Alrightgames: Cats on the Quay Panorama Puzzle

Educa Puzzle 1000: Cats on the Quay Panorama

2018 / Jigsaw puzzle / Spain

****

A bit kitsch, a bit the sort of image you'd get on a rug you bought on holiday to hang on the wall in the 1980s (oddly specific), but a wide 1000-piecer jigsaw that was going cheap when I fancied one of those.

As my first adult jigsaw, it was an approachably fiendish learning experience of subtly differentiated colours and patterns to guide and hone future recreational frustration, and it helped me through about 12 hours of boring audiobook. If I'd thought of that earlier, I could have been world class by now.

Babyliography XXVI

Dr. Seuss, Hop on Pop

1963 / Library book / 64 pages / USA

***

Fox on Socks is the current favourite in her own collection, but this more age-appropriate and educational take didn't amuse. Probably because it didn't obviously vex me in the same way, or because it was educational.

Janet and Allan Ahlberg, Each Peach Pear Plum

1978 / Library book / 34 pages / UK

***

Sequential nursery rhyme hide and seek that kept her interest. The gun-toting bear family and child endangerment should have been a clue to its vintage.

Russell Punter and Ag Jatkowska, Noah's Ark

2018 / Library book / 22 pages / UK/Poland

**

She liked the animal cover. I may have skipped over the paranormal and apocalyptic stuff and made it a pleasant zoological cruise instead. She's two.

Mem Fox and Judy Horacek, Where Is the Green Sheep?

2004 / Library book / 32 pages / Australia

****

The anticipation sees it through and the variety and background extras lend it to re-reads. Nice to get some ovine representation too.

Andrea Pinnington and Melanie Williamson, Pirate Polly: Potty

2019 / Library book / 18 pages / UK

***

More well-received potty propaganda, but being in public meant there was no interactive benefit, and by the time we got home, any enthusiasm had trickled away. A shame, as the aesthetic choices and indoctrinating cheers might have helped.

Update: Memories and re-reading did help in getting her into pants. For lack of a button at home, she presses me to get the hooray.

Alrightgames: Disney Moana Puzzle

Disney Moana Puzzle (in a Tin)

2018 / Jigsaw puzzle

**

She didn't have any tangible Moana things, so I figured I could get away with a cheapskate starter. Since she's mastered her Peppa puzzles, I also figured that doubling the piece count and (already advanced) age recommendation was a reasonable challenge, not realising that it's more of a multiplier.

If you take out the difficult background, the character only takes up half of the pieces, but she got bored after doing the face. The tin's handy for travel, so its likely future is a time-passing distraction. For me, while she's aborbed by her phone.

Babyliography XXV

Fiona Watt and Stella Baggott, Baby's Very First Touchy-feely Colours Play Book

2014 / Library book / 10 pages / UK

**

A couple of years late to be the first, having the set back then would have been nice. At this stage, it's just pretty pages to flick through and compulsively open flaps. She fell asleep in the buggy 10 minutes later, so wasn't up for anything demanding.

Louise Forshaw, Busy Sports Day

2021 / Library book / 10 pages / UK

**

Something simple and dependably engaging to keep her busy when waiting for the rhyme session to start. Presumably libraries get bulk discounts on these things, since we've barely scratched the surface. I'm going to stop counting them now, along with the That's Not My [X] and Baby Touch ranges.

Oliver Jeffers, Lost and Found

2004 / Library book / 32 pages / UK

***

Friendship and reckless adventure on the high seas. She didn't pay much attention with all the kids running around, maybe I should start actually checking these books out.

Becky Davies and Richard Merritt, I Want to Be... a Doctor

2021 / Library book / 20 pages / UK

**

Presumably one of very many variations on a formula, or a desperate NHS recruitment tool, this equips you with some vocab and elementary anatomy, but you'd still better get some accredited training to be on the safe side.

Lucy Cousins, Hello, Little Fish!: A Mirror Book

2021 / Library book / 12 pages / UK

**

An abridgement with minor art variation and now-mandatory narcissistic finale, this would be fine if you hadn't read the original, but is pointless if you have. That said, she did insist on reading two identical Dear Zoos today, so maybe they're on to something.

Ranking the Camel albums

Never particularly a stand-out prog band, mainly for being relative latecomers when much progress had already been made and they were doomed to be beleaguered by comparisons.

But their twin humps of lively instrumentals and introspective concept albums are sometimes just the ticket, when you've over-listened to Pink Floyd but aren't desperate enough for Marillion. Almost uniquely for these lists, they might even have got better with age.

Here are The My 14 Top Album Camels.

Babyliography XXIV

Amber Lily, Let's Find Dog

2021 / Library book / 10 pages / UK

*

Forty years on from Spot and bringing nothing to the table. It amused her, but she even enjoys advertising clipart.

