"This is an excellent baby food book covering everything from the basics right up to gourmet. The recipes are grouped into common sense chapters such as first foods, everyday meals and one called missy independent. This makes it easy to find the starting point that is right for your baby.

The concept is to introduce a wide range of 'real' foods using fresh ingredients and no added sugar or salt.

"Finger Foods for Babies And Toddlers is a colourful, easy to read book for parents of those little ones who have moved passed mushy foods and into the realm of semi-adult eating.

Jennie Maizels knows all to well the trials of trying to get a toddler to eat healthily so she devised fun, colourful recipes to encourage her daughter Millie to partake.

All the staples are there such as Eggy Bread, meatballs etc but what makes this book interesting is the fact that she includes recipes for all the foods we adults like to eat too, only in toddler versions.

"A clear concise & well-written guide to the murky best-concealed underworld of your babies bodily functions.

Alison Mackonochie gets her points across remarkably well with the aid of both pictures & real-life examples.

She makes the point that each child is an individual & that there is therefore no hard and fast method of achieiving success unless your child feels the same so do not get despondent as most parents will have been through the same scenario.

"Health visitor and journalist June Thompson's book has much to recommend it. Claimed as 'the complete guide to caring for your child's skin', it contains a directory of infectious rashes with symbols, photographs, lists of symptoms, guidelines for treatment using conventional and alternative remedies.

It is undoubtedly useful for parents wishing to confirm the cause of a mystery rash or mark on their child's skin. I found the sections on alternative treatments interesting and useful, as approaches from several disciplines (herbalism, homeopathy, aromatherapy, for example) were included.

However, although most of the information and advice is easy to follow, the language used can be complex with medical jargon making an occasional appearance.

The photographs provide a helpful aid, but advanced or extreme cases are usually shown - this could worry the parent unnecessarily! Therefore it would be useful to see a small range of rashes for each condition to help early identification, rather than just show the worst case scenario. Also, I was surprised to find minimal information about heat rash and only one example of skin irritation caused by allergy. More details and several photographs would be useful for the many readers considering these common causes of skin rash.

'Spots, Birthmarks and Rashes' is an easy-to-use guide but has some limitations, and with that in mind I would recommend it as a basic reference to be used in conjunction with a more definitive text."

Charlotte

www.amazon.co.uk

"Oh no!", I said to my partner when this book arrived for me to review. The words on the front cover - "How a woman's diet can protect her child from disease in later life". I thought it's a bit late for me to be reading a book like this with a 16 month boy running round the house!! Not to be deterred, I settled down for the read.

The book shows how poor nutrition in the womb, the food a mother eats before and during her pregnancy, and the choice and variety of foods given to a child until they are 3 can protect against heart disease, diabetes and strokes.

Supported by the British Heart Foundation, this book details case studies, defines a balanced diet, how to achieve this diet, gives cultural differences and there reasons.

Although very scientific at times (definitely a book to be read in peace and quiet!), this book is very informative and I can see now how it is useful to parents that already have children as well as those expecting and definitely for those planning children. If someone can offer a way that us parents/parents can try and ensure a healthy start and a healthier future for our children who am I to argue!!!!!!!!

Lisa

www.amazon.co.uk

"This is a self help style book that contains practical advice for parents on certain types of behaviour from their children. I would say it is aimed at parents of school age children, 5 years onwards.

In individual chapters the book looks at one particular problem, for example, a child who cannot be bothered, a child with low self esteem, helping the child who doesn't want to grow up.

Each chapter gives one or two case studies and a description of how the parents helped the child become "motivated".

It then gives a summary of bullet point suggestions and practical advice on how to make a difference to the type of behaviour in question. The bullet points were much more readable than the case studies which tended to be a bit long-winded!

The final three chapters concentrate on more general matters such as social and organisations skills, and more interestingly, rewards, bribes and incentives (that's more like it!).

I thought a lot of the advice was common-sense - something I know we are not all blessed with. But now I have a copy, who knows, I might just dip into it as my children grow up."

Clare

www.amazon.co.uk