It's an eerie coincidence that this very week saw the death of Maurice Sendak, the same time as we'd pulled this book out of the library stacks to review. Sendak's death has prompted many many journalists, writers and illustrators to express an outpouring of love for Sendak and sadness at his loss.

Of course, adding our voice to the millions who love this book is like singing into a hurricane but nevertheless we're going to do it anyway. Like many of the books here on ReadItDaddy, this is a book I loved as a child, had bought for me as a child, subsequently lost (or loaned) and rediscovered once I had children of my own. Charlotte's interpretation of the book made it feel refreshing and new again, and her appreciation of the small pauses and text-free illustrations in between Sendak's sparse dialogue were marvellous and did not go unnoticed.

So this story of wayward child Max becoming the king of the wild things is well known. Movies have miserably failed to do the book justice, an operatic treatment was surreal to say the least but the book itself is undoubtedly a classic.

And yet, with the eyes and life experience of an adult, revisiting Where the Wild Things Are, it's surprising that it's not pilloried for showing naughty children as heroic and rewarded for their errant behaviour. Pilloried, that is, by the sort of parents who demand certain books are withdrawn from their local libraries lest they offend their tender little offspring.

For me, and thankfully for Charlotte, "Where the Wild Things Are" is the book equivalent of a raucous trumpet solo right in the middle of a piece of classical music. A thumb print on a white painted wall in an art gallery, or a pool of tomato ketchup pooling underneath a child's seat at dinner. Naughty, uproarious and thoroughly way, way ahead of its time. A lot like Sendak himself then.

RIP Maurice. I won't finish this review with the trite cliched quote from your book that countless others have used (about the supper still being hot) but I'll tug my collar in deep respect of someone whose work will stand the test of time.

Charlotte's best bit - The uproarious jungle dance of Max and the Beasts

Daddy's favourite bit - Crosshatching to die for

Rating - 4.5 out of 5 stars.

I'm a cat person. My lovely wife is a cat person but Charlotte? Ahhh I think if it came down to a straight choice between dogs and cats she'd choose dogs. Why? Well secretly because Dogs can do ballet while cats would probably turn their nose up at a tutu.

In Anna Kemp and Sara Ogilvie's excellent (and quite touching) book, a little dog who does not chase cars (or postmen), does not lick or scratch inappropriate places but dreams of the Royal Ballet is the undisputed star of a rather sweet little story of saving the day, canine style.

We've previously covered Kemp and Ogilvie's excellent "The Worst Princess" and "Dogs Don't Do Ballet" is another hit with us, so much so that it's this week's book of the week.

Despite a naysayer dad, and lots of rather sniffy Ballet Class types, the little dog sashays with the best of them. What happens when the dog makes a debut on stage?

Find out in the book!

Charlotte's best bit: The dog's lovely tutu.

Daddy's favourite bit: The various lengths the little doggy goes to in order to avoid detection during Ballet Classes.

Rating: 5 out of 5 stars, Book of the Week

An odd book this, and it's one of those rare cases where I wish I could split the scores for illustration and text into two categories.

Simon Bartram's illustrations are utterly sublime. We've previously reviewed 'Dougal's Deep Sea Diary' here at ReadItDaddy and enthused about it, quite rightly. This though? Hmm it's a book that was later tied in to a made-for-tv Halloween special, and I get the distinct impression that Tim Preston's lazy text makes up for the fact that the TV thing had little or no dialogue.

It's best to just marvel at Bartram's detailed paintings on each page, make up your own story to go with it, and ditch the rubbish story that was haphazardly strapped around this.

Alright, for the record this is the one and only time we'll do this but separate scores time.

Charlotte's best bit: The witches! Real proper witches with green skin and warty noses.

Daddy's favourite bit: Wait a minute, is that a sneaky cameo from the BFG?

Rating: Illustrations - 4 out of 5 stars. Text - 0 out of 5 stars.

Editor's Note - July 2013. Tim recently got in touch via the blog and email to address this review and we're very happy to publish his comment on our "Pumpkin Moon" review...

