Tuesday, 10 May 2011
Eeeek, Mouse!
Labels:
Eeeek mouse,
Egmont Books,
Lydia Monks
At first, like good old Grill Pan Eddy, this little nameless mouse is a thorn in the family's side but a little girl befriends the rascally rodent, and takes great pains to protect it from her daddy's crazy schemes of building a better mousetrap to catch the little blighter.
If you want to know if she succeeds or fails, you'll have to go and read Lydia Monk's cute story (and if you spot any of her other books like "Oo Oo Gorilla", they're excellent fun!) Although very similar to Grill Pan Eddy, I think we preferred this one by a whisker.
Charlotte's best bit: The mouse house behind the skirting board
Daddy's favourite bit: A cat with a screwdriver = dangerous!
Rating: 5 out of 5
Grill Pan Eddy
Labels:
Grill Pan Eddy,
Jeanne Willis,
Tony Ross
Apologies for the rather thin-on-the-ground reviews of late, but our local library has been a hive of activity. Last week's foraging session for books had us coming up empty handed because we could barely get in the door of the place. Note to self: Try and get to the Library before 11.00 or suffer the consequences of the place being packed out by song-groupers!
I'm still catching up with the reviews from last week though, so here's Grill Pan Eddy, a nicely rhyming sing-song tale about a rather naughty mouse who moves into a family's home and trip-traps through their larder, their lounge and their food supplies with reckless abandon.
The family try all sorts of ways to rid themselves of this pestilential rodent, but Grill Pan Eddy merely thumbs his nose at them, sings a little song and serves himself up some dinner from their table.
Jeanne Willis and Tony Ross have produced some excellent titles together and this is no exception. Ross's illustrations are jolly and wibbly, and Willis' rhyming text is fun.
Oddly enough we ended up with two mousey books last week so stay tuned for "EEK! Mouse!", a very similar tale.
Charlotte's best bit: The rat-catcher's dog (who could only catch fleas)
Daddy's favourite bit: Grill Pan Eddy leaving little trails of poo.
Rating: 4 out of 5
(PS I'm canning the affiliate links at the bottom of reviews as no one's clicking on 'em. If you do feel like picking up books, please use the Amazon link to the right, thanks!)
Thursday, 5 May 2011
Ladybird Books drop the ball with no new Royal Wedding book
Labels:
Ladybird Books,
Royal Wedding,
Will and Kate
My wife, and quite a few others of her generation grew up as avid royal watchers and also avid collectors of those cool pocket-sized Ladybird books that commemorated royal occasions and events with photographs and descriptions laid out and produced in a child-friendly way. Ladybird books set the standard for other publishers to follow and to be fair, those old books may seem a little antiquated and old fashioned compared to modern books and publishing standards. Nevertheless it seems like a massive missed opportunity for the publisher to produce another collectable that my daughter could pass on to her children in the same way we've shared our Ladybird books with her.
As a side note, Ladybird states that it wants to carry on the tradition of producing affordable full colour pocket-sized books for children (and amazingly it was quite cool to find that they do still print and reprint classics like the Peter and Jane books!). So c'mon Ladybird, let's see you do Will and Kate Proud!
The Littlest Dinosaur
From time to time we manage to spot books in our local library that have been read out during Cbeebies "Lunchtime Hour". Various Cbeebies characters and presenters come along, snuggle up in a comfy chair and read a children's book and some weeks back we remember Andy (tall lanky bloke, terrible hair but jolly and happy) reading out a "Littlest Dinosaur" tale.
We grabbed this one on the basis of that, and it's excellent fun. A tiny squirt of a dinosaur is the last egg to hatch, and the poor little beast is soon finding life hard in a dinosaur filled world where everyone else is gigantic.
His brothers and sisters trample the poor little fellah into the dirt when they play games, the neighbours point and laugh and soon the little mite feels completely useless.
As we all know though, the biggest hearted heroes in children's stories are often those tiny little creatures who are folorn and neglected, and soon the Littlest Dinosaur gets the chance to prove his bravery.
With Charlotte being on a massive dinosaur kick at the moment (see my wife's excellent blog post about the superb Woodstock Museum in Oxfordshire) the littlest dinosaur is a fab family friendly book with great illustrations and one of a series featuring the scrawny but brave little scrap.
Charlotte's best bit: Commenting on how odd the poor little dinosaur looks when he finally emerges from the egg
Daddy's favourite bit: The Long Neck
Rating: 4 out of 5
Thursday, 14 April 2011
Cinderella
Re-telling classic fairy tales might be a bit cheeky if nothing new is brought to the story, but Marks and Spencer have been doing a range of classic stories in line with the National Literacy Strategy.
The first book we've seen in this series is classic tale Cinderella. Pretty much every adult will know the story off by heart but the M & S books are designed for children just beginning to start out with word recognition, reading and literacy. Each page tells a portion of the story, with repeated lines emboldened under the illustrations to help children begin to recognise passages, and eventually read them for themselves (obviously most bright kids are just going to learn the stories parrot-fashion anyway but repetition is the best way to learn anything in this respect, and these books are structurally very well thought out).
