We absolutely LOVE Owen Davey's range of natural history books as he takes an expert look at the animal kingdom, in a truly dazzling visual way.

This time it's the turn of our eight-legged ocean-dwelling pals in "Obsessive About Octopuses" - taking a closer look at an animal that is absolutely fascinating on many levels.

Most kids will know that octopuses have eight legs and live in the sea, but did you know that Octopuses are highly intelligent, and in some cases can even use tools to manipulate their environment?

Did you know that they have multiple hearts, just like Doctor Who?

Did you know that they can adapt their skin tones as camouflage to terrify would-be predators, or to hide out of sight amongst the rocks and sand?

Octopuses are truly amazing and Owen takes a closer look at the many species that exist around our planet, from the scary Giant Pacific Octopus to the clever and adaptive common octopus. These amazing creatures really do come in all shapes and sizes, and Owen depicts them fabulously here.

Sum this book up in a sentence: A truly fascinating book for animal fans, dishing up a ton of amazing facts on Octopuses big and small and showing that this amazingly adaptive creature is more than just a leggy sea-dweller.

"Obsessive about Octopuses" by Owen Davey is out now, published by Flying Eye Books (kindly supplied for review). 

Here's a right ribbiting read that we're toadally in love with. Spawned from the fantastic creative mind of Owen Davey, let's take a dip in the deep dark pond of "Fanatical About Frogs".

Owen's natural history / nature books are a real treat, and we've enjoyed him enthusing about apes, going batty about beetles, and sizzling on about sharks.

But now it's the turn of one of our favourite amphibians. As a miscreant youth who used to raid a local farmer's pond for frog spawn, before bringing it home and watching those wriggling little cells develop first into tadpoles, and then into croaking frogs, I've always loved 'em and I'm glad to find that C loves them just as much too.

Owen takes a trip around the world to show us many of the fascinating species that dwell in just about every environment you can think of.

From poisonous brightly coloured frogs who nestle amongst the leaves in rain forests, to wrinkly warty jumpy little fellows that you can probably find in water sources and ponds near you.

Sum this book up in a sentence: With Owen's trademark beautiful and clean lined illustrations, and simple but informative text to keep little ones immersed in the subject, this is a real treat.

"Fanatical about Frogs" by Owen Davey is out now, published by Flying Eye Books (kindly supplied for review). 

Our First Book of the Week this week genuinely took us by surprise. How can you fit a pinball machine into a book?

Our Second Book of the Week oozes luxurious wonder across every page spread. The fabulous "Natural World"

We have to admit it, we're mad about monkeys. We make a bee-line for the monkey sanctuaries in our local wildlife parks and never get tired of their crazy antics.

We're also mad about Owen Davey, he's one of our favourite illustrator-dudes and has put together an utterly glorious homage to monkeys, from Macaques to Marmosets, from snozzy-old Proboscis Monkeys to beardy little Capuchins, we love them all and it's clear that Owen does too.

A fun non-fiction book collecting all species together, and detailing amazing facts and figures about monkey species, we loved diving into this. Owen Davey's illustrative spreads are a real wow too...


By the end of our time reading this, we found out...

• Why some monkeys have bright red bottoms!
• How you can tell which monkey is the king of the swingers, the pack leader
• How some amazing species are developing tool making and tool using skills
• How one chilly monkey species found out that the local hot springs were GREAT to take a dip in (and now all the monkeys in the area follow suit!)

This is truly brilliant and fascinating stuff from Owen and Flying Eye books. Give your little monkeys a treat, and pick up this brilliant book!

Charlotte's best bit: Finding out that baby monkeys in one snowy mountainous region love making snowballs!

Daddy's Favourite bit: Utterly fascinating and fantastic monkey business from Owen. Sheer brilliance!

(Kindly sent to us for review by Flying Eye Books)

We're big fans of wordless picture books. Even now, as Charlotte's reading skills mean that she often literally reads ANYTHING she can get her hands on, wordless books provide a challenge and allow for a unique style of narration that children are absolutely brilliant at.

In "Foxly's Feast" by the immensely talented Owen Davey, we meet a rather lean and hungry fox (has anyone ever seen a big fat fox in a story? Nooo!) who has big plans for dinner. Right from page one, Owen Davey builds up a wave of delicious anticipation as at first Charlotte describes Foxly as "a baddie" - well, after all he is roaming the neighbourhood kidnapping all the animals he can lay his paws on, and stuffing them unceremoniously into a huge bag.

Foxly isn't quite the villain he's painted though (and whoah, on the subject of that painting, you really truly have to love Owen's gorgeous reduced palettes and expert linework in this, as in all his other books too). As the story unfolds, Foxly's dialogue (largely consisting of pictoral 'speech bubbles') became quite hilarious as Charlotte broke out his inner monologue and described Foxly's frenzied quest in her own inimitable way.

We will leave the big surprise twist up to you to discover. Wordless picture books are something that all parents should try with their children, as the results are often spectacularly funny as they describe what's happening. They're also something that all authors and artists should have a crack at. If you can build tension and excitement without using words, you really are a talent to be reckoned with.

