Wow, we haven't reviewed anything by Leo Timmers in a long time. In fact Leo's books were amongst the first that C truly fell in love with, back when we first started our blogging journey.

There's just something deliciously charming about "Monkey on the Run" and it begins with the sort of Richard-Scarry-Esque obsession that Leo has with all sorts of totally cool retro vehicles, inventive and amazing and almost as important as the central characters in this story themselves.

So the story begins with Papa and Little Monkey stuck in traffic. We've all been there, right? But Little Monkey is impatient, and decides it's time to swing off and get home the quick way.

Abandoning their rather fantastic Banana-shaped motorbike and sidecar, Papa Monkey and Little Monkey swing along using different vehicles as jumping-off points to finally reach Mama Monkey at home.

It's a wordless story, and that gives Leo ample opportunity to showboat his amazing artistic skills. Everything on every spread feels like it's about to leap into life, start moving of its own accord. He has a peerless eye for detail, light and design and gives everything that glorious super-shiny 1950s USA kind of glimmer about it, from the clothes that the hilarious animal characters wear, to their rides.

The sheer joy of wordless books is letting kids take over, to describe the narrative themselves as they follow Little Monkey's journey home.

A real treat this! You'd be bananas to miss it!

Sum this book up in a sentence: A gloriously artistic and stylish romp for a pair of engaging monkeys as they swing and sway their way through the traffic back home in time for tea.

"Monkey on the Run" by Leo Timmers is out now, published by Gecko Press (kindly supplied for review) 

We're big fans of Leo Timmers, particularly the beautifully painted animal characters that always feature in his books (though admittedly, I miss them tootling around in cool little vehicles in this).

"I am the King" describes what happens when a slow and steady tortoise finds a crown one day, and decides it fits on his shell perfectly.

His animal friends all scoff and laugh, and all try the crown on themselves proclaiming themselves as the true king - but who does the crown really belong to? Who could possibly be bigger than Elephant? Smarter than Snake? More round and jolly than Pig (who Charlotte thinks should have been 'Warthog' not Pig! Quite right, Charlotte!)

It's a fun book, brilliant for younger children who love picking out their favourite animals. Leo Timmers has a knack for keeping his layouts nice and simple, but with exquisitely rendered paintings in each frame.

We're steadily hunting down as many Timmers books as we can, and this is a very good one for toddlers.

Charlotte's best bit: Flamingo, who can wear the crown around her neck.

Daddy's favourite bit: Mischievous Monkey running off with the crown before running into the REAL owner! Eek!

Who's driving?





Bold and colourful cover art can instantly sell a book to you and this is definitely one of the first staple lessons any would-be children's book author or illustrator should have drummed into them. In the case of Leo Timmer's excellent little "discovery" book "Who's Driving", the cover is so eye catching and colourful that you can't help but pick it up and dive in. 

Following a series of superb animal characters through the story to find out who will drive each vehicle in turn is tons of fun. Toddlers will enjoy trying to work out who will drive the fire engine, who will fly the plane, who will cruise in the limousine or who will chug in the jeep. 

Timmers' illustrations are sublime and retro, the text is simple and engaging and there are tons of character and detail in each of the animals in the story. Great stuff. 

Charlotte's best bit: The tractor

Daddy's favourite bit: The hippo