Moving from one excellent witchy series to another in our #Booky100Keepers list, the "Winnie the Witch" books by Valerie Thomas and Korky Paul were early favourites of C - and that rare thing, a series of books that she discovered herself without any prodding or cajoling from me.

Back when our blog first began, I started trying to keep a list of the books we regularly borrowed from our local library, mainly to try and avoid C picking the same books every week. I was lucky enough to be working flexibly at the time, getting every wednesday off. So wednesday became library day and that's how this whole thing started out.

Trying to discourage a 2 year old from picking the same books isn't as easy as it sounds, and in fact these were nearly always in our pile, and thankfully by the time we started blogging there were plenty of excellent Winnie the Witch books to choose from.

The huge appeal of these books for C were largely down to Korky Paul's scritchy scratchy illustrations, and this set out a pattern we'd see again and again in the books that we ended up loving (and keeping). There's so much detail in there, everything from little jokes and nods at popular culture, to cameos from Korky's other books, even to cameos for Valerie and Korky themselves.

Of course no book is just about the illustrations. Valerie's stories were always funny and she never ceased to amaze us with how many different ways she could cook up to get Winnie and Wilbur into trouble (and thankfully out again).

As much as kids love to read about themselves in children's books, they also absolutely LOVE to read about adults stuffing up - and Winnie isn't some masterful mistress of magic, in fact most of the time her spells go awry, her house is a mess, and poor Wilbur is usually on the receiving end of misplaced spells or other chaos in each story.

One of C's early favourites was "Winnie in Winter" - a tale that sees Winnie tinkering with the seasons themselves as she and Wilbur get fed up with the constant cold and snow.

But when she tinkers with bringing summer early to her garden, the poor creatures who live there don't know whether to hibernate or stay up, and soon everyone wants a piece of the sunny action - and Winnie's garden ends up looking like every green space does at the moment as we watch hordes of crazy people ignoring the COVID-19 lockdown and social distancing stuff.

Winnie has no choice but to restore the balance of nature, bringing the wintry weather back again. At one point we were borrowing this book every week for about a year, that's how popular it was.

It's testament to how popular these books are that our second most accessed review on the blog was an article about Winnie's 25th birthday with over 1800 unique hits (not too shabby for a book blog done in our spare time).

C once met Korky and was delighted when she mentioned her blog and he knew exactly who we were. I think it went to her head a bit as she would constantly talk about how 'famous' we were. Ah if only that were true!

I've included a few other Korky Paul reviews (he really has worked with some of the best writers in the business) as well as the Winnie books, as they're all well and truly brilliant and worthy of your attention.

Original review links

ReadItDaddy's Second Picture Book of the Week - Week Ending 25th May 2018: "Winnie and Wilbur: Seaside Adventures" by Valerie Thomas and Korky Paul (OUP / Oxford Children's Books)

Snails Legs by Damian Harvey and Korky Paul (Frances Lincoln Children's Books)

The Rascally Cake by Jeanne Willis and Korky Paul (Picture Puffin)

ReadItDaddy's First Picture Book of the Week - Week Ending 29th September 2017 - "Winnie and Wilbur: The Naughty Knight" by Valerie Thomas and Korky Paul (Oxford Children's Books)

ReadItDaddy's Book of the Week - Week Ending 23rd May 2014 - "Sir Scallywag and the Deadly Dragon Poo" by Giles Andreae and Korky Paul (Picture Puffin)

Winnie's Midnight Dragon

Booky Advent Calendar Day 10: "Winnie and Wilbur: The Santa Surprise" by Laura Owen and Korky Paul (OUP / Oxford Children's Books)

A Rocketful of Space Poems by John Foster and Korky Paul (Otter-Barry Books / Frances Lincoln Children's Books)

The Very Noisy House by Julie Rhodes and Korky Paul (Frances Lincoln Children's Books)

It's Friday the 13th! What better day to celebrate Winnie the Witch's Birthday!

The Duck with No Luck

Sanji and the Baker

The Dog who could Dig

Professor Puffendorf's Secret Potions

A Cat Called Scratch

Winnie At the Seaside

Winnie Flies Again

Winnie in Winter

Happy 25th Birthday, Winnie the Witch!

