Babyliography CCXXX

Heather Nuhfer and Brenda Hickey, My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic, Volume 4

2013-14 (collected 2014) / Ecomics / 106 pages

***

A generic pirate story with a sweet twist ending. We'll get around to the others eventually.

Louise Spilsbury, Collins Big Cat Phonics for Letters and Sounds: Blackcurrant Jam

2019 / School book / 24 pages

**

Comprehensive instructions, phonics practice and '90s primary school hair.

Isabel Thomas, Collins Big Cat Phonics for Letters and Sounds: Living in the Clouds

2022 / School book / 24 pages

***

Valuable lessons in biodiversity, environmental protection and how to pronounce annoying words. I liked how it explained various creature's intuitive adaptations, then concluded with a crazy giraffe weevil without explanation, like they should be able to work that out for themselves.

Various, The Usborne Book of Christmas Carols

2005 / Paperback / 32 pages

****

If you're looking up your childhood Christmas carols book for nostalgia in 2049, it was this one. We got out the Christmas things and the six year old was really taken with these timeless hits, as I remember being at the same age. The downside is that I have to sing her to sleep now, rather than sticking on the My Little Pony music box video while I watch subtitled telly. I bought one with sheet music included, because the idea that I might actually learn to play the piano during her childhood somehow seemed feasible at the time.

Benji Davies, The Storm Whale

2013 / School book / 32 pages

**

Anticlimactic story that turned out to be about feelings rather than adventure. We spent most of the time finding all the cats on page 1.

Babyliography CCXXIX

Danny Pearson and Christian Cornia, Collins Big Cat Phonics for Letters and Sounds: Dark Unicorn

2022 / School book / 24 pages

**

What? Her mandatory phonics book is one she'd happily choose to read anyway?! This is like that time my English teacher got us to write an RPG. Green Day instrumentals provided the backing.

Nick Sharratt, Super Silly Museums

2022 / Library book / 24 pages

**

The Pooseum is the main exhibit, of course.

Nicola Parsons and Karen Sapp, Catch It, Kitty

2015 / School book / 26 pages

*

This is why she shouldn't be allowed to pick her own books.

Samantha Montgomerie, Collins Big Cat Phonics for Letters and Sounds: Sticking Power

2020 / School book / 24 pages

***

The photos were too disgusting for her at first, but she got used to it, like when I finally touched a slug at 18.

Zanna Davidson and Nuno Alexandre Vieira, Fairy Unicorns: Treasure Quest

2022 / Hardback / 112 pages

***

I was pleased to see that one of her favourite literary sagas was treated to a brief revival, even if it meant strapping in for more repetitive and predictable chapters each bedtime, but then it turned out to be a pretty good blend of Knightmare and The Crystal Maze.

Babyliography CCXXVIII

Harriet Muncaster, Isadora Moon and the Shooting Star

2021 / Library book / 150 pages

**

We didn't get far with the superficially similar Amelia Fang, but adding fairy heritage into the mix did the trick.

Various, Rebel Girls 5-Minute Stories

2025 / Library book / 192 pages

**

I sold it on the Taylor Swift entry and she wasn't interested to try any others. Sorry, girls.

Dana Simpson, Punk Rock Unicorn: Another Phoebe and Her Unicorn Adventure

Collected 2023 / Paperback / 176 pages

***

She already likes the Distillers, so you'll have to try harder to shock this six year old.

Alex Hunter, Where's the Poo?

2019 / Paperback / 40 pages

*

This was all my fault. I told her to pick it up from the Morrisons book swap for the sake of it, despite her lack of enthusiasm, and that we'd swap one of her old books or give it back next time. We gave it back.

Ted Anderson, Jeremy Whitley and artists, My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic, Volume 6

2014 (collected 2015) / Ecomics / 106 pages

***

Mostly on brand, with the notable exception of the dialogue-free pet feature, which she conventionally wasn't interested in.

Alrightreads: TV XXII

Mark A. Altman, Captains' Logs: Supplemental – The Next Generation 6th Season Guidebook

1994 / Ebook / 128 pages

***

There isn't much need to read these old books when the best interview quotes are compiled in more comprehensive and up-to-date online equivalents, but sometimes it's nice to pretend I'm 12 again and treating Oracle Books as a library. There's only one season to cover this time, but they make up the page count with unabashed repetition.

