What do you do when you wake up one morning, and you just can't be bothered to 'human' ?

That's what happens to one little lad in "Grizzly Boy" by Barbara Davis-Pyles and Tracy Subisak.

Theo is the lad in question, deciding to shun his human traits to become a GRIZZLY!

Alas, Grizzly Boys still have to go to school. Grizzly Boys don't get to eat sugary cereal, and yep they even have to obey all the rules too - whether or not they think scratching their bums with the bed-post is acceptable once you decide on their new Grizzly status.

A fun and entertaining romp this, with lots of clever shadow-play in the illustrations underpinning a highly amusing story of getting out of bed on the furry fuzzy side.

Will Theo change his ways? Or will being a Grizzly be too much fun to want to change back?

Scratchy paws, big yawning mouth, sounds familiar!

Really love the illustrations in this, with lots of grizzly / forest-ey touches throughout (look at that duvet and bedside lamp for example!)

Again, more brilliant illustration touches here!

"Grizzly Boy" by Barbara Davis-Pyles and Tracy Subisak is out now, published by Sasquatch Books (kindly supplied for review). 

Here's a ticklish little reduced-wordcount tale of a very unlikely friendship, and a whole lot of fun...

"But wait a minute, don't spiders have 8 legs?" asked C quite nonchalantly before we took a look at this fab picture book...

We really loved the original "Little Kunoichi the Ninja Girl" story from Sanae Ishida and we're delighted to at last see a follow-up...

An amazing book about a truly amazing place, that might inspire you to have a go and get stuck in out in your own garden. Here's "The Children's Garden" by Carole Lexa Schaeffer and Pierr Morgan

Matthew Porter's brilliant little "Monkey World" series is always fun and original. Let's take a look at the latest story, and a pair of talented monkey magicians!

Let us count the ways we love our first Book of the Week this week. "Little Kunoichi the Ninja Girl" by Sanae Ishida kicks off with a fabulous map of a mystical mysterious Ninja Island (YAY for ANY book that starts off with a map like that!). On this island lives a little girl, high up in a treehouse in a bamboo forest. She is no ordinary little girl. She is Little Kunoichi, the Ninja Girl.

Kunoichi doesn't go to a normal school. Kunoichi zips down a zip wire straight into Ninja School where lessons like maths and geography aren't the norm, instead Kunoichi and her pals learn the stealthy ways of the Ninja. Hurling throwing stars and whirling nunchucks, practicing their defensive karate and learning how to conceal themselves for surprise attacks.

Poor Kunoichi finds Ninja School quite tough, so she silently slips out for some extra practice (this part of the book made us hoot with laughter after a rather unfortunate incident involving Kunoichi, a mis-thrown shuriken and an angry wild boar! Oopsie!)

Kunoichi isn't the only one practicing furiously in the woods though. She spots a Chibi (cute) Samurai boy, who is also working his way through the ways of the lone warrior. But two can work so much better together than one, so Ninja meets Samurai for a show-stopping spectacular at the Annual Ninja and Samurai show!

Some words just elicit such a brilliant response from Charlotte and the word 'Ninja' is one of them. Oh she knows all about Ninjas (her schoolmates love pretending to be Ninjas at school, I'm guessing that Ninjago has a lot to do with this!) Kunoichi is an adorable character (as is the chibi samurai) and we loved the idea that children would love losing themselves in a story where they could vicariously pretend to be ninjas learning the ways of stealth, silence and surprise!

Delicious watercolour artwork from Sanae, and a lovely dose of ancient mythology woven carefully into a child-friendly story - with lots of cool explanations of the various terms and words at the back for students of the mystical Ninja arts to bone up on. Utterly brilliant!

Charlotte's best bit: Spotting Kunoichi and her Samurai pal at the Ninja Fayre

Daddy's Favourite bit: Exciting, brilliant, original and utterly wonderfully presented. Your little Ninjas and Samurais are going to go completely nuts for this book!





(Kindly sent to us for review by Sasquatch Books)

Larry loves Pete and Pete and Larry love nothing better than a day out at the beach but when Larry's curiosity gets the better of him, the plucky little pup finds himself whisked away on a sub-aquatic adventure!

In "Larry Gets Lost Under the Sea", Larry finds himself in a swirling world of seaweed and sealife as the story unfolds and Larry finds out more about life on and under the ocean waves.

Larry is eventually picked up by a passing diver. His maritime adventures are only just beginning though as Larry stows away in a submarine and sees the gigantic life that lives in the darkest depths of the ocean.

John and Eric have come up with something rather unique here. A fab and exciting story for little ones that also mixes a good dose of interesting ocean-going facts into the story's text as Larry dives and swims, and finds himself whisked away by submarine to the briny deep. Will Larry ever make it back to Pete?

What a cool little book - it took us completely by surprise, and we love the novel approach of mixing fact and fiction in this way. We'll be keeping a very close eye on Sasquatch's books from now on, I've got a feeling that they're going to be as massive a hit over here as they are in the U.S.

Charlotte's best bit: Larry scuttling into a submarine to check out the whales and the giant squids!

Daddy's Favourite bit: A fabulous idea, mixing a brilliant and exciting story (and with GORGEOUS artwork to boot) with facts for curious kids to follow up on. Brilliant!

(Kindly sent to us for review by GMC / Sasquatch Books)