Moving from one excellent witchy series to another in our #Booky100Keepers list, the "Winnie the Witch" books by Valerie Thomas and Korky Paul were early favourites of C - and that rare thing, a series of books that she discovered herself without any prodding or cajoling from me.

Back when our blog first began, I started trying to keep a list of the books we regularly borrowed from our local library, mainly to try and avoid C picking the same books every week. I was lucky enough to be working flexibly at the time, getting every wednesday off. So wednesday became library day and that's how this whole thing started out.

Trying to discourage a 2 year old from picking the same books isn't as easy as it sounds, and in fact these were nearly always in our pile, and thankfully by the time we started blogging there were plenty of excellent Winnie the Witch books to choose from.

The huge appeal of these books for C were largely down to Korky Paul's scritchy scratchy illustrations, and this set out a pattern we'd see again and again in the books that we ended up loving (and keeping). There's so much detail in there, everything from little jokes and nods at popular culture, to cameos from Korky's other books, even to cameos for Valerie and Korky themselves.

Of course no book is just about the illustrations. Valerie's stories were always funny and she never ceased to amaze us with how many different ways she could cook up to get Winnie and Wilbur into trouble (and thankfully out again).

As much as kids love to read about themselves in children's books, they also absolutely LOVE to read about adults stuffing up - and Winnie isn't some masterful mistress of magic, in fact most of the time her spells go awry, her house is a mess, and poor Wilbur is usually on the receiving end of misplaced spells or other chaos in each story.

One of C's early favourites was "Winnie in Winter" - a tale that sees Winnie tinkering with the seasons themselves as she and Wilbur get fed up with the constant cold and snow.

But when she tinkers with bringing summer early to her garden, the poor creatures who live there don't know whether to hibernate or stay up, and soon everyone wants a piece of the sunny action - and Winnie's garden ends up looking like every green space does at the moment as we watch hordes of crazy people ignoring the COVID-19 lockdown and social distancing stuff.

Winnie has no choice but to restore the balance of nature, bringing the wintry weather back again. At one point we were borrowing this book every week for about a year, that's how popular it was.

It's testament to how popular these books are that our second most accessed review on the blog was an article about Winnie's 25th birthday with over 1800 unique hits (not too shabby for a book blog done in our spare time).

C once met Korky and was delighted when she mentioned her blog and he knew exactly who we were. I think it went to her head a bit as she would constantly talk about how 'famous' we were. Ah if only that were true!

I've included a few other Korky Paul reviews (he really has worked with some of the best writers in the business) as well as the Winnie books, as they're all well and truly brilliant and worthy of your attention.

Original review links

ReadItDaddy's Second Picture Book of the Week - Week Ending 25th May 2018: "Winnie and Wilbur: Seaside Adventures" by Valerie Thomas and Korky Paul (OUP / Oxford Children's Books)

Snails Legs by Damian Harvey and Korky Paul (Frances Lincoln Children's Books)

The Rascally Cake by Jeanne Willis and Korky Paul (Picture Puffin)

ReadItDaddy's First Picture Book of the Week - Week Ending 29th September 2017 - "Winnie and Wilbur: The Naughty Knight" by Valerie Thomas and Korky Paul (Oxford Children's Books)

ReadItDaddy's Book of the Week - Week Ending 23rd May 2014 - "Sir Scallywag and the Deadly Dragon Poo" by Giles Andreae and Korky Paul (Picture Puffin)

Winnie's Midnight Dragon

Booky Advent Calendar Day 10: "Winnie and Wilbur: The Santa Surprise" by Laura Owen and Korky Paul (OUP / Oxford Children's Books)

A Rocketful of Space Poems by John Foster and Korky Paul (Otter-Barry Books / Frances Lincoln Children's Books)

The Very Noisy House by Julie Rhodes and Korky Paul (Frances Lincoln Children's Books)

It's Friday the 13th! What better day to celebrate Winnie the Witch's Birthday!

The Duck with No Luck

Sanji and the Baker

The Dog who could Dig

Professor Puffendorf's Secret Potions

A Cat Called Scratch

Winnie At the Seaside

Winnie Flies Again

Winnie in Winter

Happy 25th Birthday, Winnie the Witch!

Happy Birthday Winnie!

Winnie's Flying Carpet

It's a sheer delight to see the winsome witch and her long-suffering moggy sidekick back for a three-in-one book full of sand, sea and summer fun.

Oh wowsers, this week's first Picture Book of the Week is a real blast from the past, quite literally...!

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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

Winnie's Flying Carpet

Written by Valerie Thomas

Illustrated by Korky Paul

Amazon Link: £9.89 (hardback)

Published by Oxford University Press


 Just when we think we've read all of the Winnie Witch books, another one crops up at our local library and we can't resist picking it  up. Though this is pretty formulaic Winnie Witch fare, there's plenty to keep youngsters happy and amused particularly if they're fans of Winnie's long suffering (especially in this tale) cat Wilbur. 

Winnie struggles to write a thank you letter (on her super duper iMac which looks suspiciously just like the one I'm typing this blog entry on) to her sisters after she receives a misbehaving flying carpet for her birthday. Naturally Wilbur falls foul of the magic rug, and ends up on a mad haphazard chase through a local fairground. 

As with all the Winnie Witch books, it's the illustrations that make them worth reading - oodles and oodles of detail, plenty of in-jokes (funnily enough guess who turns up making a cameo in this book like she does in all the other Winnie Witch books!) and lots to amuse children and parents alike.
Rating: 4 out of 5

Published by Oxford University Press


The great thing about being a witch is that you never have to take a driving test. But how about eye tests? Winnie finds out exactly why the skies seem filled with hazards, and flying on her broomstick with Wilbur means a hazardous journey every time. Charlotte shows no signs of getting bored with the Winnie Witch books which is just as well, because just when we think we've exhausted the library's secret stash of Winnie Witch books, we find another one hidden away. 

Great story and hats off to Korky Paul yet again for his scratchy and ever-so-detailed illustrations. A cracking tale, just don't forget your reading glasses!

Charlotte's best bit: Wilbur's twizzly tail after a near miss with a hang glider. 

Daddy's favourite bit: Plenty of "Fish who could wish" spottings. 

 

Winnie's Midnight Dragon by Valerie Thomas.

Illustrated by Korky Paul

Amazon Link: £3.78



The Winnie Witch books have been a favourite at home for a while now, and with my daughter's seemingly unflagging mania for all things witchy, we've been steadily working through all of the Winnie Witch books we can grab from the local library.

In "Winnie's Midnight Dragon" the superb illustrations by Korky Paul actually lift a bit of a flat and featureless story quite a bit (I love how Paul's obviously a bit of an Apple / Mac fan as he always seems to be able to sneak a "Pumpkin" computer into various scenes in the books).

Poor Wilbur (Winnie's hapless cat) takes a bit of a back seat in this adventure but all the best moments in the book come at the end as the story draws to a satisfying conclusion.

Charlotte's best bit: Shouting "Abra-CADABRA" very loudly during the story text (by the way, only Winnie's allowed to say Abracadabra. When Meg (from Meg and Mog) does it, she's a pale imitation as far as Charlotte is concerned.

Daddy's favourite bit: Korky Paul's superbly scratchy ink illustrations. Any artist that in love with scratch pens definitely gets my vote.

Rating: 3 out of 5