This delightful book was lent to us by a friend and we hardly wanted to give it back. Katie and her grandma visit the art gallery for her grandma’s birthday. Katie is gazing at a picture of The Luncheon by Claude Monet when she spies a garden in the backdrop.
Written and illustrated by Alex T Smith (Macmillan)
A lovely spin on the wicked wolf looking to eat the lamb story. A wily old wolf called Lou Pine is desperate to disguise himself as a sheep so he can cunningly slip into the flock and eat them all up.
I was immediately attracted by the image of paper dolls, which I used to love cutting out as a child. I still make them with my younger kids and they love colouring in their clothes and giving them accessories. In the book a mom and daughter make a string of paper dolls together, which go off on a fantastical adventure as they travel through the house and out into the garden.
What’s That? is a first words book perfect for getting 0-3’s to identify familiar objects and animals from the farm, the park, the home, the shops, and the road. Rhyming text makes the words stick in their minds and the clear illustrations are friendly and descriptive.
One of the first words we teach babies is Hello! and Goodbye! Wave hello, wave goodbye we say many times during the day. This is a lovely little book that shows bear saying hello to the tree and all the animals and insects.
This humorous diary of what wombat did with her day will have little kids laughing out loud. Monday: Morning: Slept. Afternoon: Slept. Evening: Ate grass. Scratched. Night: Ate grass. Slept. By Wednesday the gorgeously lazy little wombat is starting to interact with humans and their home: ‘fought a major battle with a flat, hairy creature’ which is in reality a door mat, ‘and won the battle’ and by Sunday she’s demanding rolled oats and observing: ‘Am constantly amazed how dumb humans can be.’
When Albert le Blanc arrives in Mr Jolly’s toy shop, he immediately catches everyone’s attention. Not because he’s so big, but because he doesn’t have a smile.
Anna is a lonely little orphan sent to live with foster parents who are kind but unable to penetrate her thick wall of sadness and introspection. Anna does not care for anything, she is indifferent to the girls at school who don’t invite her to play, and she is almost deadened to her feelings. She doesn’t expect to make friends – she has decided she is always on the outside.
The much-loved The Worst Witch series, about a boarding school for witches and the adventures and mishaps of a clumsy young witch, Mildred Hubble, came long before Harry Potter. Mildred is lovable but always in a muddle.
Oh how I love this book. It so perfectly sums up how every child (and adult!) feels once in a while. Alexander’s Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day begins when he wakes up with chewing gum in his hair…
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