We're sort of getting away from book reviews for a moment to dish up a tasty treat. One of our favourite bits in "I Heart Holidays" is the awesome lollies that Martha and her brothers get to choose from.

We thought long and hard about our favourite lollies and decided to come up with a list (old and new) of the best of the best. Do you remember these?

In no particular order....

1) The Funny Feet Lolly

Why on earth would anyone want to eat a lolly shaped like a foot? Ah yes but nothing's cooler on a hot day than munching on a huge strawberry flavoured chunk of ice cream. Apparently these are coming back too, we can't wait.

Pictured is the classic version without the red toenails the later ones had

Charlotte rating: 2/5
Daddy rating: 4/5



2) The Tangle Twister Lolly

Difficult to describe this one, a miasma of flavours ranging from lime to strawberry and pineapple - all in a lolly absolutely impossible to lick without a big smile on your face. Warning though, the very last bits are very hard to eat without the whole thing dropping off the stick onto the floor. Boo hiss!

Charlotte rating: 5/5
Daddy rating: 3/5





3) The King Kong Lolly

A blast from the past, a really gooey banana and toffee flavoured lolly covered in gorilla sprinkles (at least I think that's what they were). Gorgeous!

Charlotte rating: 0/5 (way before her time!)
Daddy rating: 5/5 (sickly as heck but I loved them!)








4) The Red Devil Lolly

LOVED the character on the wrapper of this one, and the lolly was yummy too. Basically a bit like a strawberry split but with extra enjoyment provided by a play stick or a quiz stick. Yummy!

Charlotte rating: 0/5 (though she does love strawberry splits)
Daddy rating: 4/5 (I could never solve those puzzle sticks though!)







5) The FAB


A true lolly icon! So glad that they still make these today, and they really are as fab as ever. Strawberry and vanilla ice creamy stuff with a big dollop of faux-choco topping and a ton of sprinkles. It's a design classic though we have a sneaking suspicion that these have shrunk a lot since the 1970s!

Charlotte rating: 3/5 (she ALWAYS loses the choco bit!)
Daddy rating: 4/5 (yum, you really can't just eat one!)





6) Haunted House Lollies (with magic 'horror' reveal wrapper)

These were awesome! A white ice cream lolly that had a horror design revealed only when you peeled off the label, picked out in blood-red strawberry sauce. Gruesome but delicious!

Charlotte rating: 0/5 (Why do you keep picking all the old ones, daddy!)
Daddy rating: 5/5 (genius idea!)







7) The Smarties Pop-Up Lolly


I love these more than I'm willing to admit (as does Charlotte and Mummy too!) They are lovely and there's a real challenge to extracting those little mini smarties hidden in the lolly handle at the end (assuming that you haven't ended up with ice cream all over your chops!)

Charlotte rating: 5/5
Daddy rating: 5/5





8) The Dracula Lolly

Oooh it's scary, it's spooky, it's - Wait a second it's black, and hidden in its black heart is the gooiest red jelly you've ever tasted. Actually I seem to remember these being pretty gross and disgusting but Charlotte is clamouring for their return, she rather likes the idea of a lolly with jelly in the middle!

Charlotte rating (assuming they do make a comeback): 5/5
Daddy rating: 2/5 (Neat idea though!)






9) The Fizz Bang

I thought I'd imagined this one, but have vague memories of it - and this is the only image I can find of one. The Fizz Bang was the equivalent of licking the battery terminals of a 9v battery, chewing an anchovy and then drinking a pint of guinness. So utterly fizzy, sour and unpalatable that it became a playground favourite with kids egging each other on to see if anyone could finish one without being violently ill. I think I only ever had one of these and lived to regret it!

Charlotte rating: 0/5 (That sounds completely gross, daddy!)
Daddy rating: 2/5 (purely for the kudos attached if you ever did finish one!)




10) The Mr Men Lolly

We thought we'd better get at least one booky-style lolly reference in here, and these are awesome - in fact I might be imagining it but I'm sure they still make these (either that or we keep finding them in newsagents that have kept them in their freezers since the 1970s!) - Awesome and refreshing, pick your fave!

