#Booky100Keepers Day 18: The "Very Little" books by Teresa Heapy and Sue Heap (David Fickling Books / Picture Corgi)

Oh my, these books! SUCH FUN! We were lucky enough to meet Teresa and Sue, Author / Illustrator respectively of the truly awesome "Very Little" series of books with a cake-fuelled launch event at Blackwells in Oxford a few years ago. Two utterly lovely creatives who form such a brilliant partnership for these books, drawing together a brilliant set of observations of toddler behaviour, with some really fab depictions of classic fairy tale characters we know and love - again with that toddler 'brush' applied.

We started out with these books with "Very Little Red Riding Hood" (still C's absolute favourite) and the initial draw (as well as them being hilarious) was getting C to join in reading the lines for Very Little Red Riding Hood herself whenever we read it together (I would very much recommend doing this as a parent if you're reading aloud to your kids, let them have some early involvement and it boosts their reading so much!).

Little Red Riding Hood is off to visit Grandma, as the story starts out following the classic tale. But on the way she meets a wolf (who she gleefully calls "Foxy!") who rather likes the sound of going to tea with Grandma - but will Red and Granny end up as Foxy's tea instead in the classic way? You'd better read this one to find out. Teresa fantastically taps directly into toddler language ("LELLOW BOOTS!") and Sue's characters are just so utterly perfectly depicted (snotty bawling toddlers brilliantly rendered in her trademark perfect watercolours!)

When we read the original book, tucked into the inner cover was a map of the "Very Little" Land with far more characters mentioned than just Very Little Red Riding Hood - so we were delighted when Teresa and Sue followed up with more books, including the equally awesome "Very Little Sleeping Beauty" - again brilliantly capturing the essence of the original tale with a ton more fantastically observed toddler bits brought into the mix (and some fab cameos from other 'very little' characters too!)

These are just delightful in every way and we've kept all the ones we have (including "Very Little Cinderella" and "Very Little Rapunzel". Even now when we read them together C still does the little voices, and I still read the rest. Happy, happy book memories indeed!


Original articles and review links:

ReadItDaddy's BIRTHDAY Book of the Week - Week Ending 21st February 2014 - Very Little Red Riding Hood by Teresa Heapy and Sue Heap (David Fickling Books)

A grand Booky outing to Blackwells Oxford, to celebrate the launch of "Very Little Cinderella" by Teresa Heapy and Sue Heap (Random House)

ReadItDaddy's Book of the Week - Week Ending 27th March 2015 - "Very Little Cinderella" by Teresa Heapy and Sue Heap (Random House)

ReadItDaddy's Picture Book(s) of the Week - Week Ending 30th June 2017 - "Very Little Sleeping Beauty" and "Very Little Rapunzel" by Teresa Heapy and Sue Heap (Red Fox Picture Books)