&Once upon a time when we had two children rather than four, we would quite often gather as a family for bedtime stories. And one of our absolute favourites was Rattletrap Car (Amazon link). It is pretty much the perfect picture book, gorgeous colourful pictures, lots of repetition and a fun (if implausible) story that rattles (sorry!) along.
In fact, we read it so many times that we could recite it without the book, taking separate parts as we went, with a very small Small shouting Go, said the baby, Go, Go, Go!
Today I found it in a box in the garage, and introduced it to Smallest and Tigerboy. On a single read through he was joining in with the repetition – and they stuck it on tight with “chocolate marshmallow fudge delight!” Smallest likes to digest the story first. She picks up a lot from the pictures, trying to fit them together, make things that don’t really make sense into things that can. It’s probably something to do with understanding the boundaries of the real world versus imagination, I’m not really sure. Books like this one, with an element of magic or mystery are the ones she returns to time and again.
I’m kind of glad it’s a book I really love, as I know I’m going to be reading it a whole lot of times in the future too.
Disclosure: Amazon links are affiliate links. I can’t find this on sale with Hive, I think it’s probably out of print, which is kind of sad.
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