How many grannies, grandads, aunts, uncles, godparents, friends - even parents - set out for the children's corner of the bookshop in December wanting to pick the perfect book for the child on their list and become overpowered by the choice and unsure about what would be right. Caroline Walshreports.
A deceptively slim book - it's actually 112 pages long - launched recently by children's books commentator Robert Dunbar and by author Marita Conlon-McKenna - will be a real help to anyone in that situation.
Mad About Books: The Dubray Books Guide to Children's Books (€2) is compiled, written and edited by Sarah Webb and her selection team. "Would you like to raise a child who's mad about books? Then this is the guide for you," is its pitch. The number of inspired tips within is amazing - even if sometimes you're kicking yourself because they're so obvious - such as the one about leaving books for babies under 18 months where they can find them, not miles away on a shelf out of reach. Also, when reading to small children it's good if you love the book too - after all, you may end up reading it hundreds of times.
Webb, who reveals she learned to read fluently only at the age of nine, has obviously never stopped since and approaches her task with missionary zeal. "I firmly believe the right book, in the right child's hand, at the right time, can change their life." Webb is strong on nursery rhyme collections; they're part of a baby's literary heritage, should be passed down from generation to generation, and every baby should own at least one. "It always makes me sad when children say they've never heard of Humpty Dumpty or Incy Wincy Spider," says Webb. She recommends singing along with babies - and forgetting the tunes is no excuse: get a rhyme CD or tape. Fairy tales are also vital: "No child should grow up without meeting Rapunzel, Hansel and Gretel, Goldilocks . . . ". Cinderella and Sleeping Beauty are not enough. And an atlas is a must as children grow and get more interested in the world.
The book has features such as listing other books by an author after a review of his book and stars for must-have books. Its mini-portraits of children's book illustrators and authors are filled with the kind of titbits children love: that Anthony Horowitz has travelled to all the places in the Tintin books, except the moon; that Siobhán Parkinson hates going to the hairdresser and is learning Chinese; and that Kate Thompson hates teabags. It's uncanny but maybe not surprising how many of them have pets, from Niamh Sharkey's cat Rosie and the cat Martin Waddell had that could open doors to Conlon-McKenna's dog Benji.
Children love character books, from Thomas the Tank Engine to Angelina Ballerina, because they find them familiar and reassuring, and Webb reminds that even when children have moved on, old favourites still have a role for their comfort value. Series are good too, because they keep children reading, while discussing books can be a great way to communicate with teenagers. With Man Booker-winning novels and tomes on Irish history now being distributed to politicians and schoolchildren, maybe Mad About Books should be distributed to all infants at birth to ensure they lose no time in getting started on that best of all trips - their reading journey.
The costume dramas cometh
There are more literary adaptations on the way. BBC1 this week announced that for 2008 it will offer not only a new version of Jane Austen's Sense and Sensibility but also a one-off TV movie based on the first book in Alexander McCall Smith's hugely popular No 1 Ladies' Detective Agency series about the Botswana sleuth Precious Ramotswe. There'll also be an adaptation of Flora Thompson's classic memoir of an English 19th-century childhood Lark Rise to Candleford - so costume drama fanatics currently addicted to Cranford have plenty to pencil into their diaries for 2008.
The king of calendars
Seamus Heaney is among the poets who have given poems for inclusion in the latest edition of the Oxfam Ireland calendar which, since its inception three years ago, has become a happy fixture in both Christmas and arts world diaries. Poems for 2008 is a collaboration between poets - including Tony Curtis, Jean O'Brien, Nessa O'Mahony, Mary O'Malley and Paul Perry - and 12 visual artists, including Eoin McHugh, Elizabeth Comerford and Margo Banks. Each month is illustrated with a poem and a painting.
It's on sale in Oxfam shops for €12 and all of the proceeds go to support projects funded by the charity. The venture also involves a competition for poets held during the summer - and judged this year by Perry - for poems to include in the calendar. The winners for this year (whose work is included in the 2008 calendar) were Mary Barnecutt, Olive Broderick, Mike Casey, Ted McCarthy, Michael Massey and David Mohan.