How to Win a Monster Race by Caryl Hart and Ed Eaves (Simon and Schuster Children's Books)

The Albie stories are utterly fantastic, celebrating the wondrous and colourful imagination of a little boy in a ton of inventive ways. We always love to see a new "Albie" book and it's lovely to see such huge enthusiasm for Caryl Hart and Ed Eaves series on Twitter and Facebook.

We're now at book six! WOW! You think by now Caryl and Ed might be running out of ideas, but nope, here's another dazzling story and we really love this one for tons of reasons. 1) Monsters 2) Funky vehicles and 3) A really fab story of friendship and sportsmanship. So let's dive in.

Albie finds himself at the car wash with mum and as mum feeds the money into the machine, the car wash bumps into life - taking Albie and the car with it! EEEKS! Amongst the suds and soap, the jets and blow dryers Albie embarks on a new adventure as a monstrous pit crew change mum's runabout into a mean lean racing machine ready to enter The Great Monster Race. Albie lines up at the starting gate with the other monsters, but one monster is determined to win at all costs! Can Albie dig deep and not only win the race but win a few new friends along the way?

The moment we opened this book we knew we were going to be reading it several times through in quick succession. Caryl's storytelling is exciting and vibrant and Ed's inventive monsters and their fantastic outrageous rides really make this yet another surefire winner for fans of the Albie series (we particularly loved that there was a girl monster in there too, hooray!)

Washing the car will never seem the same again!

Charlotte's best bit: Trying to pick a favourite car and racer (she loved the girl monster's sleek racing car but booed loudly when she was forced off the road by a meanie in a monster truck!)

Daddy's Favourite bit: A fabulous furry freaky monster tale that will get your engines revving (and you'll definitely want to do a victory lap and read this one all over again once you've reached the finish line!)

(Kindly sent to us for review by Simon and Schuster Children's Books)