This week's second book of the week is SO cool and hip, the fabulous story of a legendary singer - here's "Ella, Queen of Jazz" by Helen Hancocks...

This weeks chapter book of the week fulfils a hugely important role - that of a book that Charlotte can see herself in...

Imagine a whole library tucked inside a single book. You don't need to be a Time-Lord with some Tardis trickery for this one, just a pair of hugely talented book folk!

*Swoon* says Charlotte. "ARRGHH!" says me

And so it came to pass that we had to have the "Bad Guy" talk. Charlotte is a self-confessed Draco Malfoy groupie. There's just something about that floppy blond hair, that snarl, and those superb clothes that attracts her to this horrid character in the "Harry Potter" books.

I wanted to try and dig deeper into this. As a father, the very last thing you wanted to hear was that your daughter loved bad guys in books, and in movies too (yes, it's not just Draco, she also loves Kylo Ren - which, given a particular spoiler for Star Wars Episode 7, doesn't bode well for dear old dad later down the line).

The problem is that writers quite obviously love writing the bad guy / girl characters. It shines through from just about every page of "The Half Blood Prince" that J.K Rowling spent a lot more time dealing with Draco's thirst for vengeance and 'justice' as he saw it than she did dealing with Harry's slow but sure path to a final confrontation with Lord Voldemort.

Personally I've always enjoyed writing for characters such as these too, there's just something so addictive about living vicariously through the actions of a character creation who, for want of a better way of describing it, threw the moral code of ethics away with the bath water.

We had a fairly serious discussion about what boys like Draco, or men like Kylo Ren would treat you like - in the unlikely event that you became their chosen life partner. With a more serious side to a fairly jocular and non-serious conversation about fantasy characters, the one thing I really do feel I wanted to get across to her was that evil characters are fine and dandy in books or movies, but when you bring one home, you've got to be utterly realistic about what to expect.

In full dad mode, you know the mode dads get into where they feel it's their job - not their beloved daughters or son's job - to somehow try and give the best advice, perhaps even influence or (hate this) control who their kids see or befriend, you can really only handle things one way ultimately.

In the case of Draco, I pulled all the sections of the books we've read so far in the Harry Potter series where Draco was a complete and utter little sh*t, a spoilt brat, and eventually a malevolent and evil puppet to Lord Voldemort's machinations.

But of course Charlotte was even prepared for this. Even though we haven't read "The Deathly Hallows" yet (I'm still not sure if she's quite ready for that, it's pretty dark and possibly verges into YA territory more than the previous books in the series do) she had seen bits of the final scene in the movie which...

SPOILERS AHEAD! SPOILER KLAXON!

...shows Draco as an entirely reformed character, best buddies with Harry, seeing his kids off on the Hogwarts Express. (She hasn't read "The Cursed Child" yet, to see how Draco's offspring reverts to type a little bit). So she countered my observations about Draco basically not being boyfriend material by stating that he changed for the better.

It's at this point that I bow to the infinite wisdom of my wife who may be a lot more effective than me at pulling Charlotte to one side when the time comes to have a more serious talk about boyfriend material (hopefully in the dim and distant future when her middle grade crush on Malfoy has petered away to nothing). Though again, with mummy's obsession with Johnny from Dirty Dancing, in the words of the old old song, "There may be trouble ahead".

Time for more chapter book gorgeousness, and we're kicking off this month with a fantastic tale from Lorraine Gregory, clad in a particularly superb cover by Tom Mead.

"Mold and the Poison Plot" features a character whose nose is almost as big as their heart.

Mold is considered a bit of a freak (which seems rather cruel if you ask us!) His nose is as big as his body is puny and his mother abandoned him in a bin when he was a mere baby.
The story opens on a London street, as Alex, Zack, Jonny and Sophie are drawn together to solve a mystery.

