Baby Touch: Busy Baby

Baby Touch: Busy Baby
Reviewer: Sam Tyler
Summary: What on Earth is baby up to? Follow him in his car as he crosses hills and visits animals in this fun and touch filled book for babies.
Buy? Yes	Borrow? Yes
Pages: 12	Date: May 2015
Publisher: Ladybird
External links: Author's website
ISBN: 9780723299073
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Children grow up fast enough without encouraging your baby to drive a car, but this has not stopped Busy Baby as he is behind the wheel of a roadster that has a lovely feel to it. Try and keep up with Baby as he takes you on a trip across the rolling hills to a land full of animals of all textures. Baby Racers and lions? Sounds like a recipe for disaster to me, thankfully this is all part of a ‘‘Baby Touch’’ range of books.

The touch and feel genre is very popular with the very young, as soon after birth a baby will want to explore the world and not just with their eyes. All their senses are important and although they can listen to you speak the words and later read themselves, they will also want to feel the pages. Ladybird have created a series of books that have touch elements in them that are designed for birth to 18 months and ‘‘Busy Baby’’ is a cracking example.

Like with so many books for babes, this one makes little, to no sense. It is essentially a car journey with a baby who happens to come across a bunch of animals. Thankfully, things may be a little odd, but it has more the feel of an eccentric TV show than a horror filled future of toddlers reversing semiautomatics down the motorway. It is actually a sweet tale as the book exclaims excitedly every time a new adventure comes into view - wow a lion!

You don’t buy a touch book for the deep characterisation, but the opportunity to feel the pages. ‘‘Busy Baby’’ is a well-designed book for a baby; slightly oversized with pages that are filled with simple colourful images as well as something to touch on almost every page. There are various textures on offer from the squidgy car throughout, to rough animals or furry felines. The words are bold and easy to read, but the book also has small questions that act as an aside and draw the reader in further – where is the car, can you see it? The pages are not overcrowded, but have enough going on that most babies won’t mind coming back to the book.

On its own, ‘‘Busy Baby’’ is worth buying as a high quality touch book, but it also comes with a 10 track music CD. The songs on offer are very light and plinky plonky – like drowning your head in a bucket of ‘‘In the Midnight Garden’’. They may not be to an adult’s taste, but will act as a useful tool to calm a baby down for sleep. The CD just adds to an already impressive package; this is certainly one of the better touch and play types of book available.

If you on the search for more animals to touch you can try Dear Zoo Touch and Feel by Rod Campbell, or babies behind vehicles can be found in Playtime Stories by Luana Rinaldo.

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You can read more book reviews or buy Baby Touch: Busy Baby 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 Baby Touch: Busy Baby at Amazon.com.

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