Time for a luxurious new edition of a set of stories that have thrilled and entertained children for generations.

"Aesop's Fables" retold by Elli Woollard with illustrations by Marta Altes takes the familiar tales and gives them a jolt in the arm with some brilliantly woven rhymes, to really bring these stories bang up to date - making them huge amounts of fun for little readers.

Along with Marta's gorgeous full colour illustrations, the well known - and less well known fables are stunningly brought to life.

Remember the tale of the boy who cried wolf?

How about The Town Mouse and the Country Mouse?

Each story is designed to be a quick read, but with messages that will stir the soul, and make you think long after you've closed the covers of this absolutely beautiful book.

Let's take a look inside at a sample of some of the stories...

Two Travellers and the Bear

Elli's rhymes are bang-on as usual, and Marta's illustrations (particularly her animal and character work) are sublime.

One of the best known fables of all - The Boy Who Cried Wolf

Sum this book up in a sentence: A fantastic collected version of some of the best-known Aesop's Fables in an edition with wide age appeal.

"Aesop's Fables" retold by Elli Woollard and Marta Altes is out now, published by Macmillan Children's Books (kindly supplied for review). 

We do love a gloriously funny poetry collection and it's been an absolute delight to reacquaint ourselves with the fabulous work of Elli Woollard.

In "Perfectly Peculiar Pets" by Elli and Anja Boretzki, find poems on all manner of subjects from the scaly to the fuzzy, the stripy to the multi-coloured. From animals to birds, fish and some distinctly strange species indeed, Elli tickles our funny bones with a selection of perfect poems for little ones to enjoy.

Just about every animal and bird gets a look in from awesome armadillos, fidgety flamingos and umbrella birds to crazy quokkas and irritable iguanas.

More fab rhyming from Elli Woollard, this time teamed with ANOTHER of our favourite artists, the awesome Laura Ellen Anderson for a piratical tale with a difference...

Here's a funky new book from two blog favourites. Fusing peerless rhymes with glorious visuals, it's "The Dragon and the Nibblesome Knight" by Elli Woollard and Benji Davies.

Oh my, there are just SO MANY great books around at the moment that our poor old "Book of the Week" slot is straining under the pressure. We're doubling up our Book of the Week nominees this week with a fantastic new tale from awesome poet and writer Elli Woollard, and equally awesome illustrator Benji Davies - and a tale of a huge giant with a rumbling tum.

"The Giant of Jum" is Elli and Benji's first collaboration (and hopefully not their last) for Macmillan, introducing us to The Giant of Jum - who loves nothing more than striding the landscape, scarfing down children. Baked in a pie, crumbled over cornflakes, the giant is hungry and nothing will stand in his way.

Only...well the thing is, the local children could do with a giant hand. Can he retrieve a lost ball? Rescue a naughty kitten stuck up a tree?

The Giant is only temporarily distracted, his true foe is Jack the Giant Killer who will be hunted down and mercilessly toasted and scoffed!

But is the giant really as menacing and scary as he wants to be?

Elli's rhymes are tight and perfect as you'd expect from the genius behind "Taking words for a Stroll". Benji's illustrations instantly feel fresh but classic, as we've come to expect from such a whopping giant-sized talent whose books are always amongst the most read on our shelves. It's a book that will become a sing-along-read-along favourite amongst younger readers who will love the way Elli plays with repetition and verse to relate the story beautifully, and of course older readers who will drink up the verse and the visuals both exquisitely clever and detailed.

We truly hope the press release is right, and that this is just the beginning of a fantastic working partnership for Elli and Benji, we absolutely cannot wait to see what they come up with next.

Charlotte's best bit: Finding Jack (in the most unlikely place!) and GIANT CAKE!

Daddy's Favourite bit: It reads as good as it looks, it looks as good as it reads, it's got "massive award winning best seller" stamped all over it. Perfecto!

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

Hooray and hooroosh! It's happy launch time for a book that is written in wonderful rhyme.
We love Elli Woollard, she is so poetic! She makes our faux verse look rather pathetic!
She's here with a new story, magically told. Which tells tale of a wizard all creaky and old.
His name? Why it's Woozy, and with his pet pig, he can conjure a spell with a dance and a jig.
He lives in a village called Snottington Sneeze. Which may give a clue to his latest new wheeze.
The people are ill, they complain and they wail. "Call for Woozy the Wizard, make us well without fail!"
But poor Woozy's wand droops, and his pig is no help, as the villagers sneeze, grumble, snortle and yelp.
Woozy calls on his other friends, borrows some spells. But there's still no success, just some sulphuric smells.
With red spots on their bots, and snot-runners green the people are desperate, whiny and mean.
But through patience with patients, and warm woolly socks...Woozy somehow makes good, makes the news, Woozy ROCKS!

Elli's new series of rhyming stories for Faber and Faber are a delight, reminding us in turn of many brilliant children's classics like Meg and Mog and with Al Murphy's bold illustrations and Elli's pitch perfect rhyming (far better than our dreadful efforts) this is sure to tickle a few ribs.