Charlotte's best bit: I loved her funny wobbly-wibbly Foxly voice as she 'read' the book.

Daddy's Favourite bit: Foxly is brilliant, and Owen's artwork is stunning here. What an excellent book!

Owen Davy's sublime "Laika" was a well deserved book of the week not so long back. Since then we've been tracking down his other works, and "Knight Night" had been recommended to us by several folk who also think Owen Davy's books rock.

We definitely can't disagree. A fairly simple tale of a young boy's imagination, spurred into action as he makes his way to bed, takes on magical depths as we see his real life tightly intertwined with his imaginary quest as an armour-clad Knight, embarking on a gallant mission to fight fearsome foes atop his noble steed.

It's worth remembering that this book predates the complete mania surrounding all things Knightly (which seems to have been a direct result of a certain rather bland and annoying TV-based Knight. Seriously, it can't have escaped people's notice that knights are definitely big moneyspinning business now, right?)

We loved this very much, Owen's illustrative style is so utterly gorgeous - and I loved the constant switching between the real and the imagined. A thoroughly brilliant and wonderful book that deserves a place at anyone's round table.

Charlotte's best bit: Here be dragons!

Daddy's Favourite bit: Beautiful illustrations and a fabulous running theme switching between real and surreal. Wonderful stuff Owen!

"So beautiful - should've sent a poet" - Eleanor Arroway in 'Contact'

We're a family of complete space nerds. My wife (the lucky thing) has travelled with her solar scientist dad to the Kennedy Space Centre, and since Charlotte was born she's always been aware of space science and exploration.

When I first heard about Laika the Astronaut by Owen Davey, I knew this would be a book we'd have to obtain. I'd touched on the subject with Charlotte before but when the book turned up this week, we weren't quite prepared for how beautiful it is, how Owen has imbued it with such an emotionally powerful and celebratory vibe that we're left agog.

Laika was a true space pioneer. Lifted from the streets as a stray, she was trained (or some might say 'pressganged') into becoming the first living being in space. The Russian space programme had already successfully launched Sputnik 1, and by 1957 thoughts turned to the first manned space flight. But rather than risk a pilot, the Russians turned to the canine world and thus Laika became legend.

Owen Davey's book describes her story from wandering the streets, to her training programme, and through to the nailbiting launch. Laika blasts off and as space nerds like us will already know, things went awry and the spacecraft developed a fault just hours into the mission.

Laika in Training!

The book doesn't end there though but in true ReadItDaddy tradition we're not going to ruin the rest for you, suffice to say that Owen's end-of-book summary of Laika's story made me tearful, and Charlotte joyful.

If you want to see more sneaky peeks (we don't want to spoil it for you but it's truly truly gorgeous), hop over to Owen's website.

The hunt for the real Laika began

Laika in her Sputnik II Spacecraft. Heroic little dog, bless her.

Like most books that become "Book of the Week", what happens when the covers are closed is often why we choose the books we do. Laika the Astronaut had us hauling out ever encyclopaedia in the house, firing up the iPad and trawling the Internet to find out more about Laika. To Charlotte it was important that she knew that the book was based on a real story, and that the real Laika was "out there" - No not orbiting the earth but in the archives, in books, in our stamp collection even - and of course on many many websites.

Laika in her space harness. "Just like in the book, Daddy" said Charlotte.

Looking at the movies and photos of Laika is where things got tricky. As I said, we won't spoil the book for you but obviously most adults will know what really happened here - in fact when you're a space geek but also love animals and despise the thought that they're used in scientific experiments, it's quite tough to broach the subject with a five year old. Owen's choice was to tell the story his way and it's immensely successful and rather touching.

Laika's spacecraft Sputnik II on the rocket, ready for launch

We do urge parents to tackle the book the way we did. Read it, enjoy it (and oh boy, you will most certainly enjoy it) and take a voyage of discovery afterwards. Not just into Laika's story and history but also into the various space programmes that Laika paved the way for. Never stop being curious and with beautiful and thought-provoking books like this to spur your child's curiosity, being a space geek parent can be one of the best things in the world.

Looking at the publication date for the book I feel like I should apologise. You are going to have to wait until November for it? NOVEMBER ARRGH! But I urge you, beg you even, put a pre-order in for this because you truly will not want to miss out.



Charlotte's best bit: Happy Laika when she smiles, and the end of the book which is such a beautiful, beautiful moment (and made us want to burst into tears)

Daddy's favourite bit: I'm just blown away by how good this book is. It's not just amazing to look at, it's like lighting the fuse of that amazingly powerful force that is a child's imagination and curiosity combined. A sweet story woven around the facts, and a bittersweet ending that is just so wonderful. Aww don't set me off again please...(sniff).

We found a rather neat little movie (in spanish but worth a watch) telling Laika's story too.



(Laika the Astronaut was kindly sent to us for review by Templar Publishing)