Alison Jay Baby Journal

Many of you will be familiar with artist Alison Jay’s whimsical illustrations from her delightful children’s picture books. Well, now mamas can get a look in with her beautiful baby journal. With space for recording the minutiae of daily baby life and milestones, photos, mementos, family message cards and even a letter to for parents [...]

Katie Viggers

  Our good friend Eve tipped me off about Katie Viggers, a British children’s book illustrator after her daughter recieved her book for Christmas. Her first book Almost an Animal Alphabet is a sixty page illustrated animal alphabet. It was published in November 2011 and is a limited run of 1,000 copies. I love the [...]

BG Christmas Gift Guide 2011: Books

Welcome to the BG Christmas Gift Guide 2011. Books are one of the most brilliant and versatile presents you can give and there are some corkers around this year. We’ve rounded up the best arty, festive and just darn fabulous titles out there for a range of ages. Miller Goodman’s Shapemaker and Playshapes are modern [...]

Lost And Found Pop-Up Book by Oliver Jeffers

Just when I thought I couldn’t love this book any more they go and bring out a beautifully engineered pop-up edition. Lost and Found Pop-up (Harper-Collins RRP £14.99) has all the subtlety of the original with an extra layer of perspective and movement in the story.   From the pop-up house on the first page [...]

Woop Studios

Is it just me or are there lots of amazing alphabet books around at the moment? First, there was Operation Alphabet, now there’s A Zeal of Zebras by Woop Studios (Chronicle, RRP £11.99), which I spotted while browsing the shop in Tate Modern the other day (what can I say, it’s right behind my office). [...]

Operation Alphabet

I knew I’d love Operation Alphabet (Thames & Hudson, RRP £9.95) as soon as I heard about it. The brainchild of Al MacCuish, creative director at ultra-cool East London ad agency Mother, it’s a glorious tale with divine retro illustrations by Luciano Lozano. The premise is that under a postbox near the Houses of Parliament is the [...]

Taro Gomi Play All Day pop out book

  Taro Gomi is the Japanese illustrator who has previously brought us some classic board books, including Tabitha’s much-loved Bus Stops, and, infamously, Everybody Poos. He’s also got a whole stack of creative doodling books – like Doodle Numbers. Loving the Gomi style, I was interested to see Play All Day, a book of over [...]

Buying vintage for children

In these thrifty times, recycling and reusing are all becoming a necessity. But, actually, vintage and second-hand goodies for kids make sense and are often much more appealing than the latest thing. Clothes, toys, books, furniture – nothing’s sacred. I’m a bit a of fan of all things vintage, so I’ve put together a mini [...]

The High Street by Alice Melvin

I’ve been a fan of illustrator Alice Melvin’s work ever since I first came across her fabulous birds in Tate Modern. I can’t really explain why I like it so much but, suffice to say, I was pretty excited to discover she has a new book out.   The High Street (RRP £9.99, Tate) is [...]

Thomas Flintham’s Amazing Mazes

Browsing through the absolutely vast and incredible children’s book section at Salts Mill in Saltaire, I came across Thomas Flintham‘s work for the first time. And I was impressed. With this many years of parenthood below my belt, I’m a veteran of mazes: mazes on cereal boxes, mazes in comics, mazes on the CBeebies website. [...]

Sneak peek: new Eric Carle book!

It’s been a while since a brand new Eric Carle book has been published, but this one is definitely worth waiting for. The Artist Who Painted A Blue Horse (RRP £12, Puffin) isn’t out until 4 October, but I’ve been lucky enough to have a sneak peek. Inspired by the work of Expressionist artist Franz Marc, [...]

Latest Oliver Jeffers out today! And other brilliant new books

  We’re complete book fiends here, so I’ve always got my eye on publishing catalogues for the latest releases – and the summer months have brought a host of fantastic new titles to our bookshelves. Firstly, boy was I excited to see that one of BG’s favourite authors, Oliver Jeffers, has a new tome out today, Stuck (HarperCollins, [...]

Ladybird Classic Me Books app

I’m more than a little obsessed with Ladybird books. I have a few saved from my own childhood that I’ve topped up with eBay and junk shop finds, a mix of practical learning tomes and nursery stories (although not The Three Billy-Goats Gruff – that troll still gives me nightmares!) So it was encouraging to [...]

Muji alphabet and funny face books

Poking around Muji the other day, I came across two fun-looking activity books. It’s a shame the pictures on the Muji website aren’t a) bigger and b) more exciting, because these did look like potentially excellent gifts. They’re also just the kind of thing I like to snap up so we have activities ready for [...]

5 Great Books About Starting School

We seriously heart Usborne sticker books which saw us through 8 flights on our recently holiday to the US. Themed, enthralling for kids, and educational too, I wasted no time getting the Starting School version which helps to build conversations around the imminent Big Day and make links between their own concepts of what’s happening. [...]

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