Oooh now this is definitely something fresh, exciting and original. A book about evolution for tinies? Picture Book of the Week fare for sure...!

"This one's good! This one's good!" sing-songed Charlotte as we dug through our review pile. She's right of course, "Prince Ribbit" is very good indeed!

Max is always getting into trouble, his crazy clockwork inventions aren't well received and soon poor Max finds himself out of a job, wondering what to do next.

Max's village lives under constant threat from a huge fire breathing nasty dragon. The dragon rules the roost and in conjunction with Lizzie - the blacksmith's daughter, Max comes up with a stunning plan to rid the village of the menace once and for all. He will build a gigantic clockwork dragon!

Max's plan is dizzyingly fiendish, and with Lizzie's help they clamber into the tin belly of their clanking beast ready to face off against the real Dragon. But what's the one problem clockwork things suffer from? What happens when your marvellous invention starts to run down mid-battle!!

Can Max's ingenuity and Lizzie's mechanical expertise save the day?

This is a rollicking and thoroughly entertaining story with pint-sized heroes at its heart, taking on a big bully by using their brains. We love the inventiveness of this, coupling Jonathan's pacey and exciting story with Elys Dolan's wonderful creative illustrations.

Charlotte's best bit: Reading out the mechanical dragon's lines in a big booming voice

Daddy's Favourite bit: A fab and original story putting a brilliant brainy pair of kids front and centre in the midst of the excitement. Brilliantly entertaining!



(Kindly sent to us for review by Jonathan Emmett / Oxford University Press)

As a kid, I was quite obsessed with matchbox cars. Do you remember collecting the "Matchbox 75" range? Sometimes you'd get the most fantastic vehicles, futuristic automobiles that were built for speed - and were often sent careering down huge lengths of Hot Wheels track (when my sister and I weren't 'lightsabering' each other to death with the stuff).

I also loved the classic Hanna Barbera shows like "Catch That Pigeon" and "Whacky Races" and it's obvious that both Jonathan Emmett and Ed Eaves had a lot of love for those things too.

In "Fast and Furry Racers" (gotta love that title!), the greatest race on earth takes place in the animal kingdom as all creatures great and small line up on land, on the water (and under it) and in the air for The Silver Serpent Cup.

Road, rail, boat and plane, you name it and those audaciously clever creatures have come up with a winning (they hope) machine to make the best of their own abilities, hopefully to steam into the lead. As you'll see from the glorious end-papers in this book, Ed and Jonathan have come up with some truly incredible designs. There's a rocket powered train, a fantastic soaring eagle-shaped plane, glorious multi-driver fox-fuelled dragsters and all manner of other wonderful creations in between.

Not all animals play sportingly though, and as the vehicles jostle for position, a nefarious cheater unleashes his vehicle's secret weapons, homing missiles to take out the opposition. But in this frenetic race, the winner isn't decided until the race is run and a surprising outsider might just snatch victory from the slathering jaws of one mean crocodile!

Boys and girls will love this equally, any mini-fans of games like Mario Kart are going to be in their element in this pacey and fresh feeling race story. Brilliant illustrations and non stop action make this a race you won't want to miss!

Charlotte's best bit: Zooming around under the sea and through pirate wrecks in super-speedy submarines

Daddy's Favourite bit: Wonderful memories of Whacky Races and other fantastic childhood escapades abounded as we read this book. It's a rollicking race to glory!






(Kindly sent to us for review by Jonathan Emmett / OUP)

What are you scared of? Do you have an irrational fear of spiders perhaps? Hate mice? Go into writhing contortions of fear and disgust at the mere mention of bathtime?

Meet Danny Dreadnought, star of "Danny Dreadnought Saves the World" by Jonathan Emmett with illustrations by Martin Chatterton. Danny isn't your ordinary everyday boy, in fact his parents are slightly concerned about Danny. For Danny isn't afraid of ANYTHING!

Bundled onto the scariest rollercoaster, Danny just yawns and asks to go again (while his parents have to be practically peeled out of their seats!)

A night in a haunted house? Pshaw, who's afraid of ghosts? Not Danny!

But when nefarious alien invaders - the horrid stinky slimy Bugulons - threaten our planet, will Danny finally cower in terror?

I'm sure you can guess the answer!

Here's Jonathan showing off his writing props in a fantastic reading range from Egmont (Banana Books - this one at the "Blue Banana" level, perfectly pitched for Charlotte's age group at 7 years old). She rattled through this story at double quick pace thanks to its frenetic and exciting action - exactly the sort of book that Jonathan talks about a lot on his "Cool not Cute" blog where he raises a lot of very interesting points about engaging reluctant boy readers, and gender imbalance in children's picture books. Go check it out.

In the meantime, if your school's curriculum-based reading books could do with a timely refresh, check out "Danny Dreadnought" and the other fantastic stories in the Banana range from Egmont.

Charlotte's best bit: Wanting to spend the night in a haunted house!

Daddy's Favourite bit: A great book for reeling out a whole plethora of gurgling slimy Bugulon voices! Awesome!

