Shhh! Don't wake the royal baby! by Martha Mumford

Ill. by Ada Grey. Bloomsbury, 2013. ISBN 9781408844632.
(Age: 4+) Warmly recommended. Picture book. Babies. Royalty. What a hoot! A royal family, looking very like Liz and Phil, with William and Kate all try in vain to get the new baby to sleep. Humour abounds as they try lots of different methods in getting the child to sleep, with each resulting in a very much awake baby. Finally the queen has had enough and treks off to her helicopter where she hopes the babe will sleep. But it does not, so with a Geronimo, she jumps out of the helicopter, a la OO7, leaping towards the landing spot near Buckingham Palace. And the baby falls asleep. All is well until a King (!) looking very Phil like, loudly congratulates his wife and wakes the baby. On it goes, all in the palace exhorted to be quiet, even the corgis, of which there are many.
Lots of fun will be had with this book. Discussions will centre around the monarchy and of course, William and Kate's new child and its place in the inheritance of the line, but also about the changes a baby causes in any household, and ways to get it to sleep, and how the family copes with a new member. A warm hearted well illustrated book with lots of laughs to be found in the drawings. Watch out for those floating corgis.
Fran Knight