For the rest of the books in this series, visit this link.
Charlotte's best bit: The ugly sisters
Daddy's favourite bit: The book's early-reader-friendly structure
Rating: 4 out of 5
Doctor Ted
This week's contender for "book read most times during a single day" has to be Doctor Ted, the cute tale of a little bear who bangs his knee one morning getting out of bed, and decides that the world needs a tiny toddler-sized medic to tackle everyone's ills.
Doctor Ted continues his good work at school, and runs into a spot of bother in doing so.
What I loved about this more than anything else is the slightly tongue-in-cheek way this mini doctor fellow actually behaves a lot like the real thing (ie doesn't listen to what you're telling him, prescribes odd cures for something that's entirely unrelated to what you came in for). Kids will love the cute drawings and characters, adults will undoubtedly love the slightly anarchic humour.
Charlotte's best bit: Doctor Ted's remarkable cure for his head teacher's bad breath!
Daddy's favourite bit: The lovely wry digs at the adult characters in the story.
Rating: 5 out of 5
Tuesday, 12 April 2011
Meg goes to Bed
What's this what's this?!? A new Meg and Mog book appeared in the local library's stacks and though it was originally published in October last year, it's taken a while to filter through. Nevertheless it's fantastic to see Helen Nicoll and Jan Pienkowski still producing these fantastic little books for a new generation of toddlers, books I remember loving to bits as a kid.
In "Meg goes to Bed" poor Meg has a disastrous attempt at producing a nice wholesome supper for Mog, Owl and herself. With wobbly stripey spaghetti worms crawling off all over the place, poor Meg goes to bed with a rumbling tummy and it's up to Owl and Mog to save the day.
Though the same slightly disjointed and jumbled page layouts remain, the book has timeless appeal and I almost feel bad for falling out of love a bit with these when they really are great for youngsters (of all ages :)
While you're tapping your foot impatiently waiting for the next Winnie Witch book, treat yourself to a new Meg and Mog book for a spell (pun intended) instead.
Charlotte's best bit: Animated spaghetti!
Daddy's favourite bit: Still find Meg oddly reminiscent of Ruth from "Victorian Farm"
Rating: 3 out of 5
How do Dinosaurs learn Colours and Numbers?
Labels:
HarperCollins Children's Books,
How do dinosaurs learn colours and numbers,
Jane Yolen,
Mark Teague
As I recently discovered on a trip with Charlotte and CanIWalkMummy to the Natural History Museum in London, just about everyone loves Dinosaurs. So it's easy to see the appeal of the thoroughly excellent "How Do Dinosaurs..." series of books by Jane Yolen and Mark Teague. Placing Dinosaurs (complete with their kid-friendly proper names) in everyday situations is a stroke of genius, and certainly works beautifully in this numbers and colours book.
Teague's highly detailed dino characters (and their supporting human counterparts) take toddlers through numbers one to ten, and rhyming couplets teach them about colours too. A fantastic double header that works beautifully and hopefully allows each child to pick a favourite dino species into the bargain (for me, the Triceratops was always the champ when I was a kid - what's yours?)
Charlotte's best bit: Dino hiding things under the bed
Daddy's favourite bit: Lucky Number 7
Rating: 4 out of 5
Friday, 1 April 2011
Draw me a star
Labels:
Draw me a star,
Eric Carle,
Puffin Books
Eric ("The Hungry Caterpillar") Carle's books are books we've enjoyed over the course of me writing this book blog, and we've steadily hunted down most of the ones you see advertised in the back of Carle's most famous work.
"Draw me a star" had evaded us up till now but finally the library got a copy in, and it's quite a strange and surreal book.
With every turn of the page, Carle's trademark painted cutout artwork tells the story of an artist being asked to draw various objects. In turn the objects get grander and grander as the artists slowly becomes old and tired and haggard.
It's succinctly different to Carle's other books but the repetition and the artwork helps it appeal to youngsters all the same.
Charlotte's favourite bit: "Draw me the moon"
Daddy's favourite bit: "EEK! Unexpected nudity!"
Rating: 3 out of 5
When we lived in Uncle's Hat
Labels:
Jutta Bauer,
Kate Connolly,
Nani Schumann,
Peter Stamm,
When we lived in uncle's hat,
Winged Chariot Press
What a curious hotch potch of tales. "When we lived in Uncle's hat" depicts various fantastical dwellings a small family live a nomadic existence in. Starting in an ordinary everyday house, the family move between a bus, a box and of course the titular titfer in the title.
The book's very wordy but nonetheless quite an interesting fantasy world for your youngsters to get engrossed in and the footnotes at the end of each little tale, detailing what happens to each family member, are often quite grown up and feel a little out of place in a children's book.
A very weird but very intriguing read.
Charlotte's best bit: "When we lived in Auntie's Viola"
Daddy's favourite bit: "When we lived on a bus" (which is a perfect description of what it must feel like every morning on a public transport commute!)
Rating: 3 out of 5
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