BOOKS ALWAYS EVERYWHERE
Books Always Everywhere (Jane Blatt, Nosy Crow 2013) was chosen by the Bookstart Corner programme for 2016 to be included in the packs sent to children’s centres around the UK and kept in their libraries. It was chosen by a panel made up entirely of coordinators from the children’s centres who felt that the delightful repetition and descriptive words would be easily fitted into activities around the book. The board book was re issued reissued and re launched with a new cover in 2018.
**One of the great things about the text is the elliptical, compressed and lyrical nature of it (Nosy Crow, 2013).**
‘Books Always Everywhere’ was inspired by my interest in how babies learn and supported by the wonderful videos and stills made by Evelyn Arizpe which formed the basis of our academic chapter on bilingual children. Books for babies are fascinating objects which can be manipulated and explored for their own sake. Given time and space, the babies can learn about the ‘bookness of books’ by playing with them. They can explore different materials, different sizes and shapes, they can make hats out of them, eat them, throw them, build with them and even learn how to share them with friends and family. Books Always Everywhere has been translated into 5 languages!
LOOK INSIDE BOOK SONG BUY IT
- Jane Blatt and Sarah Massini’s Books Always Everywhere features a diverse group of toddlers enjoying an equally diverse selection of books. Click here.
- Blatt debuts with a jubilant celebration of books, aiming her chirpy rhymes at both pre- and emergent readers. Two easily sounded-out words accompany each of Massini's (Tulip Loves Rex) mixed-media illustrations, which feature cherubic babies and toddlers.
"There is a pleasing simplicity to this rollicking celebration of children, books, and reading. It is about all kinds of books about all kinds of things, to be read in any kind of place, with exuberant pictures matched by minimal text. It's message is simple: reading is fun."
"Using rhyme and no more than two words per page, Books Always Everywhere by Jane Blatt, illustrated with style, fun and wit by Sarah Massini, is a book-lover’s dream. Books take centre stage in a range of babies’ and toddlers’ real and imaginative lives – on the swing, at the beach, at bedtime, as they skip about with monkeys, mice, giraffes, elephants and bears. Delightful."
A celebration of the book in books.
ACADEMIC LITERATURE
The chapter ‘How responses to picturebooks reflect and support the emotional development of young bilingual children’ (in Emergent Literacy: Children’s books from 0 to 3; Benjamin 2011) was co-written with Evelyn Arizpe.
Abstract
This chapter is based on events recorded through the videos, audio-tapes and diary kept by Evelyn Arizpe to record her daughters’ bilingual language development and their relationship to books. While there have been case studies on the linguistic progress of young bilingual children and case studies of monolingual children’s developing literacy and relationship with literature through books, illustrations and stories, there have been no detailed observations of similar development in a bilingual household.
The case study highlights how the children’s responses to the complex interweaving of two languages through a trail of books and stories within a highly literate household supported and reflected their emotional development in the first 3 years of life.
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RESEARCH PUBLICATIONS
My paper ‘A father’s role in supporting his son’s developing awareness of self’ was published in 2007 (Routledge).
Abstract
This paper traces the relationship between a baby and his father over the first two years of his life. Based primarily in the intimate bath time setting, it describes father’s early containment and capacity to give his son space to explore his feelings of pleasure as well as fear and anger. The resultant early trust and support for later individuation contributes to the reciprocity shown in their bath play which illustrates the son’s growing self-containment, curiosity and empathy.
LEARN MORE
My “Feeding Observation: from Breast to Finger Food” is a chapter in Infant Observation edited by Frances Thomson-Salo (Karnac, 2014) . Frances Thomson-Salo writes:
Jane Blatt describes a two-year observation of a small boy’s journey from being breastfed at birth to self feeding. She evokes much of the “ordinary” learning experience of doing an infant observation, undertaken as a trainee in Scotland in the past decade. This chapter gives detailed observations of infant and mother, paying particular attention to subtle and possible unconscious communication integrated in the discussion with some developmental research. Blatt conveys the effect of detailed week-by-week observations and the use of the observer’s own responses in understanding the material showing well what is involved for an observer. The chapter also indicates the role of the father in supporting his son’s developing sense of self.