Peapod’s Picks/#KLTR – Happy Early Birthday Spot!

Peapod’s Picks is a regular(ish) post featuring books Peapod has been enjoying – from favourite board books, noisy books and busy books to bedtime stories and books with props from his story baskets.

This week it’s also time for another #KLTR post, hosted by Book Bairn, Acorn Books and Laura’s Lovely Blog.

Where’s Spot? by Eric Hill

In preparing this post, I found out that Spot turns 40 this year! I was tempted to postpone this til May when the ‘official’ date for celebrations is, but thought I’d post it now – Happy early Birthday Spot!

An absolute classic, this is a perfect example of a well-executed lift-the-flap story, evidenced by its enduring popularity with both children and parents.

It’s simple enough to read fairly quickly and hold those short attention spans; repetitive enough to become familiar and allow little ones to really get to know the story and what will come next and it also features loads of animals! And I am yet to meet a child who isn’t an animal lover (at least in play and pictures!)

Spot’s mum goes looking for him as it’s dinner time and he’s nowhere to be found (this is the only part of the book I’m not a fan of, as it starts off with “Naughty Spot” but I usually just skip that bit!).

As she goes hunting around the house, instead of Spot, she finds lots of other animals – a lion under the stairs, a crocodile under the bed, a hippo in a piano and a snake inside a clock… until at last, the tortoise (cleverly hidden under a rug) suggests she looks in the basket – will she find Spot there? (spoiler – yes, yes she will.)

This is one of the story baskets Peapod has had in his room for a while now, and it’s one of the most played with, most simple, most versatile and one he’s got so much out of too!

As well as making the sounds for the animals when he opens the flaps (or, now that we’ve read it do often beforehand because he knows who it will be under each!), he finds them or points them out from the basket and we then have fun moving them, making noises etc, for example monkey jumps about everywhere chattering, while he pulls crocodile round to chase his toes!

We have read some of the other Spot books too and have liked some more than others, but this original story that started them all is one we read over and over and over again – he loves it!