I have a Dutch friend who lives in Holland and whenever she comes to visit she always brings the kids a little something. She likes to buy Dutch ( we get a pack of Tupils every time, it's great, our garden looks wonderful) so this is how we ended up with a few Miffy books.

For those of you who are not familiar with Miffy, to quote an article, "Miffy is a small female rabbit in a series of picture books drawn and written by Dutch artistDick Bruna. The original Dutch name, Nijntje, is a shortening or diminutive of konijntje, "little rabbit. The first Miffy book was produced in 1955, and almost 30 others have followed. In total they have sold over 85 million copies, and inspired two separate television series as well as items such as clothes and toys featuring the character."

These books are great for quite small children as they have really simple but fun stories, are quite short so to keep the attention of a little one and also have lots of pictures and bright colours. In this story Miffy goes to the seaside and does all the things little kids love to do at the beach. She puts on her swimsuit, plays with a bucket and spade, finds some shells and takes a paddle in the sea.

I think the beauty about Miffy books is their simplicity. Miffy is a simply drawn rabbit as she is just white with not many features but she is instantly recognisable. In this book, the left hand page has some text and then the right hand page has an illustration about the text. The drawing is simple, for example when she has found some shells the drawing is just a collection of abstract shells coloured blue and orange, green and white, solid green, solid blue and solid orange, however it is a striking picture and very effective and its fun for me to be able to show my kids what shells look like.

The text is black and bold and easy to read and will be a great book when it comes time for my little three year old to start reading and recognising words. At the front of the book there is a spot to write your name as it says, "this book belongs to........." and its here my friend has signed it with the name of my kids. My friend got the English version of the book thankfully as I dan't read or speak Dutch and it is published by Egmont books and costs £4.99 in hardback.