Our First Picture Book of the Week this week asks "What must it be like for a child to find themselves uprooted, moved to a new country, where everything seems unfamiliar and quite often unfriendly?"

For our first book of the week this week we feel it's vitally important for children to be able to see themselves in books, but what about dads? Does this dressy fellah feel familiar to you?

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)

Charlie Merrick's Misfits by Dave Cousins (Oxford University Press)

Ever After High - The Unfairest of them All by Shannon Hale (Little, Brown)

Disaster Diaries - Aliens by R. McGeddon and Jamie Littler (Little, Brown)

Aye-Ayes have to be one of the weirdest looking creatures you could ever come across. I mean, take a look...!

A baby Aye-Aye - A face only a mother could love!

Despite this, we love them - they're just the right kind of bizarre that crosses over into 'cute' territory. Perhaps that's the reason we enjoyed "This Book Belongs to Aye-Aye" - because it features one of our favourite animals, and also celebrates the wonders of a really good picture book. 

It's Halloween, hooray! So we're taking a look at a few spooky books today. How about a ghostly tale from Elizabeth Baguley and Marion Lindsay? It's all about a tiny little ghost called Bertie who just wants somewhere to call home - oh, and haunt (because that's what ghosts do best, after all!)

Unfortunately Bertie's diminutive stature means that it's not easy for him to rattle around in a huge castle, or roam the nether wooing and squealing to put the shivers up the neighbourhood - when there are already far more scarier things out there like wolves and giant snakes, eek! Will tiny Bertie ever find the perfect haunt?

You never know. Sometimes, even in a huge old castle, the answer might be tucked away somewhere!

Bertie's a lovely character, and this book is a nice little bedtime read that helps children overcome and understand their fears, and shows that it doesn't matter how tiny you are, there's always a place that can become yours.

Charlotte's best bit: Bertie finally settles in the one place a tiny little ghost can feel properly at home. So sweet!

Daddy's Favourite bit: Beautifully illustrated and a tender story, spooky but sweet!

Janet and John Books. Yep I am that old, these and the Peter and Jane books were in use at my school when I was Charlotte's age! As Michael Gove once again wades into the fray surrounding early literacy and 'learning to read', with Michael Rosen and Julia Donaldson also weighing in with (better informed) opinions, it seems that 2012's favourite literary topic - encouraging and developing a child's reading skills from an early age - isn't going away in 2013.  Rightly so, it's amongst the most important - if not THE most important skill a child begins to learn when they start school, and though most schools adopt the national standards and phonics, and these are fantastically effective tools to aid a child's reading development, I too agree that they should not be the only thing used to encourage a child to read.  Our experience with Charlotte and also shared experiences we hear from other parents suggest that children often feel completely overwhelmed by the options on offer, to the point where different phonics standards, different methods of teaching non-phonic (tricky) words and of course the gigantic differences in reading 'ages' for children all stack up and do more harm than good.  The problem seems to be that the government (and to a certain extent most parents) want a 'magic bullet' - a quick-fire method of turning a child who can't read into one that is fully literate, can read confidently on their own and can start to further develop their literacy skills through a standard set of books neatly pigeonholed into a recommended reading / book list in the shortest time possible.  Our recent experience from Charlotte starting school has taught us that children have such a gigantic amount of information to soak up on a daily basis that when they do have 5 minutes to spare, the very last thing they want to do is sit down with a great story book and read because they can't differentiate between reading for pleasure and reading as a class exercise ('work'). This is something that Michael Rosen has expressed concerns about and it's very easy to see why. I partially agree with his view that parrot-fashion phonics learning can turn kids off wanting to actually read stories for the sheer joy of it, and it could merely be because repetition, recognition and 'breaking down' of words are too disjointed  and completely alien to the 'flow' of the way we read stories.  Julia Donaldson's recent views on how children can gain more benefit from 'acting out' stories while learning to read are absolutely spot on. There's a level of engagement required there, and a class full of children assuming a role and being encouraged to read it are instantly transformed into a brilliant 'team' who, with the right help and cues, can better memorise the words in a story as well as the overall story itself.  We have found the Oxford Learning Tree books to be quite engaging and useful, but again quite often we actually see better results in more traditional 'picture' story books when Charlotte is encouraged to read words aloud in the context of those stories. For obvious reasons, most phonics and learning books are kept short, often fairly lightweight in plot and character development, and fit structured patterns of recognition, staged learning and repetition / decoding that perhaps help a teacher track a child's understanding and ability to deal with that stage or level of reading learning but probably don't offer much beyond this. It's like trying to ascertain whether someone's a great driver by getting them to drive 10ft on a variety of surfaces before rubber-stamping them as a qualified driver, and sending them out on a long road trip across the country.  We obviously don't have a magic bullet any more than anyone else, but we've found that there is little or perhaps even no worth in just relying on the structured and phonics methods of encouraging Charlotte to read. If you do not supplement this type of reading with more traditional methods of reading stories (aloud, together and even letting a child have a go on their own) then they're going to miss probably the most important reason to learn to read in the first place - because it's a massive amount of fun and can open the doors of your imagination in ways nothing else can.

This morning, as the usual hustle and bustle of getting ready for school was well under way, The Strolling Mum was upstairs getting ready and I was busy in the kitchen packing lunches, tidying dishes away and generally trying to pack an hour's worth of activity into the 5 minutes we had left before the mad rush to school.

