View source for Mole's Babies by David Bedford and Rosalind Beardshaw

{{infobox2
|title=Mole's Babies
|author=David Bedford and Rosalind Beardshaw
|reviewer=Ruth Ng
|genre=For Sharing
|summary=A sweet story about love, perfect to share with your much-loved little ones.
|rating=4
|buy=Yes
|borrow=Yes
|pages=32
|publisher=Egmont
|date=January 2011
|isbn=978-1405254182
|website=
|video=
|aznuk=1405254181
|aznus=1405254181
|cover=1405254181
}}

Morris the mole is about to become a first time dad.  Excited and eager to be a good parent he goes looking around the farmyard to see the best way to make his babies happy.  He tries to hop like a bunny, splash like a duck, and flap like a bird, but each attempt fails and Morris becomes worried about how he will ever manage to make his little babies happy.

This is a sweet story that is lovely to share with a small child.  The plot is very simple as we watch Morris try and fail to copy the other animals in their happy actions.  Of course the ending reveals that Morris should stop trying to be someone he's not because all that he needs to give his babies is love!  I liked the flow of the words, the simplicity becoming a sort of poetry so that although the story isn't written in rhyme it has a lovely feel to it.  The font of the text changes through the book, in size and in style, and although I sometimes find it off-putting when this happens in a story, here it blended in well with the style and feel of the book.

There's the ever popular repetition too, as Morris tries each action out and it leads to ''But it wasn't long before...'' and we see Morris fail.  If you were reading this with a larger group of pre-school children, perhaps in a playgroup session, you could easily interrupt the story for the children to try out the different actions that Morris is trying, hopping like a rabbit and splashing like a duck and flapping like a bird.  It does have that cosy one-to-one feel about it though, with the ending being all about 'love' and how that's all a family needs leading to the perfect end of story cuddle moment!

The illustrations in the story are lovely with a happy, home-like feel to them.  I especially liked Morris' wife, who is obviously the sensible one in the relationship, and how she keeps an eye on Morris through his experiments, even at one point sitting quietly on top of her molehill doing her knitting!  The appearance of the tiny little mole babies at the end is sweet, and even the inside front and back end piece illustrations are beautiful to behold.

I suppose some might find it all a little bit too twee, but I rather liked it.  A lovely book to share with your own beloved little ones, and a message many parents would do well to heed!

I'd like to thank the publishers for sending a copy to The Bookbag.

Further reading suggestion: For more lovely books to share by David Bedford try [[Who's Yawning? by David Bedford and Leonie Worthington]] and [[Babies by David Bedford and Leonie Worthington|Babies]] by the same author and illustrator.

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[[Category:David Bedford]]
[[Category:Rosalind Beardshaw]]