Jo Lodge, Roar! Roar! I'm a Dinosaur

2019 / Library book / 10 pages / UK

**

A limited assortment of dino actions, albeit too stiff for the target readers to move by themselves. Includes bogus dino "facts" for older siblings. Is that the definitive pronunciation of diplodocus? I'll stick with what I know.

Julia Donaldson and Axel Scheffler, Superworm Finger Puppet Book

2021 / Library book / 32 pages / UK/Germany

*

I don't think I'm more prone to seeing innuendo than the average corrupted soul, but when a flesh-coloured finger puppet can't do any more than poke through a hole, stretch out and wiggle around, it feels as if this must have been a recurring discussion along the production line.

The gimmick completely overshadows the forgettable copy and illustrations, but she enjoyed playing with the willy. So much so that when I picked her brains trying to remember what we'd read earlier that day for this write-up, she remembered it instantly. I should take her to a risque joke shop, she'd have a field day.

Tony Ross, I Don't Want to Go to Bed

2003 / Library book / 24 pages / UK

**

I should have learned that she doesn't apply the didactic message after reading the potty story in her anthology so many times. She seemed to enjoy it, examining the somewhat strange and perplexing pictures in detail, but actually setting it at night time could have been an idea?

Emily Gravett, Dogs

2009 / Library book / 32 pages / UK

***

That took some searching. A list of opposites with handy unnaturally-selected illustrative examples, some re-worded for her vocabulary. It's probably better if you love dogs. They're alright.

On the Omnibuses: January

Various, The Norton Anthology of English Literature: Sixth Edition, Volume 1

Geoffrey Chaucer, The Canterbury Tales (Abridged) (1400) ***

"This Nicholas anon leet flee a fart, / As greet as it had been a thonder-dent"

Historically indispensable, but the tales themselves aren't interesting enough to bother following the mandatory translations and annotations after a while. Graciously abridged, or I would've had to resort to an audiobook that would make even less sense.

Various, Middle English Lyrics & Popular Ballads **

A bit sparse without some neofolk musical accompaniment.

Unknown, Everyman (~1485) ***

Comfortingly uncomplicated dramatic sermon.

Dan Simmons, The Hyperion Omnibus

Hyperion (1989) *****

A loose Canterbury Tales pastiche gives this twisted genre mash-up all the variety of a themed anthology. Reaffirming its place among my favourite novels, this is the only literary sci-fi saga I've really taken to, not that I ever felt like reading the sequels. Time to rectify that.

Faves: The Priest's Tale, The Scholar's Tale, The Consul's Tale

E. Nesbit, Five Children and It / The Phoenix and the Carpet / The Story of the Amulet

The Story of the Amulet (1906) ****

The generic gang supplement their sand fairy with a time-travelling Stargate and struggle with the laws of time, magic and Edwardian etiquette in the admirably complex sci-fantasy finale to what I remembered being a considerably more lightweight series previously. Most triumphant!

Various, The Little Prince and Other Stories

E. Nesbit, The Railway Children (1905) ****

With its distinct lack of paranormal cryptids, I probably wouldn't have been caught up in these grounded moral japes back in the day, but now I can appreciate it as a classic I'm looking forward to failing to pass down. Mature, sombre and slow without being dull, it clearly set the template for so many lesser children's novels read throughout school.

Various, Children's Literature: An Anthology 1801–1902

James Kirke Paulding, Florella, or the Fairy of the Rainbow (1839) **

Not entirely convincing communist parable. This ain't your Old World fairy tale.

Catherine Sinclair, From Holiday House (1839) ***

An author who was presumably raised on the harsh moral tales from earlier in the anthology lights the flame of rebellion and posits dangerous forgiveness. She presumably got a good whipping.

Charlotte Barton, Anecdotes of the Aborigines of New South Wales (1841) *

Horrific racist downer.

Harriet Mozley, From The Fairy Bower, or The History of a Month. A Tale (1841) **

Child characters enter the third dimension and are welcomed to share the trifling preoccupations of Victorian chick lit.

Robert Browning, The Pied Piper of Hamelin (1842) ****

A definitively whimsical retelling that even teases the smart-arse contemporary sequel as you're formulating it.

Eliza Lee [Cabot] Follen, Three Little Kittens (1843) ***

No obscure verses about defecating and burying the pie remnants this time.

'William Churne of Staffordshire' (Revd Francis Edward Paget), From The Hope of the Katzekopfs (1844) ****

Victorian Roald Dahl. The first of these novel extracts where I'm game for more.

Richard Henry [Hengist] Horne, From Memoirs of a London Doll (written by herself; edited by Mrs Fairstar) (1846) ***

Victorian Toy Story.

Edward Lear, From A Book of Nonsense (1846/61) & The Jumblies (1871) **

I didn't need another Owl and Pussycat, though I can see why they usually stick with that one.

Captain [Frederick] Marryat, The Children of the New Forest (1847) *

Grim historical downer.