We love books that sneak up and take us by surprise, and that was very much the case with this week's Chapter Book of the Week, the absolutely fantastic "Boot: Small Robot, Big Adventure" by Shane Hegarty and Ben Mantle.

Accessing a really early review copy (the book itself isn't actually out until 16th May) we wanted to adjust your heads-up display to make sure this one was on your inventory list.

"Boot" the titular robot in question is small, tiny and cute - and definitely a robot.

Boot's life begins when he wakes up at a scrapyard. He assumes that "Boot" is his name as that's the first word he sees.

Boot's memory is vague and glitchy, but he has clear recall of his owner, Beth. With a robotic concept of ownership, perhaps even love, Boot struggles to cross boundaries of feelings and emotions that robots really aren't supposed to have.

Boot decides to set out into the wider world to try and track Beth down. Aided and assisted by two other street-survivor robots, Noke and Red, Boot sets out on his quest - a tiny little robot in a sprawling metropolis. Boot will have to dig deep into his feelings, memories and his abilities just to survive.

Without a doubt, this is one of the freshest middle grade novels we've read in a long time. I handed it to C who practically devoured it in one day, and begged me to do the same. I expected the tale of a cute Wall-E style Robot but what I didn't expect was a middle grade story with a whomping great big robotic heart, and characters that genuinely made you empathic and sympathetic, despite their synthetic appearance.

Sum this book up in a sentence: Absolutely blisteringly original sci fi stuff for middle-graders with a robotic hero with a huge beating heart.

"Boot" by Shane Hegarty and Ben Mantle is out on 16th May 2019, published by Hodder Children's Books (kindly supplied for review). 

Our second Book of the Week this week is a bit of an unusual one for us...

We're not the world's most religious folk, it's fair to say, but there was something rather intriguing about "The Lion Kids Bible Comic" by Jesus Barony, Bambos Georgiou, Michailo Kazybrid and Ed Chatelier.

Lion Hudson are renowned for their spiritual books, but what we weren't expecting was to see a rather hilarous and sometimes irreverent look at the classic bible tales from a crop of amazing comic creators who've collectively worked on Shaun the Sheep comic, and various titles for Titan, Marvel and other britcomic giants.

So instead of Dennis the Menace, Desperate Dan and Roger the Dodger prepare to meet some bible-themed alternatives.

Jacob the Dodger, Josh the Bosh, Desperate Sam and Daniel Dare name but a few of the characters who'll crop up in this comic collection, alongside Adam and Eve (and a rather pernickety snake).

It's all tongue-in-cheek stuff, feeling a lot like "Horrible Histories meets the New Testament" - and y'know what? It actually works brilliantly at that.

Even if you're not religious, this is fun as a purely historical piece of work (or for that matter, heh, even as a piece of hilarious fiction). Cool comic stuff from an incredibly talented bunch of creatives, we heartily approve.

Sum this book up in a sentence: Bin your preconceptions about boring Bible texts, this is a hoot-a-minute comic take on bible stories from a collective of cool comic creators, definitely not to be missed!

"The Lion Kids Bible Comic" by Jesus Barony, Bambos Georgiou, Michailo Kazybrid and Ed Chatelier is out now, published by Lion Hudson (kindly supplied for review). 

This week's Picture Book of the Week is one we unfortunately missed out on first time around, but it's been utterly fabulous catching up with this awesome little story.

"Julian is a Mermaid" by Jessica Love has quite rightly been winning awards and getting glowing reviews left right and centre. It's just been longlisted for the CILIP Kate Greenaway Medal 2019 and anyone who's anyone in publishing or kidlit knows that this is fantastic news. Well done Jessica!

So what's it all about? Well, it's the heartwarming story of Julian, a little boy who wants more than anything to be a fabulous, glamorous beautiful mermaid - and it has captured the hearts and imaginations of everyone who has read it.

Quite simply, it's the sort of book that perfectly nails the notion that kids should be allowed to grow, evolve, progress and shape their own paths in life from an early age, without the boundaries and barriers of adult opinion, bias or prejudice.