Happy Birthday Winnie!

Winnie's Flying Carpet

It's time for Day 10 of our Booky Advent Calendar, and here's a fabulous chapter-based outing for two of our favourite picture book characters.

Winnie the Witch and Wilbur her long-suffering moggy are back for an all-new festive adventure in this fantastic gift edition of "Winnie and Wilbur: The Santa Surprise" by Laura Owen and Korky Paul.

The run-up to Christmas is hugely exciting, even in the magical world of witches and wizards - and Winnie & Wilbur just can't wait for the big day.

But as they start to think about presents and turkey, Brussels Sprouts and perhaps the odd glass or two of sherry or catnip, what about poor old Santa? Who's going to get HIM a present?

So it's time for an epic quest to the Frozen North for Winnie and Wilbur to ensure that the big fellah, Mr S. Claus himself, also gets a gift and a christmas he'll never forget!


Let's hope Winnie has packed her thermals!

Winnie and Wilbur might need some extra help this christmas!

A delightfully charming story outing for Winnie and Wilbur, perfect for younger readers who are looking for more wordy fare than picture books.

Picture book Winnie fans will still love all Korky's awesome illustrations for this longer read

"Winnie and Wilbur: The Santa Surprise" by Laura Owen and Korky Paul is out now, published by OUP / Oxford Children's Books (kindly supplied for review).

It's a sheer delight to see the winsome witch and her long-suffering moggy sidekick back for a three-in-one book full of sand, sea and summer fun.

Oh wowsers, this week's first Picture Book of the Week is a real blast from the past, quite literally...!

Poems! Space! Two of our favourite things combined? Well, this one's going to go down well....

Do you often wish that once, just once, a children's story would actually end with something other than a happy outcome? Step right this way for a timely reprint of a real classic - coming soon from Frances Lincoln Children's Books. Damian Harvey and Korky Paul's brilliant "Snails Legs" is a tale that, at first, seems to be a neat little riff on "The Hare and the Tortoise". Frog is the fastest creature in the forest, but as he gets older new contenders are eager to take his athletic crown. Upcoming track superstar Snail is swift and speedy, with the aid of his long muscular legs and his racing helmet, he's swiftly nipping at Frog's heels for the fastest animal trophy.

"Snails aren't fast! Snails don't have legs!" said Charlotte.

Hush my dear and wait...for this tale has an amusing twist or two that loans it a dark and slightly macabre tinge. A famous chef, the chef to the king, is on the lookout for animals with long speedy legs for a special competition. The winner will get to meet none other than the King himself!

Frog and Snail face off in a race for glory - who will win?

Just when you're settled in with the way you think the story will go, Damian twists things a little more. You see Snail might be boastful and vainglorious but he loves his friend Frog, and actually loves their competitive banter. Perhaps after all, winning isn't as important as letting an old frog have just one last moment of glory.

The race is won - and then once again Damian twists the story for the most surprising outcome. I love the fact that, though adults might see the end of the story coming a mile off, children are genuinely shocked and surprised (we won't spoil the end but it's MARVELLOUS and obviously explains why we don't see snails dashing around with their long legs on show!)

A modern fable, beautifully put together by a top story team!

Charlotte's best bit: A genuine gasp of shock at the outcome of the race and the meeting with the King.

Daddy's Favourite bit: An utterly fantastic, darkly tinged story that's full of surprises right up until the end. Brilliant storytelling, gorgeous Korky Paul art, what more could you possibly want!






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

Goodness me, poo really doesn't ever go out of fashion in children's books does it! Here's the brilliant sequel to "Sir Scallywag and the Golden Underpants" which was released back in 2012. Back again are the dream team of Giles (can rhyme his way out of a concrete overcoat) Andreae and Korky (Has scratch pen, will travel!) Paul with another adventure for the brave but slightly scatterbrained knight, Sir Scallywag.

King Colin and his Queen are rich beyond their wildest dreams, and spend all their lovely loot on sweeties (amazingly, they have lovely teeth considering how much sugary stuff they cram in). But trouble is on the horizon. As the King, Queen and all their royal subject get fatter and lazier, The dreaded Baron Greedyguts hatches a plan to steal the King and Queen's amazing sweetie-making machine. A plan so dastardly and foul that we can barely bring ourselves to type it. The Baron will use deadly stinky dragon poo to lay siege to the King and Queen's castle, forcing them to give up the goodies!