Charlotte rating: 3/5 (because she would eat a Mr Bump one!)
Daddy rating: 3/5 (Mr Noisy for me!)


That's our lickable list! Please do comment below with your faves, we'd love to hear about them!

Hope you've enjoyed our lolly round up! Don't miss our review of "I Heart Holidays" by Clara Vulliamy, and please do join the rest of the lovely booky folk for the rest of the book tour (see below)

Joy.

Unparalleled unmitigated joy.

That's what you can expect whenever you read a book that Clara Vulliamy has had a hand in. Clara's "Martha and the Bunny Brothers" books epitomise why she is so well loved in children's literature circles, why parents and teachers adore her, why kids worship her and why her books are always met with outbursts of gleeful giggles by us at ReadItDaddy Towers.

As the sun still continues, what better way to kick off your reading this summer than by joining Martha, Pip and Monty for "I ♡ Holidays". Load up the GORGEOUS blue Camper Van and set off to the seaside with Martha and the Bunny Brothers, ensuring that you pack all the things you'll need.

Martha has her very own suitcase (just like Charlotte!) and crams in everything for a day at the beach (just like Charlotte, though we do draw the line at Charlotte packing her entire kitchen set for impromptu beachside catering).

You can almost feel the waves tickling your toes, the sand crunching under your heels and the warm sunshine at the turn of each page. We always love Clara's attention to detail in her illustrations (it goes without saying that I was completely head over heels in love with the camper van - but Charlotte was much more a fan of the lollies and ice-creams page, completely unable to decide which to choose between the traditional Mr Whippy with a flake, or the Fab, or the Tangle Twister or the Mini Milk!)

Martha is impatient to swim in the sea, but there are so many things to do at the beach, will she ever get the chance to go for a swim with those busy little bunny brothers or will the stormy clouds chase everyone from the place?

We love the way the Martha / Bunny Brothers books are put together. Kids love lists, they also love books that are laid out in a way that invites curious investigation. Watching Charlotte with these is always interesting, as she explores each page not wanting to miss any of the exquisite little details Clara always works into her stories.

We're off on our hols soon, and I can guarantee that this book will be tucked into our suitcase for bedtime reading. We'll try to make sure we don't get it too sandy!

"I ♡ Holidays" featuring Martha and the Bunny Brothers, published on the 3rd July 2014 from HarperCollins Children's Books. Grab your copy now!

Here's a special postcard from Martha and the Bunny Brothers (courtesy of their lovely "mum") to wish you all a happy summer!


Charlotte's best bit: Trying to decide which ice cream or lolly she likes best (Our answer: whichever one she can get messiest with!)

Daddy's Favourite bit: A wry grin at the holiday traffic (groan!) and the "Are we there yet?" bits - oh and sheer love for that camper van (If I ever do get one and one day I swear I will, I'm going to stick a big bunny face on the front!)

Don't forget to check out all the other wonderful blogs on the tour this week...

Tuesday: Smiling Like Sunshine

Wednesday: The Book Sniffing Pug

Thursday: Child Led Chaos

Friday: Mini Book Worms

(Thanks again to Clara and HarperCollins Children's Books for supplying a review copy and the awesome postcard!)

Monsters! YAY! Monster books rock, and we love them so let's catch up with a book that came out on 3rd July. Rory is a cute little fellah who always has a big smile on his face and a HUGE appetite. Rory loves to cook and he's often seen pottering around in the kitchen, knocking up all manner of monstery delights for his mum and dad and his hungry little brothers and sisters.

Mum and Dad book themselves a well-deserved night out and hire a babysitter, but it looks like it's up to Rory to ensure the evening goes swimmingly (the babysitter is a bit of a grumpy telly addict and doesn't really do a very good job of ensuring the kids don't get up to mischief!)

The twist in this tale is delivered in a deliciously satisfying fashion as we discover the true nature of hungry monsters. They really will eat absolutely anything, after all!

Rosie's story and art are sure to have your little ones giggling. Another corker to add to our ever-growing list of massively mondo monster books!

