But fortunately reading has resumed! I can only assume it was a phase. Now she wakes up and the first thing she wants to do is read a book. She drags them across the house to find me to read them to her. She makes a huge book mess! Phew!

And who do we have to thank for this return to reading? That blasted Peppa Pig. I'm generally not one for TV character books but I've got to give this one it's dues because it reignited her interest in reading. I've never bought any TV character books because quite honestly I do not like them. I find them boring. The illustrations are straight out of the TV show and the storylines are too. When you've watched them over and over the last thing you want to do is read them over and over. But we have acquired some as part of the Puffin Summer Reading #ByBook project last year and as gifts. BookBairn often chooses them from the library too because she recognises the characters and likes them.

So I don't like them. But I do see their value. And how valuable they have been to me this week. My lovely best friend and mama-extraordinaire from '3's a crowd' put it better than I could:

So yes, all books have their place. Personally if I'm going to read a book over and over again I'd prefer it was one that I enjoyed. But at the end of the day BookBairn chooses what we read and after my recent experience I'm just glad that we are reading. No matter what it is we are reading. Character books have their place on our shelves too.

Our favourites are undoubtedly Peppa Pig, Hey Duggee and Bing. I also like that BookBairn an extend her enjoyment of these stories using apps. The Peppa Pig book we have here has a great app 'Peppa Goes Around the World' is brilliant as the story is read aloud to her and she can make the characters do things before they move on to the next page. Hey Duggee's 'Sandcastle Badge' app is also well used in our house.

Do you have any favourite character books? And how do you feel about them?

*DISCLAIMER We were sent both the Hey Duggee and the Peppa Pig book from the publisher and won the Bing book in an online competition. We have read several others from the library. I purchased the apps myself.

We all know that very famous series of touch and feel books that are a great way to get little ones to explore and read books. But we sometimes want something a little more substantial. And these are great because they are a good non-fiction introduction for little ones. They have simple facts and are laid out in a typical non-fiction style book using photographs rather than illustrations. But they are at an accessible level for toddlers and babies. And they have touch and feel elements thrown in to keep those little hands busy. 

These are certainly some of our favourites but as I say they are by no means an exhaustive list. do you have any recommendations for new baby gifts? Also if anyone is interested in writing a guest post for our feature please get in touch using the contact details at the top of the page.

To read all the guest posts in our Baby's First Books series click here.

Hope you enjoyed this most recent guest post, to find them all click here.

How to find Filza:

You can fins Filza's blog 'Mamma Filz' here and I highly recommend that you follow her beautiful bookish photographs over on Instagram.

And I don't keep them all. That would be completely impractical. In the past we have swapped books with friends both in person and using social media and in February we even did a book treasure hunt around our local town to re-home some of excess books. We cannot keep them all. (On a side note we have another big bag of books waiting to be re-homed so if you have any ideas I would love to hear them!)

But still, we have so many that I can't bear to part with. I have a box in the office marked 'for BookBairn to grow into'. Like clothes which are too big for her, some stories are 'too big' and she needs a little time to grow into them. I have a bag to 'rehome'. We have a shelf of 'review' books. We have our 'Favourites Shelf'. But BookBairn's book cupboard was overflowing.

So when we decided to redecorate her bedroom so that she could share with her brother (it was pink and now it has a lovely jungle theme), I took advantage of the opportunity to sort our books. And buy new furniture. Obviously the Favourites Shelf is central to our bedtime routine and its such a nice way to display our books that I wasn't going to part with it. So the rest of the room had to fit around it. We got a new sofa for telling our stories on and BookBairn was excited to help Daddy 'build' it by screwing in the legs. It's now dubbed the 'beautiful chair' and she likes to show it off to people when they come to play. I also already had a really good storage box in their room which has all the books front-facing so that little readers can choose easily.

So the real question was what to do about the reading cupboard in the living room? I had already decided that we needed to move the dollshouse as BookBairn plays with it a lot and under the stairs she couldn't really reach inside easily and I couldn't watch her playing which I love to do. She had also been pushing her luck by climbing on to the fireplace so the dollshouse now sits there (we have stopped using our woodburner since she could crawl). So that left a big space under the stairs to create a reading neuk. I have called it a 'neuk' as it's the Scots word for nook/corner which seems appropriate (friends of ours will also know that it's totally appropriate to call it a neuk given the name of our house). And then I couldn't resist this staggered bookshelf to display our books. I currently have the organised as a 'rainbow' with similar shades together. But I'll be honest it means I've had to separate series of books which I don't like and I think BookBairn likes it when she can find the books which are the same series together (she often takes one for herself and then delegates one for me to read). So I don't think that will last. But it looks pretty for these photos.

A few bookish friends have recently shared their own book nooks so if you are looking for inspiration check out:

Addison Reads - Sam has written a great blog post about all the elements of reading spaces that she loves and wants to create for her little reader, Addison. She also has great inspiration about creating an 'Intentional Bookshelf' for your children and I'm reading her book at the moment. Click here to find her post.

