Say hello by Renae Hayward and Rebecca Mills

A sturdy board book for the very young to bite and chew as a parent reads them the story, encouraging interaction, which promotes the development of language skills and many smiles. In rhyming pairs of lines, the reader is introduced to other babies and the things they love to do. First, we say hello to Jake who loves to make his rattle shake, then we move on to Nic who loves to give his ball a kick.

The book goes on in this vein, encouraging interaction, increasing the child’s comprehension and communication skills, and encouraging a physical response. All these skills are those that are part of a child’s development and reading this book will encourage all of these to be practised.

Bright colourful pages attract young children’s eyes, and the activity shown on each page can be copied by the child.

Baby Kate loves to flick food from her plate, or we say hello to Rory who loves to hear a story. Each pair of pages asks the child to say hello to the child drawn, and these continue to the end of the book when the instruction is turned around, so that the child reading the book can talk about the things they love to do.

The whole encourages participation and interaction. The words ‘say hello’ are used on each page so will become recognised, as do the simple words for the array of things each child loves: hat, food, train for example. Teacher's notes and an activity are available from the publisher.

Themes: Interaction, Babies, Communication.

Fran Knight