Peace at last

This is a post for mums with very young children really... or for grandmas keen to encourage their grandchildren to love books, which is the category I come under these days. My eldest grandchild is Ruth aged almost eight, she's my eldest daughter's daughter, and then there's Scott, who's my youngest daughter's son. It seems to me that boys and girls are different. (Big surprise!) Ruth loved to sit on your lap from about 9 months and would sit patiently through the whole book. Scott has been different. He's 19 months old now and we've had to persevere with him because he got bored and wriggled off your lap pretty quickly. But all that has stopped now and I thought I'd show the book responsible for the change.



This is Peace at Last by Jill Murphy. I wish I could properly explain the attraction of this board book. It *is* delightful I realise that, utterly charming in fact. But I can't explain why it was, and is, the favourite book of both my grandchildren despite the fact they have plenty of others to choose from and despite the fact that they are different sexes. Ruth adored it from about twelve months, up to around four or five and Scott is now suddenly potty about it too and will sit quietly throughout the whole thing, clearly loving it.

Admittedly, it has noises. Poor Mr Bear can't sleep because Mrs. Bear is snoring loudly. So he tries to sleep in all manner of places from Baby Bear's room, where airplane noises are being practised, to the kitchen where the fridge is noisy, to the garden where there are owls, cats and hedgehogs all doing their best to keep him awake. And then poor Mr. Bear keeps saying, 'Oh NO. I can't stand this!' and the children love that and join in when they can speak well enough. It's terrific fun I suppose and maybe even very young children just love a good yarn? And then there's the hairnet. Mrs. Bear is sporting one in bed and young Scott is rivetted by this thing. He keeps pointing to it and one day I shall have to try and explain exactly what a hairnet is and I'm sure he'll think it's ancient history, which of course it is. My gran wore one, as did most of her generation, but who uses them these days? LOL. All good fun though.

So anyway, that's my book recommendation for today. If you have young kiddies or a new or toddling grandchild, you could do a lot worse than invest in Peace at Last by Jill Murphy, for I can promise you hours of fun and giggles and a subsequent love of books in the child you're reading it to.