Julian spies some beautiful 'mermaids' at his local swimming baths while going for a swim with his lovely Nana.

Julian lets his imagination soar, an undersea adventure as a fabulous mermaid

From there, his imagination soars, and Julian is absolutely determined to achieve his goal - to become the most beautiful mermaid. A boy? Becoming a mermaid? What on earth will his Nana say?

When Julian gets home he begins to put his plan into action, and though he pinches quite a few of Nana's cherished bits and bobs to achieve his aim, Nana does not lose her temper, go crazy at him, but comes up with a plan to let Julian's fabulous idea come to full fruition.

There are so many things to love about this book. Julian, as a character, is utterly brilliant - determined, gutsy, perhaps a little shy but feeling wholly realistic and well thought out.

Nana is the star for us, reminding me very much of my late Nan, a woman who was incredibly wise and balanced, and - like Julian's Nana - would have taken such things in her stride, accepting and encouraging rather than scolding or punishing.

Jessica's art is beautiful, the minimal word count lets the visuals take over and tell the story in an incredibly effective visual way. So again, it's really not hard to see why this is an absolute winner from start to finish.

Sum this book up in a sentence: A fabulous book celebrating a child's vivid imagination, encouraging and nurturing their ideals and believing that they can truly achieve anything and be anything they want to be, regardless of gender.

"Julian is a Mermaid" by Jessica Love is out now, published by Walker Books (kindly supplied for review). 

How in the name of pooty-poot-poots is it March already? More accurately the end of March! We're here with another scintillating Chapter Book Roundup with lots of treats in store that are already on bookshelves, or just about to spring on you unawares!

Starting with a fantastic fun middle grade romp full of magic and mischief. "Fred the Wizard in Training: Wizard vs Lizard" by Simon Philip and Sheena Dempsey introduces a young wizard who might not have spent his formative years crammed into a cupboard under the stairs, but has now enrolled in a very special school for magic folk.

Fred may look ordinary, but sometimes people who look ordinary turn out to be not very ordinary at all ... because it just so happens that Fred is a Wizard!

Sounds pretty great, right? Except that Fred is absolutely, completely, mind-boggingly TERRIBLE at magic. At school, he’s stuck in a class of wizards half his age, feeling like a twit among tots. At home, he’s endlessly teased by his siblings and always a disappointment to his parents. All Fred wants is to become a better wizard....

So when he hears about a competition to meet Merlin (yes, THAT Merlin!) Fred knows it's his one chance to prove to his family that he's not the worst wizard in town.
Avery (Night Owl) is bookish, intense, likes to plan ahead, and is afraid of many things.
Vlad is overjoyed, as he finally has his Bat Licence!
Nolitye lives in a shack with her mother Thembi in Phola, a dusty township on the edge of Johannesburg.
Whisking us back in history to Northumbria, 866 AD. A young girl is washed ashore on a frozen English beach.

Imagine being one of the lucky folk throughout history that can genuinely claim to be the 'first person' to see the summit of a particular mountain, or perhaps even another planet entirely.

In "Amazing Expeditions: Journeys that Changed the World" by Anita Ganeri and Michael Mullan, you'll meet some of the most amazing people who have made it their life's work to explore, map out and pioneer uncharted territories.

Sometimes their achievements have paved the way to establish trade routes, perhaps open the way for others to follow. Sometimes their efforts have been in the name of science, and sometimes it's been purely 'because it's there' and the personal fulfilment that comes from doing something that you know no one else has.

Here's a truly stunning book that takes us across the globe to a huge variety of different environments and ecosystems, where many plants and animals thrive despite often harsh conditions.

"Wilderness: Jungle, Rainforest, Tundra, Taiga, Savanna and Desert" by Mia Cassany and Marcos Navarro is a perfect title for young naturalists who love to find out more about our amazing planet.

When you take a look inside the book, you'll instantly be wowed by the stunning illustrations and simple descriptive text that gives valuable insights into each habitat, and the amazing things that live there.

Children may know some of the animals inside this book but will also learn about some quirky new ones too.