Alex doesn't say much, and once jumped when handed a satsuma, but, wow, is he amazing with a deck of cards.
She's been picked to look after the class hamsters, Pickle and Pops, over the Easter holidays - AND her mum's taking her to Chocolate Land! BONUS!

Trouble is, the two things probably shouldn't mix...particularly when Daisy comes up with a great idea to make her day trip even more special. Oops!

Full of chocolatey goodness, and more laughs than you can cope with on a full stomach, "Daisy and the Trouble with Chocolate" by Kes Gray and Nick Sharratt is out now, published by Red Fox. 

A fabulous little cuddle-up title or two, just to show Grandad and Grandma how special they are? Yes indeed, that's a FABULOUS idea!

We've been impressed by the original Maze book, we've been wowed by the colouring book - now it's time to revisit the fantastic "Pierre the Maze Detective" in sticker book form...

It's springtime, and there's no better way to celebrate the sunny weather than by coming along to a truly mammoth children's literature festival.

The Barnes Children's Literature Festival is coming up on Saturday the 13th and Sunday the 14th May 2017 and you can now book tickets for the events through the festival's web site.

London’s largest dedicated children’s literature festival will be returning to south west London for the third year, and tickets are in demand, with some sessions already sold out! 

Photo (C) Becky Jeffries 2017

Photo (C) Liesel Brockl 2017

This is another beaut of a title from the "Draw and Discover" range by Yasmeen Ismail...time to explore our feelings...!It goes against everything we've always been taught about books but the fabulous Draw and Discover range from Laurence King / Yasmeen Ismail invite you to draw all over this fabulous book.

"Happy, Sad, Feeling Glad" is a wonderful doodle-along title helping children explore their feelings and emotions alongside a whole gang of endearing characters.

Sometimes Cat is sad. Sometimes puppy is happy, but you can help each friend in need with your awesome drawing skills and colouring prowess.

How? Well take a look at a couple of sample page spreads and you'll understand what we mean...

Oh dear, poor cat is gloomy. Can you help by drawing Cat a lovely colourful brolly?

Yasmeen's fantastically simple line art style gives you some pointers with each page spread, inviting you to finish off the image by drawing perhaps a fantastic umbrella for a very sad cat or even...

How about a lovely bunch of flowers for Donkey's birthday?

...some glorious flowers for Donkey's birthday treat!

Drawing and painting, colouring and doodling are always fun to do - better still when mum or dad can sit alongside and help out (which is often how things happen at home, I just can't resist 'assisting' Charlotte though I'm pretty sure she'd rather I didn't!)

Can you draw lots of bubbles and some slooshy water for a bathtime treat?

A thoroughly great idea and beautifully presented too.

"Happy, Sad, Feeling Glad" by Yasmeen Ismail is out now, published by Laurence King (kindly supplied for review).

New Frontier Publishing are putting their stamp on 2017 with a fantastic first year of brilliant, original and innovative children's titles arriving this year.

Oh dear, the mere presence of a selfie stick on the cover of this book will tell you all you need to know about the moggy character in this story...!

Our Chapter Book of the Week shows that even when you're an omnipotent and nefarious dark lord, things don't always go to plan when you meet someone FAR worse than you!

Our second picture book of the week is a real wow! Soar skywards with the fabulous Wright Brothers, Orville and Wilbur!

This week's stunning book of the week perfectly captures a fleeting moment in history that had a huge impact on so many young lives. The fabulous "Patrick and the President" by Ryan Tubridy and P.J. Lynch...

Massive Spoiler Alert. See what I did there?

I'll never forget where I was the first time I heard who Luke's father was in "The Empire Strikes Back" (watching "The Empire Strikes Back" in a cinema) or who killed Dumbledore in "Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince" (Reading the book a couple of hours after it was released - oh and ack, sorry for spoiling if you hadn't realised Dumbledore dies - you see how hard all this is?)