I was putting my lunch away in my bag when I could hear Charlotte talking in her room. No hang on a sec, not talking but reading - or rather sounding out and trying to read one of her books on her own, completely unprompted.

Regular readers of this blog will probably know what a big emo softie I am but as I stood there listening to her sounding out, putting into practice all the recent phonics, word exercises and things she'd been learning at her school (who have managed to do so much in the space of 6 weeks, hats off to them!) it was a beautiful moment and one I felt I'd love to halt time for a while for, just so I could stand there a little longer and enjoy that sound. One of the best sounds in the world.

Charlotte has been using the fantastic Oxford Reading Tree books from Oxford University Press at her school and they work beautifully, with great contributors such as Julia Donaldson and one of our recent fave author illustrators, Ross Collins as well as many many others.

The books work, and I'd also hope that we're helping too - we read to her every night (have done since she was a tiny tiny baby), you all already know how much she loves books and it was just such a beautiful moment to hear her doing that this morning, knowing that she SO wants to read and will even do it completely unprompted.

I'd put out a plea to all parents (particularly dads, because it seems dads are missing out on reading to their kids which to me just seems completely insane) to read to their kids, don't do it because you feel you have to - do it because you want to and because through your enthusiasm and encouragement as well as your school or library's excellent books, children will really reap the rewards and start to enjoy something that truly will have a massive impact on their lives in more ways than you can imagine.

Charlotte has just started ballet lessons at school, but she's at the age when children absolutely will not tell you what they do at school - even under the harsh light of parental interrogation. So we have absolutely no idea how she's getting on!

She does love this book though, Naughty Toes. The story of two sisters who have completely polar opposite approaches to dance lessons. Belinda is almost a prima ballerina. She twirls, she goes en-pointe (is that the right terminology?), she is the star of every ballet lesson. Her sister Trixie, however, is a bit of a maverick dancer and chooses to interpret each lesson in her own inimitable style.

When Belinda becomes the star of the school ballet show with Trixie propping up the background as a piece of scenery, things take a turn for the worse but with a little sisterly love and some understanding lessons in other dance styles, Trixie soon finds her feet.

Dance-obsessed girls and boys will love Ann Bonwill's lovely little tale and Teresa Murfin's great illustrative style. Absolutely lovely. Now if you'll excuse us, we fancy a little pas-de-deux.

Charlotte's best bit: Trixie's final costume and Belinda's beautiful stunning ballet dress (it's all about the ballet dresses for Charlotte!)

Daddy's favourite bit: Great characters drawn beautifully by Teresa Murfin. Real unique style, that!

Poppa Bombola is all in a tizz
Poppa Bombola's brain starts to fizz
You see he's lost his darling daughter
(Well not really, but sorta)
So he's running hither, and thither and here
To find his darling daughter dear.
He runs to the stable, he runs to the pond
But Poppa Bombola can't find out where she's gone.
He asks piggy, and horse, he asks chicken and cat.
But no one seems to know where she's at.

Poppa Bombola, in a bit of a doze.
Doesn't realise the answer is right under his nose!

As you can tell, I'm not a poet so I won't peel your eyes with any more of my terrible prose. Suffice to say that we rather liked "Where's my darling daughter" and its lilting rhyming text, and of course Poppa Bombola - the world's biggest worry wort. Be prepared to shout "BEHIND YOU!" along with your little ones all the way through this lovely book.

I'd like to have carried on this review in rhyme.
But as you can see, I'm all out of time...!

Charlotte's best bit: Piggies!

Daddy's favourite bit: Big hugs!

Rating: 4 out of 5 stars

Like most guinea pigs, Christopher Nibble LOVES dandelion leaves. Dandelion leaves for breakfast, lunch, in-between meal snacks, dinner and supper.

Of course the problem with mass consumerism on this scale comes when you don't shore up the supplies by responsible replanting or sustainability.

Soon Dandeville is almost completely devoid of dandelion treats aside from a few ebay scalpers flogging off their prized dandelion leaves for crazy prices (so very well observed, CM!) Thank goodness then for Christopher Nibble!

How he saves the day is beautifully told in this moral tale woven with expertise and care. Beautifully illustrated and told without being preachy. Christopher Nibble is nibble-tastic!

Charlotte's best bit: Guinea pigs. Lots of guinea pigs, you can never have too many guinea pigs apparently!

Daddy's favourite bit: Christopher Nibble bidding for dandelion leaves on the internet

Rating: 4 out of 5 stars


(This book was supplied as part of the Booktrust Booksmart scheme)

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 

Updating the classic tale of Gulliver's Travels for a younger audience is tricky to say the least, but Geraldine McCaughrean has managed to put the focus on a little girl's relationship with the gentle giant, creating a story that takes all the best elements of the original and updates them quite nicely. 

Fig discovers the giant while out playing with her dog on the beach, and from then events rapidly take a turn for the worse once her fellow Lilliputians realise what a valuable asset they have in their continuing war with the Brobdinagians. 

Jonathan Swift's original story is treated with a fair amount of respect, and though it's a trifle 'grown up' for a 3 year old, they'll still enjoy the anticipation of 'what happens next' with every turn of the page. 

Charlotte's best bit: The contents of the giant's pockets. 


Daddy's favourite bit: Seeing the giant sailing off in a rather too tiny boat

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