This captivating book brings the natural world into sharp focus. Beautifully colored and intricately detailed illustrations depict places as exotic and wide-ranging as Senegal's Niokolo-Koba National Park, Russia's Sikhote-Alin mountain range, the Sinharaja Forest Reserve in Sri Lanka, Daintree National Park in Australia, the Mexican desert, and China's bamboo forests. 

Do you ever indulge in the ancient and secret pastime of people watching?

All around you, everyday (extra)ordinary folk are going about their daily business and it's often interesting to watch them as they tootle along through life.

In the brilliant "My Town's (Extra) ordinary people" by Mikel Casal,  we meet young Nico who lives in a small coastal town, a place like any other, with ordinary neighbors and friends.

But are they really ordinary?

As Nico meanders through his town he introduces readers to his friends.

There's Josean, who works on the docks and who could be an Olympic rower.

Peru recites all different kinds of poetry to his son.

Nico's best friend, Telmo, is a skateboarder with a wild imagination.



Eva plays a mean jazz guitar and gives lessons so she can pay her rent and go to school.

There's Keiko, a potter; Dave, who is really tall; Sara, who owns a bookstore; Claud, a waiter whose real passion is astronomy.




Each of these people, twenty-one in all, is depicted in charming, colorful drawings that celebrate quirkiness and individuality. This book encourages young readers to get to know the people around them and discover how everyone is different in their own wonderful way.


With colourful spreads and interesting people-focused stories, this is a brilliant way for kids to learn about diversity and the simple act of you doing you, being your most bright, amazing and best.

Sum this book up in a sentence: A really interesting and immersive book about people and all their nuances, differences and amazing (extra) ordinary skills.

"My Town's (Extra) Ordinary People" by Mikel Casal is out now, published by Prestel (kindly supplied for review). 

Here's a rather lovely bedtime story that sees the world through the eyes of a youngster who finds absolutely everything dazzling and amazing.

"What's Next?" by Timothy Knapman and Jane McGuinness is rather lovely, choosing a baby badger as its central character. A little fellah who loves to see what's going to crop up next in his amazing nocturnal world.

Curious Baby Badger loves exploring but wants to know what the world is like outside his cosy set. 

Imagine having a time machine that would let you travel through the breadth of human history, to chart our amazing progress as a species.

That's the idea inside "The Story of People: A First Book about Humankind" by Catherine Barr, Steve Williams and Amy Husband.

Designed as a brilliant entry-level book for inquisitive kids, "The Story Of People" helps kids answer some of the most poignant questions surrounding humanity.

When did the first humans live?

How did humans spread all over the world?

How has science and technology changed the way we live?

And what will happen to humans in the future?

The team behind The Story of Space and The Story of Life present a first book about the human world for very young children, looking at how humans evolved and the history of humanity up to the present day.

Would it have been cool to be a caveman?

With fabulous characterful illustrations to accompany the text, kids will be instantly drawn into the story of humans and how they evolved.

Science!! Imagine being at the forefront of amazing scientific discoveries!

There are so many excellent spreads in this book that help bring the subject to life perfectly.

Sum this book up in a sentence: A fantastic journey through history to chart the amazing achievements humans are capable of, with a nice open question at the end to what our future may hold.

"The Story of People" by Catherine Barr, Steve Williams and Amy Husband is out now, published by Frances Lincoln Children's Books (kindly supplied for review).

For this week's Chapter Book of the Week, I thought I'd let Charlotte type up her thoughts, as she's been thoroughly absorbed in this one since picking it up during Ross's recent visit to her school for World Book Day.

So without further ado, here's Charlotte's thoughts on the sublime "Christmas Dinner of Souls" by Ross Montgomery (with cover art by David Litchfield).

This book is about a boy called Lewis. 

Back in the dark dystopic 1970s when everything seemed to be a sort of horrid dirty beige colour, I was very much a kid who would scrape together every spare penny dug out from the back of the sofa, or pool my pocket money with other kids to buy comics.