Charlotte's best bit: What can hungry monsters have for breakfast? Ooh is that the doorbell...?

Daddy's Favourite bit: Fun, bright and bold. We do love a good monster yarn!

(Kindly sent to us for review by Bloomsbury Children's Books)

Who would mourn the death of the traditional fairy story? Perhaps Disney would, because they'd have nothing left to plunder for their hugely successful movies. We would, because traditional fairy stories often hide a dark heart and sometimes the heroes don't always win. You would, because everyone who ever read a book would always remember at least one or two traditional stories from their childhood that have stuck in the memory long after other less finely crafted stories have faded.

Colin Thompson's "The Last Alchemist" feels very much like a traditional fairy story. It doesn't mess around dumbing down its dictionary to get its point across. It's illustrated with fabulous attention to detail, and yes, the story has a dark heart and a moral twist whispering about the vice of avarice, and the lust for wealth (something you wish had stuck in the mind of a few bankers when they were first counting out their plastic money as kids).

To the tale itself. The king has a lust for gold unparalleled, and generations of alchemists have sought the secret of turning everyday objects into gold. Spinifex is the last alchemist, and with his assistant Arthur, seeks to finally solve the greatest riddle known to man. Spinifex is driven and determined to achieve this goal, while Arthur gently daydreams about sunflowers and ears of corn - for riches mean nothing to a humble alchemist's assistant.

The king's demands grow more sinister as he sets spinifex a final deadline. "Achieve alchemy by the turn of the millennium or you're finished!" the king screams.

As the deadline looms, Spinifex is a hollow shell of his former self. Driven quite mad by his quest, even Arthur's best attempts to help result in only the tiniest pool of gold, melted from the riches and belongings stolen from the kingdom.

Can Spinifex achieve his terrible aim? Will the king's insatiable greed ever be satisfied?

Colin Thompson's art is surreal, reminiscent of Heironymous Bosch in some places, and with shades of Korky Paul's brilliant and bizarre ink scribbles in others. It's a feast for the eyes but the real feast is for the ears, as reading this book aloud is an absolute pleasure, and the effect it had on Charlotte was astounding as she didn't want this book to end.

It's a rare little treasure this one (don't go looking at the prices on Amazon, they'll make you sob!) but if you ever spot any of Colin Thompson's books in your local charity shop or secondhand book shop, grab them with both hands, they're truly fantastic.

Charlotte's best bit: The amazing and quite terrifying machine Spinifex manages to build to harvest gold

Daddy's Favourite bit: A stunning book from a supreme talent. Colin's work really needs to be reprinted, it's utterly amazing.

It's the third of July and lots of lovely books are publishing today but this one is something rather special. It caused Charlotte's teacher to raise her eyebrows so far that they almost hovered quite comically in mid air. It caused Charlotte's mum a few extra worry lines too (I'm not sure Mummy is sold on the idea of comics but is gradually being won round), but of course the pair of us attacked it with gleeful cackles of delight because we already love Adam Murphy's fantastic "Corpse Talk" strip in The Phoenix Comic.

So what's the setup here? Well, imagine what would happen if Parky went down to the local graveyard armed with a spade and (quite literally) dug up a few undead guests for his show. Corpse Talk's intrepid sometimes hysterical historical expert Adam Murphy does just this, roaming the world to interview the long-dead greatest figures in history.

From Einstein to Vlad the Impaler, Adam Murphy does not shy away from controversial guests. Phoenix readers and regulars chip in and suggest new guests for the strip and always come up with some corkers.

Here then is a great strip to champion the educational side of comics (which is what I tried to explain to Charlotte's teacher once she'd breathed in and out of a brown paper bag a few times and realised that Charlotte wasn't trying to share some epic zombie graphic novel during her recent Phoenix-comic-based Show and Tell).

Kids and adults will learn a great deal from Corpse Talk, with a goodly dose of tongue in cheek humour and outright cheekiness. So if you've ever dreamed of finding out just what colour underpants Genghis Khan wore, or whether Laurel and Hardy really got on with each other, tip a wink to Adam Murphy and he'll probably find out.

