realises that it’s not a person’s issues that define them but the way they deal with them. This story shows children that it’s their attitude towards their body that matters, not their body itself – whatever its imagined failings might be.
SEE ALSO: eating disorder • overweight, being
body odour
No one responds well to being told they smell. But The Smelly Book – a delightful romp in words and pictures through all things rotten, rancid and pongy, from fish to feet and stinky cheese to piles of trash – will establish some standards for which smells are nice and which are not. Make it part of a child’s library from the start and it’ll provide you with a useful context for some gentle ribbing (while you hold your nose) later on. Did these whiffy socks fall from The Smelly Book . . .? Babette Cole’s characteristically energetic ink-and-wash illustrations bring a much-needed lightness of touch to the whole malodorous subject.
SEE ALSO: bath, not wanting to have a • hands, not wanting to wash your
bookworm, being a
FIND FICTIONAL FELLOW-OBSESSIVES
One minute all they want to do is play with their friends. The next their face has been replaced by the cover of an open book. Your previously sociable child has become a silent semi-presence, blind and deaf to the goings-on in the actual world. They walk to school without looking at their feet; they fork food into their mouth sight unseen; and when they come home, they’re a guided missile locked on their reading nook. Your child has been bitten by the bug.
But that doesn’t mean they’re not being social. Ensure they meet people of like mind in the books they read by scattering some of the titles in the following list in their path. Here they’ll find characters who, like them, devour books – and not just the words and the stories, but the paper they’re printed on. Here they’ll meet people who inhabit books, lose themselves in books, live through books and have their lives invaded by the characters in their books. Even as a bookworm they can be surrounded by soulmates. One day they will emerge from their chrysalis with new wings, enriched by their understanding of narrative, psychology and the world.
THE TEN BEST BOOKS ABOUT BOOKWORMS
boots, being too big for your
Children who think they are particularly wonderful inspire a mixture of admiration and horror. Their confidence will no doubt take them far, but one can’t help notice the disparity between the size of their ego and the size of, er, them. Basque author Bernardo Atxaga visits this idea in his story about the inflated Shola. When a well-travelled friend visits Shola’s human owner, Señor Grogó, and shares his tales of African kings and voracious wild animals, he leaves a book behind: The Lion, King of the Jungle. Shola laps it up, recognising herself in the description of the powerful, noble beasts who hunt for their food rather than suffer the indignity of being served ready-made mince (aromatic and alluring though mince is). Off Shola then heads to the jungle – er, park – to track down her next meal. Unfortunately all she finds is rotten food from the bins, a rather terrifying Burmese cat, and an impertinent duck. Slowly, she begins to see the truth for what it is and goes home to Señor Grogó, who, fortunately, has the mince still waiting. Valverde’s quirky line-and-watercolour drawings perfectly capture the contrast between Shola’s view of herself and the real her – a small and somewhat unimpressive white dog. Those with a bit of Shola in them will be nudged very gently into the appropriately sized boots.
SEE ALSO: bossiness • in charge, wanting to be • precociousness
bored, being
In these days of electronic devices – eagerly waiting to occupy the slightest unfilled moment – it’s rare to catch sight of a bored child wandering disconsolately from room to room, complaining to whoever will listen that ‘there isn’t anything to do’ and occasionally kicking the cat. In the circumstance that you find one, seize the opportunity to re-set expectations with the ultimate paean to making something out of nothing, Harold and the Purple Crayon.
It’s over half a century since Crockett Johnson’s onesie-clad toddler went for a walk in the moonlight and, realising there was no moon, drew one into existence. He draws the path he’s walking on and everything it leads him to – including, eventually, his room and his bed, when it’s time to go to sleep. The fetching shape of the toddler as he reaches up to the far corners of the page with his crayon pulls us ineluctably in; as does the fact that the crayon is presented as just an ordinary crayon. Bring this classic out for entertainment-challenged kids of all ages, together with pens and a pad of white paper – or, even better, a wall – and encourage them to invent what they will.
Older kids can graduate to Aaron Becker’s sumptuous graphic trilogy, beginning with Journey, which plays on the same idea. A little girl