(Kindly sent to us for review by Egmont / Jonathan Emmett)

Two subjects are guaranteed to illicit gasps of delight from Charlotte when she opens a new book parcel. Monsters and Pirates, so imagine how delighted she was when Jonathan Emmett and Poly Bernatene's new book turned up. It blends both together perfectly, kicking off by introducing us to a scurvy and snarling band of pirates who, under the command of a harsh fox captain, will stop at nothing to get their hands on treasure!

Everyone will undoubtedly have a favourite character, mine was the fabulous jowly bulldog ship's cook Findus Spew while Charlotte couldn't resist the devilish charms of Captain Cut-Throat himself!

Off on their quest for booty they sail, despite the dire warnings about the treasure-filled island that they set their sights on. When the mist starts rolling in, enveloping their ship in a sinister fog, the crew suddenly realise their folly - but the Captain snarls, sets his sails and grimly continues on!

Here's why we loved this - these pirates don't mess around, in fact they're a fairly unlikeable bunch as pirates should be (I say unlikeable but we LOVED the characters, they're the real deal!) Jonathan's rhyming text is perfectly pitched, and Poly's utterly fantastic artwork practically leaps off the page. Look out for his utterly wonderful map at the start of the book.

In places it reminded us of Jonny Duddle's awesome "The Pirate Cruncher" (in fact you'd swear at least one of the monsters that menace the crew was a sneaky cameo) but just when you thought the children's book market was full to bursting with far too many pirate books, along comes one that has all the brilliant elements that are vital to a good salty yarn.

Definitely do not miss Jonathan's brilliant website for the book, including a rather fab card game to print out and play:

http://www.scribblestreet.co.uk/games/munching/munching.html

...and while you're about it, landlubbers, here's the man himself (with his fab "Poly Parrot") to tell you a little more about the book!



Charlotte's best bit: Eggs are eggs except when they're....!

Daddy's Favourite bit: A brilliant jaunty tale, fabulous artwork and a sneering snarling cut-throat pirate captain (our favourite sort). Fabulous stuff, yo ho!

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

We all know the classic tale of The Three Little Pigs but what exactly did those little fellows get up to once they'd vanquished the big bad wolf?

In Jonathan Emmett and Steve Cox's excellent little book we find out what happens when the pigs enter the great 'Pie in the Sky Air Race' while waiting in the wings, a revenge-obsessed wolf wants to pay those little piggies back once and for all.

Still nursing a rather burnt bum, the wolf hatches a nefarious plan or two to scupper each little pig's efforts to build and fly a prize-winning plane.

The pigs aren't the brightest spanners in the toolbox (bar one, who is obviously a civil and mechanical engineering genius!). So one pig builds his plane out of straw, one builds his out of sticks and the smart one builds his out of bri...er I mean metal.

Come the day of the race, the pigs line up with the wolf who wheels out a rather sleek and dangerous-looking Saab Viggen-alike. They take off, with the roars of the crowds echoing in their ears but wolfie's nefarious plans mean the steel plane has no fuel, the straw plane is destroyed when wolfie flies through it, and the stick plane barely chugs into the sky before it too is ruined.

Can the three little pigs bounce back and win the day? Or will the wolf claim the prize and snaffle the pigs as dessert?

This book is brilliantly paced, full of excitement and a fitting way to revisit well loved characters with a couple of new wrinkles thrown into the mix. We loved the planes (we'd just been watching Porco Rosso when we grabbed this from the library so Charlotte's going through a bit of a 'plane obsessive' phase!) and we almost felt sorry for the wolf at times, I mean who wants to spend the rest of their days rubbing oinkment on a charred bottom?

Charlotte's best bit: Wolf flying through one piggy's plane at Mach 3. Ker-BOOM!

Daddy's favourite bit: What "The Barrel" does on the smart piggy's plane. No spoilers!

The Treasure of Captain Claw Cover

We've been utterly wowed by the work of Steve Cox over the last couple of days, and you can now grab yourself a slice of his fantastic artwork to stick on your wall.

If you hop through to Steve's Illustration Site on Big Cartel, you can get a massive and beautifully produced poster of the awesome Captain Claw's submarine from the book "The Treasure of Captain Claw" by Jonathan Emmett and Steve Cox.

Reasonably priced at £25 per print, and a whopping 75cm x 35cm, it's just the thing to adorn the wall of your own ocean-spanning sub, or your room if you've not got the sea-legs for undersea exploration.

Jonathan Emmett's brilliant new logo for our campaign

We now have a new campaign logo for the #ReadItMD13 campaign. Thanks to Jonathan Emmett over at scribblestreet.co.uk, who has come up with this brilliant logo that encompasses exactly what we're trying to achieve. Get more mums and dads enjoying the thrill of reading to their children.

Jonathan, an author and illustrator, is also the man behind a campaign of his own - "Cool not Cute" which aims to make sure that children's books are more broadly appealing to boys as well as girls.

Drop by his blog to find a wealth of information about the campaign.

We thank Jonathan very much for such a brilliant image (far better than my dire chocolate splodge camouflage mess) and also thank him for his support.