For our upcoming trip overseas, I’ve been preparing my goodie bag of distractions for Rowan on the plane. Rowan does have some experience of flying, as his grandparents live interstate. And perhaps more significantly, I do now have some experience of flying as a mum. Suffice to say, I’ve got a lot better at it over time. These tips on books for travelling with kids are gleaned from our own travels and advice from well-travelled friends…

Books are excellent for travelling because compared to other forms of distraction, they generally have no small parts, and are not messy. (With the best of intentions I took a tub of playdough on one plane flight - big mistake.) With some parent interaction, a good book can be strung out for an extended period of time, especially for the period when the seatbelt sign is on… I’ve found it’s a good idea to take a mix of old favourites and new books Rowan has never seen before. Hiding one of Rowan’s favourite books for a period before we leave also works well.

Here is a list of a few of the types of books we will be taking on this holiday…

1) Small books

A few small books are light and take up minimal space; they also provide variety and it’s not a disaster if you lose one. Golden Books, the Thomas Library books (at $3.95 a pop) and Mr Men books all fit in this category.

2) Busy books

When I say busy books I mean ones with lots of detail and things to look for on every page. A hit for us has been the Thomas’ Really Useful Word Book. This durable large format board book is also great value at $16.95. Each spread pictures Thomas in a different part of Sodor, and shows lots of different objects and animals - at the farm, at the station, at the seaside. Lots of things to find in every picture and there is a bit of a narrative too throughout the book. Unfortunately it is fairly heavy, which may rule it out for this trip…

Also highly recommended are the Richard Scarry books. Haven’t tried these with Rowan yet, but I suspect they would do the job perfectly.

3) Books with stickers

Stickers are another great distraction for travelling. A while ago I picked up this great pad of stickers called ‘Vehicle Movement’ for the grand total of $2.25 from the Queenscliff Newsagency. Of course I’ve never seen them in a newsagent since, and I now wish I’d bought several of them… This one pad of stickers has taken us on several flights already and we’ve shared them with grateful fellow parents on the plane.

This time we will be trying one of Ladybird’s series of books with reusable stickers - we have Let’s get dressed. In this one the two sheets of stickers of clothes and accessories can be used to dress four children inside. Even if Rowan doesn’t like this one, I think I’ll have some fun!

I also found the Play Scene On The Construction Site which despite my best efforts, Rowan spotted and he has already had a tantrum over it. A board folds out and an assortment of diggers, tip trucks, workmen, witches hats and other goodies can be placed on the scene. There are lots more in this series, which you can view here at Mudpuppy. (Click on Sticker Set Play Scenes.)

But there is one more book with great current appeal for Rowan, which really took me by surprise. It is IDEAL for the plane. It’s called Point It, and I found it at Metropolis Books. A passport-sized book, it is a kind of visual dictionary, designed so you can show a picture of something you are trying to communicate to someone who doesn’t speak your language. It has retro 70s photos and illustrations of 1200 items, covering the topics of food, accommodation, transport and shopping. (The transport section guarantees the Rowan appeal…) I initially bought it for a bit of fun. But the more I look at it the more I think it will be useful, and the toddler appeal is a fabulous bonus!!!

Here is a photo of my 20c treasure from Booktown…

Mike Mulligan and his Steam Shovel, Story and Pictures by Virginia Lee Burton.

Mike is an American classic first published in 1939. This copy is a little old Picture Puffin from 1977 that originally cost $1.75. The book ended up in the CFA Nothing Over $5 Sale from Coghill’s Creek Primary School, which is stamped inside the cover.

Mike and his steam shovel Mary Anne are out of work when new petrol and electric machines take over their jobs. Then Mike reads about a town called Popperville that needs a new town hall and they set off to dig the hall a cellar. They promise the town that if they don’t dig the cellar in a day they will not ask for payment. The whole town of Popperville turns out to watch and in the end they come up with an ingenious solution to everyone’s problems. This is a wonderful story about modernisation and how sometimes old is better and still has a place in society. Children who love diggers will really appreciate this picture book and will like the illustrations of the dig dig digging. There is a lot of text in this book though so it would be recommended for 4+.

