We love books that encourage youngsters to pick up their pencils and crayons from the earliest age possible, and in "Draw Here" by Herve Tullet, Herve is ready to inspire the youngest artists, with a series of exercises and fun challenges that will improve their hand-to-eye motor skills ahead of their real drawing and writing challenges ahead.

Starting off with very easy challenges, but ramping up the difficulty as the book progresses, little ones can use any of their favourite art materials to join in with Herve's fun narration.

Be warned though, you might go a little bit dotty after completing a few of these. Let's dip into the book itself to see why...

Dots on dots, in dots, around dots!

Bold bright colours are designed to catch the eye of the very young, and get them scribbling and making marks in a cool way (it's OK to draw in the book, honest, though it's definitely something you want to keep a close eye on in case your littlies think that all books are for drawing in!)

Loads of dotty fun!

As simple as the exercises seem, there's a real purpose here, in improving the way that kids not only join the dots, but can start to form their own artistic free-form ideas while playing with these exercises.

Sum this book up in a sentence: What a fantastic idea, an art challenge book for the tiniest tiddlers with loads of interesting exercises and lots of bright colours to keep their interest while they have fun

"Draw Here" by Herve Tullet is out now, published by Chronicle Books (kindly supplied for review)

Herve Tullet is, without a doubt, one of the most creative and artistic author-illustrators working in children's literature.

What I like best about Herve is the fact that he seems to instinctively know how to tap into that creative part of a child's brain where they become absolute experts at filling in the gaps our adult brains sometimes develop - a gap where a simple idea can become something entirely different.

In "I Have an Idea", Herve explores and expands on this - in something akin to a piece of concrete poetry, a book that's filled with very simple illustrations - but text designed to prod and poke those creative bits of our brain back into life. Not just for illustration or dreaming up new stories, but for all aspects of our lives where we need a little imagination, a spark of inspiration, or just a good solid nudge in the right direction sometimes.

Filled with artistic splodges that could indeed become elements of inspiration for kids to expand upon, the book is a lot of fun to read aloud - particularly if you have one of those soothing voices that's like taking a sip of a divine warm cup of hot chocolate (unfortunately mine's akin to taking a sip of a cup of coffee from a vending machine, ne'er mind though eh!)

So get Joanna Lumley round, and get her to read a few excerpts from this...

Curiosity is where it all begins, with stimulation for the senses

It works as a playful mindfulness text too.

When inspiration hits, it truly is a wonderful thing

We're both wondering how many kids will actually 'get' what this book is trying to impart. I must admit that both of us took a couple of reads through to really relax into what "I Have an Idea" is trying to achieve as it's pretty chaotic, sometimes even pretty random too...

This is the page that stuck with both of us the most. I absolutely adore the idea that every idea needs a touch of madness about it. So true!

So there you have it, another brilliantly visual exploration of what makes us tick from Herve.

Sum this book up in a sentence: A visual exploratory journey, inviting the reader to take a journey of self discovery inside their own imagination with inspiring quotes and zippy-zappy scribbly visuals to prod your creativity into life.

"I Have an Idea" by Herve Tullet is out now, published by Chronicle Kids (kindly supplied for review). 

We're doing a bit of a rain dance on the blog at the moment, hoping that 2016 will be the year of the activity book. We had a LOT of fun with activity and art books in 2015 and here's a fantastic one to kick off the new year in style.

Herve Tullet is the genius creator of hundreds of fantastic children's books and he's now come up with a genius way for kids to draw and design their own stories, even if they're not super-confident in their art skills.

"My Stencil Kit" comes with 6 huge die-cut boards containing 200 stencils, covering a wide range of subjects from alphabet characters to animals, from curls to geometric shapes and tons of other fantastic designs in between.

The stencil sheets come with a nice large format book (which would have been even better if it had been spiral bound but you can't have everything) full of interesting and intriguing 'scenery' to get your designs off to a roaring start.

We couldn't resist diving right in with our pencils and pens to put those interesting and intriguing stencil designs to good use. More artistic kids (and adults) will love adapting the designs to produce more fully fleshed-out works of art but even if you just love making patterns and nonsense drawings (who DOESN'T love drawing giraffes body-surfing on the roofs of cars) then you're going to find tons and tons to do in this interesting new art book.

Charlotte's favourite bit: Some cool background designs to really get your artwork off to a flying start.

Daddy's favourite bit: A great new activity book that enables kids of all abilities to design brilliant artwork and scenes to tell their own stories with. Absolutely absorbing and beautifully designed by a true genius of children's art.

(Kindly sent to us for review by Thames and Hudson)

"My Stencil Kit" 

Written and Illustrated by Herve Tullet

Published by Thames and Hudson

Publication Date: 29th February 2016