Age 8
Grandma Bendy and the Great Snake Escape by Izy Penguin
We giggled our way through Grandma Bendy and the Great Snake Escape. As a snake lover my daughter particularly enjoyed this very funny story and the humorous pictures supporting the text made us laugh. It’s a very funny first chapter book to encourage independent reading.
Happy Birthday Old Bear by Jane Hissey
Happy Birthday Old Bear! Old Bear is celebrating his 30th birthday this year and Jane Hissey has written Happy Birthday Old Bear to commemorate the occasion. As huge Old Bear fans we’ve been eagerly awaiting this new story and we absolutely love it. Jane’s familiar playroom characters are joined by a new friend, Elsie, a very cute…
Zog and the Flying Doctors by Julia Donaldson & Axel Scheffler
Zog is one of my daughter’s favourite Julia Donaldson stories and she was delighted to find the newly published sequel, Zog and the Flying Doctors, at The Edinburgh Book Festival. We had tickets for Julia Donaldson and Axel Scheffler’s show which included watching Axel draw pictures of Zog and his friends plus characters from the new…
Otter Goes to School by Sam Garton
We were surprised when we heard that Otter was planning to be a teacher. Although it is a very enjoyable and fulfilling job, teaching can be stressful at times so we were eager to see how she would cope in the classroom.
School for Dads by Adam & Charlotte Guillain & Ada Grey
Very soon lots of children will be going back to school but what about their Dads? What happens when children need to teach their Dads how to behave?! We love this role reversal story which turns a familiar situation on its head in a way that children will identify with.
The illustrated Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone by J.K. Rowling & Jim Kay
How old were your children when they read Harry Potter for the first time? I read all the Harry Potter books as they came out but we weren’t sure when would be a good time to start reading them with our daughter. We started reading the new illustrated version of Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone…
One is Not A Pair by Katie Haworth & Britta Teckentrup
One Is Not A Pair is a great book for keeping a child occupied during a journey! The book invites you to peruse its beautifully illustrated double spreads to look for matching pairs before finding the one item on the page that doesn’t have a partner.
The Messy Book by Maudie Powell-Tuck & Richard Smythe
Cat and Dog, the main characters in The Messy Book make us laugh! A mess needs tidying but who will do it and how many excuses will be given before it gets done? Parents as well as children will identify with the situation in this amusing story and my daughter chortled her way through our first…
A Pandemonium of Parrots and other animals by Kate Baker & Hui Skipp
A Pandemonium of Parrots, a Conspiracy of Lemurs and a Bouquet of Hummingbirds. Did you know that there were such wonderful collective words for birds and animals? Thirteen different collective words for various creatures are included in this beautiful, non fiction, illustrated picture book which provided an enjoyable learning experience for me as well as my…
Story Snug’s ‘must-read’ authors for children up to age 10
‘The BBC’s list of must-read books for children places too much emphasis on “timeless classics” and risks tasking children with too much to do, BookTrust has warned.’