Spoilers are completely irritating, but not really a modern phenomenon. There were always kids at school who would gleefully ruin books, movies or TV given half the chance. Back before the Internet you could just about get away with protecting yourself from potential spoilers but now it's almost impossible unless A) you manage to live a hermit's existence in the middle of nowhere with no internet, no smart devices, and ensuring your only friends are moss-covered rocks (and you can't even trust those blighters) or B) You ship aboard the next flight to Mars thus ensuring you'll be gleefully far from caring about the plot lines of your new obsession being ruined by someone with a huge flapping gob.

I've often mused what drives spoiler-folk to do what they do. Is it that childish "I saw it first before you" thing? Is it that they actually derive more pleasure ruining something for someone else than enjoying that thing in the first place? Or are some people just massive twerps who could do with being locked in a piano before said piano is rolled down a few hundred flights of stairs in a dilapidated old 1970s brutalist tower block?

Or all of the above.

Alas on the blog we have fallen down the hole of accidental spoilage before now and it's actually very difficult to write a children's book blog without venturing into spoiler territory from time to time (and yes, I've personally been taken to task by someone who claimed one of our reviews completely ruined their enjoyment of a children's book - serious business, though I apologised profusely to the point of offering to pay for their copy of the book as some sort of compensation - I think they realised how potentially embarrassing that would be before cashing up though, thankfully).

Proper intentional spoiling though, that's an entirely different game. I innocently stumbled across the huge great big spoilers for both recent Star Wars films purely by minding my own bloody business on Twitter - only to have some hilarious pee-stain on legs blurt out said spoilers on a completely unconnected thread. The only way to be sure is not to nuke the site from orbit, it's to render your Twitter (Facebook, Google plus - hah like anyone uses that any more) account completely unusable until you've gone out to a midnight showing of said movie / tv show / new game and witnessed the spectacle unsullied for yourself.

Worse recently - I'd managed to somehow avoid finding out a particular plot thread for a new TV series I was into, more by luck than judgement - only to have a sci fi and fantasy site spoil said plot line IN THE HEADLINE OF AN ARTICLE CALLED "WHY WE HATE SPOILERS". GAH!

I have a theory about spoilerfolk. I think they carry that line of behaviour over into every aspect of their lives.

They're the person parked over the line in the only parking space available in the busy car park.

They're the person driving at 45mph down the middle lane of the motorway.

They're person who waits till the warm weather before having a stinky bonfire on a summer's evening, stinking everyone's houses out or ruining the fresh clean smell of their washing. They never ever flush the loo in public conveniences. They do not understand the concept of queuing. They will use their damned phone wherever they like, particularly in the cinema or loudly on public transport - and yes, you bet your sweet little A that they own a pair of bluetooth speakers they'll pair with the thing so you can enjoy their taste in music whether you like it or not.

They always smoke in the non smoking section, play ball in the 'no ball games' area, park in disabled or parent spaces despite being neither. Rules? Rules are for zeebs, not for the king and queen of spoilerville.

In short, the sort of joyless butthole that really has no business being allowed anywhere near movies, TV shows or indeed excellent books.

This one's a sheer delight, with a bit of history to it (which just makes us love it even more), Joyce Dunbar and Claire Fletcher's "Tibs the Post Office Cat"...

Another fantastic early years book for budding scientists, covering a huge range of amazing subjects. Let's delve in to "100 Steps for Science: Why it works and how it happened"

With a cover that draws you right in, let's take to the high seas in an adorable little ketch along with a thoughtful fisherman in Daniel Duncan's "South".

The brilliant "The Story Of" range from Frances Lincoln Children's Books now moves out into the stratosphere...

We've discussed the subtle art of the 'big twist' many times on this blog and here's a book that demonstrates that storytelling mechanism perfectly. Rob Hodgson's "The Cave".

Oh dear, poor little Flynn just wants to get to sleep in his brand new bed. But mum and dad aren't convinced...

"Oh no, another baby book!" wailed Charlotte as we unwrapped this one for review. But never, ever EVER judge a book by its cover, little one!

