Isn't Twitter fascinating? Since BookBairn (the blog) was born I've become somewhat addicted to the world of Twitter. Following like...

click - tweet - peek-a-boo

Sunday, October 11, 2015 BookBairn 1 Comments

Isn't Twitter fascinating? Since BookBairn (the blog) was born I've become somewhat addicted to the world of Twitter. Following like-minded bloggers, publishers, authors, illustrators; entering competitions (sometimes winning!); exploring the worlds of books, parenthood and babies. I was enjoying following the Bath Children's Book Festival and discovered that they were having a special auction of artwork by a fantastic selection of illustrators, some of which would be sold on ebay - click - I opened the website, logged in and searched for something in my price range that appealed to me for BookBairn's nursery and - click - bid. So excited by my 'highest bidder' status I tweeted about it and tagged the author-illustrator. The next morning, I was thrilled to see that the lovely Jo Lodge had retweeted my tweet (more excitement) and sent me a direct message - click - I couldn't believe it, she wanted to send BookBairn a book (even more excitement - so much so that I woke daddy BookBairn, whoops!).

Inside the parcel was a copy of 'There's a Cow in my Car' by Jo Lodge. BookBairn and I couldn't wait to get reading. BookBairn loves a 'lift-the-flap' book, but this was something different, something quite special. Described on the cover as a 'slide-and-seek' book, There's a Cow in my Car provides many of the similar benefits of developing hand-eye co-ordination but in a completely novel way. BookBairn is currently going through the peek-a-boo phase, and absolutely loves playing the game over (and over and over!) so this book has come at the perfect time. Using a clever slide and reveal mechanism, BookBairn enjoys interacting with the book, each time a surprise animal is revealed when you slide apart the illustration on the page. It's quite tricky to explain so I've included a video from Jo Lodge's youtube page to demonstrate the mechanism. The illustrations are bold and colourful. BookBairn particularly enjoys the page where the penguin appears inside a plant pot. As she gets older, I'm sure she will enjoy the animal sounds as part of the text and will chime in the repetitive sentence 'I don't believe it!' (although it will take her longer to get the Victor Meldrew reference).

This book (and the others in the series) are brilliant! A novel idea that is not a simple novelty, I hope this sort of interactive book will catch on amongst board book publishers. Lift-the-flap books are fun, engaging and accessible, touch-and-feel books are captivating, amusing and tactile but slide-and-seek books are quirky, exciting and innovative!
I guess some of you are wondering if we won the auction in the end. We -click- bid -click- bid again -click- 'you have been outbid'. Sadly it went beyond the budget. But, we discovered Jo Lodge and her fantastic innovation of slide-and-seek books so we definitely won.

Feeling like winners, Mummy and BookBairn x

1 comment:

  1. Bad luck with the bid but what a great book. Loved the video clip. Look forward to reading this book with BookBairn soon. xxx

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