Sir Scallywag, brave knight and the only one who hasn't stuffed his face full of sweetie goodness, must come to the rescue once again - Braving torrents of dragon doo-doo to turn things around just in time for a slap-up feast around the banqueting table. But can Sir Scallywag brave such a dirty rotten campaign and defeat the Baron before it's too late?

We'll leave you to discover the answer. Normally we are pretty fussy about poo-based books (yes, OK, we'll admit it, we do snigger at the odd one or two though). This is brilliant though and if your kids are going through a phase of loving tales of knights of old, brave and bold, they are absolutely going to love this to bits.

Giles' rhymes are pitch perfect, flow beautifully - even when he's dealing with the fairly stomach-churning subject of dragon droppings. Korky Paul's illustrations are as brilliant and detailed as ever - and we really loved the cameos from his other books (we will leave you to find them all but Charlotte's absolute HERO is here in all his whiskery black-furred green-eyed glory, can you guess who we mean?)

"Sir Scallywag and the Deadly Dragon Poo" is out on the 5th June 2014. Reserve your copy now from Picture Puffin.

Charlotte's best bit: The sweetie machine looks so yummy, but a certain cameo by a bewhiskered hero really made her day!

Daddy's Favourite bit: Children's picture books truly don't get much better than this, it's fun, hilarious, beautifully illustrated, has the tightest and most accomplished rhymes - and even if you're not a huge fan of poo, you will love this!

(Kindly sent to us for review by Picture Puffin)

Claude is on the case (Images © Alex T Smith)

Discover Story's "The Big Write – Stories Remixed" festival opens this week. Starting on 6th March and running till the 16th, you can join in with a fantastic set of events during March.

The festival includes a spectacular programme for all ages with authors, illustrators, visual artists, popstars and comic makers joining us for all that is best and brilliant about writing and stories.

Some of the big names in this year’s guest events include Korky Paul (Winnie the Witch), Axel Scheffler (The Gruffalo), Nadia Shireen (Good Little Wolf), John Hegley (I am a Poetato), Cerrie Burnell (CBeebies) and Guy Parker–Rees (Giraffes Can’t Dance).

You can also create a pop song with Boogaloo Stu and enjoy a pop gig with Catherine Bennett Live!

Discover Story's fantastic events programme runs throughout 2014. More details can be found on the Discover Story website.

www.discover.org.uk

Check out some of the brilliant event pics below:

Axel Scheffler (Photo: © Discover / Tim Mitchell)

Codename Comic Maker! (Photo: © Discover / Tim Mitchell)

The divine Sarah Mcintyre (Photo: © Discover / Tim Mitchell)

The Big Write! (Photo © Discover / Tim Mitchell)

Troll-taming genius Adam Stower (Photo © Discover / Tim Mitchell)

Now that Charlotte takes an even more active role in our book reading sessions, it's always great to find books that she can easily read along with me and join in with - particularly big noisy books like "The Very Noisy House".

Stories that build from a very simple beginning into a chaotic crazy explosion of words and pictures are always favourites on the blog. Here, the simple story of a little old lady who lives at the bottom of the house and clonks along with her walking stick expands as the dog upstairs is disturbed by her clonking, the cat above the dog is disturbed by the dog's barking, the baby above is disturbed by the cat's meowing and the birds in the attic start flapping madly as the cat's meows get louder and louder. As each level of the house is revealed, the story progresses and the barks, clonks, meows, waahs and flapping get louder and louder until they explode into a cacophonic crescendo.

We loved the fact that the story echoes like a soundwave, getting louder and louder, and then eventually once again getting softer and softer until it bounces back on itself - giving you the perfect excuse to zip straight back to the first page.

A great story, and it goes without saying that Korky Paul's illustrations (including a cameo from everyone's favourite witch, Winnie) really make the book come to life. Probably a good idea to get yourself some earplugs for this one if you have more than one child and they're both helping out with reading duties!

Charlotte's best bit: Wonderful cameos from Winnie the Witch, and the Waaah-ing baby!

