by Tracey on 02 Feb 2012
Penguin Books South Africa recently spoke to bestselling author, Megan Faure, whose essential parenting guide, Your Sensory Baby, was published in Afrikaans as Jou nuwe baba last month.
Faure, an Occupational Therapist and founder of Baby Sense, reveals the inspiration behind her books, saying she loves knowing that they “make a mom’s life easier”:
What, or who, inspired you to write this book?
I would have to say my children, James (13), Alexandra (11) and Emily (6). I had studied infants’ neurological development and treated babies but until I had my own I had no idea how hard being a mom would be. James was a challenge as a little baby and I really needed to understand why he was crying and how to settle him and get him to sleep well. By the time Alex came along, I really had a firm grasp of soothing techniques and establishing good sleep habits. I wanted to share this knowledge. My books are based on both my studies into infant behaviour and practical experience as a therapist and mom. I love knowing that my books make a mom’s life easier, because there truly is no harder or more important work in the world than being a parent.
My earliest memory is…
Of a family dinner at my grandparents’ home. I remember being allowed a Coke and drinking it straight out of the little glass bottle – this was such a treat. My grandmother used to ring the bell for dinner to be served and we felt terribly grown up.
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by Karin on 30 Jan 2012
The narrator of The Lacuna (Barbara Kingsolver) sheepishly admits to the character of Leo Tolstoy that he is writing a novel. “It’s nothing that will liberate the people,” he says.
Tolstoy replies: “A novel! Why do you say this won’t liberate anyone? Where does a man go to be free, whether he is poor or rich or even in prison? To Dostoyevsky! To Gogol!”
It’s an imagined conversation, but Tolstoy’s exclamation rings true to the character Kingsolver has created.
The novel, that oft-denigrated – but tenacious – genre; when will people stop looking down their noses at it? When will they acknowledge that it creates a safe space for slipping sideways from our own confining lives and that that is a good thing?
Whenever someone tells me in sniffy tones that they can’t be bothered with fiction, I have to bite my tongue just a little, as I often must when I encounter other examples of dense arrogance.
There’s no doubt that personal reading history, psychic developmental leaps, personal taste, age and perhaps even (I say this gingerly) gender, all colour people’s reading preferences. I am more partial to fiction than to non-fiction in general, but at times I tire of what fiction offers and find my reading needs more adequately met by non-fiction.
Usually my needs are met by variety. So, while I’ve been reading The Lacuna, I’ve also been consulting a very old book of mine on Frida Kahlo (Kingsolver’s novel is about Kahlo and her communist artist husband Diego Riviera), called Kahlo (by Andrea Kettenmann and published by Taschen), as well as the thorough Reader’s Digest Facts at your Fingertips (because I needed to remind myself of Russia’s leaders in the twentieth century). This last is faster and more reliable than Google.
Before The Lacuna I was swept like so many millions around the world into Téa Obreht’s Orange Prize-winning The Tiger’s Wife, where the shards of magic dazzle in the blanket weave of a rich and eloquent modern fable.
My books seem to have a travelling pattern: the novel is intrepid, travelling everywhere with me in my handbag or the crook of my arm – a charm against wasted reading time and boredom (all that waiting around in cars and queues when I could be reading). There’s only ever one novel on the go.
Non-fiction is more domesticated, but more restless, staying home but shifting between the rooms of the house and places I sit (or stand – I sometimes read while stirring pots). Currently there are two of them open and face-down in various convenient places, the most compelling being All About Love, by Lisa Appignanesi (Virago), a magisterial, humane and astoundingly researched work, girded and bolstered by Appigananesi’s intelligent, brawny prose.
The other one arrived in the post one day in December: a gift from a male friend of mine who has a son the same – rather spiky – age as my own pre-pubescent son. We’d been talking about their odd mood swings, intermittent testosteronal surges that flop into poignant moments of hold-me-I’m-just-a-little-boy.
My son was next to me when I opened the unexpected package: Raising Boys by Australian psychologist Steve Biddulph. He raised a sceptical eyebrow and said: “Not every answer can be found in books, you know.”
He’s right of course. Neither fiction nor non-fiction have The Answer to everything, maybe even to anything. They just offer varieties of options, little soupçons of possibilities, and – if we’re lucky –clumps of truths that will never be ours, but settle, as only truth can, in the corners of the heart. If you have a mind at all you will absorb, digest and reject everything you’ve ever read in the lifetime’s span of reading. And found your own answers.
