I’ve seen a new meme floating around the atmos in the last few days, one which focuses on what people are reading, and what their little ones are reading too. I’m not feeling collected enough to join in officially, but I did want to witter on about a couple of books, so this seems an apt time to do so.

The tiny daughter’s favourite thing is a book. She also likes her lighthouse (which, consisting of wooden rings of different colours, is one of my favourites too), and her wooden hedgehog (which is also wooden rings, one each of red, two shades of orange and yellow, but with the added bonus of varying numbers of holes drilled into them so that in order to fit on the hedgehog’s base, the alignment must also be sorted out the right way; this has kept her going back for more when I think other stacking toys might have become dull by now), but still, if she’s ever bored or fractious, a book is the first thing we go for. Recently, her ability to look you in the eye, attempting to keep the tell-tale grin off her face before she beetles off around the corner to run away and hide, has only added to the utter joy I feel when we sit down to read together.

Current favourites are Pumpkin Soup by Helen Cooper, No Matter What by Debi Gliori, and Keep Love in Your Heart, Little One by Giles Andreae and Clara Vulliamy. Of course, they’re partly my favourites, too – the illustrations for all three are just so scrumptious that I want to climb into the pages and set up house there. I mean, look at these, from Keep Love in Your Heart:*

Big is even wearing striped socks. What’s not to like?

As for reading material of a more adult nature, well, I’m struggling at the moment. I read Stef Penney’s The Tenderness of Wolves and really enjoyed it; in fact, I intended to do take part in A Clever and Intelligent Discussion of It in October, but somehow that fell by the wayside. Since then, I’ve read A Gathering Light by Jennifer Donnelly, and enjoyed that too, but now I’m back to re-reading H. Potter (currently, The Deathly Hallows), and I could do with some recommendations. Recent enjoyments have included (and I feel I should feel shame at this, yet I don’t, somehow) the Twilight saga (saga – !), but I could do with something a little meatier to get my teeth into, I think. Suggestions, anyone?

* Yes, I am aware of the slightly cloying nature of this title, and yes, there was a time in my life when I probably would have vomited at the very mention of such a phrase, but hey, such is life – I’m a hypocrite.