Happy New Year! Let's kick off 2013 with a cracking review of a fantastic book, one of Charlotte's christmas presents (thanks Uncle Graham!) - and a bit of a sad tale. You see, this book is not only very absorbing - it's also quite absorbent as we found out to our cost during a rather unfortunate car-sickness incident.

So although it's no longer with us (it was too ruined to salvage, alas), it was brilliant fun for the short time we had it.

With a mixture of fantastic themed pages covering drawing, doodling and colouring (as the title suggests), children and adults alike will find plenty to do. One minute you can be drawing fantastic hats and hairdos on funny little characters, the next minute you can be designing the perfect robot - or better still, the most horrendous monster ever created!

It's testament to how brilliant this book is that even the artistically challenged (like Charlotte's Grandad) found themselves drawn (quite literally) to it. This plus a pack of coloured pencils / pens and from time to time a bit of adult help for younger children guarantees hours of fun and stimulation. Just make sure you don't use it in the car after a huge bowl of coco pops and some impromptu dancing on a windy Devon road with no lay-bys.

Charlotte's best bit: Drawing happy / sad / frightened expressions on the 'face drawing' bits.

Daddy's favourite bit: Designing the perfect robotic companion

Year after year, the shops seem to be more and more stuffed to the gills with Halloween things - fortunately this doesn't just extend to horrible cheap plastic halloween costumes and dreadful sweeties, but also some surprisingly brilliant book ideas for your little ones to get spooked by as All Hallows Eve arrives.

Usborne's 'Sticker Dressing' range is always good fun, and Charlotte's grampy (Dodo) bought her this rather excellent 'Spooky' edition, featuring all the mainstays of a good halloween romp.

What I like about the book is the multi-layered approach to the stickering. The artwork is fantastic, and as you add stickers to each scene to 'complete' it, you can build up some brilliant transformations. See a scrawny skeleton transformed into a scary mummy - or a graveyard turning into the Skeleton World Cup.

Imaginative and full of flair, Sticker Dressing - Spooky is still great fun even after your little ones have stuck all 200 stickers down and made some funny scenes. Great character names and plenty of opportunities to then go away and draw up some spooky scenes of your own all add to a book that's sure to keep the collywobbles away.

Charlotte's best bit: Spooky Ghostly Tutankhamun

Daddy's favourite bit: The great transformation from scrawny youth to fully fledged werewolf at the back of the book.

Despite my protests, Charlotte often latches onto books in the library and won't let them go, leaving poor flustered Daddy to book them out regardless of their suitability. 

Charlotte has previously loved the Usborne Look and Say range of books, and Baby Sister uses the same tried and tested format, with illustrations full of objects (made out of that peculiar Fimo modelling material) for children to point at and name. 

As Charlotte's just beginning to show signs of wanting to read proper letters and characters, books like this may unfortunately end up on the menu more often but the Look and Say range are extremely colourful, very easy to flick through, made of sturdy cardboard and very much of interest to young enquiring minds. 

Charlotte's best bit: For some reason, the night light and mobile tickled her pink.


Daddy's favourite bit: Hot mummy!