Three words that strike terror into the hearts of children (and joy into their parents!)

For this week's slightly belated #ReadItMD13 Theme Week we're looking at books designed not only to get your children back into something educational, we're also looking at books that can help children who are nervous about "starting big school" - sitting down with a new teacher, new friends and a whole new school.

So let's kick off by diving back into the archives for some of our favourite school-based books.

"I Want A Friend" by Tony Ross (The Little Princess Series) is a fab little book that sees the normally bombastic and quite mischievous Little Princess slightly on the back foot as she starts big school for the first time. Seeing everyone else seemingly happy and carefree and playing with their friends, The Little Princess realises that even being royalty doesn't mean that things are easy. Soon though she meets someone else in the same boat, a child who also doesn't have a special friend, and then another - and another, until there's a whole gaggle of children who come together and realise that searching hard for a friend is tricky, and often the best friends are right under your nose. A very nice little book for helping children through those anxieties about meeting new people and making new pals at school.

Oh how we love Splat the Cat! Rob Scotton's wiry haired little moggy has been on lots of adventures since his first book but in his very first outing we find out that Splat also had a tricky first day at school.

Read and re-read by us, we loved Splat packing Seymour his trusted mousey sidekick into his lunchbox as he (grudgingly) sets out to learn how to be a cat at cat school, and all the things that cats should and shouldn't do. Chase mice? What a terrible thought!

Soon though Splat teaches his teacher and classmates a few lessons too - that mice aren't food, they're friends - and there's really no need to chase Seymour around when he's such an adorable olive-nosed little fellah.

Splat will soon be popping up again in the next book "Scaredy Cat Splat!" which should be hitting shelves in time for Halloween.

In Emma Chichester-Clark's fabulous "Blue Kangaroo" books we meet the lovely Lily and her rather special 'friend' - a blue kangaroo. Again, a book that deals with the anxieties and worries of that first day at school, Lily decides to take Blue Kangaroo with her on her first day. We loved the way Emma 'voices' Lily's concerns as being Blue's (you'll see what we mean when you read this wonderful book). Lily actually ends up enjoying herself so much that she forgets Blue Kangaroo entirely, leaving him at school to have a lot of fun all on his own overnight!

We always expect the very best from Emma and we get it in spades - and it's a timely reminder for me to hunt out the rest of the Blue Kangaroo series as this one was utterly brill!

During the holidays, one of the hardest things to keep going was Charlotte's interest in self-reading.
With the aid of the Oxford Learning Tree Phonics range, it's easy to get back into the swing of things and in particular the "My Phonics Kit" starter pack is fab for taking children away from the books and onto the computer for some enhanced reading, phonics activities and learning.

There's also a whole host of brilliant exercises, stories and activities on the fantastic Oxford Owl website. Like most parents, we really struggle to marry together reading for learning and reading for pleasure (in fact it's a real concern when Charlotte's confronted with a new Biff Chip and Kipper book and can't actually distance herself from the fact that it's a 'school' book and not a 'home' book - despite the stories being pretty good fun in some of the advanced Stage 4 books). These sites and resources really do help though, so they're worth diving in if you're trying to get your children back into a bit of a learning routine to help ease them back into school without a huge jolt.

There'll be more from us on the subject of getting back to school or starting school for the first time as the week progresses so stay tuned!

We love following the exploits of her wonderful dog Plum on The Plumdog Blog (if you haven't discovered it yet, WHAT ARE YOU WAITING FOR!) so any new books from Emma Chichester-Clark are always cause for celebration.

We're relative newbs and green around the gills so you'll have to forgive us for never coming across the Blue Kangaroo books before. We are so happy we have now though, as they're fantastic - and in this tale "Come to School Too, Blue Kangaroo" - Kangaroo's owner Lily is off to a new school for the first time.

She decides to take Blue along with her. Blue is very excited about school and all the things there are to do, new faces to meet, and new experiences but Lily is rather worried that blue might be frightened, might get bored, might be too shy to say hello to anyone.

Soon Lily is wrapped up in the busy school day, and Blue rather thoughtfully watches from the windowsill as Lily enjoys painting, playing and (the best bit of any school day) story time.

When hometime comes, Lily is so excited about her day that the unthinkable happens. Poor Blue Kangaroo gets left at school all on his own. But not to worry, Blue is happy because now he'll get to do all the things Lily did during her fantastic school day!

We'll leave the rest for you to discover, but we're absolutely committed to checking out the rest of the Lily and Blue Kangaroo adventures. I loved the way Lily 'spoke' through Blue, expressing her own fears and anxieties about starting school but shifting them onto Blue (who, rather jauntily, wasn't worried about any of those things at all!)

We've seen many 'first day at school' books on the blog but this is by far the best of the bunch. Beautifully drawn (we expect no less from Emma, she rocks!), beautifully told - a really classy book all round. More Blue Kangaroo soon please!

Charlotte's best bit: She loved matching Blue's paintings to the children who were in Lily's class.

Daddy's favourite bit: Blue being very brave about his first day at school.

(Kindly sent to us for review by HarperCollins Children's Books)