ReadItDaddy's First Book of the Week - Week Ending 25th January 2018: "Lifesize" by Sophy Henn (Red Shed / Egmont)

We see a lot of animal books on the blog. A huge number, and normally they follow a pretty strict formula of presenting facts dotted with photo plates or illustrations, perhaps a glossary etc.

As lovely as they all are, we've felt for a very long time that we'd love to see an animal book that's a tad more playful, perhaps something that kids can more readily relate to and perhaps even play around with a bit...

It comes as no surprise to us that Sophy Henn is the author / artist to absolutely nail the sort of book we meant in her new picture book "Lifesize".

Kids really love anything that's relatable to themselves, and what Sophy does is to show them just how they measure up to some of their favourite animals. Literally measure up, as each life-size illustration shows just how small, large, weird or cute each animal's identifying characteristics are.

How big is a squid's eye, for example? Almost as big as your head (perhaps bigger for tiny tiddlers!)

What would you look like with a Toucan's beak? (Pretty funny actually!)

What would it be like to high-five a polar bear? You'd probably be knocked for six, they have some pretty big paws for a very good reason.

Sophy's book is a playful exploration of animals for younger readers who love books that have an element of interaction with them (and this book really does deliver in that regard, not only does it look brilliant but you can really mess around with it and see what you look like holding a panda face up in place of your own).

What an utterly brilliant work of genius!

"Lifesize" by Sophy Henn is out now, published by Red Shed / Egmont (kindly supplied for review).