The Imagineers series from Andrea Beaty and David Roberts has been one of the genuine delights of C's book journey over the past decade, and joining Rosie Revere, Iggy Peck and Ada Twist is a new gal we have completely fallen in love with as a fantastic and inspirational character.

"Sofia Valdez Future Prez" may well just be an ordinary little girl but she has a big challenge in mind. She wants to clean up her neighbourhood so that no one has to deal with a huge trash pile that's a complete blight on everyone's lives.

Sofia finds that small shy girls might not be the loudest public speakers, but when a message is worth believing in, people will get behind it, and soon the protests are heard by those higher ups, impressed with how this young girl has organised such a following - and not just with her awesome Abuela!

Andrea and David really are a dream team, bringing a solid story and superb characterful visuals into play for a book that will give kids a ton of inspiration to do the right thing by their friends, neighbours and the planet just like Sofia has.

Let's take a peep inside.


Did you spot Rosie, Iggy and Ada too?

Sum this book up in a sentence: A hugely inspirational book that shows even the tiniest voice can get behind a mighty cause and make a difference!

"Sofia Valdez Future Prez" by Andrea Beaty and David Roberts is out now, published by Abrams Young Readers (kindly supplied for review).

This fab book ushers in a new chapter for an awesome set of picture book characters, now strutting their stuff in early chapter readers instead...

Here's a fabulous companion activity book to one of our favourite books ever...!

Time to build and invent with a seriously brilliant book character. A welcome back for Rosie Revere!

Our First Book of the Week this week is one we've been going round the twist in anticipation about. It's the utterly wonderful "Ada Twist, Scientist"

It's another week where we really couldn't decide between two fabulous books for our Book of the Week slot. As we utterly adored "Rosie Revere - Engineer", we couldn't wait to follow it by gorging ourselves on more greatness from this talented duo. Andrea Beaty and David Roberts are a book match made in heaven - with Andrea's awesome rhyming skills and David's eye for fantastic and thoroughly brilliant illustrations, how could we possibly resist "Iggy Peck - Architect".

Young Iggy starts building from a very early age - in fact one of his first constructions might be a bit "on the nose" but is an aesthetically pleasing building (that just happens to be made out of pongy old nappies. EW!)

Iggy spends all his time drawing and designing, scribbling and constructing as his proud parents realise they've got an immensely talented architect in the family. Alas for poor Iggy, his teacher doesn't quite share his enthusiasm. Can she be won round when a school nature trip turns into an abject disaster? Can Iggy's quick thinking and construction skills save the day?

We adored every morsel of this, just as much as we loved Rosie Revere, Engineer (It was rather nice to see her cropping up in Iggy's class, and vice versa btw!). If you've a hankering to build sky-high, follow Iggy's wonderful example in this awesome story.

Charlotte's best bit: Iggy's incredible pongy tower of pee-peed nappies! Stay downwind of that one!

Daddy's Favourite bit: Such a brilliant book, utterly devoured by us and one that we're sure to read and re-read again and again. Now we need to catch up with Madame Chapeau to complete the set!

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Rosie Revere, Engineer by Andrea Beaty and David Roberts (Chronicle Children's Books)

Doctor Ted by Andrea Beaty and Pascal LeMaitre (Simon and Schuster Children's Books)

We have heard so many great things about this book, and have seen just about every book blogger on the planet explode with sheer joy at the very mention of "Rosie Revere - Engineer" by Andrea Beaty and David Roberts, that we thought it was about bloomin' time we grabbed ourselves a copy and dived in headfirst.

We love Andrea Beaty's "Doctor Ted" for its outrageous and chaotic comedy, and we adore David Roberts' artwork from his reworked fairy tales to his awesome Dunderheads. So would we love this book as much as everyone else?

We do, you see Charlotte often visits work with mummy - and mummy works for a very busy engineering department for a huge University. Though the people mummy works with are probably more suited to Andrea and David's other divine book along similar lines, "Iggy Peck - Architect" (Which we also picked up and will be reviewing at a later date), the girls who come to study Engineering at mummy's work would absolutely love Rosie.

