Babyliography XVI

Mark Sperring and Maddie Frost, The Littlest Things Give the Loveliest Hugs

2018 / Library book / 32 pages / UK/USA

*

I normally pick out the library books and only have myself to blame, but this was a rare request when it caught her eye. I got sick of the sickly rhymes and switched to widlife identification as it went along.

Judith Kerr, Mog and Barnaby

1991 / Library book / 24 pages / Germany

***

This bandwagon-jumping latecomer would have been easier to follow a year ago than her vintage storybook, but she always liked the baby one. The flap gimmick's integrated well and means it can avoid the pseudo comic panels of some of the books.

Unknown, Baby Touch and Feel Llama

2021 / Library book / 14 pages / UK

**

I normally try to give her something a bit more advanced or entertaining (the name of this blog series seems inappropriate now), but this was one of the few that was accessible when we crashed a scheduled activity session. It revised her counting and added a more obscure character to the bestiary that she'll probably forget.

Steve Smallman and Bruno Robert, Eat Your Veggies, Goldilocks

2014 / Library book / 24 pages / UK/France

*

Subverting her expectations to preach healthy eating in an unhelpful and unsatisfying way. I don't get it. She always related more to Baby Bear anyway.

Lynley Dodd, Slinky Malinki, Early Bird

2014 / Library book / 30 pages / New Zealand

**

Depressingly relatable.

Alrightgames: Star Realms – Crisis – Events

Star Realms: Crisis – Events

2014 / Deckbuilding card game expansion / 2+ players / USA

***

Completing my overcomplication of Star Realms (cross my heart, hope for authority to be reduced to zero – the boxes are full now, anyway*), these random interruptions are even less popular than Gambits and Missions among serious players. I took that as a recommendation that they'd be fun for our casual games.

A better thematic detour than the Heroes, I like the introduction of space as a chaotic background character that dispenses random rewards and punishments. What I don't like is that they only bothered to come up with eight of them, with repetition.

I wasn't all that excited to buy these, but I did so on the understanding that they'll be the final frill. In an alternate universe (frankly a more credible one), I'm childless with an official Star Realms® Universal Storage Box™ ever expanding into samey frontiers, but I'm happier over here.

* Unless I make room by putting player three and four's superfluous starter cards into storage, but hopefully that won't occur to me.

Alrightgames: Star Realms – United – Missions

Star Realms: United – Missions

2016 / Deckbuilding card game expansion / 2-4 players / USA

***

After snapping out of the nefarious seduction into collecting more variations on the same spaceships forever, there were still a couple of remaining expansions that I craved to customise and enhance the gameplay experience, so I gave myself permission to get those out of the way before deleting the time-wasting bookmarks and saved searches I no longer had a need for, like a reformed alcoholic pouring the muck down the bog, or an irredeemable nerd approaching 40 denying himself more spaceship cards.

These side quests are kind of like the Trading Posts in Cities of Splendor (my board game EXP has levelled up modestly this year) and should provide nice diversions and rewards in every game. They're also a new way to win occasionally and a new source of stress and uncertainty, which is always welcome. It's Star Realms for collectors, not fighters.

It only gets a middling rating because they could've included more than just the 12 inevitable mission briefs (Scenarios had 20 cards) or added value to this flimsy pack in some other way (Gambit had the ships and bosses), but that's what the other three quarters of this particular expansion sequence were for. I've already got two core sets stretching the boxes with ships and outposts in a comprehensive range of colours and values, I don't need any more.

Especially when there's so much Carcassonne to buy!!!!!

Babyliography XV

Julia Donaldson and Axel Scheffler, The Gruffalo Puppet Book

2016 / Library book / 10 pages / UK

**

This was my first run-in with the chap too, so this was a plush gateway for both of us. She was amused by the novelty for a few rounds, but when I suggested trying one of his other books without the interactive gimmick, she wasn't interested.

