Newest For Sharing Reviews
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For sharing
Sir Charlie Stinky Socks and the Really Frightful Night by Kristina Stephenson
Sir Charlie Stinky Socks is a wonderful young man. Not only has he been involved in another splendid adventure, he also wants to donate 10% of the royalties from this book to Naomi House Children's Hospice. It all began like this…
Right at the top of the tall tower with the pointy roof…
…a witch with a watch was dreaming a scheme, a long green dragon was lost in sleep and a little Princess was snoring! Full review...
Small Knight and George and the Royal Chocolate Cake by Ronda Armitage and Arthur Robins
Unsurprisingly, it was the gorgeous looking cover depicting an enormous chocolate cake which attracted my two and a half year old son to this book! He started saying 'choccy cake book please Mummy' so I knew that I would have to review it for the Bookbag! It arrived yesterday and he eagerly grabbed it from me and asked me to read it to him. Full review...
Miss Louise Goes to Paris by Carolyn Hink and Emma Calder
This wonderful and unusual book tells a story of a primary school teacher, Miss Louise, and what happened when her boyfriend whisked her off to Paris for Valentine's Day. The narrator is one of Miss Louise's pupils who retells the story and is so delightfully caught up in her teacher's adventures, that the reader cannot fail to feel the same way too. Full review...
The Selfish Crocodile Book of Nursery Rhymes by Faustin Charles and Michael Terry
The Selfish Crocodile has multiplied, so to speak, in this new picture book. TheSelfish Crocodile Book of Nursery Rhymes features the friendly reptile and a multitude of other jungle animals in a modern (and jungle-adapted) re-telling of classic Mother Goose nursery rhymes. Full review...
Wolf's Magnificent Master Plan by Melanie Williamson
All children know that wolves are mean, cunning, unscrupulous creatures and the wolf we meet in this story is no exception. He's particularly nasty because he wants to trick some innocent little lambs into helping him so that he can eat them for his dinner. Luckily, wolves are not known for their intellect so it is not difficult for the lambs to outwit him before his plan comes to fruition. Wolf's Magnificent Master Plan is a very good example of a modern version of a traditional tale with all the elements we would come to expect. Full review...
If I Were You by Richard Hamilton
As soon as I looked at the cover of this book I knew it was going to be fun. The picture of a daddy wearing a pink tutu with his hairy chest poking through at the top had both my daughters giggling before we even opened the book.
This is a lovely warm story which starts with Dad tucking his daughter into bed. Like many parents he is anxious that she gets a good night's sleep (probably so he can enjoy his own evening!) and says:
If I were you I'd snuggle down and go to sleep. Full review...
The Trouble with Dragons by Debi Gliori
When I first picked up The Trouble with Dragons I thought it was going to be the ideal book to share with my three year old daughter and that I would transport her into a fantastical world full of amazing mythical creatures. On one level, the book does work in this way but it is also so much more than that with the sort of message that makes it entirely appropriate to share with much older children too. As a parent, I found this book absolutely stunning and have spent a wonderful time pouring over the pictures and discussing the content with both my three and five year old daughters. Full review...
Farmer Joe and the Music Show by Tony Mitton and Guy Parker-Rees
I read Farmer Joe and the Music Show with my two daughters who are aged five and three and we all absolutely loved it. It's a sweet appealing story with plenty of humour and a rhythm which will make you want to start tapping your toes as you read. Full review...
Peepo Paw Prints by Smriti Prasadam and Melanie Mitchell
Who's been hopping round and round?
Squelch squelch!
Well, there are some clues as to who has been hopping round. We've got two green paw prints – touch them and you'll find that they're textured. On the opposite page there's a lily pond and if you lift the lily up you can see that lurking beneath it is a friendly frog. There's a lot to talk about too. The young reader is encouraged to put their own hands on the paw prints to see if they match – and of course they don't. Melanie Mitchell's beautiful illustrations bring to life the frog's habitat and the creatures which share it – the dragon flies hovering over the water and the fish in the pond. It's all very easy on the eye and each reading will reveal something new. Full review...
Gilbert the Great by Jane Clarke
Gilbert is a great white shark, best friends with Raymond the Remora. They spend nearly every moment together, but one day Gilbert wakes up and finds Raymond has gone. Gilbert gradually comes to terms with his loss with the help of his mum, makes a new friend in the process, and realises Raymond will always be with him. Full review...
