At some point in time parents will inevitably leave their child(ren) with a baby sitter. This can be a rather emotional challenge not only for the parents, but for the child too, and most children will have a go at stopping their parents by hook-or-by-crook! This book is a must read for those of who can identify with this scenario!
"No Babysitters Allowed" is delightful picture storybook where we meet Hopscotch - a young rabbit. He's a really brave little rabbit, even taking a hairy spider back to it's home in the garden because Mum is scared to! However, there is one situation where he does not feel brave at all and that's when he has to be left with the babysitter. Mrs. Honeybunch is a lovely babysitter, wanting to play and read with Hopscotch, but he just wants his Mummy to look after him and his poorly "worried tummy". Mum and Dad finally leave for their night out, and Hopscotch sets up camp in his den with his faithful friend ‛Rabbity' guarding the entrance as there are "No Babysitters Allowed."
It is though very boring inside the camp all alone and Hopscotch's little ears prick up as he hears Mrs. Honeybunch reading stories to Rabbity, but she gets the stories in a terrible muddle - Hopscotch has just got to go and tell her the correct stories. He explodes from his camp to tell her the proper way the stories go and before too long they are having great fun doing all the things baby sitters are best at - building cars and painting pictures. By the time Mummy and Daddy arrive home, they find Hopscotch tucked up in bed, no sign of a worried tummy and he tells them that he'd really quite like Mrs. Honeybunch to come and play again.
My two girls (aged 3 and 5) thoroughly enjoyed this book, and thought that little Hopscotch was incredibly brave to be putting spiders outside and not crying when he fell off his tricycle! I would think that this book could be helpful to children who do struggle with settling if their parents leave them with babysitters as it has a reassuring note that although parents go out (occasionally) they do return home.
Laura Rankin provides beautiful, expressive illustrations to accompany the story, and they provide lots of talking points about emotions. My five year old daughter particularly picked up on the sign on the front cover which states "No babysitters allowed" and on the final page the sign on the camp is still there, but the word NO has been emphatically crossed out! We would recommend this book this book to both boys and girls.
RRP: £4.49 - Buy Now