Yasmeen Ismail and Jenni Desmond, Joy

2019 / Library book / 32 pages / Ireland/UK

**

A bouncy, lively, annoying rhyme with a pause in the middle where the kitty generously gets hurt so you can catch your breath. Cute, but she prefers the Boo Boo Song.

Amy Sky Koster, Olaf's Frozen Adventure

2017 / Library book / 32 pages / USA

*

I related to her excitement at seeing a familiar character bursting out from the library stacks and braced myself for her first lame franchising disappointment. I felt borderline abusive reading the story aloud, but you can't let them squint through bubblewrap forever. It's only in writing this that I learned it wasn't just some stocking-filling fluff, but the storybook of an actual animated film that many parents have to sit through. There but for the grace of God.

Lucy Cousins, Good Morning, Maisy: Jigsaw Puzzle Book

2004 / Jigsaw board book / 16 pages / UK

**

She does all of her jigsaw books twice a day, so this was some cheap, dependable variety. I'll give it the benefit of the doubt that some of the compositions with their identical poses and almost blank pieces are deliberately challenging rather than careless.

Rod Campbell, Little Mouse

2019 / Library book / 16 pages / UK

**

I don't know whether he's really continuing to churn these out or switched to ghostwriter-artists at some point, but we shouldn't keep falling for it either way. Admittedly, we didn't get the full interactive experience, since more heavy-handed readers broke most of the tabs.

Alrightgames: Carcassonne – The River

Carcassonne: The River

2001 / Tile placement board game mini expansion / 2+ players / Germany

***

Expanding Carcassonne by popping out further, slightly differentiated tiles feels even more decadent than buying card game booster packs. This mini starter takes care of itself by being included as standard in the base game nowadays, like a crafty heroin dealer giving you your first fix for free.

It's more variety for the map, and a nice teaser before the main feature, so I'll probably always include it, even if you're basically doing the same thing every time and the need for fussy restrictions to avoid tripping over itself is a foreboding preview of expansions to come.

Alrightgames: Carcassonne

Carcassonne

2000 / Tile placement board game / 2-5 players / Germany

*****

With so many intriguing but intimidating board games competing for my precious time and money since I returned to the physical plane, this esteemed contemporary classic was approachably simple and affordable. Especially if you don't mind Chinese writing, inferior quality components and a beaten-up box on the shelf forever as a reminder of the consequences of being a cheapskate.

Maybe I'll upgrade it if it turns out to be a family favourite in the future. Go on, just one game, you can activate your VR implant after. If not, treating it as a multiple-choice linear jigsaw is diverting enough in itself.

Babyliography XIV

Matt Lucas and Scott Coello, Thank You, Baked Potato

2020 / Library book / 32 pages / UK

**

Already a strange artefact that future generations may have trouble distinguishing from parody, I felt bad for rating a helpful instruction manual that presumably raised some much-needed funds based on its actual quality, but it's saved by some stay-at-home activities at the end.

Eoin McLaughlin and Polly Dunbar, The Hug

2019 / Library book / 48 pages / Ireland/UK

***

I hadn't checked the back of the book to discover that it was another upside-down front, so meeting in the middle was a nice surprise that probably impressed me more than it did her. A cute one, but didn't stay in her thoughts like Bobo.

Sam Usher, Rain

2016 / Library book / 40 pages / UK

***

The lovely rain and puddle effects make it worthwhile, but we didn't dwell on those for nearly long enough as I worried about her attention span in public for a deliberately tedious book.

Jez Alborough, My Friend Bear

1998 / Library book / 32 pages / UK

**

Where's My Teddy? is one of the better entries in her bear anthology. This takes advantage of that affection and reconfigures the narrative to reassure lonely children. Outrageous.

Nick Sharratt, Supermarket Zoopermarket

2017 / Library book / 24 pages / UK

*

Dear Zoo was the first book she wanted to read over and over again. We were both bored of this culinary fusion long before the end. They're not even proper puns.

Alrightgames: Peppa Pig Puzzles – 4 in a Box

Peppa Pig Puzzles: 4 in a Box

Jigsaw puzzles / 1 player

***

My awareness of Peppa Pig has exploded infinitely over the past year. Bastard's everywhere. At least she has some decent tat.

