Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What do you See? is a colourful first book for babies, a great book for a beginner reader and I have also read the English version many times to non native English speaking children.…
We’ve been reading another great picture book to prepare a child for starting school – Whiffy Wilson The Wolf who wouldn’t go to School. I love the humorous approach that Caryl Hart has added to a familiar situation and she has created a wonderfully supportive friend, Dotty, who helps to ensure that Wilson has lots of fun on his first day at school.…
The Night Pirates has a crew of girl pirates who ingeniously outsmart a crew of grown up pirates and steal their treasure. This swashbuckling adventure is fun to read and overturns traditionally stereotypical pirate roles. It is a celebration of girl power (with help from a little lad, Tom).…
The Story: Gerald the giraffe has thin legs and crooked knees. At the Annual Jungle Dance he watches the other animals dancing but when he tries to dance they laugh at him. Gerald leaves the dance and meets a friendly cricket who advises him to listen to the sounds of nature and follow his own rhythm.…
“What were the first books that your daughter enjoyed?” asked a friend of mine last week. Without doubt my daughter loved The Wheels on the Bus and Old Macdonald had a Farm, classic rhymes told in board books with holes. They are sturdy, small enough for little hands and the lovely bright, colourful illustrations provide lots of stimulus for discussion.…
If you are planning a holiday that combines planes and small children I recommend this colourful, non fiction picture book to introduce the experience of flying. We bought it for our daughter (who first flew at the age of four months) and its bold, bright pictures and easy to read, simple rhyming text were an immediate hit.…
The Story: There once was a duck who had the bad luck to live with a lazy old farmer. The duck did the work. The farmer stayed all day in bed. Poor Duck. He is so tired, and fed up that the other animals make a plan to get rid of the lazy old farmer once and for all and take over the farm themselves.…
The Story: A little girl and her mother make some paper dolls. The dolls sing and dance as they meet a dinosaur, a tiger and a crocodile before a boy with a pair of scissors comes along. He cuts them up into tiny pieces but the paper dolls reform in the little girl’s memory.…
We love a bit of nonsense in our house so UPSYDOWN TOWN is very well read! It isn’t really a story, just a lovely nonsensical description of a land where everything is a bit topsy turvy. Fun elements include fish and various other animals flying in the sky, birds swimming in the sea, thin elephants, trains driven by walruses and planes piloted by chickens.…
I was sad to hear of Jan Ormerod’s death last week, her books have given pleasure to me and to many readers over the years. One of our favourite books, written by Jan Ormerod and Lindsey Gardiner, is Doing the Animal Bop.…