Work.
Of.
Genius!

"Corpse Talk Season 1" is available from the fabulous Phoenix Book Store.

Charlotte's best bit: A rather worrying and salacious curiosity about Vlad III! Eeks!

Daddy's Favourite bit: It's the most bonkers idea for a comic strip and yet it works so utterly brilliantly. Adam is a star, and we can't wait for Season 2. Just get out there and GEDDIT!

(Kindly sent to us for review by David Fickling Books)

Another happy publication day today for a book that's actually been around for quite some time. It's testament to how timeless this book is that I had absolutely no idea that it was 25 years old this year! Wowsers!

"Katie's Picture Show" by James Mayhew is the book that started Katie's incredible journeys of discovery as she visits the National Gallery with her grandma one rainy afternoon. Katie's grandma is a little tired, and finds somewhere quiet for a snooze while Katie flits off for a closer look at the fabulous works of art.

"DO NOT TOUCH!" say the signs, but Katie (rather naughtily!) can't resist, and soon discovers that the paintings are alive, and she can climb into them! Drawn into Constable's "The Haywain", Katie embarks on a thrilling adventure (and gets up to all sorts of mischief! Will Madame Moitessier's dress ever recover from those tea stains?)

James has a fabulous way of directly engaging children's curiosity, introducing them to art and artists in a fun and kid-friendly way (though naturally we wouldn't advise grandmas to let their children run off by themselves in a gallery, nor would we advise children to let their sticky jammy fingers get anywhere near any of the paintings! Eek!)

I love art, and James' books have always been a really great way to introduce Charlotte to the works of art and of course the artists I've admired for years and have grown up idolising.

The formula is obviously a huge success as there are quite a few books in the range now (we gave up counting at 11) - each with their own themes as Katie discovers artists as diverse as Rousseau, Constable, Turner and Da Vinci.

If you've never read any of the Katie series, this is an extremely good place to start! Happy birthday to a fab book!

Charlotte's best bit: Playing hoop and stick, and snaffling Madame Moitessier's cakes!

Daddy's Favourite bit: A truly wonderful book series started with this fabulous story. A really brilliant way of introducing your child to the wonders of art and the artists behind some of the world's most famous works.

(Kindly sent to us for review by Orchard Books)

It's happy publication day today for a very special book indeed.

A new Julia Donaldson book is always a cause for huge celebration. She is a wordsmith extraordinaire, with her perfect rhymes and engaging stories. Teaming Julia up with one of our favourite artists, David Roberts, is a stroke of genius and we've seen this dazzling duo in action before in the rather fabulous "The Troll" (if you haven't read it yet, check out our review, it's a little smasher - and look out for the troll making a sneaky cameo in this book too!)

Ahhh a flying bath, imagine it, being able to fill up with warm soapy water and then flap off to any destination in the world. Though the bath in this story has a more serious purpose. The helpful little animals (Duck, Frog and Turtle) are like International Rescue. Wherever there's a need for water, they answer the call (and Charlotte absolutely LOVED all the different 'phones' that various thirsty animals use to call in their problems with).

A pig who is in dire need of a shower or a Baboon with his tree house on fire, nothing's too tricky for The Flying Bath!

A wondrous flight of imagination absolutely beautifully written, gorgeously illustrated, and with a fairly nice message about the true value of water across the planet. Absolutely excellent!

Charlotte's best bit: Baboon's Banana Phone and the sneaky Troll making a cameo near the end of the book!

Daddy's Favourite bit: JD makes it look SO easy to produce such memorable and readable rhymes. Likewise, David Roberts' illustrations are absolutely top drawer. What a team!

(Kindly sent to us for review by Macmillan Children's Books)

It's quite something to see when a famous author / illustrator's children pick up where they leave off. Richard Scarry's son Huck now draws and writes new Scarry books, and Laurent De Brunhoff has inherited the rich legacy of stories and talent from his father Jean De Brunhoff, to give us all-new Babar tales.

