Newest For Sharing Reviews

Review of When Fred the Snake Got Squished and Mended by Peter Cotton For Sharing Meet Fred. Well, actually, you're going to be meeting Fred-Fred for reasons which will become all too obvious very quickly. But I'm getting ahead of myself: I'd better tell you a bit more about Fred. Fred is a snake and even those of us who have a phobia about snakes are going to warm to him. He arrived as a present in a box with holes so that he could breathe and immediately became part of the family, to the extent that they would take Fred out with them when they went out for a walk. And that was where the problem started. Fred didn't have any road sense. Or brakes. Full Review

Review of Everybody Pees! (Everybody Potties!) by Justine Avery and Naday Meldova For Sharing Can potty training ever be joyous? It often isn't, as any parent will tell you. But really, why shouldn't it be? We all have to learn about our bodily functions just as we have to learn about everything else when we are small. Why shouldn't potty training be as much fun as, say, learning about why the sun and the moon take turns in the sky? Full Review

Review of No, No, No! by Justine Avery and Naday Meldova For Sharing They say the best picture books are the simplest ones. And nothing could be truer of this latest from Justine Avery, a Bookbag favourite. No, No, No! is based around the simplest text imaginable. No, no, no! Okay, okay. Yes, you may. That's it! But, like all the best picture books, this tiny snippet of text is a veritable tardis - so much bigger on the inside that it appears on the outside. Full Review

Review of The Farm Shop by Devon Avery, Justine Avery and Ema Tepic For Sharing Kirelle and her best friend Sam the cat decide to go for a walk. Kirelle is dressed for all weathers in her bright yellow wellies and Sam is perfectly turned out as ever in his smart grey fur coat. As they walk to the top of the hill, they see a big barn with a sign outside. It's a farm shop! But this is a farm shop with a difference: all the stallholders and customers are farmyard animals. There are sheep and ducks and cows, goats and chickens, and even some mice. Excited, Kirelle and Sam go shopping. What will they buy? Full Review

Review of Sadie and the Sea Dogs by Maureen Duffy and Anita Joice For Sharing Sadie's mother always said that she was a dreamer, her mind never on what she should be doing. She lives by the River Thames at Greenwich and she loves to spend hours at The Maritime Museum or gazing at Cutty Sark. Her class had gone one rainy afternoon When all the houses cowered in the gloom, To the Maritime Museum. Her imagination was fired. She'd love to sail the oceans on an ancient sailing ship and went back regularly. One day she fell asleep under a glass case (it's the one where Nelson's Trafalgar breeches are on show) and missed the closing bell and the attendant's warning shout. When she woke (hard floors don't make comfy beds) she was in the midst of an adventure that she could never have imagined in a world of dolphins, pirates, mermaids and treasure. Full Review

Review of Little Gold Ted by Vanessa Wiercioch, Poppy Satha and Sasha Satha For Sharing One day, Gold Ted falls into a puddle. It's quite a deep puddle and the water is swirling. Poor Ted starts to spin around and around and is sucked down a drain on the side of the street. Finding himself down in the sewer, Ted starts to panic. OH HELP ME PLEASE he cries and alerts the attention of Reg the sewer rat, who plucks him out of the dirty water using his cane, which might look just a bit like an old cricket bat. Reg is a kind soul and he dries Ted off and warms him up with a nice bowl of broth. Full Review

Review of Remy: A book about believing in yourself by Mayuri Naidoo and Caroline Siegal For Sharing Remy is feeling miserable. He's let himself down again. The school bully Jayden, together with his sidekicks Ryan and Brandon, have been laughing at Remy, calling him names because he is short and has small eyes. They are mean but they are not stupid. They are careful to wind up Remy when nobody can see and then push him just that little bit further when the other kids are around. So, when Remy reacts, it looks as though he was the instigator. And then he gets into trouble at school and the teachers don't believe him when he tries to explain what happened. Full Review

Review of The Invisible by Tom Percival For Sharing This is the story of Isobel, a little girl who made a big difference. Isobel lived with her parents in a house - a very cold house, because her parents couldn't afford to put the heating on: Ice curled across the inside of the window and crept up the corner of the bedpost. The family didn't go to the cinema or on holidays but they had each other and they were happy. Then the day came when they couldn't afford the rent for the house and they had to move to the far side of the city. This part of the city was cold, sad and lonely and Isobel felt invisible. Full Review

Review of One Night in Beartown by Nick Jones and Si Clark For Sharing Many children have an obsession and Sandy Lane, who lives in Beartown, is obsessed with bears. She collects books about bears. Her favourite toy is Berisford, a teddy bear passed down by her grandmother. Every night, she looks out of her bedroom window and says goodnight to the bear statue outside. Every morning she says hello to Bee Bear, a colourful painted bear that lives at her school. She even has bears on her bedroom wallpaper! Full Review

Review of Everything is MINE by Andrea D'Aquino For Sharing Marcello Von Cauliflower Bonaparte Jackson is a schnauzer: what else could you be with a name like that? He knows that you'll realise that he's kind, clever and loyal. You'll also need to know that everything is MINE. And he means everything. It begins with the slipper: mum still has one. Why would she need more? You sense that Marcello feels that he's being generous in allowing that. Then it was the pork chop. Well, did you see anyone's name on it? And he left the carrots for Leo. That's another example of Marcello's generosity. There was the acorn which squirrel was gnawing at: there was no documentation to prove ownership. And talking of ownership the tree would provide all the sticks he could ever want to chew. There's nothing unreasonable in any of that, is there? Full Review

