If you watch my Instagram stories, you will know how much my kid loves her books. One of the newest ones to her collection, thanks to the team at Pan MacMillan, is There’s An Owl In My Towel by Julia Donaldson. If that name rings a bit of a bell,  Julia is the creative brains behind the extremely popular; The Gruffalo.

Dan and I both love books that have gorgeous illustrations and so to be honest, we do judge a book by its cover – especially children’s books! There’s An Owl In My Towel is beautifully illustrated by Rebecca Cobb and I love how her spin on things gives the book a wonderful classic feeling which I hope means that this is a book that Aria will keep for forever and pass down to her children one day.

There’s An Owl In My Towel is a board book full of lift the flap fun. Board books are great for this baby/toddler stage as it is a lot more difficult to destroy (although, they will still find a way, believe me). There is some lovely gentle humour that as parents we found quite refreshing, there is nothing worse than reading the same boring book over and over again to your child. With suprise little animals (like a mole in a bowl and a lamb in the pram), Aria points and lifts the flaps excitedly on every page.

My favourite part of the book though is right at the back; there is a sing-a-long which you can listen to when you scan the QR code at the back of the book, as well as an interactive section which encourages your child to move, follow instruction and answer questions.

There’s An Owl In My Towel will be available in South Africa within the next month or so from the Pan MacMillan site over here, so keep a look out!

I wanted to also tell you about another book that has been pulled out of the bookshelf a lot lately, and that’s A Parade Of Animals by Rodger Priddy. This is a favourite of mine for many reasons, first off, it helps to slowly teach your child how to count. The book also has raised animals on some pages, and on others, the animals are sunken into the page, this is really great for tactile and sensory development and also makes the book so much more interesting for your little one. The colours and illustrations are gorgeous and Rodgers passion for educating children in a fun way is evident.

Aria loves to see the different animals each page has to offer and has started to point at certain ones when I say their name, a pretty big milestone I reckon!

A Parade Of Animals will also be available on the Pan MacMillan site in the next month, give or take.

My plan is to try and do a Book Club post once a month and share two or three books that I feel have really made an impact on Aria, sometimes it might be children’s books, and other times it may be parenting books that I found super helpful, is that something that you would enjoy seeing?