Comics were a much-needed conduit for escapism, serving up stories that would probably make people's hair curl, to an age group who nowadays are probably more used to reading comfy little stories about middle grade kids who become detectives than dark, gritty dystopia.

I never read Jinty comic - as a boy, if you were caught even giving comics like Jinty or Misty the side-eye you'd probably end up being given a chinese burn, the bumps or an atomic wedgie by your classmates. Weirdly though I always knew that I was missing out on something, and after reading "Fran of the Floods" I'm downright convinced that Rebellion have made a very clever move picking up the rights to a metric ton of IPC and other publisher's IP to republish in gloriously luxurious graphic novel formats.

"Fran of the Floods" by legendary comic creators Alan Davidson and Phil Gascoine is a prime example of a strip I'd never heard of, but knew my daughter would instinctively love. I can't quite explain why she's drawn to the darker stuff but I think secretly all kids love stories that depict the downfall of society and civilisation, and cataclysmic global events.

Yep, here's a story that first aired in 1973 and yet feels like it was written last week, the core subjects of global warming, climate change and unstoppable flooding really are horribly relevant now. We're living the reality of a story that was fantasy nearly 50 years ago, and it feels like the world hasn't learned a durned thing really.

Fran is a young girl who lives with her family, listening with growing anxiety and alarm to the news stories as the sea levels begin to rise, eventually swamping towns and cities on the coast before creeping further inland and covering the entire south.

For a while Fran's life carries on as normal, and she's obsessed with all the same thing most kids are today (obviously minus the tablets, mobile phones and social media, naturally!)

Her parents and her school do their best to 'normalise' life in the midst of the chaos that breaks out around the country, until the flooding, food shortages, power outages and general breakdown of law and order come knocking at their door.

Folks who are canny enough to be reading "No Country" in the weekly Phoenix Comic might recognise the sort of tale this is, wrought in its original monochrome but highly detailed artwork, with new colour covers courtesy of Rebellion.

Fran's story is harrowing at times, hopeful at others - above all it's the sort of comic collection that fulfils two vital roles - preserving a fantastic story for a whole new generation of kids who might favour darker stuff like us, but also offering a timely and rather bittersweet message that even as far back as the early 70s there were folk out there who knew the horrible damage we were doing to the planet, and were trying to make sure kids were as well informed about it back then as they are now.

C wouldn't put this down until she'd read the whole thing, completely hooked in and immersed in a fantastic harrowing tale of an ordinary young girl demonstrating amazing bravery in the face of a horrific man-made ecological disaster.

Mind-blowingly brilliant!

Sum this graphic novel up in a sentence: Blisteringly timely, brilliantly written and illustrated, the sort of 'girl' comic I wish I'd been brave enough to read as a wee lad but am very pleased to catch up with and share with my daughter (and would heartily recommend sharing it with your daughters - AND sons too!)

"Fran of the Floods" by Alan Davidson and Phil Gascoine is out now, published by Rebellion (kindly supplied for review as a digital ARC). 

Our Second Picture Book of the Week this week covers subject matter that we've discussed in great detail on this blog, and once put out a cry for more books about on Twitter.

So perhaps Frann Preston-Gannon heard our plaintive (but quiet) cry, and perhaps it might have had a smidge of impact on the utterly delightful "In the Swamp by the Light of the Moon".

Probably not though, because Frann is that rare thing, a picture book genius who consistently produces glowing, vibrant and absolutely essential books that are completely wonderful in every way.

We were initially a bit 'down' about this one, but it's one of those books that feels familiar, yet surprises you with hidden depths once you begin to peel back the layers of the story to find the message at its heart. We read it quite a few times and definitely think there's a need in the children's book market for books that celebrate introverts and show them in a more positive light.

"In the Swamp by the Light of the Moon" centres around a tiny frog who lives in a swamp. The frog loves nothing better than singing in the light of the moon - but each time Frog begins his song, he feels there's something essential missing.

One by one, friends join in with his song and guitar playing - but there's still something not quite right. In the end, it takes the quietest but sweetest voice to complete Frog's song, and make it a tour de force, and utterly beautiful.