One of the many gorgeous spreads in "Rosie Revere - Engineer" celebrating the awesome women who took to the skies in the early pioneering days of flight.

Charlotte is fascinated by machinery and finding out how things work, and young Rosie is the same. She can turn a worthless pile of junk into a marvellous mechanical contraption. She can draw up a diagram of an astonishing invention to work around a problem. But Rosie's inventor life hasn't always been easy. After a rather cruel rebuttal at the hands of a daft old zookeeper, Rosie's confidence takes a knock but when she meets her inspirational Great Aunt Rose, has she finally found someone to encourage and understand her inventiveness?

Rosie sets out to impress her Great Aunt with a super-duper flying machine but the path to greatness doesn't always run smoothly, and even Rosie's wonderful great-auntie finds her contraptions more of a giggle than groundbreaking.

Is this the final straw to make Rosie throw in the towel?

A pile of junk is ripe for inventive minds!

You'll have to read the rest of this wonderful story to find out whether Rosie's resolve and determination win the day. This is a truly impressive and empowering book that will make your heart soar with inspiration. Andrea's rhymes might bend the rules in places but this is a rollicking read as your spirits lift and dive with each of Rosie's triumphs and setbacks.

A truly wonderful book creation, engineered to the highest quality!

Charlotte's best bit: Rosie's determined chin - not a million miles away from a certain other little girl's!

Daddy's Favourite bit: Utterly spellbinding and brilliant, the perfect book for little girls and boys who'd much rather turn a pile of lego into their next great creation than slob out in front of the TV or the tablet. Rosie ROCKS!

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Zephyr Takes Flight by Steve Light (Candlewick Press)

So the conversation went something like this...

"Charlotte, what's your book of the we..."

"Doctor Ted! Doctor Ted! DOCTOR TED!"

"But we've already reviewed Doctor Ted last year, and it got Book of the Week then honey, can you choose another boo.."

"DOCTOR TED! DOCTOR TED!"

So here we are, re-reviewing Doctor Ted and re-awarding it the "Book of the Week" award. One of the 'dangers' of getting the same books out of the library again and again is that things like this will happen, disrupting ReadItDaddy's carefully conceived play to review as many different books as possible without repeats (surely you get enough of those on TV as it is without getting them on the internet too :)

Alas, there's no getting round it. What Charlotte says goes on this blog and she absolutely, undoubtedly, irrefutably loves this book. Why? Because Doctor Ted is such an engaging little chap though really he's more than a bit naughty. Stealing curtains to make bandages, telling his mum she has measles (they're freckles!) and of course there's that incident with his head teacher half way through the book that always makes Charlotte cackle with mischievous laughter whenever she sees it.

The book is an absolute delight and it's good to know that there are two further adventures of Doctor Ted out there (I could only find the very expensive hardback ones or the Kindle versions, bah!). Firefighter Ted and Artist Ted. We look forward to reading them both!

Thoroughly recommended (rather loudly and vociferously by Charlotte I might add) and (sigh) yes, an absolutely fitting Book of the Week.

Charlotte's best bit: As mentioned above. Headteacher Bigham gets his comeuppance but kids, really really REALLY do not try that at school!

Daddy's favourite bit: I love Doctor Ted's wry unflappable nature. Basically he is like every single Doctor you'll ever meet, only in miniature form!

Rating: 5 out of 5 stars, Book of the Week (twice!)

This week's contender for "book read most times during a single day" has to be Doctor Ted, the cute tale of a little bear who bangs his knee one morning getting out of bed, and decides that the world needs a tiny toddler-sized medic to tackle everyone's ills. 

Doctor Ted continues his good work at school, and runs into a spot of bother in doing so. 

What I loved about this more than anything else is the slightly tongue-in-cheek way this mini doctor fellow actually behaves a lot like the real thing (ie doesn't listen to what you're telling him, prescribes odd cures for something that's entirely unrelated to what you came in for). Kids will love the cute drawings and characters, adults will undoubtedly love the slightly anarchic humour. 

Charlotte's best bit: Doctor Ted's remarkable cure for his head teacher's bad breath!


Daddy's favourite bit: The lovely wry digs at the adult characters in the story.