Favourite picture books at We ♥ Books are the ones that adults love to read, and kids love to listen to: those ones that bear repeated readings because big people love them too.
I’ve just discovered another category of book – instructional books of activities for kids that mums love to flick through, for inspiration and for pure eye candy…
Little Kitchen is subtitled 40 fun and delicious things that children can really make but the simply stunning design makes it so much more for mums. Candy colours, polka dots and gorgeous illos abound – not to mention the photos of little chefs in action and quirkily styled food.
Melbourne mums may know the Little Kitchen Children’s Cookery Centre in St Georges Road, North Fitzroy, which Sabrina established, and which is also home to a range of children’s cookware. We love her philosophy that cooking provides endless opportunities for ‘natural’ learning and is an activity that doesn’t distinguish between boys and girls. You can read more about it here in our store…
Another book for big people centred on family and home, and equally delicious to flick through is Handmade Home. Readers of Amanda Blake Soule’s blog, soulemama.com will already be familiar with her much-anticipated second book. (If you don’t know Soulemama, go there now!) Amanda’s thoughtful reflections on life as a mama to four small children, crafting, thrifting and exploring her Maine coastal environment are invariably inspirational and always reassuringly down to earth.
In Handmade Home, Amanda not only presents easy-to-follow instructions for some beautiful handmade items, she describes crafting as a lifestyle. The underlying principles are consuming less and re-using more, appreciating the environment, and connecting to our families. She has included in the book a collection of 30+ projects organised by categories: Nourish, Nurture, Play, Seek and Retreat. Some of the projects are non-sew and many are designed to include children. All the crafts are simply beautiful and have Amanda’s gorgeous style.
Now I just need to find time to actually do as well as be inspired by…
||Handmade Home and Little Kitchen are available in the We Heart Books store||
The cover of Little Kitchen blows me away. I want that Neenish Tart and I want it now! The best Neenish Tarts are from Ann’s Pantry in Surrey Hills.
I told the lady at Ann’s Pantry about this comment when I bought Neenish Tarts there yesterday. She was thrilled but didn’t give me a discount! They were quite a different shape to the tarts I remember from my childhood – they were wider and thinner than those at Ann’s Pantry. WHilst they were definatley my childhood favourite, I think to my palate now, they are too sweet. Nevertheless the taste revived memories of spending pocket-money at the bakery in the Ivanhoe shopping centre.