Book Nerd Mommy - Clarissa's book nook is just fabulous! What a gorgeous set of Favourites Shelves and a great teepee to cuddle inside to read. She also has another post with the most beautiful canopy and cushion reading zone. Click here to find her post.

How do you store your books? And where do you like to read? We can usually be found reading all over our house. The books don't stay on the shelves very long! We would love to hear from you about your book nooks, so please share your comments below. Or find us on our social media (links at the top of the page) and tag us in your pictures.

Picture books are a great way to discuss and gently introduce the concept of empathy for the actively encourage us to step into another person's world and into their shoes. They teach us to see the world from different perspectives, to appreciate the experiences of others and to really look at other people and their lives without judgement and with respect.

BookBairn has been sharing her lovely stories and words with us from an early age - she was 9 months when she first said "dada" followed by "booo-k" and "mama" and then a whole flood of words appeared. I think this is probably down to all the exposure to words from our stories but she is still very advanced in her speech and language for her age (not bragging it's just the way she is at the moment!). So we moved on quite quickly from single word books but we have recently been sent some really wonderful ones that I'm keeping for The Wee Page Turner when he gets a bit older (and can turn the pages himself). Here are my favourites that we received recently:

Learning Garden My First Books

Touch! My Big Touch-And-Feel Word Book

Dotty's First Book

In this first word book from Becky Baur, we follow Dotty the Dalmatian as she explores the world around her and learning words along them way. An interesting mix of story and first word primer, children will love spotting Dotty on each page as she goes on her adventures. She rides her bike through the city spotting shapes along the way, she notices opposites in the art gallery and animals at the zoo. Featuring only illustrations only adds to the element of story making the learning more implicit than most first word primers. However, in order for children to really learn using this book they would need an adult to help make the connections between the words and the illustrations as they are not as well connected as with more traditional primers. The flip side to that is that children might be more inclined to 'read' this one by themselves given that it is more of a story book with a fun little character keeping them interested. Not as packed full as other first word primers but certainly lots of fun!

100 First Words

This can only be described as the ultimate compendium of key words of little ones! This book is a large format (too big for little hands to read on their own unless the stretch out across the floor, which BookBairn loves to do) and consists of twelve different themed pages. It covers all the familiar things that little ones are interested in from colours and animals to things around the home and things seen out and about. It expertly mixes photographs and illustrations allowing children to see objects in a real-life context encouraging their learning of the world around them whilst also creating little scenes that can become stories to discuss, for example a waddle of penguins playing in the snow (and yes, 'waddle' is an acceptable collective noun for penguins - I checked!). Each photo and illustration is labelled encouraging little ones to point and name the objects, and of course develop their vocabulary. This book uses an interesting colour scheme too which is soft and gentle to look at with only a limited colour-palette on each page, which allows the image to really stand out on the page. This is a great book to start off your little ones learning adventure - it really shows them that the world around them is amazing, fascinating and fun!

The Wee Page Turner is beginning to engage with the world around him which means it's time to start introducing books to him as a regular play thing! And these ones are great - worth doing tummy time for! Whilst taking our photos for this post BookBairn was being rather cheeky and she kept stealing the books away from her little brother - apparently sharing books is not yet on her agenda! Amusingly, she kept taking them and hiding them behind the sofa all the while shouting "I want to be a book blogger!!" She is certainly quite the little book-monkey!

April showers bring May flowers. Or so the saying goes. And so we ease into the season of life and renewal, casting aside the heavy coat of winter. May means more time outdoors, savoring a heightened awareness of Mother Earth's beauty. Children, from their earliest days, bring us flowers. Plucking colorful stems (be they weeds or not) from ground level—extending their clutched fist to us in a generous offering, the tiniest representation of affection.

Georgia O'Keeffe said, "Nobody sees a flower, really. It is so small it takes time. We haven't time." Maybe that's why children gather flowers, bestowing them at every turn, because they aren't in a rush. The flower waits for them and they are eager to be present in the face of beauty. Still, we give flowers for births. For deaths. For celebrations. And sorrow. We weave flowers into crowns and wear them in our hair. We send them in the mail and plant them in our gardens. We make them out of paper to preserve them a bit longer. And even in our rush, we find beauty in blossoms. Not because they ask anything of us, but simply because they exist. We find glints of happiness in flowers of all variety and learn about life through the process of planting, pruning, cutting, giving, and enjoying them.

Thanks to Miranda from My Bookbloom for the timely theme!

“The story of Norton and Alpha reminds us that nature is needed in the modern mechanical world. Flower gardens, living walls, and parks. They’re to be treasured and nourished and allowed to flourish.” -- Summer from @readingisourthing

Ivy and the Lonely Raincloud, by ​​Katie Harnett

“It's sweet to see the two come together and fill a gap in each other's lives, proving that there's someone for everyone and sometimes what we think is a setback is actually an asset for someone else." -- Mel from @spiky_penelope