We couldn't resist squeezing in just one more book of the week this week, purely because to both of us this book sang out with such a glorious colourful voice, and a core idea that struck a chord with both Charlotte and I in different ways.

To me, the daydreaming boy in this story is me as a child. I would spend hour after hour daydreaming, doodling, drawing and sketching (and in fact that's something that hasn't changed a bit in adulthood either, I'm pleased to say!)

To Charlotte, the boy's daydreams are a cornucopia of colour and imagination, the scenes he dreams up (including the utterly gorgeous 'star creation' scene that's lovingly tucked underneath the slip cover of the book itself) are dazzling and gorgeous to behold.

In the story, the boy's daydreaming isn't always looked on favourably, until a certain lesson at school allows the boy to open up his imagination and let it fly.

There are so many moments in this that made us want to hug the book with glee when the boy is concocting the most amazing creations in his head, and the final scene in the book is just exquisite. Do not miss "The Wonder" - it truly is one!

Charlotte's best bit: That amazing star factory. Who knew that stars were created with such loving care!

Daddy's Favourite bit: A glorious book with a message that sang out loudly to us in dulcet tones that daydreaming is fine, don't ever stop doing it!

(Kindly sent to us for review by Templar Publishing)

What a glorious celebration of the four seasons, and the circle of life (don't you always want to break into song when you hear those words?) in Katherine McEwen's new book for Templar, "Bear Hug".

Bears are definitely high on children's lists of favourite animals, and we explore the gentle (or in the case of this summer to autumn, not so gentle) segue of the seasons from one to another through the eyes of a small bear. Growing up with mum and dad, the bear has all the fun there is to have in a small bear's world, learning to fish and snuggling up for bear-sized hugs with mum and dad.

As the seasons change, and one year passes to another, bear grows up and soon meets another bear and thus begins the cycle all over again.

Katherine's writing is prosaic and lovely to read aloud, particularly as your little bears are snuggling up on your lap before bedtime. Her illustrative skills are fantastic, each season's nuances are expertly picked out with Katherine's subtle palettes and beautiful characters.

As we rapidly head towards our favourite season of all (there's just something about Autumn that is magical) this is a timely treat, a book that your little ones will love and cherish.

Charlotte's best bit: Fun in the snow for little bears (and big bears too!)

Daddy's Favourite bit: A gorgeously illustrated and wonderfully woven tale of the seasons. Utterly sublime!

(Kindly sent to us for review by Templar Publishing)

We first encountered Gemma's stunning visual style through her art and illustrative methods detailed in Dr Karenanne Knight's "The Picture Book Maker". We somehow missed out on her previous children's book "Oh Dear, Geoffrey" but it was great to finally catch up with her work in this stunning book for Templar.

"Monty's Magnificent Mane" truly is magnificent. Monty, a rather proud and handsome lion, is the king of the jungle and king of the coiffed. His tresses are his treasure, his pompadour is his pride and joy, and Monty never gets tired of brushing, washing and combing his lovely locks.

Monty's friends get a little fed up with his hair obsession but when a new voice compliments Monty on his stunning locks and looks, he can't help but turn his head to show off his barnet to his new-found friend. Danger lurks though, getting too close to a watering hole isn't a good idea - even for a lion, particularly when crocodiles skulk therein.

After a near miss, costing Monty part of his lovely hairstyle, danger is still at hand. Will Monty be a brave beast or a cowardly lion when the nasty croc threatens his meerkat pals?

We were drawn in by Gemma's truly wonderful art (Charlotte loved the fact that Gemma's mixed media and collage work contained tiny little bits of maps and textures, woven into Monty's glorious mane). We loved this tale of Monty's bravery and friendship too. Most of all though we loved Monty and his mane, magnificent in every way (even when he loses half of it part-way through the story!)

We'll be keeping an eye out for more from Gemma. She's hugely talented (probably no surprise then that she's found a home at Templar, who seem to be utterly expert at spotting talented author-illustrators and snapping them up!)

Charlotte's best bit: The intricate details in Monty's mane, and his bravery when helping his friends.

Daddy's Favourite bit: Stunning artwork, a really brilliant and positive message in the story, such a corkingly good read!

(Kindly sent to us for review by Templar Publishing / Gemma O'Neill)

As darkly delicious as a cup of mulled wine enjoyed in front of a crackling fire, "Winter's Child" has to be one of the most beautiful festive books we've seen this year. It's also one of the most enjoyable stories - feeling like it's drawn from traditional folk tales you can imagine told to children as they snuggle up in bed waiting for Santa.

A young boy loves the winter. He can ski, and skate and spend all day playing. But as food becomes more scarce and even the boy's beloved skis have to be sacrificed for firewood, it feels like winter has gone on for far too long.

Meeting a mysterious silver-haired child as he plays, the boy thinks he's found a new playmate - but doesn't realise that it is Winter's Child, and until he goes to sleep, Spring cannot come.

