Now and again a children's book comes along that makes you think "Well, that's a new one on me!"

So far I can't recall ever seeing a children's picture book that takes such a quirky, charming and original look at a subject that we go to great pains to avoid.

Death.

In "The End of Something Wonderful" by Stephanie V.W. Lucianovic and George Ermos, a fairly tricky subject is injected with a dose of slightly macabre (some might even say inappropriate) humour to help kids over the loss of a beloved pet.

So far we've managed to avoid this particular part of C's formative growing up, mostly because we don't have any pets or haven't had any. But what happens when a child's best furry (scaly, swimmy, or perhaps even tortoise-shelled) buddy dies?

It's time for a funeral - a right royal send off for the poor little critter. But how, and where do you even start with something like that?


We probably sound a bit down on this, but quite the contrary, and perhaps we find it funnier because we are petless. But it has a dark sense of humour running through the story, something that is sadly missing from children's books. Stephanie's text coupled with George's fantastic illustrations make this a real departure from the staid and boring, and dare we say rather 'safe' choices often made for subject matter when it comes to children's stories.


Sum this book up in a sentence: A quirky, charming if somewhat irreverent look at the loss of a beloved pet, and what to do next, brilliantly realised by an extremely talented pair of creatives.

"The End of Something Wonderful: A Practical Guide to a Backyard Funeral" by Stephanie V.W. Lucianovic and George Ermos is out now, published by Sterling Kids (kindly supplied for review). 

After a brief blog break it's a HAPPY NEW YEAR from us, and a huge hope that you'll keep reading our blog in 2018. We're kicking off our January reviews with a few books that we couldn't squeeze into the schedule before christmas, including this bake-tastic belter from Dee Leone and George Ermos.

"Dough Knights and Dragons" is the tale of a young would-be Knight who accidentally makes a fantastic new friend while exploring a deep dark cave.

His new friend is a dragon, and through a mutual love of food and in particular baking, they become inseparable buddies.

There is a problem though - All would-be knights know that to come of age they must defeat a dragon, skewering the poor beast with a sword.

It gets worse, all dragons also similarly know that to be considered any kind of a dragon they must toast a knight with fiery breath and eat them!

Their friendship seems doomed until this clever duo come up with a plan, a sneaky and brilliant scheme to ensure that this horrible custom of man vs beast is consigned to the history books once and for all.

We've seen many, many books about friendships. We've seen many many books about brave knights and dragons too but we've never seen a book that fuses all these ideas together with a brilliant bake-off and such a delectable selection of goodies within its pages. Chock full of originality, humour and of course a nice easily digestible moral message to wolf down with your favourite slice of cake.

Delicious in fact!

Charlotte's best bit: The final contest between dragon and knight, and their awesome solution on how to come up trumps!

Daddy's favourite bit: Beautiful book this, and a hugely original story idea too.

"Dough Knights and Dragons" by Dee Leone and George Ermos is out now, published by Sterling (kindly supplied for review).