A is for apple, B is for bear, C is for cat – Z is for zzzzzzzzzzzz. New parent Joel Rickett and his friend Spencer Wilson, also father to a baby, found traditional ABC books too boring and unreflective of the busy lives of today’s toddlers and their parents, so they decided to write their own.

The result is H is for Hummus: A Modern Parent’s ABC, which includes such delights as B is for babyccino, C is for controlled crying, and Y is for yummy mummy.

“It’s like a hidden language,“ laughs Joel, 37, from North Finchley, “you only discover half of these concepts and brands when kids arrive in your life. That was what the inspiration for the book was, this whole new world opening up to you, it’s like a different universe.“

Joel and Spencer met while at school in Hemel Hempstead and have remained friends ever since, with Joel going on to become a publisher at Penguin and Spencer becoming an illustrator and working in advertising. Spencer now lives in Berkhamsted.

Joel reveals it was good fun coming up with the entries, the majority of which were inspired by life with his two daughters, Sophie, now six, and Esme, four, and Spencer’s girls Gracie, seven, and Isla, four.

“Every single phrase in the book is something they would come out with,“ says Joel, “or something we’ve seen them do. The K one, where the girl in the picture is dumping an entire bottle of ketchup on her plate, came because I was sitting there one lunchtime and Sophie did that, and I just went ‘Ah, K is for ketchup!’“

The book is, deliberately, a far cry from the sort of ABC book Joel and Spencer had as children. “When we were growing up, in the late ‘70s, we didn’t have half the choice our own kids do,“ says Joel, “they now have this incredibly exotic diet.

“They’ve got seven types of breakfast cereal, and Sophie said ‘Can I have granola and fresh fruit, Daddy?’!“

The book is already proving a hit amongst Joel’s friends who are also parents. “They’ve all said ‘This is ridiculous, it’s our life“, and he is already receiving suggestions for entries for future editions.

And what do Joel’s parents make of the book, so different to the ones they would have given him when he was little? “Oh they get all the references,“ Joel laughs. “I think they’re amused by the girls’ demands for highly pretentious foods, and they recognise the Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall and IKEA entries.

“They did have to ask what one was, though, the one that everybody loves, for when you basically have to prise an iPad out of your child’s cold, dead hands. An iPaddy.“

  • H is for Hummus is available now in Viking hardback. Details: modernABC.co.uk