Time for a beautiful new clothbound edition of a classic story, with all new visuals by one of the most widely celebrated artists working in children's literature today.

"The King of the Golden River" by John Rushkin, with illustrations by Sir Quentin Blake, is a gorgeous edition of a book that first came out in 1851.

A victorian moral story, the tale of three brothers black. Gluck the kind-natured big hearted brother, and his two older siblings Hans and Schwartz who mistreat their younger brother terribly.

For Gluck, play is cleaning the floors, and his education consists of a wholesome quantity of punches courtesy of his nasty older sibs (what rotters!) 

It's never too soon to wean your little ones onto the genius books of Roald Dahl (and of course Quentin Blake)...

Three cheeky and endearing little owls make Christmas truly special in our Booky Advent Calendar book for Day 20. 5 more sleeps to go but let's find out just how busy these three little owls are.

These amazing mums lay an egg each before jetting off on an incredible journey all around the world, carrying with them a wicker basket to gather up treasures and amazing things to eat to help the poor folk of the village celebrate christmas in style.

Translated by John Yeoman from the late Emanuele Luzzati's fantastic original story, the book is given even more of a magical touch by Quentin Blake, who lends his trademark illustrative style to this wonderfully flowing story to really help it come alive.

It's that rare thing - a Christmassy book that isn't actually that Christmassy, it doesn't ram the festive season down your throat, but delivers a lovely message of hope with three truly fab little characters full of fun and energy.

"Three Little Owls" by Emanuele Luzzati, John Yeoman and Quentin Blake is out now, published by Tate Publishing (Kindly supplied for review). 

What a fantastic idea! A book full of fizzing whizzing science experiments based on one of our favourite Roald Dahl books! You bet we're in!!

Slipping in silently on silken paws, here's a lost story from one of the world's best-loved authors...

A delicious set of poetic odes to childhood, brilliantly written by Michael Rosen and illustrated by Quentin Blake? Of course we're excited!!

"Oscar and the Amazing Gravity Repellent" by Tina L. Peterson (with illustrations by Xavier Bonet) (Raintree Publishing)

Oh I know school has started, and you're probably fed up already (or if you're a parent, you're running around the house screaming whoops of glee!) but there's always room in your school bag for a new book.

In this month's chapter book roundup we kick off with an awesome story from Tina L. Peterson (with illustrations by Xavier Bonet). "Oscar and the Amazing Gravity Repellent" tells the tale of a young boy who is fed up with being clumsy and even more fed up with being pushed around. Along with his friend Asha, Oscar finds an old abandoned railway wagon, the home of the mysterious Dr Oopsie, a showman and inventor who has left behind a powerful gift, an amazing gravity repellent that can send even the heaviest objects shooting up into the sky.

As bullies close in on Asha and Oscar in their hiding place, the temptation to use their newly found potion is almost too much to bear. Can Oscar do the right thing (and will chatterbox Asha help him make the right decision too?)

This is a fantastic middle grade story with a hugely positive message. "Oscar and the Gravity Repellent" is imaginative and inventive, and we look forward to seeing more from Oscar and Asha! The book is out now from Raintree Publishing (UK) and Capstone Publishing (US).

Would you like some more? NEVERMORE!!!

"Mortimer and the Sword Excalibur" by Joan Aiken & Quentin Blake (Frances Lincoln Children's Books)

Arabel and Mortimer are back in the 5th fantastic book in Joan Aiken's timeless series. This time, Arabel and Mortimer are drawn into an Arthurian mystery as the local park is being excavated, and the last resting place of King Arthur's Round Table seems to have been found. Mortimer is up to his usual mischievous tricks though and seems more interested in the inner workings of the park lawn mower than some rusty old relics in a dirty old hole. But wait, something glints and catches the raven's eye...

Utterly brilliant, and so happy to see these back in print thanks to Frances Lincoln Publishing. "Mortimer and the Sword Excalibur" was released on 6th August 2015 so you can nip out and grab a copy now.

Next in our round up? Spooky goings on in a fabulous ghoulish anthology...