Mark A. Altman and Edward Gross, Captains' Logs: Supplemental II – The Next Generation 7th Season Guidebook

1995 / Ebook / 128 pages

***

Amusingly inaccurate cover aside, this is another fine supplement to the other volumes, if weirdly separate.

Paul Leonard, Doctor Who: Genocide

1997 / Audiobook / 281 pages

****

Are we the baddies? If only Doctor Who was all about these convoluted time and moral paradoxes, but I appreciate them when they come around. It strikes a tasteful balance of hopeless morbidity and inappropriate levity and it's a good outing for Sam too, though I could have done without the past companion's extended cameo.

John Peel, Doctor Who: War of the Daleks

1997 / Audiobook / 277 pages

**

Almost a decade after their last redemptive TV appearance, the terrifying salt cellars return for a tedious continuity fest that re-establishes the status quo in the hope that other writers will think of something interesting to do with them.

Chris McDonnell and artists, Steven Universe: End of an Era

2020 / Ebook / 240 pages

****

The essential second half of the documentary artbook.

Alrightreads: Comixxxxxxxxxxxx

Walter Simonson and Sal Buscema, The Mighty Thor, Vol. 4

1986 (collected 2014) / Ecomics / 237 pages

***

I didn't think I needed more Asgardian antics, but Simonson pulled an irresistible gimmick for a few issues, before it gets back to normal, or the closest thing.

Everette Hartsoe and Rick Lyons, Razor: The Suffering

1994-95 (collected 1996) / Ecomics / 80 pages

**

Girl Crow for pervs. Put a cloak on, love.

James Tynion IV and Gavin Fullerton, The Closet

2022 / Ebook / 104 pages

****

The creature wasn't scary, but the anxious child and incompetent parent were disturbingly familiar.

Masaaki Nakayama, PTSD Radio 1

2012 / Ebook / 160 pages

***

If The League of Gentlemen were horror manga.

Abby Howard, The Crossroads at Midnight

2021 / Ebook / 320 pages

****

Graphic creepypastas with effort.

Fave: The Boy from the Sea

Ranking the Agalloch albums & EPs

Everything they did reminded me of other things, but their hodgepodge of blackened neofolk post-metal or something or other was still probably the most iconic soundtrack to my early wanderings in the harsh post-education world. And thanks to a premature break-up, their discography remains distinctive and digestible. Here are my The Top 11 Agalloch Things.

Ranking the Testament albums

With eerie guitar leads and tomblike production conjuring the sonic equivalent of horror movie video covers, these guys were the only other thrash band I really cared about besides Metallica, and they seemed to pull off their inevitable 90s decline and senior regrouping better than their peers, even if I didn't keep up with all of it.

Beware! For it is my Top 13 Old and New Testaments!

Ranking Star Trek: The Next Generation season seven

Turning on BBC 2 in early 1996 and witnessing a pale android cutting a slice out of his crewmate who'd been turned into a cake was my first memorable taste of this series, but there are still some episodes from this final stretch that I don't think I ever bothered getting around to in the near 30 years since, on account of them sounding pretty rubbish.

Time to complete the voyage, I guess, with tired mediocrity now in HD!

Alrightgames: Morrowind – Game of the Year Edition

The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind – Game of the Year Edition

2003 / PC game / 1 player

*****

Looking back to the formative and nostalgic games of my youth, Morrowind represented the end of the line. With its intricate character building, expansive map and seemingly endless things to do, it remains the most complex game I've ever played, or at least had a crack at before wandering off and doing my own thing before eventually getting bored. It was quite amazing, but just too much, and didn't make me enthusiastic to get into that sort of thing again, which is why I prefer small-box card games now.

But when I recently replaced my laptop with one that could handle early-21st century graphics, it seemed like something my daughter might enjoy messing around on during half-term break, and it only needs to be as complex as we want it to be. Discovering that the character speech is all stored in folders as replaceable files also introduced her to the joy of hacking.

Alrightgames: Barbie as the Island Princess

Barbie as the Island Princess

2007 / PC game / 1-2 players

*

A horrendous minigames compendium designed to disappoint little girls, but at least you don't have to pay for it any more. It's got nothing on the Game Boy Advance Barbie games and their dependable generic 90s platforming.