Woozy the Wizard - A Broom to go Zoom will be arriving next March so watch out for it vrooming into a bookshop near you.

Check out Elli's brilliant poetry site "Taking Words for a Stroll" if you want to read more from this talented lady!

Charlotte's best bit: Woozy makes the news, hooray!

Daddy's Favourite bit: Phew! It's a long one this but a great little book to slot in when your own tiddlers are feeling a little under the weather and want an entertaining rhyme to cheer them up!

(Kindly sent to us for review by Faber and Faber)

We're huge fans of Elli Woollard's peerless poetry. Just go and take a look at her brilliant "Taking Words for a Stroll" website and her fabulous article for us on rhyming children's books and you'll see just how talented she is.

OR, alternatively, dive into this tale from Maverick Books. "The Pet Itch" by Elli and the equally talented Elina Ellis is a tale that may have a ring of familiarity to it, certainly for any parents who have fended off constant clamouring demands from their children for "a pet, any pet, the grosser the better".

When a young monster makes such a demand of his parents, they umm and ahh so it's up to the monster and his know-it-all sister to try and swing things their way.

Step forward "The Pet Itch", it's a fuzzy hairy fang-toothed little beastie that just happens to look absolutely fabulous in a tutu and a pair of pink wings. Awww.

Charlotte loved the itch, and as you can see from our header image, the itch is such a fab little character though you really wouldn't want to eat one, would you? Well, would you? But this is the plan. Maurice the Monster and Little Sis decide that the only way they'll win their parents over would be to make the itch look as cute as possible, then threaten to scoff it with a side order of ketchup and fries. EEK!

Needless to say, no one wants to see the poor defenceless little itch get eaten so it stays...and then the real fun begins. Because what's the first thing most kids do with their pets once they get them? Train them to be a pain in the bum!

We have to admit to liking Elli's work a lot. Charlotte loved this itchy little tale, and I must admit to finding Elina's artwork slightly itch-inducing but really fabulous too.

Next time you get the urge to itch, don't scratch this one out!

Charlotte's best bit: Little Sister's idea of an itch's sunday best. Cute!

Daddy's favourite bit: Elli is a superstar and Elina's art is wonderful. Top work both!

(Kindly sent to us for review by Maverick Books)

Best rhyme ever!

When Rhyme is a Crime

"Shut that book! I’ve not got time

To read your bloody awful rhyme"


There are too many picture books written in rhyme. There, I’ve said it. A strange thing to say, you might think, coming from someone who writes almost exclusively in verse. But

that doesn’t mean that every book

that’s set in verse is worth a...second glance.
‘What?’ you might cry. ‘But, but, but…’ And you think of Dr Seuss, of Julia Donaldson – authors who have become famous for their rhyming styles. The problem is that for every Seuss or Donaldson there are several authors who can’t write in verse at all.

Partly this is down to metre. Lots of children’s books are, inexplicably, written in tetrameter (don’t worry, I had to Google that too), and

There is nothing that will bore me more

Than words all set in groups of four.

Fine for a while, and fine if done well, but so often done badly. And so the book simply plods. And plods. And plods. And…Sorry, nodded off there. Where was I? Plodding.

What a book needs isn’t rhyme, but rhythm. This can be done within a metre, or by varying a metre. Someone like Julia Donaldson is brilliant at it. ‘A mouse took a stroll through the deep dark wood. A fox saw the mouse and the mouse looked good’. Sheer genius. Julia Donaldson’s books work (on the whole) because of their bounce. The rhythm lifts them to a whole new level.

And then...

Lots of books go down the pan

Because they really really don’t scan

To be fair, some of the worst examples of this are those books produced in-house, often exploiting a particular character (think Thomas the Tank Engine or Angelina Ballerina). Editors, who are often rather wary of verse for all the reasons I am mentioning, know a cash cow when it’s mooing loudly in their faces. But some writers who really should know better manage to publish books that don’t scan properly. And the problem with bad scansion is that it’s difficult to read – a bit like going down a path and constantly having to stumble over stones.

The most important question for an author to ask is why a book should be written in rhyme. There is absolutely no point in writing in verse just for the sake of it. Yes, children love rhyme, and verse done well is sure to become a favourite. But bad rhyme is worse than no rhyme at all.

Of course that doesn’t mean that there shouldn’t be poetry in children’s books. But conflating ‘verse’ with ‘poetry’ is a huge mistake. Take a book like Helen Cooper’s ‘Pumpkin Soup’ (and if you don’t know it, go out and borrow or buy it now – even steal it if you have to – and devour it). Although it’s written in prose, it’s pure poetry: ‘Made by the duck who scoops up a pipkin of salt and tips in just enough’. And of course books in verse by the likes of Donaldson, Caryl Hart and Peter Bentley are, generally, brilliant.

But there really isn’t much that’s worse

Than a book written in crap verse

Someone please take note.

C from Edward Lear's "The Letters of the Alphabet" (1880)

This week we're diving headlong into a fairly tricky subject. Children's Poetry is often (quite wrongly) overlooked because parents often assume that just because a book rhymes, it's poetry.