As the tale of their friendship unfolds, things get worse for the boy's mum and grandma as the very last scraps of food are eaten and there's nothing left to burn on the fire. The boy heads out in his damp winter clothes determined to explain the situation to The Winter's Child...

The luxurious and detailed illustrations are so beautiful, that this book is destined to become an instant treasure for many children who will soak up the gorgeous visuals and wonderful story. I love books that give Charlotte a genuine 'wow' when we unwrap them together, and "The Winter's Child" definitely did that - and it's been in constant demand ever since.


Charlotte's best bit: A genuinely beautiful moment at the end of the book when the tale draws to an end (but we're not going to spoil it for you)

Daddy's Favourite bit: So lusciously illustrated, so expertly told, so run out and buy a copy immediately!

(Kindly sent to us for review by Templar Publishing)

In line with this week's #ReadItMD13 theme week it seems only fitting that our book of the week should be one of the darkest traditional fairy tales. Little Red Riding Hood!

So how is Alison Jay's version of events any different to those that have gone before? For starters it's lavishly illustrated in Alison Jay's trademark "Craquelacquer" crackle-glazed style, lending the book an instantly classic feel. Sticking fairly close to a traditional telling of the story also helps, though here we really are in no two minds that the infamous big bad wolf is a nasty piece of work, hell bent on scoffing Little Red Riding Hood and Granny up without a pause for breath.

What really helped this become our book of the week was the joyous exclamations from Charlotte as she realised that this isn't just a Little Red Riding Hood book, it's a book that playfully lets you pick out any number of other nursery rhyme and fairy tale characters woven into the background as the story unfolds. A gingerbread man taking a stroll in the woods? Three little bigs keeping a very close eye on that wolf. Even Hansel and Gretel are in there, falling hook line and sinker for that delicious looking witch's cottage, and eventually winning the day and trapping the old crone in a cage.

In fact the background details are often quite distracting, and do take your little one's attention away from your story-telling skills so watch out for that one.

Despite this, it's an almost definitive telling of a story children will find extremely familiar by the time they're Charlotte's age, but are still entranced by - perhaps for all the reasons we've been exploring in our theme week this week. The darkest and nastiest characters always hold a child's fascination for numerous reasons, perhaps mostly because children love to see a bad egg come a cropper as a story reaches its exciting finale. That certainly happens here, though not in a gory manner so no need to hide their eyes once the woodcutter comes calling.

A beautiful book. We hate to look like we're playing favourites on the blog and Templar Publishing do seem to hit our book of the week slot with alarming frequency, but this is truly one of the best versions of Little Red Riding Hood that you can lay your hands on. A timeless story that always feels like it has something fresh to offer with a ton of brilliant observational things for your children to discover and enjoy. Superb!

Charlotte's best bit: Hansel and Gretel visiting the witch's gorgeous tummy-rumble-inducing cottage

Daddy's favourite bit: Sumptuous luxurious artwork and a great telling of the story that doesn't mess too much with a winning formula. Wonderful!

(Kindly sent to us for review by Templar Publishing Ltd)

Monster books - they all seem to have one thing in common. The poor monster never seems to win but with a neat little bit of switching around, here's "Troll and the Oliver" by Adam Stower.

Every single day Troll, a rather menacing looking blue beastie with a sneaky expression, beastly claws and a rumbly tum, tries to eat Oliver - a red haired cheeky and happy little boy.

Oliver is far too smart, far too small, and far too fast for the lumbering Troll though - so every day the Troll systematically fails in his mission to enjoy Oliver Souffle, Oliver Burgers, perhaps even a bit of Oliver Au Gratin.

Troll is downhearted. Every time he thinks he's come up with a winning plan to consume the little tyke, Oliver outwits him.

Stop, pause for a second here - I have a question for parents reading this review. Are you like me? Have you ever wished that just once Wyle E. Coyote came up with something from his Acme catalogue that would see him finishing the cartoon feasting on hot roasted Road Runner? Or perhaps wished secretly that Scratchy would put Itchy through a mangle and turn him into a mouse-sized pancake? Better still, wished that Tom could catch Jerry and make him blimmin' well apologise for all the times he'd stomped, squashed, crushed, blown up, run over or dropped anvils on the poor moggy's head?

Persevere then with Troll and the Oliver because the double-pumped payoff is so utterly deliciously satisfying that for a tiny tiny moment your little one will sit agog (I can't quite tell you why, but when you get to "that bit" you will love it, trust me).

As monster books go this is pretty much perfect. It sets its cards on the table early on, then gathers them in one by one in such a manner that you will reach the end, flip the book back to page one and begin all over again. Troll and Oliver are brilliant characters (you really will not like Oliver at first, but bear with, bear with!) and like all clever ideas for children's stories, it's such a simple premise but beautifully executed. We just could not get enough of it.

Charlotte's best bit: "That Page" - Yep you'll know it when you hit it and you really will love it. Now THAT'S how you do dark.