Charlotte wasn't aware that there were newer Babar books than the ones we've been enjoying at home and it took some explaining that these might be different. I hadn't read Laurent's newer stories before so we both wanted to know whether the essence of brilliant Babar stories could be relayed by another, even modernised in places.

Thankfully "Babar's Celestville Games" was deemed "lovely" by Charlotte, essentially a love story with a moral tale about tolerance and nationality woven into its elephantine creases. Babar takes a bit of a back seat in this tale of the Celestville Games, where animals (and elephants) from all over the globe gather to compete in the animal olympics. Babar's children (now all grown up) watch the various events, but Flora falls in love with one of the competitors, Coriander from the country of Mirza.

Their love blossoms and soon there is to be a royal wedding. At first Coriander's parents don't agree (Babar and Celeste are a little less 'stuffy' and wish their daughter well). A Mirza ceremony takes place and the newlyweds live happily ever after.

It's a lovely story and it's evident that Laurent De Brunhoff obviously paid a lot of attention to his dad's work, and has tirelessly kept Babar's legend alive. Really worthwhile if you enjoy the original Jean De Brunhoff stories and want to see if Laurent's own can stand on their own two (or should that be big stomping grey four) feet.


Charlotte's best bit: Flora's exuberant support of Coriander during the games, cheering for Mirza!

Daddy's Favourite bit: Fantastic, the modern books pay homage to the originals wonderfully.

Now the summer is here, our thoughts turn to summer holidays. We'll be glamming it up in Somerset and Wales this year - but we'd truly love to be the little mouse in this story. After Auntie returns home with the most amazing sewn quilt, detailing her adventures in India, a child dreams that they've become a jet-setting mouse. Arriving in a strange country, the local customs seem strange but the cityscape is alive with colour, and the flora and fauna dazzle and delight.

The story playfully allows us to delve into the child's imagination as they travel the landscape, encountering different characters who dilly dally and shilly shally whenever our child-mouse asks where they are. Hence the title of the book!

Anushka Ravishankar's rhymes play with your senses as much as the book's stunning sewn-together visuals (by artist Anita Leutwilet). A beautifully descriptive book that will make you want to travel to one of the globe's most colourful countries in search of adventure. As with all the Tara books we've encountered so far, this is a treat for the eyes as well as the tongue when read aloud!

Charlotte's best bit: Racing around in a Tuk Tuk. Hold on little mouse!

Daddy's Favourite bit: A truly beautiful book full of vibrant colours, fun rhymes and such a brilliant landscape to explore in wonderment.

(Kindly sent to us for review by Tara Books)

Along with our picture book reviews we like to round up early chapter readers and also dabble with a bit of YA. So we're kicking off a semi-regular feature to highlight some of the books in Charlotte's reading pile.

Here's a book with a subject very dear to Charlotte's heart. Guinea Pigs. Those snub-nosed round-bottomed adorable little creatures are high on Charlotte's "Pets I most want" list.

Millhouse is a little different though. He's a hairless guinea pig and as soon as Charlotte spotted the cover, she was puzzled.

"That's not a Guinea Pig!" she exclaimed. "That's a pig!"

We read on. Natale's story is a rather lovely little tale of Millhouse's attempts to become the world's first thespian guinea pig. Abandoned when his owner dies, Millhouse ends up sharing a dusty neglected old pet shop with other creatures who find this odd looking fellow a bit too weird and different at first. But Can Millhouse win them over with his theatrical leanings?

"The other animals in this are really mean!" Charlotte commented, and at first Millhouse faces a huge struggle as he tries to adapt and fit in to his new lifestyle. Can anyone truly ever love a hairless guinea pig though? There's only one thing for it - a grand escape back to the theatre and the place he loves the most.

With some great little inky illustrations throughout, this is a heartwarming tale of friendship and redemption - and above all being who you are and not who you think you should be. It'll take Charlotte quite a while to get through it but she's loving it so far.

Also on Charlotte's bedside book pile this week:

"Angela Nicely" by Alan Macdonald and David Roberts
"Claude in the Spotlight" by Alex T. Smith

(Millhouse kindly sent to us by Tundra Press)