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.

How to teach your daughter manners

We're currently in the midst of my daughter's 'Terrible Twos' phase. When she was younger, she went to Gymboree Play and Learn classes and we used to feel bad when she would get pushed or picked on. But now, she gives as good as she gets, sometimes a bit more. She would throw things, have tantrums, even take a swipe at her baby sister's head. Her dad is very good at disciplining her (i.e. raised voice, glaring eyes and the ultimatum, enforcing 'face the wall' punishments) but beyond punishing her for every mistake she did, we want her to learn how to behave well.

Just in time, I discovered this book series that teaches good manners and is written by popular children's author Karen Katz. We already own two of Karen Katz's lift-the-flap books,  'Where is Baby's Belly Button?' and 'Where is Baby's Christmas Present?', and my daughter loved those so I was sure she would love this series as well.

  

We got five books from the series, namely 'No Biting', 'I Can Share', 'Best Ever Big Sister', 'No Hitting' and 'Excuse Me'. I don't know if there are more books in the series but these five cover the basics of good manners. We started reading these to our daughter a few weeks ago and now we read the set twice a day, once before dinner and another before bedtime.

I love the easy-to-understand wording, the realistic examples used, the colorful illustrations and the lift-the-flap format which makes it more interactive for kids. It's especially rewarding to hear her use words she learned from these books. She still has a long way to go in terms of good manners but with the magic words she's learned so far, like 'sorry', 'tkoo' (thank you), 'peas' (please) and 'labu' (I love you), I know she'll get there in time.