It's early August, and I'm sure for a lot of kids the thought of school is a million miles away...

Our Picture Book of the Week this week deals with a hugely sensitive subject in an amazing visual way. Debi Gliori's "Night Shift"

The 6th of October is definitely a red letter day for fabulous children's picture books. Bloomsbury Publishing have three new arrivals popping up on that day so come along and say hello!

Tom (Herman's Letter) Percival once again delivers a deliciously brilliant picture book future classic in "By the Light of the Moon" - a gentle story that will help any child dealing with the upheaval and uproar of a house move.

Little Ivan finds his new house strange and can't sleep. His old house was warm, familiar and friendly and this new place definitely is not! Little Owl isn't at all pleased to hear that there's a baby owl in the egg Mummy has laid. So Mummy pretends it might be a baby penguin ... or crocodile ... or even an elephant!  Goodnight ice and goodnight snow,

An adventurous bunny with a wild imagination, that was how we were introduced to Alfie with Debi Gliori's "Alfie in the Garden". Alfie is back and this time he's in the right place for washing off all that garden dirt and mud, the bath!

Naturally Alfie hasn't quite got to that age where soap dodging and a lick & a promise will do, he loves bathtime, bubbles and all his bathtime toys.

Younger readers will love how the story unfolds as Alfie splishes and sploshes, imagining an undersea kingdom and adventures in the briny (bubbly) deep. Toddlers love bathtime and older children (such as Charlotte) still find time to enjoy Alfie's fun bathtime (even the mopping up afterwards!)

A lovely second title in the Alfie series, and more are on the way courtesy of this very talented lady!

Charlotte's best bit: Alfie rather kindly helping with cleanup chores after bathtime (and even managing to turn that into an adventure too!)

Daddy's Favourite bit: Bathtime can be fun!! If your kids aren't quite at the stage where they hate bathing, they will love this one!

(Kindly sent to us for review by Bloomsbury Publishing)

Like this? We think you'll love these too!

Alfie in the Garden by Debi Gliori

Dragon Loves Penguin by Debi Gliori

I must admit, I am allergic to gardening. I have the kiss of death for plants, and the only time I've ever managed to make a success of anything in our tiny patch is growing herbs - which I rather like because at least I can eat them afterwards.

Charlotte loves gardening, for all the same reasons as the pint-sized green-fingered hero of Debi Gliori's latest story "Alfie in the Garden" does. It's the chance to enter another world, a leafy lush world filled with plants, insects, animals - and of course wonderful squishy mud.

Alfie lets his imagination fly as he imagines his garden as a lush tropical jungle, or an unsurpassable mire.

Debi's lilting storytelling and utterly delectable illustrations make for a cosy little read that is perfect for snuggle times!

Charlotte's best bit: Mama Bun, the perfect hugger!

Daddy's Favourite bit: Loving the way the story unfolds along with Alfie's imagination. Such a great little cuddly read!

(Kindly sent to us for review by Bloomsbury Publishing)

Sometimes you can really get lost in a story that taps deep into your imagination and sense of wonder and conveys such a heartwarming tale that you could almost burst into tears as you reach the last page.

Debi Gliori is a master storyteller. She has a knack for producing the most immersive and involving stories. "Dragon Loves Penguin" is the touching tale of a little penguin called Bib who curls up on his mummy's knee one night to hear a bedtime story. Bib's favourite story is about the dragons and so Bib's mum settles down, snuggles tight and tells of the days when dragons freely roamed the earth. Slowly driven out of their homes, the dragons make their way to the realm of the penguins and hunker down atop a fiery snow-covered volcano for warmth.

One dragon isn't like the others, and when she discovers a lost egg, she vows to take care of it. Soon the egg hatches but it's not a dragon that emerges, it's a penguin - but the dragon loves it like it was her own.

The other dragons scoff and sneer but they stay together and the dragon is very protective of her offspring, despite how different she is and how she can't do all the things that the other dragon children do.

One day there is a huge rumble from the earth and the volcano erupts. Penguin spots the danger and urges the other dragons to fly before it's too late but poor penguin is left behind! Will no one save her from fiery doom?

