Don't believe the hype! And especially don't believe other parents. Young kids, I'm here to tell you, are a waste of time. Yes they are. But lest my own kids one day read this review I ought to specify: young kids are a waste of surfing time.

Yeah, they're fun, bring a wry smile once in while, but there's no avoiding the awkward temporal truth. No amount of feel good slogans spoken by family and friends will make it otherwise, and no amount of wily self deception will alter the fact that as you sit there watching yet another damn episode of In The Night Garden the surf is inexorably rumbling along without you.

So what are you gonna do?

Otford surfer and mother Fern Levack – who may or may not share my opening thoughts - has worked out an answer. She's the author and artist of new children's book Aloha to Zen, an A to Z excursion down surfing's historical and cultural road. The book is comprised of twenty six double-page spreads each with hand drawn sketches of surfing paraphernalia, people, and ideas. Open the book to find Alaias, atoll, aerial, then turn the page for boardshorts, balsa, barelled and so on down the alphabet to Z (zinc, zen, zooplankton).

The sketches are warm pencil on paper offerings with an Earth first bent and frequent nods to surfing curios and trivia. Sean Doherty provides a witty, circular foreword while the back of the book features comic outtakes; doodles from an artist with surfing on the brain.

It's a great book for teaching the little people speech and alliteration, and certainly better than sitting in front of the box watching Jimmy Giggle or Makka Pakka for the 300th time. Yet the best thing about Aloha to Zen is preparing your young kids for the moment when they come of age, when they take an interest in your interest and join you at the beach. And that, my good friends, will be time well spent.

Aloha to Zen website