"Tim is a little sad that he is only credited with having written poor text to accompany the artwork – as he came up with the entire idea for the book in the first place. Once an artist was chosen, Tim provided a lot of detailed notes for each illustration, to assist the artist (who did a great job). As regards Pumpkin Moon, he agrees that the artwork is the thing – the story works best without text. (Tim has no knowledge of the TV thing, which came later.) Actually, Tim says his text was altered by the publisher, without his knowledge; he agrees that the final text is not brilliant – but says the book is still good, thanks to the lovely artwork".

I can't remember who sung that really cheesy song "Everything is beautiful in it's own way" but that's the message behind Claudia Boldt's "Uugghh!" (That's two u's, two g's and two h's if you're using Amazon's search, which completely ignores this book for some reason, gah!)

A poor slug dreamed that it would grow into a beautiful butterfly or at the very least a shiny-shelled snail, but the reality of life as a slug is that...well, people just don't like you really. They'll try and pour salt on you or cover you in beer in the mistaken belief that you'll stop eating their prized Sweet Peas. The slug in the story finds an unlikely ally in the shape of a Spider. Similarly much maligned and misunderstood, Spider helps Slug understand the true nature of beauty - that it comes from within.

At least one other member of the animal kingdom thinks Slug is beautiful. And tasty! Find out who in the book.

Claudia Boldt's text is a bit clunky and clumsy in places, but the illustrations - done in a weird 50s ad style of flat colour and bold linework - really makes this book unique and worth checking out.

Charlotte's best bit - Slug imagining himself/herself as a beautiful butterfly

Daddy's favourite bit - Nasty children reading "50 ways to kill a slug" (which is an actual book btw, and comes up in an Amazon search way before you'll ever find this book!)

So the conversation went something like this...

"Charlotte, what's your book of the we..."

"Doctor Ted! Doctor Ted! DOCTOR TED!"

"But we've already reviewed Doctor Ted last year, and it got Book of the Week then honey, can you choose another boo.."

"DOCTOR TED! DOCTOR TED!"

So here we are, re-reviewing Doctor Ted and re-awarding it the "Book of the Week" award. One of the 'dangers' of getting the same books out of the library again and again is that things like this will happen, disrupting ReadItDaddy's carefully conceived play to review as many different books as possible without repeats (surely you get enough of those on TV as it is without getting them on the internet too :)

Alas, there's no getting round it. What Charlotte says goes on this blog and she absolutely, undoubtedly, irrefutably loves this book. Why? Because Doctor Ted is such an engaging little chap though really he's more than a bit naughty. Stealing curtains to make bandages, telling his mum she has measles (they're freckles!) and of course there's that incident with his head teacher half way through the book that always makes Charlotte cackle with mischievous laughter whenever she sees it.

The book is an absolute delight and it's good to know that there are two further adventures of Doctor Ted out there (I could only find the very expensive hardback ones or the Kindle versions, bah!). Firefighter Ted and Artist Ted. We look forward to reading them both!

Thoroughly recommended (rather loudly and vociferously by Charlotte I might add) and (sigh) yes, an absolutely fitting Book of the Week.

Charlotte's best bit: As mentioned above. Headteacher Bigham gets his comeuppance but kids, really really REALLY do not try that at school!

Daddy's favourite bit: I love Doctor Ted's wry unflappable nature. Basically he is like every single Doctor you'll ever meet, only in miniature form!

Rating: 5 out of 5 stars, Book of the Week (twice!)

Sam the Bear (who looks a little bit like the Walker Books bear) is the star of a series of gentle bedtime books that are snuggly warm and cosy and the perfect antidote on a cold rainy night. In this tale Sam accompanies his mother on a bake run. They carefully make cakes to share around their neighbourhood and Sam must pluck up all his courage to run to each doorstep by himself with his precious cargo.

It's a simple story, beautifully told and equally beautifully illustrated with lovely painterly illustrations. Children easily identify with characters like Sam and it's no wonder that the book series has been such a success.

We've previously read "Don't you feel well, Sam?" which is also worth checking out.

Charlotte's best bit: Sam making the delicious cakes (and licking the spoon just like she does, often before the cakes are even in the oven!)

Daddy's favourite bit: Gentle storytelling and lovely illustrations, a real snuggly book

Rating: 3 out of 5

Chicken House Books seem to have a knack for picking up children's books that are slightly out of the ordinary. Fragoline (The name of a strawberry, to match her hair - and how exactly do you pronounce that? Fray-Go-Line is what we picked but I guess it could easily be Fraj-oh-lin-eh) isn't your ordinary everyday children's book hero, she's actually very naughty and not scared of anything. Or is she?