Never Take a Shark to the Dentist by Judith Barrett and John Nickle
Oh, this was fun. You might think it's fairly obvious that you shouldn't take a shark to the dentist, but what about sitting next to a porcupine on the underground? Or going shopping for shoes with a centipede? Or taking an ant on a picnic? Never Take a Shark to the Dentist is full of such absurd situations. It's not a worthy book, hiding a message behind its simple text and busy, interesting illustrations; it's sheer entertainment. And it's funny. Full review...
Otto's Trip to the Moon by Katherine Lodge
It was Otto's birthday and Missy and Chip had bought him a present. When he unwrapped it he discovered a rocket and where else do you take a rocket but to the moon? Off the friends went, with the moon being very pleased to see them and they had a picnic on the moon and a dance before they tidied up and flew back home again. Full review...
What Do People Do All Day? by Richard Scarry
As its title suggests, the book is about what people do all day. Since different people all do different things, the book covers a lot of topics. The first section looks at Busy Town itself along the high street. This book truly shines with some of the best examples of Scarry's illustrations, as we see the town above ground, and below ground in intricate detail. We see the men digging tunnels and the underground pipes, street cleaners at work, and peeks into the bank and various shops as well as the fire department, doctor, dentist, and so on. All are clearly labelled and much fun is to be had after reading the narrative, looking at and discussing all the marvellous detail. As the book progresses, we get to see what Mummy does all day at home, what the farmer does, the door to door salesman, the policeman, the fireman, the blacksmith, the postmen, the ferry workers, and so on. Full review...
Ping Pong Pig by Caroline Jayne Church
Just by looking at the front cover with its wonderfully alliterative title and a mischievous looking pink pig hurtling through the air, you can tell that this is a story that young children will really enjoy.
Ping Pong Pig lives on a farm and is very keen to find out if he can fly. Unfortunately, through all his attempts, he gets in the way of all the other hard working farm animals and causes mayhem in the process. He knocks all the apples off the apple tree, smears all the new paint on the barn, allows the bees to escape from their hives and knocks over all the hay. Full review...
DogFish by Gillian Shields
Everyone has a dog. Except me.
So says the little boy in DogFish. He doesn't like going to the park much because everyone has a dog. Except him. So he turns his attention toward persuading his mother that they should buy a dog to replace the boring goldfish. Every objection she raises, he counters - the goldfish can't fetch sticks, living on the 44th floor would be great exercise, the dog could read the paper while everyone was out, it wouldn't cost much money as it would eat scraps. But mother is the immovable object and our hero is not the unstoppable force. Even his hypnotic eyes don't work. Full review...
What's in the Fridge? by Gaby Goldsack (author) and Jo Moon (illustrator)
It's quite difficult to make a counting book interesting - to an adult. Children, though, don't really mind what twist a counting book takes. So long as they're counting, and so long as what they're counting is either recognisable or humorous, they're happy. So the best counting books - which, after all, are really no more than a sequence of pages with different numbers of objects on them - combine recognisable objects and humour. Full review...
Does a Sea Cow Say Moo? by Terry Webb Harshman and George McClements
Does a Sea Cow Say Moo? combines exuberant graphics, good play on words and an underwater educational angle with a clunky rhyme and a sketch of a plot to hold it all together.
When an alien called Flash lands on Earth he's mightily confused by the words with multiple meanings - especially the ones that concern sea creatures and habitat! Luckily he makes friends with Jack who soon clears the confusion. Full review...
A Hero's Birthday (Melrose & Croc) by Emma Chichester-Clark
Melrose and Croc met one lonely Christmas and have been best friends ever since. A Hero's Birthday is the sixth book in the series and it continues the exploration of the friendship theme, this time in a rather adventurous setting. Full review...
Class Three All At Sea by Julia Jarman and Lynn Chapman
Class Three all at Sea tells of an exciting day when Class Three goes off on a trip out to sea. It starts off as the class is waiting on the quay and we see the children's excited faces watching donkeys dancing and seagulls skimming stones. However, there is something in the background that they don't see – a skull and cross bones! Full review...
Marvin Gets MAD! by Joseph Theobald
My first thought when I looked at this book was that the sheep on the front looked, well, rather cross. In fact, he looked mad about something. What could it be? One spring morning Marvin was in his perfectly green field when he found a tree of lusciously juicy apples. There was one apple which he desperately wanted, but no matter how high he jumped he couldn't quite reach it. He hoped that it would fall off and he waited, and waited. Eventually he fell asleep… Full review...
