My son has more than 300 books. I know, I know – but I can’t help myself. What Carrie Bradshaw felt for shoes, I feel for books. You just cannot have enough. And, to be honest – a mom DOES get bored reading the same stories over and over and over and over and over again…. And again.

So. As books are expensive – you’ll be happy to know, if you are in Chicago, that the annual Newberry Library Book Fair is on Thursday and Friday, the 28-29th of July, from noon to 8pm, and then on Saturday and Sunday – the 30-31st from 10am to 6pm. Having gone last year, I definitely recommend trying to get over there on your lunch hour on the Thursday. The Children’s section was quite picked through when I went on a Saturday. I did get a few book – maybe 6 or 7 – but not as many as I had hoped.

Oh. Bring a nice cloth bag – books are heavy – and they only have donated plastic bags. Also, bring cash – using a credit card takes a very looooooooooong time with volunteers and those wireless credit card things that they fill out by hand.

Not only will you be able to buy children’s books (if I don’t get there before you!), but there will be more than 120,000 books, in 70 different categories to choose from.  Think gifts: Christmas, birthdays, favors…. I find that people really love “vintage” cookbooks and poetry tomes. And think of the Art and Travel books that you can buy for junior, that may be inexpensive enough to use to create collages or other projects!

The Newberry Library is located near Rush Street – so you can make a lovely shop/lunch day of it.

Just don’t bring Junior. Its a tight squeeze and the dust….

Happy weekend!

With almost 400 books that seem to have found their way into the playroom, my son is in desperate need of a new bookcase. But, which one will last him through the quickly arriving years where all that delights him is Star Wars, pirates or any fellow in bright tights, a cod piece and a cape?

I rather like the above bookcase by Munkii, made of formaldehyde and VOC free MDF board (yes, it’s a new process) – as it seems Harry Potter’ish.  However, a friend mentioned that it may be a bit feminine. (Really?)

Via Inhabitots, are two less imposing, but more arboreal “bookcases”, that are sweet.  The first is sublimely simple, but I think would look nice in a series of three – for a forest of books…

I also like these Happy Tree bookshelves…but worry that they may be too “cute” for a 4 year old (which he’ll be. One day.)

And, for the weary, there is always Eco Tots…

I haven’t decided on a bookcase, as I like the Vintage Munkii bookcase best – but am wondering how to make it mas macho. A mustache maybe?

Happy Monday!

I confess. I eat mercury laden sushi and love, I mean REALLY love, antibiotic, GMO, pesticide filled, toxin producing ribs. Slathered in high fructose corn syrup BBQ sauce. Yup. Nothing better.

Those are hardly the least of culinary (or other) sins.

However, though an adult may choose to smoke, drink and suck down succulent finger lickin’ good ribs – these are not, obviously, the delicious venom with which we want to fortify our growing childrens immune systems and life long risk of many diseases and conditions. Nope. Foie Gras for mum, kale and pears for you, little one.

I have bought several cookbooks and books on nutrition and have found the following to be the easiest, most instructive and helpful.

In no particular order:

1) The 150 Healthiest Foods on Earth (Um. Ribs are NOT on the list.)

2) The 100 Top Healing Foods

3) Disease Proof Your Child (Great advice to “treat” sniffles or any other common ailment sans making the drug companies shareholders any happier.)

4) Allergy Proof Recipes for Kids (Great way to make healthy party food without fear of making other children sick.)

5) The Vegetarian 5 Ingredient Gourmet (If you are as lazy as I am – this is the book for you.)

6) Better Than Peanut Butter & Jelly (Easy vegetarian recipes for lunch and snacks.)

Armed with this small library, I hope that you’ll find the task of raising the healthiest baby possible (with its life long benefits that will survive your own life), easier and less daunting. Honestly, if it doesn’t strengthen your child – it weakens him – is as good a golden rule as any. If not on the list of the first book – chances are that junior doesn’t need it. With 150 amazing foods full of healthiness and goodness, why bother with anything else? Your child will do all the damage he needs in college – so don’t worry that you are depriving him of the rubbish that you (guiltily) love. You only have 18 years to feed him, really. Let him discover those dirty burnt ribs himself. They’ll do far less damage after the healthy start that you have lovingly provided.

You may actually raise a child that avoids the Raman Noodles/Hot Pockets/Pizza Bites college diet. Well. Maybe.

Bon Appetit!

Though you don’t know me, if ever you want to buy me a present, just go to Rizzolis – the coffee table book mecca of the universe. If I didn’t have a toddles about – I’d order all those beautiful interior design books they have that weigh more than a Manatee calf and stalk them giraffe high on all available table space. Alas, it is not to be. But! I do want to order this 1001 Children’s Books so that I can build my boy’s library carefully and purposefully ( I may leave out The Little Princess or any books that are a bit too “pink”). As I didn’t read any “boy” adventure books as a child, I need a guide to the inspirational and wanderlust causing tales that has filled many a future pirate (or pilot) with a need to go, see and experience. Most importantly, I want my son to have that same love of books that has made my life a far richer place to be.

This is a certain stocking stuffer for Alden.

Happy reading!

