#Booky100Keepers Day 81: "Winnie the Witch" by Valerie Thomas and Korky Paul (OUP / Oxford Children's Books)

Moving from one excellent witchy series to another in our #Booky100Keepers list, the "Winnie the Witch" books by Valerie Thomas and Korky Paul were early favourites of C - and that rare thing, a series of books that she discovered herself without any prodding or cajoling from me.

Back when our blog first began, I started trying to keep a list of the books we regularly borrowed from our local library, mainly to try and avoid C picking the same books every week. I was lucky enough to be working flexibly at the time, getting every wednesday off. So wednesday became library day and that's how this whole thing started out.

Trying to discourage a 2 year old from picking the same books isn't as easy as it sounds, and in fact these were nearly always in our pile, and thankfully by the time we started blogging there were plenty of excellent Winnie the Witch books to choose from.

The huge appeal of these books for C were largely down to Korky Paul's scritchy scratchy illustrations, and this set out a pattern we'd see again and again in the books that we ended up loving (and keeping). There's so much detail in there, everything from little jokes and nods at popular culture, to cameos from Korky's other books, even to cameos for Valerie and Korky themselves.

Of course no book is just about the illustrations. Valerie's stories were always funny and she never ceased to amaze us with how many different ways she could cook up to get Winnie and Wilbur into trouble (and thankfully out again).

As much as kids love to read about themselves in children's books, they also absolutely LOVE to read about adults stuffing up - and Winnie isn't some masterful mistress of magic, in fact most of the time her spells go awry, her house is a mess, and poor Wilbur is usually on the receiving end of misplaced spells or other chaos in each story.

One of C's early favourites was "Winnie in Winter" - a tale that sees Winnie tinkering with the seasons themselves as she and Wilbur get fed up with the constant cold and snow.

But when she tinkers with bringing summer early to her garden, the poor creatures who live there don't know whether to hibernate or stay up, and soon everyone wants a piece of the sunny action - and Winnie's garden ends up looking like every green space does at the moment as we watch hordes of crazy people ignoring the COVID-19 lockdown and social distancing stuff.

Winnie has no choice but to restore the balance of nature, bringing the wintry weather back again. At one point we were borrowing this book every week for about a year, that's how popular it was.

It's testament to how popular these books are that our second most accessed review on the blog was an article about Winnie's 25th birthday with over 1800 unique hits (not too shabby for a book blog done in our spare time).

C once met Korky and was delighted when she mentioned her blog and he knew exactly who we were. I think it went to her head a bit as she would constantly talk about how 'famous' we were. Ah if only that were true!

I've included a few other Korky Paul reviews (he really has worked with some of the best writers in the business) as well as the Winnie books, as they're all well and truly brilliant and worthy of your attention.

Original review links

ReadItDaddy's Second Picture Book of the Week - Week Ending 25th May 2018: "Winnie and Wilbur: Seaside Adventures" by Valerie Thomas and Korky Paul (OUP / Oxford Children's Books)

Snails Legs by Damian Harvey and Korky Paul (Frances Lincoln Children's Books)

The Rascally Cake by Jeanne Willis and Korky Paul (Picture Puffin)

ReadItDaddy's First Picture Book of the Week - Week Ending 29th September 2017 - "Winnie and Wilbur: The Naughty Knight" by Valerie Thomas and Korky Paul (Oxford Children's Books)

ReadItDaddy's Book of the Week - Week Ending 23rd May 2014 - "Sir Scallywag and the Deadly Dragon Poo" by Giles Andreae and Korky Paul (Picture Puffin)

Winnie's Midnight Dragon

Booky Advent Calendar Day 10: "Winnie and Wilbur: The Santa Surprise" by Laura Owen and Korky Paul (OUP / Oxford Children's Books)

A Rocketful of Space Poems by John Foster and Korky Paul (Otter-Barry Books / Frances Lincoln Children's Books)

The Very Noisy House by Julie Rhodes and Korky Paul (Frances Lincoln Children's Books)

It's Friday the 13th! What better day to celebrate Winnie the Witch's Birthday!

The Duck with No Luck

Sanji and the Baker

The Dog who could Dig

Professor Puffendorf's Secret Potions

A Cat Called Scratch

Winnie At the Seaside

Winnie Flies Again

Winnie in Winter

Happy 25th Birthday, Winnie the Witch!

Happy Birthday Winnie!

Winnie's Flying Carpet