"The Ghosts Who Danced" by Saviour Pirotta and Paul Hess (Frances Lincoln Children's Books)

If there's one thing we'd love to see more of in children's early readers and chapter books, it's a good ghostly yarn or two. I was brought up with the amazing (and quite scary) Methuen ghost anthologies, but this fantastic collection "The Ghosts Who Danced (and other spooky stories from around the world)" is eminently suitable for younger (and braver) readers who love a dark tale or two with supernatural shenanigans.

Saviour Pirotta and Paul Hess have collected together well known and well loved ghost stories from around the globe of haunted ships, ghostly houses and spooky spectres. Each story is short enough to polish off one or two before bed-time (assuming of course that your little ones don't mind spooky stuff before bed!)

The stories are fantastic and diverse, and the illustrations are utterly wonderful.

"The Ghosts who Danced" is available now from Frances Lincoln Publishing.

Here's Charlotte reading an excerpt from "Ghost Ship" in her first VLOG :)


A final book for this month's roundup...can you bear to let it go?

"The Snow Queen" by Hans Christian Andersen and Lucie Arnoux (Pushkin Children's Books)

Yes indeed, it's the original story that inspired the huge Disney movie "Frozen". Step back into the original Hans Christian Andersen tale of "The Snow Queen" adapted with all new fabulous illustrations from Lucie Arnoux. Two centuries on from its original publication, the story of Kay and Gerda, and an intrepid rescue mission to thwart the wicked magic of The Snow Queen is as tense and exciting as ever. Though children will probably make rude rasping noises about this (the force of Anna and Elsa are powerful, after all!), it's a dextrous retelling beautifully illustrated and presented and should certainly wow older readers who have grown out of all things Disney.

"The Snow Queen" by Hans Christian Andersen and Lucie Arnoux is out on 1st October 2015. Let it melt your icy heart!

And that's all we've got time for this month. Join us next month for a pre-halloween chapter book blowout hopefully with even more spooky stuff!

Pictures and paintings can tell a story without a dot of text or an explanatory paragraph. We know this from our visits to one of our favourite local destinations - the astonishing Ashmolean Museum, which we're lucky enough to have easy access to. Wandering through the amazing gallery in the museum, we often play the same game that the children in Quentin Blake's "Tell me a Picture - Adventures in Looking at Art" do.

Quentin Blake oversaw an exhibition at the National Gallery while serving as the first children's laureate back in 2001. The exhibition gathered together classic and contemporary art from artists and children's book illustrators with the intention of sparking conversation and encouraging exploration of art in a way that really appeals to us. Though Charlotte's more of a science geek, sharing a house with me means that she's been slowly introduced to art most of her young life and hopefully my rather ham-fisted attempts to get her interested in art might rub off on her later on (She's already far better at drawing and painting than I am, not constrained by the daft self-imposed rules some adults cling on to when they start putting pencil to paper).

Quentin's characters explore the gallery of work from wonderful artists like Gaudi, Emma Chichester-Clark and John Burmingham, passing comment on each work in ways that will spark your own children's interest and curiosity.

It's a fantastic idea to revisit Quentin's original project and put it together in a glorious hardback book. If you (like us) love all things arty, and love encouraging your children to follow the same path then this is definitely not to be missed.

Charlotte's best bit: Fascinating X-Ray work on a painting to reveal a hidden painting underneath

Daddy's Favourite bit: A truly awesome collection of art from some of our favourite artists, wrapped up in a book that just begs to be explored

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

Quentin Blake is such an astonishing AND prolific talent it's almost impossible to keep up with his books, but we aim to try - and this superbly dark tinged story sprung on us by surprise. Tucked into the library stacks, we hadn't encountered it before but absolutely had to take it home with us.

"Monsters", written by Russell Hoban and illustrated by Sir Quentin himself, is the seemingly simple story of John. John is almost like every other boy but there's one thing John loves more than anything else. He loves to draw monsters.

Thin ones, fat ones, horrible ones, cute ones - Monsters of all shapes and sizes. John's Mum and Dad are a bit perplexed but wonder if a chat with a friendly doctor might not go amiss.

John then begins an amazing new work of art - on a huge piece of paper. Piecing the whole picture together one tiny tantalising bit at a time, it's obvious that John is working on his most incredible masterpiece yet.

John's parents are intrigued. John's doctor is perplexed but wants to know how the image is going to turn out.