Speaking of my son: he is the fussiest of readers. When he can’t find anything by one of his favourite authors he mopes around complaining about the dearth of reading material and refusing to be to be drawn down unexplored reading avenues. He has his own mysterious reading road map.
For months, while waiting for the next Rick Riordan novel to come out and make him happy for the two days in which he disappears from this world into Percy Jackson’s, I have been trying to get him to read Bill Bryson’s Neither Here Nor There.
He refused on the grounds that it’s not fiction and (this one unspoken) it is recommended by his mother – whose general intelligence he is currently regularly questioning.
Yesterday he flumped into my office, barely able to speak from laughing. “Mom! Mom! Listen to this…” and he read me a paragraph from Neither Here Nor There.
Either his desperation for something to read, or a moment of weakness in his will to resist me and non-fiction, had brought him around finally.
And so begins, I hope, a new relationship with a new genre for one ardent reader. – Schimke is a poet, author and columnist, and the editor of the Cape Times books pages.
by Tracey on 19 Jan 2012
Bekommer jy jou oor hoekom jou baba huil? Kry jy nie genoeg slaap nie? Geen tyd vir jouself nie?
Jou nuwe baba wys vir jou dat die oplossing vir al hierdie probleme, en baie ander, geleë is in jou begrip van jou baba se liggaamstaal en seine.
Jy kan hierdie kennis gebruik om ‘n buigsame roetine te skep wat om jou baba se behoeftes wentel en waardeur jy ‘n plooibare skedule tot stand bring wat jou kind sal help om rustig en moeiteloos te slaap en kalm te wees wanneer hy of sy wakker is.
- Leer hoe om ‘n baba-sentriese roetine te skep sodat jy nie spook om jou baba aan die slaap te kry wanneer hy of sy wakker is en wil speel nie
- Verstaan jou baba se sintuie sodat jy oorstimulasie verhoed – ‘n belangrike oorsaak van koliek
- Bekom uiters waardevolle raad en gerusstelling by dietopverkoperouteur, moeder en arbeidsterapeut, Megan Faure
Jou nuwe baba bied die sleutel tot jou baba se tevredenheid en slaap deur jou te leer om sy sensoriese wêreld en tekens te verstaan.
Boekbesonderhede
by Claire on 03 Nov 2011
Written in the style of a bygone era, Don’ts for Mothers is full of sage and pithy advice that remains surprisingly relevant. Yet it is also very amusing and provides wonderful insight into being a mother a year before the onset of the First World War.
It features priceless advice such as: “Don’t wash the baby in hot water, it would weaken and enervate the babe, and thus predispose him to disease. Luke warm rain water will be the best to wash him with.” And – “Don’t add either gin or oil of peppermint to the babe’s food. It is a murderous practice”.
Published as an elegant, small hardcover edition, this volume is the perfect gift for new (and old) mothers alike.
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by Amanda on 29 Sep 2011
500 Baby and Toddler Foods by Beverley Glock is packed full of delicious recipes and useful advice for your newly weaned baby. It helps to make the transition from mother’s milk to solid food as seamless and enjoyable as possible for both baby and parent. By starting slowly and introducing a wide variety of foods to your child’s diet, it will hopefully ensure a lifelong love of food.
This comprehensive compendium will aid and inspire you to make your own ‘ready meals’ to give your child the variety of foods that he or she needs to stay healthy. The book is divided into the different stages of development so that parents can follow the growth of their child and match recipes to suit their development needs.
Within each chapter are a variety of foods and recipe ideas for specific mealtimes, situations, and occasions. Recipes for special dietary requirements to aid parents whose children have intolerances, allergies, or nutritional deficiencies are also included, as are practical suggestions for the storage of each recipe.
Contents: Introduction, Baby’s first foods, Moving forward, Pre-toddler, Toddler foods, Index
About the author
Beverley Glock is a regular food writer for parenting websites and magazines. She launched the Splat Cooking Parties concept in the United Kingdom in 2001 following a request from her daughter for a birthday cooking party. Beverley lives with husband Peter and three children, who regularly star in her cookery features.
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