Baby book review: Five Minutes’ Peace by Jill Murphy

Baby librarian Tilly and her mum Jen review the classic picture book Five Minutes’ Peace by Jill Murphy.

Tilly reviews Five Minutes’ Peace

This is quite a good book. It’s about a family of elephants, and I like elephants. I’ve seen them at the zoo and I can make a pretty good elephant sound (my duck sound is better but the elephant isn’t bad, if I do say so myself). In this book, the children elephants are charming and delightful. They all want to spend time with their mummy, whom they love very much. So they follow her into the bathroom and read her stories and play her music and bring her toys. They seem like very nice children. The mummy elephant says she wants five minutes’ peace from them, which I don’t understand. Spending time with your children is VERY peaceful.

Jen reviews Five Minutes’ Peace

That poor mother elephant. All she wants is five minutes alone to drink her cup of tea and eat a slice of cake! She tries to hide in the bathroom but to no avail — though I suspect she already knew it was a losing battle. Any parent of young children knows that bathroom privacy isn’t REALLY a thing. One day, you may poop in peace again. But that day is not today. This is a charming and lovely book that reaches the core desire of anyone spending the majority of their time with children: to be left alone, if only for a moment.

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