Very Clever Baby / Freddy the Fish

From an interview with Garth Nix in the July 2000 issue of The Internet Writing Journal:

They [The Very Clever Baby Books] are little books that I first made back in 1988 as presents for some friends expecting babies, on the basis that all parents think their babies are geniuses. Each one is only 12 pages long and about the same size as a greeting card. Basically, they feature a character called Freddy the Fish and are supposed to be for "Very Clever Babies Aged 3-6 Months". Since no babies that age can read and the books have very big words like 'Ichthyologist' and 'Tetradontidae' it is surprising that some people don't get the joke. There are three at present, Very Clever Baby's First Reader, Very Clever Baby's Ben*Hur and Very Clever Baby's First Christmas. They are only published in Australia, by {{Publisher|Text Publishing}}, but I hope to find an American publisher with a suitable sense of humor one of these days.