Look at this book for a moment, take a moment to savour Frann's beautiful cover art, and rest assured that the rest of the book is equally beautiful as we're introduced to a cast of characters that all have their parts to play - but none more important than the humble and tiny firefly, who may not be as loud, brash and bombastic as others, but is still worth hearing and listening to.

That's such a great lesson for kids to read and hear, that you don't have to be outspoken or a showy extrovert in order to be of importance to the world. Hear hear!

Sum this book up in a sentence: The kind of story we've been clamouring for more of, a story that celebrates those individuals who have a clear but quiet voice and deserve as much attention as the loud showy ones.

"In the swamp by the light of the moon" by Frann Preston Gannon is out now, published by Templar (kindly supplied for review). 

At the start of the year we wrote a post hoping that in 2019 we'd see a sharp increase in children's stories that dealt with environmental issues. We've seen plenty about the oceans, and the need to stem the use of single-use plastics but we've been hoping to see books that tackle things with a little more of a wider scope.

"The Green Giant" by Katie Cottle is absolutely perfect, combining all the elements that we'd normally love to bits in a standard 'story' picture book, but subtly weaving in a distinct moral message about how we take our world for granted, how we do the most terrible things to it, and what the impact of continuing to behave like that will ultimately lead to.

Will we have a world fit to leave to our children?

The Green Giant here isn't some sweetcorn-shilling lantern-jawed chap. He's discovered in a mysterious rusting old greenhouse at a young girl's grandad's house. 

Sometimes doing nothing can be so boooooooring!

Yeah I'd be scared, well a little...

So much for the city...the green giant is country-bound

I wasn't quite expecting this but examining these tweets, there's a very valid point being made here about the quality of artwork in children's books (I was actually pointing out that for some publishers, author-illustrated books comfortably kill two birds with one stone so might 'get a pass' and get published where some straight-texts without illustrations might not).

So here we have a truly awesome gent who has studied (and produced) traditional art talking about digital illustration perhaps being a root cause of the falling standards in kidlit art.

It's fair to say that if you look at most children's picture books these days, there's a distinct swing towards digital workflow for most illustrators. Even if you're not purely working digital (and these days there's absolutely no reason why you shouldn't - I'll come back to that point), most artists will use some form of digital cleanup, retouching or perhaps even colouring to enhance or improve their traditional artwork before a publisher's design team gets near it and starts prodding and poking it into an acceptable form to be printed and reproduced.

Digital art has come on in leaps and bounds. I clearly remember being a struggling art student at BCT in Brighton, and gaining my first access to a digital art package called Painter through college. This thing ran on a PC, it came in (of all things) a paint can (I'm really not kidding!) but it was the first time I remember using something that really felt like paint. You could layer the colours on thick. The digital brushes were amazing, the package even had watercolours and brushes that smeared, blended and felt like the media they were trying to reproduce.

I fell completely in love with digital painting back then, and it took some years for hardware to start catching up with what was possible with the paint packages. The first Wacom I bought had a pressure-sensitive wireless stylus (just like they do today) and was the size of some folks' mobile phones in drawing area but DAMN, did that ever revolutionise what was possible in digital art packages. That was nearly 20 years ago by the way.

Nowadays you could comfortably spend a LOT of money pursuing the perfect digital setup. Wacom Cintiq tablets can be the size of a large PC monitor, working at impossible-to-imagine resolutions with amazing colour reproduction and depth. Packages have also evolved, ranging from the tried-and-tested Photoshop, through to Clip Studio (which can now even COLOUR your art using artifical intelligence - Say WHATTTT!?!?!?) or my own current favourite setup, the iPad, the Apple Pencil and a copy of ProCreate. With these tools, artists can create stunning works of art that may never exist anywhere outside a computer - but commercial artists are every bit as capable of making amazing illustrations for children's books using digital tools as well as traditional methods.

The point is - all those fabulous tools are absolutely worthless without a modicum of talent backing them up.