Daddy's Favourite bit: A wonderful book that reads like an echo-reverberation wall of sound. Superb!

More locally generated genius, this time in the form of Korky Paul's superbly detailed illustrations. Coupled with Jeanne Willis' supreme talent for funny (and quite ghastly) rhymes, "The Rascally Cake" was a bit of a 'find' in our local library (we thought we'd seen just about everything Korky Paul had draw, we were definitely wrong!)

It's the tale of a rather foul gent called Rufus O' Parsley who has rather odd culinary tastes. If it's rancid, rotten, grim, gooey, icky, mouldy, manky, gross, squishy, slithery or downright unpalatable Rufus is in his element.

His diet gets the better of him one day when he decides to cram all the world's most disgusting ingredients into a cake. Made in a dustbin, lovingly garnished with old toenail clippings, bogeys and snot, Rufus doesn't realise that food takes on a life of its own when it gets below a point of griminess.

The cake suddenly springs to life. Worse than that, the cake has rather taken a fancy to Rufus - fancying him for tea!

It's masterfully icky stuff that's a giggle from start to finish. If you've ever wondered what happens to food when it slides oozily past its sell by date, you'll love this book.

Charlotte's best bit: The icky cake slithering under the door! Yikes!

Daddy's favourite bit: I love Korky Paul's inventiveness, and one of these days I'm going to decipher all those cyrillic phrases he keeps hiding in his work!

Oxfordshire is a seething hotbed of literary genius, so it comes as no surprise to find some of the world's best selling authors based here in our wonderful county.

The "Get Oxfordshire Reading" Campaign aims to raise the profile of reading, and in conjunction with the National Literacy Trust, 81 primary schools have signed up and pledged support.

Literary greats such as Mark ("The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time") Haddon and Mini ("Egg Drop", "Biscuit Bear") Grey are also joined by actors like Miriam Margolyes and fantastic illustrators such as Korky Paul to ensure that children get the right start on their path to discovering the joy of reading and books.

We fully support the initiative here at ReadItDaddy and look forward to hearing how the campaign fares in the coming year. There are so many talented individuals and brilliant organisations involved in this that it's sure to be a massive success.

Click the links below to find out more:

"Celebrity Authors Support the Get Oxfordshire Reading Campaign"

"Mark Haddon gets behind Get Oxfordshire Reading"

The Campaign Website

We originally reviewed "Professor Puffendorf's Secret Potions" back in October last year. Like a lot of our local library's books, Charlotte often picks the same books out of the stacks again and again, and this book is no exception. 

Since the original review, Charlotte has become less obsessed with "the doctor lady" and more obsessed with her furry sidekick Chip, a guinea pig (Charlotte loves guinea pigs more than baby rabbits now, and she also finds Chip's name quite amusing. "Is it because he eats a lot of chips?")

The story of the Professor's lazy and rather nasty assistant Enzo, his attempts to steal the Professor's magical potions, and of course the method by which Enzo gets his come-uppance is an excellent tale - competing easily with the other Korky Paul Illustrated books featuring a certain Witch called Winnie (in fact I'm still a bit sad that Winnie didn't crop up in this one, particularly as she had a couple of neat little cameos in Sanjay the Baker). 

Still, Professor Puffendorf is excellent (even though she spends the majority of the book absent) and it would be great if Tzannes / Paul could do at least one more book featuring her antics (and Chip's, of course!)

Charlotte's best bit - Counting to 5 as each potion weaves its magic on the poor hapless Chip

Daddy's favourite bit - Yeah you've guessed it, still in love with Korky Paul's scratchy art style

Rating - 4 out of 5 

Oh well, it had to happen sooner or later. The second of our Korky Paul Picture Book reviews for this week isn't quite as successful as Sanji the Baker. If this blog gave separate scores for illustrations and stories, we could just about scrape by giving this top marks for Korky Paul's pictures in the book - but the story is strictly for the birds.

A clumsy, lazy unlikeable duck embarks on a quest to join his duck friends as they fly south for the winter. The Duck with No Luck is an unfortunate feathered friend and ends up getting completely and hopelessly lost as he asks his bird chums for directions in a variety of exotic locations. 