The ascending difficulty is a nice touch, but it didn't take her many sessions of doing all of them every day to commit them to memory. I also enjoy the same elephant girl appearing twice in the same image. (Rolls around laughing uncontrollably).

Alrightgames: On Safari – My First Puzzles

On Safari: My First Puzzles

Jigsaw puzzles / 1 player

**

They weren't even in her first ten puzzles, but my brother thoughtfully went for a range of ages when shopping for his niece's birthday.

She still enjoys them as an unchallenging diversion, but they should do half-birthdays if these things are going to be so specific.

Babyliography XIII

Judith Kerr, The Tiger Who Came to Tea

1968 / Library book / 32 pages / Germany

****

A kidz' klassic that passed me by, this freeloading feline is no Very Hungry Caterpillar, but more inviting to endless rereading than the Peppa Pigs.

Unknown, Bounce! Bounce! Bunny

2020 / Library book / 12 pages / UK

*

I wouldn't have been annoyed by this routine story of discovering your self-worth if it didn't look misleadingly the same as their older books that featured more entertaining flaps or pop-ups. It's basically AI automation at this point.

Yu-hsuan Huang, Sing Along With Me!: Twinkle Twinkle Little Star

2020 / Library book / 10 pages / Taiwan

**

She's bored of the levers now, and this one doesn't even bother with them on half the pages. I know it's not in the spirit, but you're better off sticking on a YouTube version and getting a couple of minutes to yourself to do a wee or something.

Neil Gaiman and Adam Rex, Chu's First Day of School

2014 / Library book / 30 pages / UK/USA

**

I was going to get her this one ahead of preschool, but the library gave us an off-season preview. It's disappointingly down to earth after the flight of fancy of his day at the beach, taking the worthy motivational route instead. It might prove useful, but it's not much fun.

Eric Carle, From Head to Toe

1997 / Library book / 32 pages / USA

**

A less raucous 'If You're Happy and You Know It' with borderline creepy animals. She obediently followed the instructions, but didn't ask to read it again. That's a fail.

Alrightgames: Cities of Splendor

Cities of Splendor: Expansions

2017 / Economic card game expansions / 2-4 players / France

***

It took me most of the year to get around to trying out the modern strategy classic, not helped by its off-putting and entirely cosmetic theme, but it's become a favourite passive audiobook pastime to the point that I could be suckered into paying for more of it for the sake of variety (at imported counterfeit prices – if nothing else, it's necessary to avoid clashing).

It's a grab bag of generally incompatible frills and variations that overcomplicate a tight game with more cards, tokens, plastic and fabric. Probably not as good as playing without, but doing exactly the same thing all the time was getting a bit old.

• Cities: ***
• Trading Posts: ***
• The Orient: ****
• Strongholds: *

Alrightgames: Star Realms – Command Decks

Star Realms: Command Decks – The Alignment, The Coalition, The Pact & The Union

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

***

Re-sold

The definition of the type of overcomplicating/game-breaking expansion series I previously claimed to be above, I hadn't even considered these alternate starting decks worthy of my attention before I surrendered to a discounted £1.70 per pack. Like some kind of insightful drug metaphor, I got a taste of the wasteful and addictive lifestyle that could lead to me to ruin* and the cheap introductory hit proved more trouble than it was worth.

After all, you can't buy just one pack, unless you want your games to be ridiculously unbalanced.

Then, after buying two contrasting colour sets, you naturally struggle with whether you don't really need all six combinations after all for the maximum possible variety, even though by that point they'd be approaching the cost of one of the big sets and wouldn't fit in the boxes any more.

At the very least, you should keep the mythical possibility of a four-player game open by buying another complementary pair. I relented after they failed to go out of stock after another week.

And now that you're working with dual faction colours, your deck could really benefit from buying the other expansions that have that gimmick feature, even though those are older or Kickstarter exclusives and will cost a lot more.