As my son is now the Big One, I am expanding my cookbook collection rather quickly. Yesterday I bought three new books that I highly recommend as all three are easy to use, include “medicinal” advice (which foods to avoid around vaccine or antibiotic periods, what do eat for a cold), recipes that a busy mum who has never used her Julia Childs cookbook can manage and include lots of nice photos. Yes, I like my cookbooks with full colour glossy snaps.

Rather than introduce allergenic foods to my sons intestines that reduce healthy enzyme and bacteria balances, or any food that will jar his glycemic balance – I have decided to give him a wheat/gluten/processed sugar/cow dairy free diet with as high a raw fruit/veg/herb mix as possible. Who knew that both watercress and parsley had more vitamin C, by weight, than oranges?!  Both being terribly easy to add to any compote, salad or potato mash. And rather than fill your poor child with genetically modified high fructose corn syrup Gatorade (its poison) – coconut water has the natural electrolytes in ONE 8 ounce glass that a GALLON of that rubbish does! That MOther Nature is a clever, clever girl.

The Top 100 Healing Foods is small enough to carry in your purse, and a great reference when you are at the local Whole Foods. You can easily look up all those strange looking fruits and get an idea how to incorporate them into juniors diet. It’s going to be one of my stocking stuffers this year.

Much larger, but quite well written, is The 150 Healthiest Foods on Earth. Why would you put anything in your child’s mouth and body that didn’t make him healthier?! Because if it isn’t making him healthier – it’s hurting him. Period. Full stop. Sad truth.

The 150 book gives you all the rationale and research behind the goodness of certain foods that we should include in our children’s diets – as most of us default to the familiar. It also covers oils, herbs, spices (which are magical) and food combinations to increase the bioavailability of what she is eating.

Christmas is right around the corner – and cookbooks are always a welcome gift – so I hope that you consider one or all three!

Happy Reading!

My boy is 7 months old, and already has around 200 books (some of them my old baby books). But recently, a cousin of mine had a horrible thing happen to her 2 year old – a bookcase (thankfully empty at the time), fell on him, and crushed his legs.

I have a book case in Aldens playroom that I am having secured to the wall this week – but bookcases and shelves can be boring – and I wondered what eco-friendly book keeping options were available.

How much cooler than shelves is this croc? I LOVE him! And when my son moves from crib to bed, I’ll have space for JUST such a creature. (Can’t you just hear the ticking of the clock in his belly?!)

For less menacing book storage, there is this peaceful little island…an oasis for any little one that just wants to get away from annoying siblings…

I wonder what Jeremy Clarkson would have to say about this Jalopy?  I wish I had known about these wheels before I had Aldens book cubbys built….

And this lovely little bench, is exactly what I would of wanted as a young bookish girl. The perfect place to sit and have a hundred stories within arms length.

All of the above are distributed via Gresso, and the materials meet the strictest EU safety standards.

Why these aren’t available at every children’s store is beyond me – they are, it seems exclusively, available via Library suppliers  - but here is a link to where you CAN buy them: HERE.

Key Learning: School and library supply companies have brilliant nursery items that are not available in traditional stores.

Happy reading!

I don’t generally post about recalls, as I hope that every mum is signed up to a recall list service, such as I am from Kids in Danger.

But this recall has to do with books – so I thought it was worth a mention.

Basically, the books above, by Gund, are a choking hazard.

If you have them – take them away from your under 3′s – and give to an older child.

Happy Friday!

Though my son already had the delightful Green Start recycled/eco friendly ink books above – he was getting frustrated that he couldn’t put them into his mouth. Which is where, of course, books belong.

But yesterday, I found the new Green Start “Book Towers” - that are perfect for little hands and mouths – and safe for literary nibbling.  I bought two towers with 10 books each – which should keep us both busy for ages.

One tower contains riveting adventure “Jungle Book” like stories of animals (no, not really), and the other page turning, nail biting, stay-up-all-night-with-a-flashlight titles such as “Shapes”, “Counting” and “On The Farm”.

Okay. The stories are slightly Hemingway feeling terse  - but they are perfectly bite sized for future readers. And you won’t have to worry about all that leaded and cadmium laden ink that most books have.

These are books safe enough for the old man to throw into the sea.

Bon Appetit!

By now, you most likely are familiar with Sprig Toys, as they make those lovely eco-friendly trucks that you can now buy at Whole Foods.  Well, the clever thinking folks over at Sprig have developed these story toys.  Basically, a book with eco-friendly toy bits built in to make the experience interactive (without rubbish batteries).

As I’d rather do Clorox shots than give my son books that talk, sing or otherwise show any relation to Chucky – these book toys are perfect for a busy lad just learning to read.

And worry not, all paints are free of soluble heavy metals, phthalates or endocrine disruptors.

I love Sprig, and wish them well as they eat into Mattel’s market share.

This delightful store Pi’lo, makes gorgeous eco gifts for the romantic, including an alphabet and numbers book for baby that are so much more beautiful than the loud primary colour ones, and are far safer for nibbling.

Neutral enough for any nursery, and cool enough for a pregnant art director – Pi’lo books and, well, pillows…will be truly adored and saved after other things have been handed down, given away and tossed.

(For Anglophiles, they also make reusable “crackers” – which make brilliant party favours, with a “u”.)

Happy reading!