Daddy's favourite bit: Like Charlotte, I just utterly loved that page and the way it makes both storyteller and avid child listener(s) feel. This is a book that you are going to get a great deal of pleasure reading aloud to little ones, or sniggering secretly about to yourself. Just brilliant, truly brilliant.

(Kindly sent to us for review by Templar Publishing)

"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)

Big Picture Press - Officially launching in September 2013

We're excited, no correct that, we're ridiculously excited to have been given the chance to look at some early mock ups of upcoming Templar imprint Big Picture Press's first batch of books and as you'd expect from a publisher that regularly tops the children's best sellers lists, and consistently hits our 'book of the week' slot because of the sheer quality of their books, they're a mite special.

Attracting some of the children's publishing industry's best talent, you'd be right to be expecting very good quality children's picture books - but more than just being lookers, these books are stimulating and thought provoking titles that should keep your little ones very busy indeed when they start hitting shelves.

We took a look at Mamoko, The Goods, Accessorize and A Walk Around The World, four books from the range that give you a taste of things to come.

Mamoko is utterly brilliant. A wordless picture book that introduces a fantastic cast of animal characters (your children will undoubtedly find a favourite amongst them) and lets you trace their pictorial journey through the book's beautifully detailed and utterly busy double spreads. It reminded us of the brilliant Richard Scarry books, as animals go about their business in a thronging world full of things to discover.

The Goods sounds pretty ambitious to us. A gathering together of some serious writing and illustration talent in a magazine-style format that is as hectic and frenetic as your children themselves. Featuring the likes of Oliver Jeffers, Jon Klassen and a host of other favourites, expect great things of "The Goods" when it launches.

Accessorize is a sticker fanatic's dream, tons and tons of stickers to apply to interesting layouts and pictures with a serious style and fashion slant. If your kids are obsessed with clothes and accessories, they're going to love this to bits.

Last but by no means least there's a truly stunning lift the flap book called "A Walk Around The World" which is so beautifully illustrated and again, like Mamoko, super-detailed, it's great for younger and older children with some superb panels and a ton of flaps to lift (our copy demanded some seriously sharp fingernails though, hoping that the final version has easier to lift flaps as we really didn't want to damage it and it was very tricky to lift all the various bits).

Of the range, we are going to comfortably predict that Mamoko will be the big hitter. Wordless story books work on children in a way that other children's picture books can't match, stimulating their imaginations and letting them run with their own little stories. We'll review this one nearer the time but take our word for it, you're going to love it a lot.

Keep a beady eye out for that eye-logo for Big Picture Press. It's going to become a symbol of quality without a doubt.

It was almost inevitable that this would end up as our book of the week this week. We've been waiting for "The King of Space" to arrive ever since I spotted Jonny Duddle's brilliant tutorial on character consistency in FX Magazine's digital art round up. Back the, The King of Space was a slightly bubble headed and stropping looking little guy - not at all the "Rex" we now know and love.

So how successful is Jonny's transition from sailing the seven seas with a bunch of salty old pirates to roaming the stratosphere, armed with gigantic warbots, striving for complete galactic domination?

We join the story as Rex, a genius schoolboy with lofty ambitions, plans a classroom robotics project to eclipse everyone else's. Rex's plan for a weaponized moog-poo robot bears fruit (rather too successfully as the robot trashes his classmates' puny little robot specimens underfoot) and soon he enlists the help of a classmate to work in secret on a whole fleet of war droids with one aim and one aim only. To ensure Rex's place as...The King Of Space.

As his parents, living on a Moog farm, are oblivious to their little darling's plans for galactic domination, Rex kidnaps the emperor's daughter Kooki (who bears a striking resemblance to a certain little girl very dear to Mr Duddle's heart) and tries to win her over.

Soon though, Rex's plans take a turn for the worse but an unexpected ally proves to be more of a force to be reckoned with than an entire space armada!

There are so many moments in this book where you can literally bathe in the glow of a guy who clearly loves his work to bits. Duddle's characters are brilliant, his digital art knocks my socks off and his knack for weaving a grand tale with kid and adult appeal is unparalleled. We absolutely loved the detail in each page, the action packed story full of excitement and adventure (though really you're never really sure whether Rex is actually a goodie or a baddie, after all he does try to enslave the entire universe AND kidnaps the emperor's daughter into the bargain!)

Most of all though we had a heck of a lot of fun spotting all the cameos from Jonny's previous two books. We won't spoil them for you, but there's a certain little character that lives on Rex's bed you might recognise.

"The King of Space" is every bit as good as we dreamed it would be. It seems a little remiss to be talking about a potential children's picture book of the year but if this isn't in the running we'll be sending Rex and his warbots along to find out why not!

Charlotte's best bit: Rex's followup to the warbot. More terrifying than you could possibly imagine!

Daddy's favourite bit: So much detail, an art style to die for, and a brilliant sweeping space opera of a story that makes you practically want to hug the book with glee. Oh and yes the calculator bits made me grin from ear to ear Mr Duddle, thank you for those :)

(Kindly sent to us for review by Templar Publishing)