We won't reveal the deep dark twist at the end of the book but it's really quite something, and the ending left Charlotte wanting to know more - and with a myriad questions about what John actually did!

Russell's observations of child behaviour are incredible - his keen eye makes this an essential read, but there's a serious message tucked into this wonderful story, crossing the line between a celebration of a young boy's active and focused imagination and the psychology of how children like John interact with the world around them and other people (including their nearest and dearest).

It's hugely thought provoking stuff, don't miss it!

Charlotte's best bit: The slow reveal of John's huge monster masterpiece

Daddy's Favourite bit: A book with real layers of acute and expert observation of child behaviour from Russell, raising almost as many questions as it answers and all wrapped up in Sir Quentin's illustrative expertise. Heck of a book!

(Borrowed for review from Abingdon's wonderful library)

Like this? We think you'll absolutely LOVE these too!

The Five of Us by Quentin Blake

The Monster Machine by Nicola L. Robinson

Any new project involving Sir Quentin Blake is a cause for great excitement at ReadItDaddy Towers. When it's a new QB story book, we're ecstatic. When it's a new QB story book that celebrates diversity we sit up and pay very close attention indeed.

Quentin Blake is such a fantastic storyteller in his own right that we love seeing what happens when he truly goes to town with a story, writing and illustrating with fantastic expertise and seemingly consummate ease. "The Five of Us" is something truly special though, introducing us to five child heroes who aren't your ordinary everyday run of the mill kids.

There's Angie, who can spot things from miles away with her super-keen eyesight. There's Ollie who is blessed with hypersensitive hearing. There's Simona and Mario, who are both strong and wise and then there's Eric who is...well in the words of the great man himself, we'll get to Eric in a moment.

As soon as you see the book cover, you'll understand that the aim of the book is not just to tell a fantastic tale of believing in yourself, your own abilities and believing that you're truly special in a multitude of ways - but also to celebrate our rich and diverse culture and the children we nurture and influence.

"The Five" are out on a special outing, a picnic in the wilds which heralds the start of an adventure! Hopping into the coach with their adult helper, they soon find themselves in a gorgeous spot perfect for scoffing their sandwiches in.

When their adult helper becomes ill and faints, it's up to the five to use their amazing abilities to team up, work together and help their friend to safety.

The characters in the story are vitally important, for Angie, Ollie, Simona, Mario and Eric are characters that our own children will already known and identify with but characters that don't appear enough in children's stories. Ethnic minorities, disabilities and speech impediments are subtly included, "Five" are everyday kids but wholly unusual to find in high profile picture books and though huge strides have been made in the last few years to make children's books more inclusive and diverse, there's still an awful lot of work to do.

To see such a huge figure in children's stories ably recognising and acknowledging this is extremely encouraging though, so "The Five of Us" deserves kudos as does Sir Quentin for so perfectly capturing the essence of what makes kids so imaginative, brilliant and brave whatever their background or ability.

Back to Eric. We love Eric. Eric is a hero! Eric is the sort of character we are instantly drawn to in children's stories, who struggles against adversity and eventually proves pivotal and vital as the story unfolds. It was all we could do to stifle a huge "Hooray" at the end of the book as the heroic 5 save the day.

"The Five of Us" is out today, September 4th, From Tate Publishing

Charlotte's best bit: Charlotte thought Angie was the coolest by far but really did have a soft spot for Eric too (as did I)

Daddy's Favourite bit: A fantastic story, quite tense and fraught in places but such a high to end on. Brill stuff from a master of children's stories, bringing his expertise to bear on this hugely important book.

(Kindly sent to us for review by Tate Publishing)

We're slowly working our way through Roald Dahl's amazing catalogue of stories, and I can't understand how we'd previously missed "The Giraffe, The Pelly and Me" as it's easily one of the best Dahl books ever.

Spinning together the themes that made Dahl such a legendary author of children's books, you'll find a boy hero - an ordinary everyday sort of boy who dreams of owning the world's greatest sweetshop. He always daydreams about a property in his neighbourhood that would be absolutely perfect for the shop, an old ramshackle place that the boy is convinced he can fix up.

He's sad when he notices that someone else has bought the property, and what's more they seem to have fitted it with the strangest door you've ever seen.

