(Check out the Twitter hashtag #iheartbedtime for more brill reviews!)
There have been lots of happy discoveries since we first started blogging about books way back in 2010 but some authors and illustrators somehow manage to escape our notice, purely by accident. I can't quite believe we've never had the pleasure of reading a Clara Vulliamy book before now, but I'm happy to say we have now rectified that situation in the best possible way - taking a look at Clara's new "Martha and the Bunny Brothers" book "I Heart Bedtime".
As a supporter of our #ReadItMD13 Campaign, and one of the very nicest people you could possibly chat to on Twitter, we've been quite interested to see what her books are actually like so when we were lucky enough to be involved (in our own small way) with the launch of this book (launch day is TODAY by the way! Hooray!), the most exciting part was actually getting to finally read something we'd already heard so much about.
For the uninitiated (who, like us, need to become initiated pretty durned quickly!) Martha is the big bunny sister to the two busy little bunny brothers Monty and Pip. When Martha's best babysitter-from-next-door comes to look after the bunnies one evening, Martha is determined that Monty and Pip are going to snuggle down to bed so that she can spend some time with Grace-Next-Door before her own sleepy dreamtime.
What can you do when the bunny brothers are such busy (and mischievous) little scamps though? Perhaps a little song might help...?
Coming to the very latest of Clara's 'Martha and the Bunny Brothers' books without seeing the others, we can really appreciate the amount of work (and love) that has gone into putting together a nicely packed and very satisfying story that's not just perfect for bedtime, but for any time at all.
Of course, we are now on a mission - to catch up with Clara's other MBB books, and to also take a look at The Lucky Wish Mouse books and all the other wonderful characters this extremely talented lady comes up with.
Charlotte thinks she's an absolute superstar, not just because she chose the 'right' Disney Princess in our interview with her that you may have seen earlier in the week, but also because Clara made Charlotte her very own little bedtime 'Martha'.
Charlotte's best bit: Even though I did it utterly truly awful justice, Charlotte actually rather loved Martha's Bedtime Song (see a much much better version of it on Clara's website here!)
Daddy's favourite bit: I love the way the story is laid out and the really busy little details all throughout the book. A great intro for us to Clara's work, and definitely a book that's made us look forward to catching up with "I Heart School"
(Kindly sent to us for review by HarperCollins Children's Books)