Merry Christmas, Little Cheeps! by Julie Stiegemeyer

Merry Christmas, Little Cheeps! by Julie Stiegemeyer
Buy Merry Christmas, Little Cheeps! by Julie Stiegemeyer at Amazon.co.uk or Amazon.com
Category: For Sharing
Reviewer: Magda Healey
Summary: A good book Christmas board book for toddlers and young pre-schoolers if you can ignore roast dinner associations.
Buy? Maybe	Borrow? Maybe
Pages: 24	Date: October 2007
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing PLC
ISBN: 978-0747588108
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It's the Christmas season again, and children's (particularly pre-schoolers') Christmas theme books abound. And why not - after all all other media are getting rather full of Christmas stuff, too.

Merry Christmas, Little Cheeps! is a novelty board book for the youngest audience and it follows a family of chickens as they prepare for the festivities (I promise I will refrain from poor poultry jokes as much as possible).

The concept is actually a good one: each square page is devoted to one activity, or really a simple action, like placing a star on top of the tree, jumping for joy, making a wish, catching snowflakes and similar. The text is very simple, usually just a phrase, sometimes only a few sound-words, but it works well and provides ample material to work with for a parent of a toddler that's just starting to get on with books.

The illustrations are sweet without being saccharine: Carol Baicker-McKee creates images with paint, fabric and clay and the book contains photographs of those. Many of the boards have a single object which can be the starting point for a story, or just used for naming or pointing. There is even a cookie recipe!

The joy and excitement of preparing for family Christmas is well captured in both the artwork and the text.

Why only 3.5 stars, then? I have to come back to poultry here, unfortunately. I don't particularly like the over-abundance of anthropomorphic animals in children's' stories in general, though I am not totally and a priori biased against them. However, I felt a tad queasy looking at all those chirpy chickens, unable to forget that the centrepiece of the most popular British Christmas dinner is a close relative of the characters in this book (I might have been unduly influenced by the fact that I personally cooked a large chicken for Christmas dinners in various circumstances quite a few times).

I know these were terry towelling (=toy) chicks, and I know that 2 year olds are unlikely to make this connection, and I know we shouldn't eat anything that we are not prepared to at least see alive before it gets dispatched to the stove, but still I was a bit uncomfortable with the choice of the animal in Merry Christmas, Little Cheeps!. Even penguins would be better!

Recommended for vegetarian parents of toddlers, roast-making ones have to decide for themselves how much they would be subject to squeamishness transfer.

Thanks to the publishers for sending this to the Bookbag.

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You can read more book reviews or buy Merry Christmas, Little Cheeps! by Julie Stiegemeyer at Amazon.co.uk Amazon currently charges £2.99 for standard delivery for orders under £20, over which delivery is free.
You can read more book reviews or buy Merry Christmas, Little Cheeps! by Julie Stiegemeyer at Amazon.com.

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