All is revealed as the boy meets a giraffe, a pelican and a monkey who own their own window-cleaning business. But how on earth can a giraffe, a pelican and a monkey clean windows? They have no bucket and no ladder so how on earth can they possibly succeed?

The boy joins them as they take on their toughest job yet, cleaning the many windows of a manky stately home. Pelican reveals his amazing slide-top beak that can hold soapy water, Giraffe has the most amazing extendable neck to reach the highest windows, and monkey can shin up that neck and buff windows to a high sheen.

But window cleaning is just one of their many talents, as the rumbunctious owner of the stately home is burgled and calls on boy, Pelly, Giraffe and Monkey to help solve the crime!

We love getting lost in Dahl's descriptions, particularly of sweets. Here he makes your mouth water with descriptions of the finest sweets in the land, that the boy dreams he'll somehow stock in his store. You'll love Quentin Blake's trademark fluid and gorgeous illustrations that feel like they move and flow on the page and there really couldn't have been a better choice to illustrate Dahl's books than Blake.

Above all though, you'll love this book just as much as Dahl's other more well-known classics. Hooray for Giraffe, Pelly, Boy and Monkey!

Charlotte's best bit: The mysterious (and intricately illustrated) method of Pelly's beak deployment - and Giraffe's lovely eyelashes

Daddy's Favourite bit: Sometimes when it's quiet I can hear the great man himself reading his fabulous words in his gentle and lilting deep voice. There'll never be anyone to eclipse Dahl's talent. A booky superstar!

In my head, I imagine Quentin Blake's day starting off with some loud music as he leaps out of bed, has some Heath-Robinson-esque contraption that dresses him, delivers his breakfast, brushes his teeth then deposits him in front of his drawing board fizzing with imagination and ready for action. I've seen the legendary illustrator hard at work at his drawing board and know none of this happens - but in my imagination he is as crazed, frenetic and energetic as his illustrations are.

Teaming up with John Yeoman, who has put together another brilliant story along the lines of the brilliant "Rumbelow's Dance" (also with Quentin Blake), once again it's all we can do to keep our bums still in our seats as we read the tale of the wild, wild washerwomen.

Seven lovely washerwomen work for a mean and stingy employer. Day in, day out they take in huge piles of grubby socks, smelly smalls, pongy pyjamas and filthy frocks to wash, clean and iron only for the whole process to begin again the next day.

The washerwomen are a lovely lot but soon get tired of their employer increasing their workload and soon they rebel. Squishing the nasty old meanie under a huge pile of filthy washing, the women make good their escape in a goat cart and start to wreak havoc in the local community.

"LOOK OUT! THE WILD WASHERWOMEN ARE COMING!" shout the townsfolk as the magnificent seven run amok.

But seven hunky and brawny woodcutters have a plan to scupper the wild washerwomen's crazed antics. Do they succeed?

You'll have to read the book to find out of course, but if you haven't come across Yeoman and Blake's brilliant books together, this is undeniably a scrumptious treat. We loved the wild washerwomen (see if you can guess which one Charlotte nominated herself as!) and can't wait for more from this extremely talented duo.

Charlotte's best bit: The Wild Washerwomen going crazy in the local marketplace. EEK!

Daddy's best bit: What the Wild Washerwomen do to their employer and the nasty man with a gun. Serves them both right!

A busy, fizzing whizz-bang of a book that has nothing to do with shonky 80s electrical goods retailers, "Rumbelow's Dance" is proof positive that Quentin Blake's energetic scribbly drawings can turn just about any children's book into an instant classic.

The man behind the fantastic illustrations of Roald Dahl's timeless children's books is on top form. The story, about a young boy named Rumbelow who cheers up travellers making their way to market by encouraging them to "dance, dance, dance to market" is the children's literary equivalent of a good bum-wiggling tune. It's so easy to get caught up with the rhythm of the story and it's a real joy to see how children react to Rumbelow's effervescence.

John Yeoman's rhyming text bounces as much as Blake's drawings, to make a really pleasing little book discovery nestling amongst the shelves in Abingdon's extremely well stocked library.

Charlotte's best bit: The flower lady ("She's me" said Charlotte).

Daddy's favourite bit: Blake's flowing, scribbly but absolutely perfect drawing skills.