Spring is definitely my favourite season. It's been sunny almost every day over the weeks here and my son enjoys playing outside a lot. Our eyes have been pleased by spring blooms in pink, yellow, white, and now in violet of wisterias and hyacinths in our garden.  In the lovely afternoons, I purposely take him for a walk so that he falls asleep on the stroller. If I succeed, I have a bit of me-time in this garden for one hour, more or less. So, I am writing this article in the sunny spring garden, hoping to finish it up before he wakes up, and remembered that I wanted to show you this Italian picture book titled NEL GIARDINO (IN THE GARDEN). We found this book during the past winter in the city library. He immediately loved it so much that he started to read it in the park on our way home. Does the image he is looking at reminds you of something? For me it looked like one of the paper-cutting artworks by Henri Matisse, or simply a pair of leaves or seaweeds in different colours. Th...

It’s June. Seasons go around and we are entering the summer again. As it already feels so hot to walk around the city during the day (how would I survive again this coming midsummer scorcher?), our daily “passeggiata” has been shifted to the riverside walk.   Fortunately, we live by the river and are surrounded by lots of greens that give us shelter from the reflected heat of the sun. So, during the day we go for a short walk in the woods along the river, and in the early morning or in the evening, if we feel like, go for an hourlong walk to the upstream crossing two bridges. I like walking on the bridges, especially the suspension bridge which was recently reopened several blocks up from our street. There is a panorama from the bridge in which we can spot some couples and flocks of birds (and even fish!), and cool air breezing up from the river. It’s really refreshing and I feel that the summer has come.  It’s been a while since I became a citizen of the world, and now I...

In my last post, I wrote that I would like to look for more books for babies. A few days later, I received a thoughtful gift for my son from a friend of mine whom I hadn’t seen for half a year. It was this cute sensory book printed in black, white and a touch of yellow only. What a nice choice! She wasn’t reading my blog, but she knew what I was looking for! On the cover, it was written that “stimoli visivi in bianco e nero (visual stimuli in black and white).” I was curious why, especially because I’d remember reading an article that vivid colours would usually be used for toys and books for toddlers. This is because it takes several months for new-borns to start recognizing different colours, and pastel colours are the last to be recognized.   However, I discovered that this book was actually suitable for new-borns who still don’t even see colours. According to another article I found today, illustrations in black and white have high contrast and thus can be recognized by ne...

I am excited about launching my very first personal blog to write about my lifelong passion: children's books with beautiful narratives and illustrations. They are works of art which open you, even grown-ups,  up to something you might not know or be aware of before. For this, I believe books can be one of the best gifts to give. Last week, I accompanied my husband to a little bookstore in our town to look for something to bring to our friend for his son's first birthday. Then, we both fell in love with this book about the moon and a little girl by Gianni Rodari, an Italian journalist, educator, and author of children's literature awarded the Hans Christian Andersen Medal in 1970.  The book was so beautiful that we ended up getting two copies; one for the birthday boy and the other for our son who was turning four months old on the day his fellow friend was celebrating his first birthday. A friend of mine once told me she would always buy her daughters books targeting a lit...