The perfect children's book doesn't exis....

In praise of Miffy, the sweetest little bunny books

For me, the most meaningful gift for a baby is a book. One of my favourite things to do is to compile a ‘baby’s first library’ where I curate a list based on factors such as what I know about the parents and where the baby is being brought up. And my go-to book for every library a Miffy book.

The Miffy character and first picturebook was created in 1955 by Dutch artist/designer, Dick Bruna. It started like all the best things start, with a story, specifically a bedtime story for his son about a rabbit they had seen earlier that day.

I first came across Miffy in 1985 when we briefly lived in Amsterdam. Although I can’t remember what exactly what I most loved about the books or which were my favourites, I do remember having an overall good feeling about the stories and the characters. After that, back in South Africa, my mom began to buy Miffy books to use in her speech therapy sessions. She kept them all and when my son was born she gifted them to us. We read them to him from a very young age, but they really come into their own when he was between 18 months and two years. His favourite was Miffy goes flying. We read it so much that we even adapted the story by changing the ‘uncle’ character to a grandpa. By the time my daughter came along, we were all Miffy fans, but she loved the books more than all of us combined.

My mom explained to me why they are such brilliant books from a speech therapist point of view:

• simple drawings

• one concept or idea per page

• straightforward dialogue

• concise and compact story

I am so grateful for these darling books and their timeless appeal.