I was buying some books for a little person the other day. No, scratch that, considering one of my purchases was entitled Poo Bum, I was probably buying more for the dubious humour of said little one’s parents. Already being embarassed by them and she’s only a year old, poor thing.

But while browsing the aisle I made a great discovery. Do you want your child’s bookshelf to have the edge on his / her play date companions? Then how about getting them started on the classics early?

BabyLit books are bright board books that cover the kind of early years topics you might expect: numbers, colours, opposites and so on. But they draw upon a number of literary classics to do so, so Little Misses Austen and Brontë as well as Masters Dickens and Carroll are all represented, among others. And once little one has grappled with the concept of 4, as in the 4 proposals in Pride and Prejudice, they can be comforted by their very own Mr Darcy, who plays up to his reputation as a stuffed shirt very well here. Geddit?

Lesley Crooks, Sales & Digital Manager