Wow! I can't believe it's Easter already. So what are you to do if you really don't fancy tucking into a stack of creme eggs, or if you're a bit 'meh' about Hot Cross Buns?

Well you can turn to books - so let's take a look at some glorious easter books from the archives (because, oddly, we really don't get sent that many Easter books any more!)

"The Easter Chick" by Geraldine Eischner with fab illustrations from Alexandra Junge is just the sort of book we make a bee-line for when it comes to looking for something decidedly different to go along with Easter time.

It's the hilarious story of a hen whose egg is a little bit 'different' - What's actually inside the shell?

And why won't it behave itself!

You'll have to hunt down a copy of this one to find out more, suffice to say that it's one of the funniest Easter books we've ever read.

"The Easter Chick" by Geraldine Eischner and Alexandra Junge is out now, published by North-South Books. 


Next, something that arrived on our doorstep earlier this year when we were just getting over Christmas - but is well worth a second look now Easter's finally here.

 Elys Dolan's fantastic "Mr Bunny's Chocolate Factory" features a rather pompous and slave-driving boss in the shape of Mr Bunny.

His loyal hen workers do their very best to lay as many eggs as possible, before painting them in a glorious assortment of colours.

Mr Bunny is very demanding though, and as he starts to increase production, banning time off and causing his poor chicken workforce to go on strike, it's soon clear that there's a better way to make a budding business.

Will Mr Bunny realise what a rotter he's been? It's a brilliant mix of Chicken Run and Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, served up with Elys' perfectly paced storytelling and fabulous illustrations.

"Mr Bunny's Chocolate Factory" is out now, published by Oxford Children's Books / OUP. 

We do love attractive board books and this next one is a corker!

"My Little World - Egg" from Little Tiger Kid is a beautiful little board book with a multi-layered surprise on every page.

Tactile and fun, board books are a fabulous way to get your little ones into reading and having fun with books at an early age.

Little Tiger's fantastic range is full of brilliant titles like "Egg". It's truly an eggs-citing eggs-scapade indeed.

"My Little World - Egg" is out now, published by Little Tiger Kids.





More egg-shaped fun, and more bunnies too!

"Rabbits Don't Lay Eggs" by Paula Metcalf and Cally Johnson-Isaacs is another brilliant little book for tinies who are just beginning to get into slightly longer stories with tons of fabulous illustrations.

Rupert the Rabbit is a little bit fed up with life in the burrow. He's a bit lonely and when he sees lots of animals having fun on a nearby farm, Rupert wants to join in himself.

A rather stern duck points out to Rupert that everyone on the farm has a role to play, and Rupert must find his own special skills in order to fit in - after all, a farm is no place for slackers!

Rupert comes up with a plan. Rabbits are experts at misappropriating the farmer's juicy vegetables, so Rupert soon wins the other animals over with his lapine thievery!

But the question all young children will want to answer is why rabbits don't lay eggs! We'll let you discover what happens in this tale when Rupert tries...!
"Rabbits Don't Lay Eggs" by Paula Metcalf and Cally Johnson Isaacs is out now, published by Macmillan Children's Books. 

The late great Eric Hill's "Spot" works are just so fantastic that we couldn't possibly miss them out of our roundup.

"Spot's First Easter" is a book Charlotte loved to bits when she was smaller, and it's still as great as ever.

Spot the puppy is very excited about this mysterious new thing called Easter, particularly the thought of giving and receiving fabulous eggs with all his friends.

The edition has lots of lift the flap surprises so kids can go on their very own egg hunt without leaving their favourite comfy armchair.

"Spot's First Easter" by Eric Hill is out now, published by Picture Puffin. 

Whatever you end up doing, have a fantastic easter and we'll catch up with you again next week!

