We Love Roger Priddy

Roger Priddy is a man, who happens to be an artist and book creator, who has his own publishing house - kinda; actually Priddy Books is a part of St. Martins which is connected to Macmillan Books which...well it is all a bit hard to keep track of.

Roger Priddy used to work for Usborne, a publisher that makes high quality inexpensive children's books. After working for Usborne he worked for DK, which also makes high quality books for children and adults, and has done a lot to improve the layout and graphic design of guide books. Now Roger Priddy works for himself at Priddy Books, and I must say he is doing a good job.

Roger Priddy's soft cloth book The Squishy Turtle and Friends, is Oscar's favorite. At first he liked to bop the front cover and make it crinkle, then he liked grabbing the octopus legs (it's really great, instead of two arms it has eight), and now he likes grabbing the entire book and thrusting it in his mouth. And sometimes, sometimes it even looks like Oscar is trying to turn the page.

Oscar likes board books too, but at this age (4 months) he has a hard time holding onto them for any length of time, and his fingers aren't yet agile enough to turn a board book page. Cloth books, on the other hand, are quite easy for his hands to grab; but he has some cloth books he doesn't like. Cloth books with a smooth overall feel, Oscar doesn't like those. Oscar is a fan of texture, and The Squishy Turtle has a lot of texture.

Oscar loves The Squishy Turtle so much he gave his girlfriend Amaya it's companion The Fuzzy Bee and Friends. The Fuzzy Bee is actually almost cooler than The Squishy Turtle, except for a line about a worm wanting to come out and play on a sunny day - I don't enjoy having mental images of dried-up dead worms when I'm playing with my son.

We were having an issue with forgetting to bring to Squishy Turtle back and forth from home to child care, so we decided we needed another soft Priddy book, and so we got Big Rex and Friends. Reciting hard to pronounce dinosaur names to a baby does strike me as a bit weird, but Oscar sure doesn't mind. In fact he seems to be enjoying the textures of Big Rex even more than The Squishy Turtle. New love is always the most passionate.

If you are interested Priddy also has a number of inexpensive board books that I just ordered for a local book fair. Most board books these days run $6.99 to $12.99 but for just $4.95 each you can get the touch & feel Priddy board books on Colors, Numbers, Shapes, Words, and even one for Halloween called Spooky. You can even get Spanish bilingual editions. I'm turning into a big Priddy fan.

Books A 2-Month-Old Will Look At!

My beautiful son Oscar was born December 11, 2008 and from the start, I tried reading him books. It didn't always work. But from about three weeks of age, he would look at the pages of Goodnight Moon as I read it to him (if he was in a good mood). Sometimes I was even able to read it three times or more in a row.

Now Oscar is over two-months-old, and he is rapidly paying more attention to the things around him, including the books I read him. Lady Bug Lady Bug, from My Chunky Friend set is his favorite, perhaps because I sing it to him, and perhaps because the words are nice and black on a white background (he looks at the words, not the pictures). Lady Bug Lady Bug is out of print, but if it were a different rhyming board book with black print on a white background, that I sang to him, I'm sure he would like that as well. He also likes The Rainbow Fish; he doesn't so much care for the story, but the pictures of the fish with shiny scales are fascinating to him.
We have an alphabet books he really likes, maybe because each page is turned quickly, or it could be the crisp graphics. Our alphabet book is ABC by Matthew Porter. It is fun for me to read because I can practice saying "U is for Uakari".

Baby Books

I apologize for my lack of posts, I've been distracted. Oscar Stefan Woods was born on December 11, 2008 - after 30 hours of labor and a C-section, and a VERY long wait. For some bizarre reason I thought I would have time to blog on maternity leave. I imagined a quiet baby napping and me on the computer. Well, so far that hasn't happened. But tonight Oscar has successfully taken a bottle of formula and his daddy is feeding him, so I have a spare moment.

Let me use this precious free time tell you about my favorite baby present. It is A BOOK. But it isn't one you can buy. It is a cloth book made from scraps by one of Oscar's grandmother's friends. We "read" it by describing the pictures. Oscar has even paid attention to it, not bad for a seven-week-old. Sometimes the best books can't be bought.