Review of It Isn't Rude to be Nude by Rosie Haine For Sharing This could have been one of those books which 'preaches to the choir': the only people who'll buy it are the people who know that nudity is OK and the ones who know that it's shameful will avoid it like they avoid the hot-and-bothered person in the supermarket who is coughing fit to bust. But... Rosie Haines makes it into something so much more than a book about not wearing clothes. It's a celebration of bodies: bodies large and small and of every possible hue. Bodies with disabilities and markings. They're fine. In fact, they're wonderful. Full Review

Review of Child of Galaxies by Blake Nuto and Charlotte Ager For Sharing What does it mean to be alive? What are we made of, and where are we going? Child of Galaxies is a lovely children's picture book that deals with all the big questions. Written as a poem, the lyrical words don't shy away from darkness, nor talk down to the children you are reading to, but rather than work beautifully together with the illustrations to create a powerful, uplifting reading experience. Full Review

Review of Think Outside the Box by Justine Avery and Liuba Syrotiuk For Sharing Whenever you find a problem Wherever there's a puzzle to solve However you get stuck in a sticky situation Just think outside the box And so begins the latest picture book from Justine Avery and Liuba Syrotiuk. It's a clarion call to children to use their imaginations and not logic alone when it comes to solving problems. Full Review

Review of What Wonders Await Outdoors by Justine Avery and Liuba Syrotiuk For Sharing The second book in Justine Avery's Wonders series is the perfect antidote to long summer days with bored children - or, indeed, as we've found recently, for those long lockdown days when an awful pandemic is rolling across the world. What do you do when every book has been read and every toy has been played with, repurposed, and played with again? Full Review

Review of How Do You Make a Baby? by Anna Fiske and Don Bartlett (translator) Home and Family It's more than sixty years since I asked how babies were made. My mother was deeply embarrassed and told me that she'd get me a book about it. A couple of days later I was handed a pamphlet (which delivered nothing more than the basics, in clinical language which had never been used in our house before) and I was told that it wouldn't be discussed any further as it wasn't something which nice people talked about. I knew more, but was little wiser. Thankfully, times have changed. Full Review

Review of This Book Wants to Make You Laugh (Living Book) by Justine Avery and Daria Yudina For Sharing This Living Book is on a mission. What's the mission? To make you laugh! I can't think of many better missions than that, can you? Let's see how it does... .... well, it opens up with a terrible joke. A groany joke, an eye-roll joke. The joke isn't very funny but it is funny to see how enthusiastic and how generously this book wants to make you laugh - Oh, I'm terrible at jokes. Some books are so good at them. I always wanted to help someone laugh. Full Review

Review of Baby Trolls Get a Bad Rap (Underrated Babies Book 1) by Justine Avery and Daria Yudina For Sharing Horatio, Saul and Grizelda are three baby trolls who are fed up that everyone forgets about baby trolls. They are ignored in books and TV shows and films in favour of their very scary grown ups. Our three heroes want equal rights for baby trolls. They want to be seen and heard and they've started a petition about it that they want you to sign. But how should they go about it? Full Review

Review of This Book Is Alive! (Living Book) by Justine Avery and Daria Yudina For Sharing Books want you to read them! They're not intimidating or standoffish or particular about readers. Books want to be read. This is the key message in Justine Avery's latest offering, This Book Is Alive!. By anthropomorphising the relationship between book and young reader, she's sending an invitation to all - pick me up, read me, be my friend, we can go on a journey together. It's a great message, don't you think? Full Review

Review of I Dreamed You by Justine Avery and Ema Tepic For Sharing It is always a pleasure to review a new book by Justine Avery and I Dreamed You carries on the tradition beautifully. This little book is the perfect exemplar of our category name, For Sharing. It is a mother's love letter to her child, told in rhyme form. Full Review

Review of Guess What I Found in the Playground! by Victoria Thompson For Sharing Tilly is excited. She's just come dashing out of the classroom, pigtails flapping behind her and a big grin on her face. Dad's come to collect her and her brother and he has to try to guess what she found in the playground today, although she concedes that he will never guess. Dad wants to know how school was, but obviously that's not important. Could Tilly have found more collectable things for her scrap box? (Isn't that so much more sensible than a scrap book?) Well, actually, Tilly did find exciting stuff. There are sequins, glittered paper and all sorts of other things in her pocket, but that's not what she wants Dad to guess. Full Review

Review of My Mummy does weird things / Maman fait des choses bizarres by Amelie Julien and Gustyawan For Sharing Which child doesn't think that their mother is, well, weird? It might be that in the morning their mother doesn't like speaking much when every self-respecting child knows that that is when you're at your brightest with lots to say? Why then does Mummy stick her fingers in her ears? Then there's doing yoga in front of the television, which could be worrying if it wasn't so funny. We won't go into too much detail about what goes on in the bathroom and the colour changes which have occured when Mummy emerges and frankly, the less said the better about her reactions to your artistic efforts on the wall. I mean, what else would you use paint for? Full Review

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