Survey Says...

While looking for nursery rhymes we have seen that Korean rhymes are interactive and have lots of animation in terms of actions and words to be shouted. Japanese rhymes are quite beautiful and tend to be about food or nature. It got us thinking - what are nursery rhymes like where you live? If you have a few minutes please take our very short survey: Thanks!

Small World Books Survey

Korean nursery rhymes

Spent a few hours with Korean friends having their nursery rhyme book translated for me. Such beautiful rhymes. Unlike the mother goose variety, Korean nursery rhymes are 'never gruesome, only ever beautiful,' they told me. Nursery rhymes weren't sung to children fifty years ago in Korea, it's a relatively new tradition but these days parents are devoted to educating their children, especially in the English language. Pregnant mothers in Korea are likely to play English songs to their children while they are in their tummies!

There's a lot of words that describe sounds in Korean nursery rhymes and they are very interactive for the children. So interesting that a baby cries 'ning ning' in Korean but 'wah wah' in English. Likewise the sounds of cows, ducks etc - I wonder if in real life the animals in Korea have a Korean voice and the animals in New Zealand have a New Zealand voice!

Thank you Paul and Yvonne for your kindness :o)

Making Books Accessible for Tiny Hands!

It's quite hard to keep bookshelves looking tidy - as is evident from the 'Around the World in 100 Bookshelves' feature on the wonderful www.papertigers.org blog. It's nice to see other people have a hard time keeping them neat too! This one by Addy and Elly (2.5 yrs and 10 months) from Marlborough, UK, is great - children are much more likely to want to choose books when they can see their covers rather than just the spines.