Welcome to West Wallaby Street (Aardman / Simon and Schuster Children's Books)

As long-time devotees of Aardman Animations, and of course Wallace and Gromit, this was an interesting find in the local library. It's a fairly rare book now (take your chances on ebay or Amazon resellers if you want a copy) but it's an essential purchase for anyone completely in love with the world of Wallace and Gromit, and the insanity that prevails around 62 West Wallaby Street.

Rather than just lift images straight from the animated shorts and films, the creators of the book (merely listed as 'Aardman') have produced a set of warm, cuddly and thoroughly detailed illustrated panels for each page.

It's like a miniature history of the Wallace and Gromit 'films' in that everything you've seen before makes an appearance in the book at some point, even some of the more recent (actually now nearly ten years old) shorts made for Cracking Contraptions.

It's extremely difficult to read this out to your youngsters without wanting to slip into Peter Sallis' squeaky Yorkshire accent, but it's a lovely book and if you ever spot it in a secondhand book store or at a car boot sale, grab it with both hands.

Charlotte's best bit: The robot that says "knickers"

Daddy's favourite bit: The running joke with the cheese-stealing mice

Rating: 4 out of 5 stars