Mr Big by Ed Vere
The narrator of our story, a young monkey who looks slightly familiar to me from Ed Vere's last book Banana, has a friend by the name of Big, Mr Big. He has a small problem. Compared to everyone else he is extremely BIG. That's really enormous to you and me. When he goes places, other people leave and Mr Big has the café, the bus or the swimming pool all to himself. Now some people might think this was an advantage, but not Mr Big. Everyone thought that he was scary, but actually, he was lonely and sad. Full review...
What! by Kate Lum and Adrian Johnson
What! is a delightful picture book written by Kate Lum and illustrated by Adrian Johnson. The book only has two characters and tells the story of what happened one night when a small boy called Patrick went to stay with his granny. Granny is depicted as a fairly typical granny with permed grey hair, glasses and sensible shoes who is never to be seen without her handbag. However it soon turns out that she is no ordinary granny as events in the story demonstrate. Full review...
Captain Wag and the Big Blue Whale by Michael Terry
A sequel to the first Captain Wag book, Captain Wag and the Big Blue Whale has the pirate dog and his friends One-Eye Jack and Old Scratch stranded on a desert island. They managed to knock together a makeshift boat and are on their way home, but what is it on the horizon? Their arch-enemies Pirate Ginger Tom and his motley crew of cats are determined to stop them. Will Captain Wag and his people (sorry, dogs) get home safely? And what about the whale of the title? Full review...
Lulu's Shoes by Camilla Reid
If one of the key female traits is a love of shoes, I am certainly a traitor to my gender: I live in crocs, bare feet are even more preferable and the idea of a shoe-cupboard fills me with dread rather than anticipation.
And still, I liked Lulu's Shoes. It's a board book for toddlers: chunky pages, very little text, simple illustrations without too much detail and, as the subtitle of utterly fabulous interactive book promises, the interactive part. Full review...
Charlie is My Darling by Malachy Doyle and Stephen Lambert
Charlie is my Darling is a really lovely book to share with young children which tells a touching story of an unlikely friendship. The narrator of the story is a young boy who is telling what happened when he met and made friends with Charlie. Charlie is actually a small white dog who lives with his elderly owner Ellen Adams. Because she is old and frail she does not get out much which means, of course, that Charlie does not get out much either. This is a shame because as we learn later in the story he is just a dog who likes to run, who likes to play, who likes to paddle, likes to breathe fresh air, who likes to race back home to Ellen Adams. Full review...
Have You Seen My Potty? by Mij Kelly
This is the story of Suzy Sue who had something very important to do, something important that she did every day…
…until someone snatched her potty away.
Toilet training is a big step in a child's life. It's leaving the nappies behind that marks the end of being a baby and the start of independence. As a parent it's one of the big milestones (although not one that's easily talked about in polite company) and because of this potty training can become too fraught for the transition to be easy. There are going to be tears and tantrums – and it's not easy for the child either. Full review...
Custardly Wart: Pirate (Third Class) (History of Warts) by Alan MacDonald
I have travelled 1,800 years in the last week. From picking the first Wart book, where Ditherus was in ancient Rome, Custardly is the focus of this second volume to be launched in the series, which still seems to want to grow to eight entries. This book starts off with him in a horrid Dickensian school, before some mysterious people arrive – allegedly wanting to teach the children, but certainly more intent on giving them their sea-dogs, kidnapping them, and using them to win some buried treasure. Full review...
Ditherus Wart: (Accidental) Gladiator (History of Warts) by Alan MacDonald
Ditherus Wart is clearly not a fellow belonging to the brightest, happiest family in history. The entire series seems to have eight Warts to present to us, all falling on bad times, misfortune and sheer idiotic bad luck. Going back to Roman times, we get this first example. Full review...
The Beginner's Guide to Bears by Gillian Shields and Sebastien Braun
I have two small daughters who love books and also love bears so 'The Beginner's Guide to Bears' was an excellent choice for them. Although it looks like a story book, and indeed its content is entirely fictional, it takes on the guise of a manual which informs its young reader about everything that bears like and do! Full review...
Thud by Nick Butterworth
'This is terrible!' he wailed 'First the Ugly Beast and now a monster.' Basil the Bushbaby cannot get any rest, first disturbed by the arrival of a mysterious creature everybody in the forest decided to call the Ugly Beast, and now the earth shakes from a mighty thuds of a truly humongous monster. Basil decides that the monster has to be got rid of, but nobody seems to be willing to help: Spike the Porcupine can do cats and dogs, but not monsters, Piers the warthog is too beautiful and Ralph the lion has a sore throat. Even the Ugly Beast doesn't feel able to help. Full review...
