We're squeezing in a review of a rather groovy book for younger children. Author Sue Pavey has come up trumps with this charming tale of a cheeky Westie called Charlie Dog.

Designed for children just learning to read, with easy flowing rhymes and big bold illustrations by Eleni Demetriou, Charlie Dog is sure to find his way into your hearts. But what does a Westie get up to in an ordinary average day? As you read the tale you'll find out that Charlie (like most dogs) loves playing, loves eating but best of all loves turning that lovely white coat a darker shade with the aid of some cooling soothing mud!

You can check out Sue's brilliant story, and her other books on the Red Heart Books website, and pick up a copy of Charlie Dog.


Charlotte's best bit: Charlie Dog doing what dogs do best - getting very muddy indeed


Daddy's Favourite bit: Fab, cute and cuddly, that's Charlie Dog

(Kindly sent to us for review in digital form by Sue Pavey / Red Heart Books)

Here at ReadItDaddy, we have seen a lot of alphabet books and often they follow a fairly rigid format. The most common seem to be alphabet books based around animals (though it's always fun to see what people are going to do with X!) but Sue Pavey's "Alphabet Friends" is designed to be a series that introduces a diverse gang of characters that each represent a letter, and have fun exploring their wordy world.

We're taking a look at "The Alphabet Friends and their Animals". Having gone through the book (in PDF form) myself, and then taking Charlotte through it, I could pretty much guess straight away she was going to fall completely in love with Daisy (the Letter 'D' girl, naturally) and her frog.

Charlotte's busily working her way through sounding out and phonics work at school and at home, so Sue's book was great for her. She enjoyed reading out the nice bold clear text (and of course giggled at some of the funnier animal antics!) and the illustrations are nice, plain, simple and unfussy - absolutely perfect for children who are just beginning to recognise letters and words.

Read out loud, the book gives me the opportunity to put on as many daft voices as I can muster (do you do this with your children when you read aloud to them? If not, why not!)

All in all a rather pleasing and satisfying little alphabet book. You can grab "The Alphabet Friends and their Animals" from the following links:

Amazon

Waterstones

WH Smith

Charlotte's best bit: Kiki has a little ant :)

Daddy's favourite bit: Harry's gerbil is very fat!