Virginia Lee Burton also wrote The Little House, which she won the Caldecott Medal for in 1943 and Katy and the Big Snow. Each of these books are similar in theme to Mike Mulligan in that with grit and determination in the face of adversity you can succeed. All three have inanimate objects that have feelings and are befriended by people, which is an interesting concept.

As Katie mentioned in her post yesterday, we had a great time at Booktown and certainly plan to make a weekend of it next year. I too like Katie am envious of all the gorgeous things that other bloggers find at secondhand bookshops, thrift shops and estate sales. But I’m pretty happy with my little copy of Mike Mulligan and I wonder how many littlies have held it and enjoyed it before me.

My dear friend, Anne-Laure, reminded me of this book in a comment she left for us during our launch competition. Her twin boys, at two-and-a-half, are loving this book, and now Rowan is too. Most nights he is calling out for ‘Truck’ even before he is in his pyjamas…

Duck in the Truck comes from the very talented Jez Alborough, author of our previously reviewed, Hug!. Duck’s truck gets stuck in the muck, so Frog, Sheep and Goat all lend a hand. With the muck and mud involved, you can imagine the mess, but somehow Duck avoids a sticky end.

The combination of a few different vehicles, some mud and expressive animal characters make it a hit for Rowan. And the rhyming text makes it fun to read aloud. There’s nothing worse than a book that tries to rhyme but doesn’t quite hit the mark, but this one is spot-on.

I wish I could have a copy of this…

This is one of five copies in existence of a book hand penned by J.K. Rowling called Beedle the Bard. Auctioned at Sotheby’s for £1,950,000 it is now owned by Amazon.com. There are extracts and reviews on their site. It’s an amazing looking book.

Rowling is donating all the proceeds to her charity The Children’s Voice Campaign to help institutionalised children in Europe.

Ned and I spent a lot less today at Alice’s Second Hand Bookshop in Rathdowne Street. It is such a beautiful little shop and probably one of the best second hand bookshops in Melbourne. They only have a little section of Children’s books but it is all in great condition and they have shelf upon shelf on any other subject you can imagine. We bought a copy of The Whistle Stop Party by Nan Hunt (illustrated by Craig Smith) for $5.50 - what a bargain. No longer in print I can remember reading these books to my little brother in the 80’s. There are three in the series; Whistle Up the Chimney, An Eye Full of Soot and Ear Full of Steam and The Whistle Stop Party; all really worth looking out for in Op Shops or Second hand book shops. All three are so much fun especially for train lovers with jaunty rhymes and great train noises throughout - Clicketty Clack Clicketty Clack.

My mum just got back from overseas, where she spent some time in the UK. She brought back a great present for Rowan - a toy London bus. Needless to say he loves it. Accompanying the toy was a fantastic book, Naughty Bus by Jan and Jerry Oke.

It is a self-published book, written by the author and photographed by her husband. Judging by the fact the it is sold at the Tate in London it must have been pretty successful. The book is unconventional in many respects, some of which give a hint that it hasn’t gone through a rigourous publishing process, but this kind of adds to its charm.

The author manages to get in the head of a child immersed in imaginative play, you can ‘hear’ the voices of the bus and the adults and other toys he encounters. The world is seen through the eyes of a toy bus, as the photos show the bus driving down a street of toys, wreaking havoc at the breakfast table, and getting into trouble in the garden. (”I don’t think much of the roads around here”, he says as he drives across the lawn.) The typography itself contains visual clues, aimed to aid and boost confidence in early readers.

Somehow the book also manages to incorporate a whole list of messages for children - from not getting to close to the edge of a pond, to saying thank-you and and the necessity of cleaning ones teeth. Gotta love that.