We were left on the edge of our seats by Maresi and our Chapter Book of the Week this week picks up the tale in Book 2 of the Red Abbey Chronicles. Here's "Naondel"

I am so, so jealous of Meg Mclaren's skills...This week's Book of the Week is the sublime "Pigeon P.I"

Inspiration comes in many forms, but pretty much every artist alive (or dead) will at one time look to their contemporaries for some ideas and prompts...

An awesome collection of book folk including one potato-headed book blogger!  Photo (C) The Catchpole Agency

Way way back at the start of the year, and it feels like forever ago, the lovely Fiona Barker gave me a nudge on Twitter, pointing out that her fantastic Children's Picture Book Club meetings were coming our way - to Waterstones Oxford in fact.

Normally it's nigh-on impossible for me to get to book events because A) they're usually in London and B) there's no way possible to get to London on time, be there for a couple of hours and then come all the way back home but it's something I've wanted to do more of - for lots of reasons.

The main one is anxiety. I suffer from a weird form of what I can only seem to describe as anxiety where I absolutely panic at the thought of meeting folk - even folk I know, or folk I've happily conversed with on Twitter or email.

I've tried many methods of coping with it - going through denial, burying my head in the sand, politely declining invitations to awesome events but I've found that the only method that truly works is to eat that damned anxiety up by confronting it head on.

I knew lots of lovely people I've been dying to meet in person were going along to the event including James and Lucy from The Catchpole Agency  - who were also going along to field questions, offer insights into the weird wild world of children's publishing, and perhaps even hear a couple of pitches.

It was also a great opportunity to hear other creative folk who love books not only talking about them passionately, but also showing just how creative they are with the things they've been working on (I can't give any details for obvious reasons, but for someone who reads a LOT of children's books the pitches really caught my attention and showed that there's still such a huge amount of potential to dazzle and amaze with children's stories). I was actually semi thankful I didn't let my over-anxious flapping chops loose on pitching any of the stuff I've been working on - mostly because last night's discussion gave me so much food for thought anyway.

Discussed at length, Patricia Cleveland-Peck and David Tazzyman's excellent "You Can't Take an Elephant on the Bus" (Conveyance!)

The other reason I wanted to go was to hear from agents what they look for and how they assess a pitch or a piece of work on the slush pile. I've been eaten up by a slight obsession with "The Rules" - that draconian set of structural rules that seem to be so tightly knitted in to the production of a children's story. James and Lucy were hugely helpful on that particular point - it's not so much that rules are there to be rigidly stuck to, but they are there for extremely good reasons. Particularly when it comes to rules about story length, number of spreads etc - the real meat and bones of structure that I've always shaken my fist at (because I really can't seem to get under a word count to save my life).

Something else they both confirmed was that it's very unusual for authors and artists to directly collaborate. I'd heard this before, and it always seemed to make no sense whatsoever to me, but when you hear the very good reasons why publishers prefer to make the choice on who illustrates a piece of work themselves, it does begin to make sense - and it also underlines something we've talked about a lot on the blog - the fact that no matter how great an artist you think you are, there's a huge amount of difference between being 'good at art' and being 'good in a COMMERCIAL way at art' - to the high standards that children's books demand by default.

The last interesting point was around how many ex-advertising folk make it big in children's literature. It makes perfect sense that folk who are extremely good at reading trends, at being punchy with their words and effective with their illustrations are a natural 'fit' for children's books. So if there's ever a good piece of advice (other than snagging yourself an English Lang / Lit degree and / or formal artistic training), it's go work in advertising for a while - it'll do you wonders when you come out the other side and fancy chancing your arm at children's books - forget becoming a Z-list celebrity!

The evening was great - there were a couple of times where anxiety raised its ugly head and made me want to bolt for the door but book folk are so kind, wonderful and just SO GOOD TO TALK TO in that fabulous 'me too' kind of way that just rocks, that I really hope there's another one soon - and they'll let me come back again.

So great to meet you all and thanks for making an over-anxious book worm feel welcome!