In the land of Bumbely Boo

 

 A good children book is only good as long as the grown-ups enjoy reading it with their kids.
I spent ages yawning and reading idiotic and mind mushing babies/toddler's books to my kids. They did the job: me and the kids fell asleep. I wasn't too much into napping with a book in my hand and a child in my lap and waking up with a neck ache. So I've put a stop to it.

I started searching around for smarter books that would make me and my kids laugh and talk.
 I rediscovered Dr Seuss, I read my first Julia Donaldson's book The Gruffalo  and finally came across Spike Milligan and never picked up a dull book again (that's the school's job).

Spike Milligan has written many books for children and grown ups again. His children books, very well qualify for highly amusing and entertaining for grown-ups as well. They are  delightfully funny, silly but wise.  I never fell asleep with one of his books in my hands and the  kids started appreciating the advantages of memorizing rhymes and delighting their aunties and friends with them.
Spike Milligan and his children, live in a wonderful land: the land of Bumbley Boo where they sell lemon pie at the zoo, they never wear clothes and never blow noses. Well not really - this is just a part of one of his rhymes and what my kids think. 


Spike Milligan's publishing career began over forty years ago when Silly Verse for Kids was published in 1959. These poems were inspired by listening to his own children, and subsequently his grandchildren, and marveling at the way they could invent new words or incorporate sound effects into their everyday language. 
Spike did not regard children as small adults, but as entirely different species who lived in a secret, magical world that very few adults understood. 
For decades he dived into this world, delighting children - and adults - of all ages with his poems and stories. 
Silly Verse for Kids - thanks to this masterpiece my kids know now that the general of the army thought  "the war is barmy  so he thrown away his gun; now he's having so much fun" . 
They also learned to understand their granny, her life issues and the consequences of the weather a little better:

"Through every nook and every cranny
The wind blew in on poor old Granny
Around her knees, into each ear
(And up nose as well, I fear)

All through the night the wind grew worse
It nearly made the vicar curse
The top had fallen off the steeple
Just missing him (and other people)

It blew on man, it blew on beast
It blew on nun, it blew on priest
It blew the wig off Auntie Fanny-
But most of all, it blew on Granny! " 

Children's Treasury of Milligan,  regardless of your age, will raise your spirits in the long winter nights, or keep you happily amused while lying on that beach. It has rhymes and some stories with hidden ironies that only a bigger child will get, however the kids like them anyway and little by little they start to get the joke from as early as the age of  2 : "Today I saw a little worm, wriggling on its belly. Perhaps he'd like to come inside and see whats on the telly'".  I can't think of a better collection of poems to help children hear, understand and appreciate humor within poetry. 

More highly recommended titles from Spike Milligan: 

Mini Milligan Collection: " Silly Verse for Kids " , " Book of Milliganimals " , " Unspun Socks from a Chicken's Laundry " (Puffin Books) 

Badjelly the Witch - charming fairy tale which has delighted my children for many years. This book  is copiously illustrated with Spike Milligan's own drawings which have been specially adapted and beautifully hand coloured. 

Magical World of Milligan -  is a sparkly new children's compendium that gathers together a grand selection of Milligan favourites, including such delightful poems and stories as 'On the Ning Nang Nong', 'The Terrible Monster Jelly' and lots of Twits.