You can spend a lot of money on pursuing your dream of becoming an illustrator, or very little money at all. But if you have a really solid portfolio, and can demonstrate the ability to work to briefs, to commercial (printable) quality, and know what works and what doesn't for kidlit illustraton, you're still a zillion miles off achieving the ultimate goal of finding your work regularly in demand and published.

I don't think it's massively important to have received any formal training, but sometimes a grounding in even the most basic art techniques can help a lot (I've spent a lot of time going to life drawing classes, and just aimlessly drawing faces, studying tons of books and tutorials but still consider myself to be a fairly poor artist who really wishes he'd completed his 3 year course instead of running out of money and resorting to resuming a soulless and unsatisfying career in IT to pay the bills instead).

The issue James and Griselda were both trying to highlight maybe should be decoded in this way then...that there are certain 'trends' that are fast becoming cliches in children's books, and the publishing industry on the whole is very against taking any risky chances with a whole swathe of books from birth to maybe Year 6-7.

As I said in response on Twitter, there are certain kidlit art styles that I will cross the road to avoid. Once an artist's 'style' becomes popular, other artists will either reproduce or just blatantly copy that style for their own kidlit illustrations, and sometimes that can rob a perfectly brilliant story of its worth (kind of the flip side of last week's ReadItTorial where I said that some books look great, but have the most godawful cliched stories).

We've rarely seen children's picture books that have truly execrable artwork in them. Outside the realms of self-published books (not all self published books, I should quickly say, just the majority we've encountered), commercial art for children's books demands the highest possible standards, and new artists are emerging every single year, capable of producing work that would pass muster with even the fussiest kids (or adults for that matter).

But perhaps, returning briefly to the subject of last week's ReadItTorial post, we're seeing the industry falling back on what will reliably sell, "playing it safe" with tried and tested styles and looks - whether digital or traditional. Again stifling the possibility that someone truly ground-breaking might see their book in print. As I said last week, we're seeing the same thing happening in movies and TV with endless reboots, in videogames, so why should the same not be true in kidlit?

At ReadItDaddy though, we're always, ALWAYS looking out for "those folk" who don't play it safe.

The ones who are capable not only of cramming delicious little details into their illustrations to enhance a fantastic story, but fully understand how to work stuff in there for the adults reading to their kids, to the point where those kids dressing up as their characters on World Book Day are doing so because it's the visualisation of the story they've fallen in love with as much as the text itself.

There are so many folk we could name who do this with every single book they put their talents to (whether illustrating stories they've written, or illustrating someone else's work). God it's tempting to just reel them off by name, but you know who you are, if we're following you on Twitter and retweeting everything you show off, you'll definitely know.

Worth pondering on Griselda and James' point though. Do you think kidlit suffers at the hands of digital workflow becoming the norm? I really would be interested in seeing this one get discussed further so @ me on twitter @readitdaddy or comment below!

We're back at the museum, or to be more precise, the Planetarium with two new editions of the fantastic book from Raman Prinja and Chris Wormell.

"Welcome to the Museum: Planetarium" is a completely gorgeous and immersive book that will give kids a truly stunning introduction to the wonders of outer space, and our solar system.

A planet-by-planet guide, there are tons of facts about the history of space exploration, and of course loads of amazing info about each planet. What would it be like to live on Mars? (Clue: Colder than living here!) What is Neptune primarly made of?

All these answers and more lay within this gorgeous book, now newly available as a smaller compact "kids" edition.

"Welcome to the Museum: Planetarium" by Raman Prinja and Chris Wormell is out now, published by Big Picture Press.

....and if you can't get enough of space, there's also an activity book based on this amazing title too!



The activity book is the perfect accompaniment for space-crazy kids who love testing out their knowledge, or taking part in loads of different activities and fun puzzles. Again, in a smaller format, this one's perfect for taking with you on holiday to brush up on your space knowledge and astronaut skills.

"Welcome to the Museum: Planetarium Activity Book" by Raman Prinja and Chris Wormell is also out now, published by Big Picture Press. 

(Both titles very kindly supplied for review).