit, but an amphibian wearing rainclothes is about as stupid as these get. 

The Story of a Fierce Bad Rabbit (1906) **

A very short story written for the very young, though the bit where a hunter shoots our fluffy protagonist involved a few concepts I didn't really want to introduce at this stage.

The Story of Miss Moppet (1906) ***

A more wholesome shortie, predating Tom and Jerry by a war or two. I can see her liking this one.

The Tale of Tom Kitten (1907) *

A delightful yarn of vanity and child abuse. None of these are aimed at me, but some of them less than others.

The Tale of Jemima Puddle-Duck (1908) ***

Surprisingly one of the heavier entries, with the pervading dread of a Red Riding Hood. The detailed farm, wood and village renderings root her fancies in reality.

H. G. Wells, Five Great Novels

The Invisible Man (1897) ***

Not the answer to Jekyll & Hyde I was hoping for from the science fiction patriarch, but at least he thought through the consequences.

The First Men in the Moon (1901) ****

Adorably quaint odd-couple gravpunk adventure. Jules Verne with characterisation.

William Blake, Songs of Innocence and of Experience

Songs of Experience (1795) ****

The more accomplished, depressing and enduringly relevant expansion, though you really need the base set and the artwork to get the full benefit. I return every few years and it's somehow different each time.

Jorge Luis Borges, Collected Fictions

The Maker (1960) ***

Philosophical prose poetry and other fragments that didn't lend themselves to extrapolation. I guess he was more into the essays now.

Faves: 'The Maker,' 'Parable of the Palace,' 'Borges and I.'