When my son was just over a year old, I wanted to get him interested in books and reading as I thought this would help prepare him to start speaking if he got used to different words and sounds. He has so many books but every time I tried to read him one or get him to look at them he just wasn't interested. We were in the Early Learning Centre and noticed the 'That's not my .....' range. These are a set of 'touchy feely' books, published by Usbourne, which encourage very young children to look at books and participate by feeling the different textures. We had a look in the shop and he seemed to like them so I bought 'That's not my teddy' and 'That's not my elephant'. They are £5.99 each but they were on offer at 2 for £10.

These are square 'chunky' board books, which are bright and colourful with different textured materials on each page, for your child to touch. There are 6 different textures per book, and include things such as wool, velcro, and fur. The story is 'That's not my teddy, his paws are too woolly, that's not my teddy, his nose is too soft, etc' until you finish with 'That's my teddy...'.

This has worked really well as a starter book for my son. It has very simple sentences which when said in different voices make him laugh. It helped to develop his sensory skills as he got used to feeling different textures and the word that associates with it, and turning the pages of the book to get to the end page. As it is short it also helps to keep their attention for the whole book. For about 6 months these were his favourite books which he used to take off the bookcase every day to be read. He used to race to the last page and stroke 'my' teddy and go 'awwwwwww'. As he's got older (he's now nearly 2) he isn't as interested in these and has started to like looking at pictures in other books. He got 'That's not my reindeer' for Christmas and hasn't really looked at it.

I am really glad I bought these and think they are a fantastic introduction to books for very young children, or young children who haven't shown any interest into books yet.