Mon Petit Busy Day, a huge board book that deserves more

Board books are awesome. Having said that, not all board books are created equal and determining if it’s the right one for your little soon-to-be reader requires some thought. Is the content too simple, are the pages too busy, are the pages too small or are the interactive features in the board book not sturdy enough? Mon Petit Busy Day is an oversized board book by Annette Tamarkin on Little Simon that has a lot going for it, but might fall between the cracks for other parents too.

The first thing you’ll notice about Mon Petit Busy Day is its size. This is a huge board book. It’s utterly massive, yet despite its size the pages will still be able to be turned by very small hands. Those readers might even have to put the book between their legs while they look at the pages. When you first open the book you’ll be assaulted by the large illustrations, most of which are interactive elements.

For example the first two pages are a blue pencil that opens up. The text on the page asks readers if they can draw the lines and curves that are shown when the pencil is opened. On the opposing page is a large red backpack with 10 flaps inside it. Once you open up the flaps you’ll find shapes and colors that babies will laugh themselves silly over.

Mon Petit Busy Day is the stuff that pre-K audiences will love. Adults might wonder why the book is called Mon Petit Busy Day when the entire book is in English with nary any French to be seen. Sacre bleu! However, if you’re exclusively down for a board book that is all English that won’t be a concern to you.  The flaps in the book are good, but they’re not great. Granted board books are not supposed to be indestructible; but the size and scope of Mon Petit Busy Day implied that the flaps would be as impressive and they are not.

If the average one year old had the book the flaps inside the board pages would last a month or two if you’re lucky. If the book is exclusively used as a read-along book then it’ll last much longer. We said that with many of our children’s board books, but then they’ll want to see it by themselves, you’ll fall asleep while reading it to them and you’ll wake up with board pages and a couple flaps on your chest when you wake up.

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