Do these kids books exist anymore?

[mcgonagalscat]

When I was a kid (in the 90s) I had a number of books that taught words. I used to love them and they definitely helped me to learn to read. They're for upto school age, id say?

They had a picture in the middle of a double spread like or a hospital, or a school, or a farm etc, and down either side of the page were smaller pictures of what was in the bigger picture, like 'book' 'whiteboard' 'pen' etc with the words written underneath them, and you could find the small pics in the big pic.

Any ideas if they still exist?

Usborne Everyday Words looks like the type of book I think you are referring to.

My children are a little older now but they certainly had similar books and they are very useful and fun.

DD loved these so much. We had loads, some that had hidden clues to solve a puzzle. We also had ones in another language. Most of them were Usborne ones I think.

Hi, I know exactly the ones you mean. We have some old ones somewhere and my kids loved them when they were younger. I think they were Usbourne but I might be wrong. Try the Usbourne website and see if there are similar.

Ha-got beaten to it-took me too long to type!

Ah perfect thank you so much! My mum is convinced she never taught to read, but I could read well before school age and she puts it down to these books

Easy to get hold of a 1000 words book second hand. Been very popular with D.C. here (both DP and I remembered them fondly).

But also quite amusing to spot the dated things!

My kids loved the the busy town books. Some of them have all the objects labelled. Lots of funny things to spot.

Usborne First Thousand words (they do it as first 100 words too) I had it as a kid too, and in French. It has a duck on every page. I've got both for my kids as well. The Usborne 1001 things to spot books are a similar format too and good for learning to count by value and not rote.

BalanceGreen

That was one of DD's favourite pages. We used to talk about what was happening in the picture too, remember talking about kitchen safety. There was so much mileage in those books! Each page had a hidden duck too.
We had an ancient civilisations one, that was brilliant.

I loved the "First 1000 words" books too. Believe it or not, there's the first 1000 words in Latin, with words "invented" by the Vatican for modern objects!

There's lots of Mumsnet fodder in the pictures too. Why are they all wearing shoes in the house? I'm not sure if "toilet brush" appears in the little pictures. Many of the big pictures have some mortifying situation or other, such as dropping eggs in the supermarket, and everyone else turning to stare.

I've just had a look on Youtube at the newer edition of First Thousand Words in English. I'm glad to see it hasn't been watered down too much, and most of the funny things are still in, but here are a few things I remember from the old version that have been removed from the new one:

• Children holding sparklers at the party.
• Lion tamer with whip at the circus.
• There's no longer the person dropping eggs in the supermarket!
• "Gym shoes" are now "trainers".