We'll have to stop there in case we spoil too much of this wonderful tale. It's exciting, nail biting stuff and you owe it to yourself to discover the rest of the tale under your own steam.

Debi Gliori makes it look easy, to marry together the most wonderful stories with gorgeous artwork. We were already sold by the dragon on the cover long before we even read the story, but the content more than lives up to the wrapper in this case so wrap your peepers around this gorgeous children's book.

Charlotte's best bit: Little Penguin is SO CUTE! And what a genius idea to feature a story with penguins AND dragons

Daddy's Favourite bit: Superlative storytelling from Debi. Don't miss!

(Kindly sent to us for review by Bloomsbury Publishing)

The Tobermory Cat by Debi Gliori (Birlinn Books) - Out today in paperback!

It seems like a long time ago that we took our first look at Debi Gliori's gorgeous book "The Tobermory Cat" - in its original hardback form.

Today sees the release of the book in paperback, so we thought we'd compliment our original review (where The Tobermory Cat was deservedly nominated "Book of the Week") with a fresh look at everyone's favourite stripy orange Highland Moggie.

In the Scottish Highlands and Islands, each island has its own particular breed of cat. Some sing, some are fabulous fisher-moggies, but what of the Isle of Tobermory and its lone Ginger moggy, what is he good at?

Mee-OW! (Dancing on JCBs is NOT recommended btw!)

The Tobermory Cat tries all sorts of things to impress tourists who flock to the islands, with very little success. But soon word spreads, and The Tobermory Cat finds that sometimes it's not being good at one thing that makes you stand out from the crowd, perhaps it's the ability to try lots of things that can end up making you special.

Oh no! Stinky socks! Ew!

We loved the book - and we'd definitely recommend you grab a copy (in hardback or paperback).

I'm the king of the swingers, the highland V.I.P!

· The Tobermory Cat by Debi Gliori

· Published 18th July 2013 by BIRLINN

· £5.99 Paperback

· ISBN 978 1 78027 131 6

At ReadItDaddy we wanted to make sure we reviewed Debi Gliori's wonderful book, and steered away from producing a piece that just regurgitated the controversy surrounding it. You can read more on that on Debi's excellent blog.

Debi Gliori is a lovely person to tweet to, and she let slip a few pearls of wisdom about "The Snow Child" that made us smile. I told her how Charlotte always wished for snow, and that the stuff we get down here "darn sarf" isn't the real thing as depicted in her book.

Debi told me that her agent said "The snow's a bit unrealistic in Snow Child, we don't get snow like that in London" which caused much rolling of the eyes for poor Debi. You see, her neck of the woods is the (frozen) north in Bonnie Scotland where you know you've had snow when you can't tell where your car ends and the kerb begins.

The other thing she told me about real snow was how your toothbrushes freeze! Eeek!

We think this book is lovely, first because it tells such a beautiful story about a lonely young girl who can't quite 'fit in' with the circle of friends in her neighbourhood. Try as she might, she always seems to be one step behind their games but she's lovely and kind, and we couldn't work out why the other children were so mean (Kids can be so cruel - any Simpsons fans are now imagining Bart saying "We can? Thanks mom!" and then running riot).

The girl decides to make her own friends one day after a heavy snow fall and so begins to make a snow child. A dumpy little snowman, kitted out with all the proper snowman accessories like coal eyes, a carrot nose and a cast-off hat and scarf.

As she returns to her home to grab some extra goodies to make another friend, she notices someone else has beaten her to it. In fact another girl has made a snowman right next to her dumpy little snowchild.

What happens next is beautifully told and a real heartwarming story - just the sort of thing you need on a day like today when the first frost sees off the last of your tomatoes, and the garden is full of birds making very good use of your bird feeders.

A lovely book. You might have to hunt around for it as it's fairly old, but we were lucky enough to spot this in our local library so jumped at the chance to review it.

Here's our very own snow child making her very own snow...er...thing the last time we had proper snow down here, in December 2010



Charlotte's best bit: "Proper snow Daddy, I really want proper snow!"

Daddy's favourite bit: Wholly identifying with the girl in this story, and such a beautiful story it is too.