My daughter is only 11 months old but I think my love of books has rubbed off on her. I did read my own books out loud when I was pregnant as I was told this leads to your children enjoying books so maybe that worked!

Calm down Boris is an amazing book brought as a present by grandparents, winner of the Richard and Judy's best book for children back at Christmas 2006. I had heard about this book and had actually said I wanted it for my daughter once she was old enough to be interested in it.

It is a novel children's book that has a brightly coloured monster on the front page (not a scary one!) that is a hand puppet. You put your hand in it via the back of the book, probably using your fingers for the top of his mouth and your thumb for the bottom like I do. The mouth is fluffy orange on the outside, bright pink on the inside and has a flat red felt fabric tongue.
The instructions on the back are
- stick your hand in here to move Boris's mouth
-turn your hand to wriggle his jaws about
-don't forget to put on your best monster voice!
The book is very short, only 4 pages for you or your child to turn. This is the only downside I can say about this product it can be very quick to read! The pages themselves are very thick and sturdy making it easy for little ones to turn the page and means they don't get bent or torn.

The story centres around a lovable monster that gets carried away...
Boris is going to the park with you, you help him get ready, have fun at the park eating and playing, however the smaller monsters feel Boris is too big and loud, a dog jumps the fence and starts barking. Boris saves the day by trying the kiss the dog and the dog runs away, all the little monsters then want to celebrate saying hoorah for Boris and giving him kisses.
I love the fact that the story allows the children to get invoived not just sit there listening but doing actions such as brushing Boris's hair or feeding him. At the end of each page Boris starts kissing you uncontrollably saying kissy kisssy and the child is to say calm down Boris it tickles, it really makes my daughter goggle. The words and story are simple so not only can the child probably learn the words off by heart but when they are able to read I can see them telling this story to younger siblings.

Current selling price is approx £5.49 (at Amazon, used are available at considerably less!)

If you like this book you'll probably like the variations on it like 'Wendy the wide mothered frog', 'you're not so scary, Sid!' and 'Hello Dudley'