Just So Stories

Walker Books Australia

• ISBN : 9781804661314
• Publisher : What on Earth Books
• Imprint : Walker Books Australia
• Publication date : 02 July 2025

RRP: $44.99

I’m going to be completely frank with you. The kind of people who were rushing out to buy the board books of the ilk of the Nuclear Physics for Babies type, made me shudder. I’m sure there were some who were buying them with a sense of humour, but one I knew personally was buying them because she wanted her weeks old baby to grow up to be Einstein – talk about pressure!

And at first I felt the same way about this. But there is no denying it is very attractively packaged and an adult could dip in and out of it, sharing snippets with a Small that would be both of interest and a learning experience for them. Dare I say that, for those Smalls, I think going out in a garden and picking peas or planting seeds , or going to a zoo to see a variety of animals, is a far more valuable and memorable experience than just reading about them?

However, let’s assume that not everybody can do such things. I would be seriously baffled by people reading this to newborns – aside from anything else it would weigh pretty much the same, and would be nasty if it fell on the bub. But for your active toddlers who might need a bit of ‘quiet’ time, to sit down with them and pick out some interesting pages – and hopefully, follow them up with real-life action (e.g. the cooking) would work really well.

Obviously, because it’s Brittanica you know it will be well researched and factual and the illustrations are rather cute in a retro kind of style. I’m giving it a 3 📖📖📖 and suggest it would work very well for 3 or 4 year olds.