The Orchard Book Of Hans Christian Andersen's Fairy Tales by Martin Waddell and Emma Chichester Clark
With The Princess and the Pea, The Ugly Duckling, The Tinderbox, The Little Match Girl, The Emperor's New Clothes, The Tin Soldier, The Swineherd, The Nightingale and The Little Mermaid, this is a must-have compendium of classic fairy tales. You can't really go wrong with Hans Christian Andersen's best, can you? Martin Waddell and Emma Chichester Clark have not just churned out the old classics, but they've given them an amazing freshness and vibrancy. Full review...
The Orchard Book Of Nursery Rhymes For Your Baby by Penny Dann
All your favourite nursery rhymes are here, from Hickory Dickory Dock, through Little Bo Peep and Three Blind Mice, to Sing A Song Of Sixpence. With over sixty nursery rhymes to choose from, all the big names are presented in a beautiful compendium that you'll treasure for years. Full review...
Aesop's Fables by Aesop, Fiona Waters and Fulvio Testa
Everyone knows and loves Aesop's Fables. They're part of our literary tapestry and our everyday lives. We know sour grapes, we know the tortoise and the hare, the boy who cried wolf and so many more. Fiona Waters has retold 60 of the most famous fables in this delightful anthology. Full review...
My Favourite Fairy Tales by Tony Ross
Tony Ross has picked, retold and illustrated his favourite fairy tales, taking in such classics as Rumpelstiltskin and Beauty and the Beast, whilst also offering up slightly lesser-known ones like The Hedley Kow, The Musicians of Bremen, Sweet Porridge, Prince Hyacinth and Fairy Gifts. Full review...
The Orchard Book of Swords, Sorcerers and Superheroes by Tony Bradman and Tony Ross
Jason and the Argonauts, King Arthur, Aladdin, William Tell, Hercules, Sinbad, St George, Ali Baba, Theseus and Robin Hood. If you love myths and legends as much as we do then those ten heroes will have got your juices flowing, and you'll be desperate to dive in to this collection of adventures. It's fantastic. You'll love it! Full review...
The Walrus and the Carpenter and Other Favourite Poems by Children's Trust
Celebrities, including Richard Hammond, Paul O'Grady, Sienna Miller, McFly and Lorraine Kelly, have chosen their favourite poems for this anthology. All proceeds from the book go to The Children's Trust. It's a fantastic charity, who help disabled children, and I urge you all to buy a copy of The Walrus and the Carpenter to support them. Full review...
A To Z - The Best Children's Poetry From Agard To Zephaniah by Michael Rosen
Michael Rosen has picked the best modern children's poetry, from John Agard through to Benjamin Zephaniah. It stemmed from Rosen performing in schools and libraries with many of the poets, and as children's poetry anthologies go, it's amongst the very best. Full review...
Changing My Mind: Occasional Essays by Zadie Smith
Zadie Smith is best known as the author of three novels: White Teeth, The Autograph Man and On Beauty. She now teaches Creative Writing at Columbia University in New York. This collection is a mixture of literary criticism and journalism, including travel writing, reviews and other writing on film and several pieces about Zadie Smith's family, and especially her father. It is divided into five sections under the headings Reading, Being, Seeing, Feeling and Remembering. Full review...
The Magical World of Milligan by Spike Milligan
Some people you just have to love. It's the law. Spike Milligan was always fantastic, and he's much missed. He's got the perfect mix of nonsense, heart, and surreal humour. He speaks to people of all ages, and he's just plain lovely. Full review...
New and Collected Poems for Children by Carol Ann Duffy
Sometimes the title is all the introduction you need: Poet Laureate Carol Ann Duffy's 'New and Collected Poems for Children'. Full review...
Higglety Pigglety Pop! And Other First Poems by Harry Horse
A poetry anthology that includes Edward Lear, Spike Milligan, AA Milne, Lewis Carroll and Michael Rosen is immediately worth a look. They're timeless classics that everyone has read and has had read to them. Full review...
Noisy Poems by Debi Gliori
Any book of poetry that starts with Spike Milligan and ends with Roger McGough will get the thumbs up from me. Noisy Poems is full of just that: poems about sounds, with trucks honking, ducks quacking, trains clickety-clacking and shoes squeaking. It's awash with alliteration and rhythm. It's crying out to be read aloud and joined in with. Full review...
Twinkle Twinkle Chocolate Bar by John Foster
I was recently subjected to a good 20 minutes of the rude version of Happy Birthday in Catalan, even though it was neither my birthday nor am I Catalan. I responded with the ol' squashed tomatoes and stew version that we all know and love, for a very restrained 15 minutes. Twinkle Twinkle Chocolate Bar is packed full of such things. Kids love those sort of rhymes, and childish adults love 'em too. Whilst Twinkle Twinkle Chocolate Bar isn't exactly rude, it does have a cheeky glint in its eye, a muddy splash on its new shoes, and gleeful laughter throughout. Full review...
A Kick In The Head: An Everyday Guide To Poetic Forms by Paul B Janeczko and Chris Raschka
As the subtitle says, A Kick In The Head is an everyday guide to poetic forms. It's a perfect primer to couplets, limericks, acrostics, sonnets, haiku and many more. Each form has a brief explanation, an example, and then a more detailed explanation at the back. It's a wonderful educational book for any child (or for any adult who wants to brush up on their basic understanding of poetry). Full review...
For King and Country: Voices from the First World War by Brian MacArthur
For King and Country – Voices from the First World War is an anthology of writings edited by Brian MacArthur. It features around 450 pages of journals, poems, articles and memories of those involved in WWI. These factual accounts cover all kinds of styles, lengths and subject matter, but each one is hopefully able to give the reader a real taste of a time most of us are too young to remember first-hand. Full review...
The Book of Idle Pleasures by Tom Hodgkinson
We've all heard the clichés about modern life. You know – technology was meant to free us from drudgery. Instead we've become its slaves and work longer hours than ever. We're overloaded with means of communication but few of us know our neighbours, etc, etc. On hearing these, most of us shrug and carry on with our busy, busy lives. But now and then, something reminds us of who and what we are. This delightful, unassuming book is one of those things. Full review...
The Oxford Book of Modern Science Writing by Richard Dawkins
Popular science is a huge field nowadays, populated by both writers who turn to science and scientists who took to writing. The collection I have the pleasure of reviewing contains samples of writing by scientists, most of it at least illuminating, some truly excellent. Full review...