Jamie Lee Curtis is actually a great children's author

I don't normally seek out celebrity authors as I'm not really sure how good their books are, but I came across Jamie Lee Curtis's books as I was trawling ebay for new books to buy and subsequently read to my daughter. I usually buy book lots as its good value for money (sometimes you get 5-10 books in one go) and it becomes a starter set if you want to follow any reading series, like Eric Carle, Dr. Seuss, Karen Katz etc. When I saw Jamie's book lot, I went on Amazon to read the reviews and the books were averaging 4-5 stars. Here's an example from MotherLodeBeth of Sierras, California on 'Im Gonna Like Me'.
'...its not a sappy feel good self esteem book but more along the lines of we are all human and fall down, and feel we don't fit in at times, but it is in keeping trying that is what make life work. And its a book that will appeal to boys and girls, males and females. And lest you think it is only for wee ones, its also a good book for teens, college kids, those going thru lifes many passages. Or for someone who is going thru a rough period in their lives.
As a rule I avoid celebrity books like the plague, but Ms Curtis is a true talent.'

So I got the book lot which consisted of four books, namely: I'm Gonna Like Me, Where Do Balloons Go?, It's Hard To Be Five and Is There Really A Human Race?. It was a good deal too at about USD15 plus FREE SHIPPING as each book retails for USD17.99 or maybe USD10 or so if you buy a marked down book at amazon.com.

In any case, when I got the books I put them away for later as I was thinking my 2 year old daughter wouldn't be able to appreciate the concepts in the books yet. A week ago though, she found one of the books while picking out books from her book case and asked me to read. We didn't finish it the first time as she lost interest midway but second time's the charm and thereafter she would drag the book around begging everyone in the household to read it to her, sometimes two or three times in a row. She likes the rhyming bits of course and the words are simple and easy to understand and the illustrations are quite detailed and colorful. Meanwhile, I like that it's not just a book for kids but also something that adults can appreciate as well, which is nice if you're reading a book four times a day.

In fact, my daughter's reading habit has become a bit out of control these days and I've asked my husband, 'Is there such a thing as reading too much at this age?' I'm not an early riser but I find myself being woken up by the sound of my daughter's pleas of 'Mymi, read! Mymi read!' And that's already after my husband has done his turn and has hidden himself under the bedcovers after being asked to read a particular book for the nth time. These days we have to rotate the task among me, my husband and my daughter's nanny and even then I read 4-5 books to my daughter in the morning, in the afternoon, after dinner and before bedtime. Sometimes I just want to say, 'Please baby can't we just watch Mickey Mouse Clubhouse or Little Einsteins quietly?' I thought kids liked TV and gadgets more these days anyway? But of course I couldn't say that if I wanted to sustain my child's love of reading so I toil away and read read read.

I blame you Jamie Lee Curtis. You and your strangely addictive book.

To other mothers out there, don't say I didn't warn you.

I See Spots

My friend Sam gave my daughter a See Spot book set by Eric Hill which included a book and a stuffed toy. It's a lift-the-flap book which is a good format for young children just starting to read/interact with books. We eventually bought other lift-the-flap books, mostly by Karen Katz, but eventually I started searching for other lift-the-flap books and realized Eric Hill had a whole series of Spot books where Spot the main dog character in the series, constantly explores his surroundings and has different adventures (e.g. Spot Goes to the Beach, Spot Goes to the Farm etc).

I started looking for Spot books on ebay US, which is where I got our Sandra Boynton, Karen Katz and Eric Carle book lots. However, though the book lots were relatively cheap, think 11 Spot books for 15USD + 5USD shipping within the US, the books in the book lot itself were hit or miss. Some books I liked, some books I didn't. If I went with individual books I liked, each book would cost about 5USD which is about the same price for a new book ordered from amazon.com. But then most of the books were only in good condition whereas I was hoping for very good or excellent/like new condition (i.e. note good, very good and like new are standard terms used to describe books sold on ebay).

So I checked the price of Spot books on opentrolley.com.sg which is an online bookstore in Singapore I used previously to buy additional Sandra Boynton books. They did have the Spot books and quite a good selection too, but then the books ranged from 11SGD to 13SGD. They give a 10% discount for minimum purchase of 50SGD but still that was a bit expensive.

As a last resort I went to the bricks and mortar bookstores to see if maybe they had the Spot books on discount. I found a specific section for the Spot books in prologue at Ion Orchard but sadly at 15SGD, the books were slightly more expensive than the ones at opentrolley. Dejected, I started browsing around for other titles and wandered over to the Chinese section and lo and behold, there stacked neatly on a table where several paperback copies of the Spot books.

Spot Goes to the Farm, Spot's First Walk, Spot Goes to the Circus,
Spot Goes to a Birthday Party, Spot Goes to the Beach and Spot Goes to the Park

If only they were in English. But in any case, I was curious to see how the books looked like inside so I opened one...

And they had both Chinese and English writing! Best of all, each book only costs 6.10SGD. Why so cheap? Because they're reprints of the original in partnership with a publishing house in China. In any case, sold! I chose 6 titles in all (the ones shown in the pic above).

It does pay to sometimes just explore and see what's out there.