Faces, by Macmillan

My 3 week old has this and he seems to love it - stares at it for ages and likes me to turn the page.

A friend recommended this book which she had bought her son at just four weeks old and he loves at 18 months.

What makes Faces so unusual is that it is completely in black and white with only a mirror on the first page to break this monochrome design. The book is only six pages long and is a cloth book that is padded with stuff that makes a crinkling noise when my daughter holds and scrunches the book. The book is put together very well with tight stitching and neatly sewn pages.

The pages feature a Mummy face, Daddy face and Baby face which are simply drawn, tiny babies love to look at faces and my daughter was no exception. From the very first look at the book she would focus on the faces and as she got a little older she would touch and stroke them. She likes giving the picture of the baby a kiss and laughs whenever she sees it which I think is lovely to watch.

There are also patterns in the book which I think are excellent, the high contrast between black and white always catches my daughters eye as soon as the book is uncovered in her toy box. The patterns are very basic and are interesting for babies, being constructed of straight lines and swirly designs to give babies something unusual and fun to look at. From the first time my daughter saw Faces when she was seven weeks old she enjoyed looking at the patterns and would stare at them while I held the book for her, as she got older and more mobile she would turn the pages herself and look at each face and pattern in turn.

She loves looking at herself so the mirror is probably the page she turns to the most, it is a good quality mirror which gives my daughter a true view of herself with no distortion. She seems to look at herself and then her eye is drawn to the swirling pattern around the mirror and now she's bigger she traces the pattern with her finger, all the time glancing back to the mirror as if to check she's still there!

Faces is very durable, my daughter has pushed it along the floor, chewed it and emptied a bottle of milk over it and it is still in fantastic condition. I've put it through the washing machine a few times and there has been no damage to the mirror and the pages are still in pristine condition. It has a velcro strap so it can attach it to the pushchair or car seat and my daughter can look at the book while we are out without the worry of losing it. The strap holds securely and it's only now that my daughter is one that she can actually tug it open but it rips apart so loudly that I can hear it and fasten it again before she slings it out of her pushchair.

I would definitely recommend it because it is a fun and interesting book that will help your child develop almost from birth.