Book du jour - source material

The red leather photo album was carefully compiled by my mother for my first Christmas. It is nearly full, with photos up until we left for Canada when I was nearly 4 years old.

 The photos at 3, 5, 7 weeks - and others up to the point of presentation of the book, as it were - are captioned in careful calligraphy -

A labour of love, nothing less.

I'll scan in some of these photos, and use the child's eyes for the second "eyes" book. A new bit of research, seen in the Sunday paper, lies behind this still-evolving idea.

Young children think they're invisible when they close their eyes, and even that if they're not looking at a person, that person can't see them. But it seems that children realise that people can see their body - however, unless they meet the person's gaze, their "self" is not visible to that person.

What an amazing idea. I'm almost unable to take this in. It'll make a book - but do I really know what I want to do with it? It can't be just a repeat of the "three generations" book, with a different title.