The book's illustrations are ace, as is the cameo from Winnie the Witch's Wilbur (at least that was the only bit Charlotte liked) - but the book seems to dribble along with very little plot (yes it's a children's book but if your toddler starts to yawn and gets you to turn the pages quickly before you've even finished reading each one, you know something's wrong). 

A pity as this was another Korky Paul Picture Book we hadn't seen up till now and could probably have got along fine without seeing, in all honesty. 

Charlotte's best bit: Wilbur sneaking around the bins in one illustration


Daddy's favourite bit: Meagre pickings with this one but I did quite enjoy seeing The Dog Who Could Dig picking over bones with a vulture

Our quest to hoover up every Korky-Paul-Illustrated book on the planet continues, as this week we struck gold at the Library by grabbing one of the few Korky Paul Picture Books we haven't seen yet. 

Sanji and the Baker is excellent, almost like a modern fable. Sanji the down-at-heel travelling adventurer takes up residence above a Baker's Shop. Every morning he wakes up to the delicious smells emanating from the Baker's wares. 

The Baker takes great exception to this and brings Sanji up before a judge for stealing his smells. 

The twist in the story at the end is superb. Even more superb is the fact that the book features a good dose of excellent Korky Paul cameos from various other books he's illustrated (yep, Winnie Witch is in the book as one of Sanji's generous friends). 

A winning attention to detail, a great moral tale and a rather original setting. Brilliant book. 

Charlotte's best bit: Winnie the Witch as a magical money lender

Daddy's favourite bit: Sanji's excellent steampunk smell-grabber

Take one cat, with one rather irritating flea and one particular favourite artist with an equally scratchy inkpen and you've got a recipe for genius. Korky Paul teams up with author Jonathan Long for a superb rhyming book chock full of trademark KP illustrations that are a joy to pick your way through. 

It's almost impossible to read without feeling slightly itchy though, so be warned. Some absolutely superb cameos (even from Winnie Witch, who doesn't normally appear in any other Korky Paul illustrated collaborations). 

Charlotte's best bit: By far, Winnie Witch's hairdo after a tussle with Tessa the Hairdresser. 

Daddy's favourite bit: Same as Charlotte, great cameos also from Professor Puffendorf, the Dog who could Dig and the Dinosaur Lady from TDWCD. 

Rating: 5 out of 5

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Published by Oxford University Press

It's a hot lazy summer and Winnie the Witch is fed up with lounging around in her garden at home. She gathers up her broomstick, and Wilbur, and heads to the coast for an action packed day out. 

As ever, just when we think we've read all the Winnie Witch books, another one pops up and they're always a welcome addition to our weekly library run. Spotting cameos from other Korky Paul books is always half the fun of a Winnie Witch story so look forward to spotting The Fish who could Wish in there amongst others. 

Secretly though, Charlotte is beginning to wish that Valerie Thomas would write a book that just had Wilbur in it. Might be worth an email?

Charlotte's best bit: "Doctor Lady!" (Professor Puffendorf, who also makes a cameo wearing a rather fetching lime green bathing suit). 


Daddy's favourite bit: Noting that even witches have cellulite!

Rating: 5 out of 5

Winnie's Flying Carpet

Written by Valerie Thomas

Illustrated by Korky Paul

Amazon Link: £9.89 (hardback)

Published by Oxford University Press


 Just when we think we've read all of the Winnie Witch books, another one crops up at our local library and we can't resist picking it  up. Though this is pretty formulaic Winnie Witch fare, there's plenty to keep youngsters happy and amused particularly if they're fans of Winnie's long suffering (especially in this tale) cat Wilbur. 

Winnie struggles to write a thank you letter (on her super duper iMac which looks suspiciously just like the one I'm typing this blog entry on) to her sisters after she receives a misbehaving flying carpet for her birthday. Naturally Wilbur falls foul of the magic rug, and ends up on a mad haphazard chase through a local fairground. 

As with all the Winnie Witch books, it's the illustrations that make them worth reading - oodles and oodles of detail, plenty of in-jokes (funnily enough guess who turns up making a cameo in this book like she does in all the other Winnie Witch books!) and lots to amuse children and parents alike.
Rating: 4 out of 5