Dawn Sirett

How did I end up with a baby that loves all things with motors and wheels? It must be from his mum's side--her dad is a mechanic and her brother is a mechanic and her (other) son is gonna be an engineer, which is just a mechanic with a fancy degree. Meanwhile, I come from a family of humanities deadbeats where rattling on at the dinner table about how cars were ruining our cities and oil-soaking our geopolitics was standard fare, and last night I took Emmett out to hang out in the car and show more left the keys in the ignition and the car on overnight, and ran down the battery and wrecked something called the "voltage regulator," and I think it might finally have been the straw that broke the camel's back (camels! now there's a respectable mode of transportation) as far as our being able to keep our fragile partnership from blowing up, and here I am telling you about it, LibraryThing reviews, because she looked at me with more contempt than I'd ever seen tonight (and believe me, that woman can contempt!) and I just don't get it--to me, it's like yeah I screwed up, ha ha, let me buy a new volt thing and basically it's like when you miss an appointment or put salt instead of sugar in your tea and we love each other, right? But no. We lost a little bit more love today, and there is so little left, and I can't help but hold these repulsive machines and their rumoured fucking mystique partially responsible, because when you fuck up the car, in her world, you are showing yourself to be the most irresponsible and least reliable of partners, like you're holding your kid over a balcony.

So I'm not in any mood to love cars (or, to lesser degrees, the trains, airplanes, boats, trucks, and tractors that also make an appearance here). But my son does, loves them and hugs them and when he breastfeeds first he gets his hot wheels (a gift from LT user RickHarsch, should that stout gent be reading this) and puts it up to his boob (her boob) like no no, you first, please, and whether it's a passing thing or whether he's gonna be a mechanic too, what I can do is accept him and read him this book make the vroom and honk honk and clickety-clack and whoosh noises with all my heart. show less

Calling a book formulaic is generally an insult, except when it is applied to certain formats, like the board book. These books meant for babies are more about form and picture than story, since they are intended to capture a young person's interest and introduce them to the wonders of reading. Mommy Loves Me is just like the book Daddy Loves Me, which I recently reviewed. The pictures are different - moms instead of dads - and the text is different, but the book has the same photography show more layout, the same simply rhyme scheme, the same idea of a parent's love for a child. When a formula is done well, why not repeat it? This is especially true when a publisher wants to make matching sets of books about mom and dad. DK is an excellent creator of winning book formulas. This board book is as appealing and well made as its daddy counterpart. A good addition to our beginning reader library. show less

Bedtime Peekaboo! is my kind of children's board book: charming, whimsical, builds suspense! I can feel my 18th month old daughter's little body tensing in anticipation with the turn of each page, each flap lifted: who will be behind the striped curtain? Peekaboo! The friendly tiger with the shiny eyes encourages the tyke to turn out the lights and get into bed. Where is the cuddly pig? Is she behind the cushion? Lift the flap, and my daughter reaches out to pet the soft furry tummy of the show more pig. But her favorite part is the suspense-filled final page: where are all the toys? Are they tucked under the covers, fast asleep? Shhhh... Don't wake them up. show less

I like the range of touch-and-feel textures and the generally high production values, the fact that Sophie lives in a lovely and so clean world, that baby quickly comes to understand that this book ends with TICKLES!, and the fact that Sophie's friends all have French versions of aspirational mommy blog baby names like "Lazare" the cat and "Gabin" the bear. I didn't like that they reused the same art for Sophie so many times--her grin went from sweet to inane--or that she is a princess with show more monogrammed towels. Overall, I liked it! show less