I am buying this book again, to take to a friend's 3-year old in America: I wanted something atmospheric, typically English, but with a real feel of childhood, and this is it. It's one of the favourites from when my own daughter was the same age and this ranked up there alongside The Tiger who Came to Tea, Mog, and Maisie Middleton. Some books are just meant to be be read aloud and pored over together, and this is one of them. The pictures are gorgeous - especially the one of all the back gardens backing onto one another: we spent hours playing 'and now can you find...?' on that page. The poems are simple but lyrical - a joy to read aloud, and a wonderful introduction to non-prose for toddlers. This book is a classic and there's far more to it than a bunch of poems.