Croc’s Cooking Day chosen by BookTrust!

I am absolutely over the moon that my novelty board book Croc's Cooking Day has been chosen by the brilliant BookTrust to be gifted to families with very young children as part of its BookStart programme this year. It's one of four books selected for the BookStart Toddler and BookStart Pre-schooler packs, chosen from almost 500 submissions from publishers!

The packs are distributed to families across England, Wales and Northern Ireland to help them enjoy reading, stories and rhymes together from the earliest years. BookStart Toddler and Pre-schooler packs reach more than 400,000 children, including one-third of all one to four-year-olds living in families on low incomes. This is helped by BookTrust's brilliant network of partners including health visiting teams, family hubs and nurseries. What an incredible privilege and honour to be included.

Last week I took part in a fascinating BookTrust webinar about this work. Research shows that shared reading with children from the earliest days gives them the best start in life. It strengthens family bonds, supports wellbeing, builds language and learning, and helps close gaps for children, especially those growing up in low-income households. A recent BookTrust survey showed more than half of parents and carers want more support to help their child spend time with books and stories. BookStart packs are one of the ways that BookTrust is making this happen.

Croc's Cooking Day is one of four books in my series of novelty board books Busy Chores for Little Paws. With the team at Little Tiger I've worked hard to ensure each novelty really earns its place in the pancake-making narrative with a cause and effect action that gives tiny readers real agency over the story telling as well as lots of fun. The series also reflects my passion for domestic life in children's books. The home is the whole world for many babies and toddlers and seeing it reflected in print is a way to make books immediately familiar and accessible.

Thank you so much BookTrust for choosing Croc's Cooking Day!