Tightly drawn gothic style artwork interweaves with Fragoline's story of a night of lost sleep, and a determined little girl who stalks the darkness in search of mischief and adventure.

It's novel, original and definitely a winner if your child always seems drawn to the 'witches and monsters' section in the library rather than the 'fairies and princesses' section.

Charlotte's best bit: What happens when Fragoline goes just one step too far and dances on gravestones

Daddy's favourite bit: Really great illustrations, dark but not too scary for children.

Rating: 3 out of 5 stars

Judith Kerr knows cats. We've read and loved (most of) the Mog books and this is the first non-Mog moggy book (not counting "The Tiger Who Came to Tea") that we've seen in the library.

This simple tale of Twinkles, Arthur and Puss seems fairly straightforward at first glance but anyone who has also read the superb children's book "Six Dinner Sid" will know why Twinkles, Arthur and Puss aren't quite what they seem. As ever, no spoilers but children will love the mischief and the method in this tale.

Kerr is a national treasure, I loved her books when I was a mere whippersnapper and it's great to think that she's still scribbling away and creating books that are destined to be children's classics for some years to come. Twinkles, Arthur and Puss is no exception, a lovely book that your youngsters will really enjoy.

Charlotte's best bit: Arthur's rather posh party-girl owner.

Daddy's favourite bit: Wait a minute, did someone sneak Mog into this book?

Rating: 4 out of 5 stars

With Walker Books running a 'Buy one, Get One Free' promotion at the moment, we finally got round to buying "We're going on a Bear Hunt!" and rooting through the blog I couldn't actually believe that we've mentioned this book but never reviewed it.

It goes without saying that just about every parent will have read this book to their children at some point. Charlotte loved it when we first started reading it to her as the board-book version, back when she was more interested in chewing books than having them read to her but it kept her engaged even back then. Now she loves it because she can follow the story, do the actions (what actions you say? OF COURSE there are actions!) and silly sound effects before the race to the end (yes for some reason the last few pages must be read at breakneck speed until you slow down to a crawl for the last page!)

Of course, that's why this book is such a classic. Everyone interprets and tells the story in their own way, everyone gets something slightly different from it and everyone absolutely loves it with very good reason. Michael Rosen is, of course, a children's book legend. Helen Oxenbury's art style is beautifully understated yet absolutely fitting.

Many have tried (and failed miserably) to replicate the core theme and idea, but no one has ever done it better and I doubt anyone ever will.

Fabulous, book of the week without a doubt even though it's taken us nearly 4 years to review it properly!

Charlotte's best bit: The bear!

Daddy's favourite bit: How Helen Oxenbury manages to convey such a range of human emotions with just a few tiny little ink lines

Rating: 5 out of 5 stars, Book of the Week

Whenever myself, CanIWalkMummy and Charlotte are out and about covering great countryside walks for CIWM's blog, we find it absolutely impossible to cross any sort of bridge without shouting "WHO'S THAT TRIP-TRAPPING OVER MY BRIDGE!"

So of course it's a delight to find a book that tells a story from the Troll's perspective. Troubled by pesky goats? Annoyed by tricky creatures spinning you yarns to keep you from stuffing your belly full of delicious goaty treats? No wonder Trolls are so grumpy.

The troll in Julia (The Gruffallo) Donaldson's book is a grumpy little fellow - with good reason, he lives solely on a diet of fish and every time he thinks he's in line for something better, he's foiled at every turn.

In the story his path crosses with a bunch of mean pirates who are similarly diet-challenged. They are the roughest toughest bunch of seafaring ne'er do-wells but not one of them can cook.

It's rather delicious the way the two story paths track along a parallel until near the end of the book when - well you'll see what happens if you read it - Suffice to say that though Julia Donaldson's other books seem to get more recognition, The Troll is a delight and David Roberts' quirky drawings are full of character and fun. Recommended.

Charlotte's best bit: What the Troll does with treasure.

Daddy's favourite bit: Random donkey thrown in for good measure!

Rating: 4 out of 5 stars.