And since these overpowered decks don't mix very well with the other cheap expansions you bought that were designed for the normal game, you should finally get around to buying the big Frontiers set and starting over, so you'll have two slightly different experiences to choose from when you feel like playing the game of spaceship drawings with numbers on, an activity you don't seem to enjoy quite as much as comparing prices on elusive booster packs.

So, after a couple of weeks being distracted by this tomfoolery, I sold my Command Decks on eBay at only a negligible loss. It was a fair rental fee for a trial run and the accompanying revelations that will save my family from the gutter.* My game feels complete and balanced again. I can treat myself to a few more ships and bases if I'm good, but I'm no space junkie.

* You could only spend a couple of hundred at worst, it's not Pokémon.

Babyliography XII

Jez Alborough, Play

2017 / Library book / 32 pages / UK

****

This one made an impression, since she randomly mentioned Bobo later in the day. We've read it every time since. Minimal vocabulary, high drama.

Rod Campbell, Farm 123

1997 / Library book / 20 pages / UK

**

The laziest I've seen yet from the flapmaster. Variably elusive farmyard animals introducing elementary maths and differentiating juveniles from adults make it educational, but entertainment wise, there are no surprises when it's just going to be more chickens under there. Throw in a penguin or something.

Ingela P. Arrhenius, Where's the Narwhal?

2020 / Library book / 10 pages / Sweden

***

Felt flaps for the youngest readers are less impressive than the slides and wheels of their other books (if less fiddly to operate), but it builds to the same narcissistic finale. She was less impressed by the mirror this time, these gimmicks have limits.

Fiona Watt, That's Not My Bus...

2020 / Library book / 10 pages / UK

**

Communicates the non-driver's frustration of return tickets not being universally compatible across rival bus companies through the medium of shiny textures, or something.

Jo Lodge, Time for Bed, Panda

2021 / Library book / 10 pages / UK

**

Prepare for disappointment when one pair of googly eyes (one seemingly broken) and one inner flap are all the interactivity you get. She opened and closed the eyes until she got bored.

Alrightreads: Comixxxx

Larry Hama and Michael Golden, Bucky O'Hare

1984-85 (collected 1986) / Ebook / 50 pages / USA

***

The cartoon was my first space saga, and I had the first issue of the reprint comic that I'd suspected was some kind of obscure origin, though admittedly its satirical scattershots at bureaucracy, consumerism and activism went over my head at seven. It's still mainly noteworthy for its iconic and eminently toy-friendly designs.

Alan Grant and Arthur Ranson, Mazeworld

1996-99 (collected 2011) / Ebook / 192 pages / UK

***

Sincere violent fantasy escapism from the 2000 AD archives. Stream-of-consciousness novelisation of an adventure game that never was, because he couldn't be bothered.

 

Grant Morrison and Frank Quitely, We3

2004 (collected 2005) / Ebook / 104 pages / UK

****

Black Mirror doing Homeward Bound. The most affecting thing I've read in a while, a shame it's so short.

James Roberts, Alex Milne and Nick Roche, The Transformers: More Than Meets the Eye, Volume 2

2012 / Ecomics / 124 pages / UK/Ireland/Canada

***

Further heartfelt subversion of other people's childhoods, it's generally good, but still fundamentally confusing without a foundation course in the mythos or a child's ability to meaningfully distinguish identical characters.

Al Ewing and Henry Flint, Zombo: You Smell of Crime and I'm the Deodorant!

2011-13 (collected 2013) / Ebook / 128 pages / UK

****

The zanier take on 2000 AD's customary violent satire continues down chaotic and unpredictable gutters. Few people will find it as consistently side-splitting as its creators clearly do, but it got me sometimes.

On the Omnibuses: October

Various, American Gothic: An Anthology 1787–1916

Samuel L. Clemens (Mark Twain), From Life on the Mississippi (1883) ****

Shame I didn't meet any morbid vigilante detectives when I was travelling.

Sarah Orne Jewett, The Foreigner (1900) *

10,000 words of torturous regional dialec' building up to a momentary trick of the light.

Mary E. Wilkins Freeman, Old Woman Magoun & Luella Miller (1902–05) ***

The serial-killing vampire tale is considerably lighter than the down-to-earth one.

Henry James, The Turn of the Screw (1898) ***

I own three bloody versions of this in my otherwise efficient anthology bookcase, so I was going to bump into it sooner or later after bailing out previously. A certified classic of gothic psychological haunted house horror, it should theoretically be a favourite, if it wasn't dragged down by dullness. I might reevaluate it the next time we cross paths. The original illustrations would've helped, facsimile editions have spoiled me.

Kate Chopin, Désirée's Baby (1893) ***

Cherry-picked anti-racist ancestry horror, it's nice that it existed.

Charles W. Chesnutt, Po' Sandy & The Sheriff's Children (1888–89) ****

Dark fantasy and darker realism.

George Washington Cable, Jean-ah Poquelin (1875) **

Spooky house story told from the boring outside.

Stephen Crane, The Monster (1898) ****

Friendly neighbourhood Frankingstein.

Ambrose Bierce, The Death of Halpin Frayser (1891) ***

Either a brilliant multi-faceted jewel or just a mess.

Frank Norris, Lauth (1893) ****

Philosophical death simulator turned sci-fi horror.

Charlotte Perkins Gilman, The Giant Wistaria (1891) ***

Victorian Most Haunted.

Paul Laurence Dunbar, From The Sport of the Gods (1902) *

Two episodes from a violent soap, at least we were spared the full reprint this time.

Edwin Arlington Robinson, Six Poems (1897–1921) ***

Set them to some gothic rock and we'll be getting somewhere.

Lafcadio Hearn, The Ghostly Kiss (1880) ***

Polished nightmare vignette.

Edith Wharton, The Eyes (1910) *****

An apparition uncharacteristically lingers to invite close examination and unreliable self-diagnosis.

Jack London, Samuel (1913) **

Leave the island folk alone to murder their bairns in peace, god.

Clive Barker, Weaveworld / Cabal

Cabal (1988) ****

This bumper Book of Blood is all the excessive '80s Clive Barker antics you could ask for, from splattering self-abasement to nauseating transformations with a delicious cheese topping. He'd get deeper, but never so much visceral fun.

Terry Pratchett, Death Trilogy

Mort (1987) ****

As a young fan of the morbid personification, I was aware of this book seemingly forever before getting around to it, and it pulls off the theological comic fantasy drama very well. The series has a shallow well of stock characters, even when they're not officially recurring, but the eponymous apprentice is one of their better incarnations.

Reaper Man (1991) ***

The low-key pastoral pottering of Discworld's breakout personification will doubtless be one of the series' highlights, but the juxtaposed ensemble mayhem was typically tedious.

Soul Music (1994) **

I was enjoying these until now, but with Death largely in the shadows, it was just another run-of-the-mill thematic Discworld book, and I'm not really into those.

Arthur Machen, The Great God Pan & The Hill of Dreams

The Hill of Dreams (1907) *****

One of my favourite novels, its ghastly groves were long due cautious revisiting and its troubled bildungsroman is as occult or psychological as you're in the mood for each time. A celebration of literature that achieves its own high standards and rewards attention.

The Great God Pan (1894) ****

Squeamish supernatural serial killer mystery with an incogruous mad scientist prologue.

H. P. Lovecraft, The Complete Fiction of H.P. Lovecraft

The Rats in the Walls (1923) ****

Not my favourite of his haunted houses, but more interesting than I remembered, once it got past the dreary family history. It's what every hokey paranormal exploration video wants to be.

The Festival (1925) ****

"Things have learnt to walk that ought to crawl."

This Halloween reading turned out to be an unseasonal and particularly unfestive Christmas Yuletide special. A short, silly treat, it made up for the veiled teasing of the previous story with its monstrous bat people and river of slime. Merry Festival.