Welcome to July’s children’s book review!
This month, Ashleigh, Mitchell and I again raided the local library for some new (to us) reads. Here are our thoughts.
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Not a Cloud in the Sky / Emma Quay
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Emma Quay’s Rudie Nudie made it into our favourite family books list last year, so it’s perhaps not surprising that we also love Not a Cloud in the Sky.
Bird is flying, and meets Cloud. But Cloud isn’t a cloud today. Cloud is a… well, pretty much anything. Quay’s wispy cloud illustrations of a dancing pig, a boiling kettle and a bunch of bananas riding a motorbike, to name but a few, are beautiful. And there’s a fiery surprise at the end when the setting sun joins in.
The chitter-chatter between Bird and Cloud is lovely as well. This book’s a winner all round.
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Two Baby Elephants / Jeanne Willis and Tony Ross
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I love a silly rhyming book! Two Baby Elephants is an absolute delight. When mum is away, elephants come over to play. They break things, make a mess, and sleep in mum’s bed. But will they still be there when she gets home?
This book is reminiscent of The Cat in the Hat, with something of a surprise ending.
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Everybody Was a Baby Once / Allan Ahlberg and Bruce Ingman
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I’ve mentioned The Jolly Postman and Peepo! before; this is a collection of poems from the same author. We all love Everybody Was a Baby Once. Ashleigh loves rhymes of any description, and the different rhythms of the poems in this book fascinate her.
It’s a good one to sit and read all the way through. And, when the whole pre-bedtime ritual is dragging on a little too long, it’s also a good one to select just a few poems from. My favourite is When I Was Just a Little Child, which begins like this:
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Little Miss Lucky / Roger Hargreaves
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So… I don’t like Little Miss and Mister Men books. Scandalous, I know. They just annoy me.
But Ashleigh LOVES them. And when she picked up Little Miss Lucky at the library, and turned her big brown pleading eyes at me, I couldn’t say no again.
This book commits one of my usually unforgivable book crimes. But it’s for children. And it doesn’t commit any grammatical book crimes. It doesn’t even commit any consistency book crimes (unlike Little Miss Magic, another favourite of Ashleigh’s). And my daughter loves it. So, on balance, it gets a begrudging okay.
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What books have you read with your children lately?
This post is the eleventh in a series of children’s book review posts. Check out the others here:
Children’s book review – reader recommendations (June)
Children’s book review (May)
Children’s book review (April)
Children’s book review (March)
Children’s book review (February)
Children’s book review (January)
Children’s book review (December)
Children’s book review – family favourites (November)
Children’s book review (October)
Once upon a book review (September)
I love Mr Men books!!! Mr Jelly is my favourite 🙂
Well, perhaps we’ll give Mr Jelly a try and see if he can change my opinion!
If the kids love it we just have to get over ourselves! Thanks for reviews
That’s it. They’re reading. It’s a win, whatever it is.
Oh, I’m with you – I HATE the Mr Men books. I think they’re badly written, too dense and wordy for children’s books, and as we have that particular book, I know EXACTLY which book crime you mean… and yet, despite what we think, kids love them. My daughter loves this one in particular.
Yes. Yes yes yes. Glad to hear I’m not the only one!
Two Baby Elephants sounds great. We love rhyming books for bedtime stories, somehow it just magically engages the sleep routine and they’re out like a light soon after! xx
It’s fantastic – I hope you can find it!
I detest the Mr Men Little Miss books, so annoying. Every time Miss Four asks me to read Mr Noisy I cringe. Great suggestions. We will definitely check them out.
Good, enjoy! And I haven’t read Mr Noisy. Hopefully we don’t come across it!
I love the sound of the baby elephants one. And the everyone was a baby once could be a good one for my four year old who’s currently obsessed with who’s older than whom and how babies are born.
It’s very cute – I think it’s a good one for everyone! Thanks for commenting.
Gonna have to get that Emma Quay one, as Punky and I both LOVE Rudie Nudie. It pretty much was a constant bed companion for her for months after we first got it and she still recites parts of it after every bath and runs around the house yelling “Rudie Nudie Nudie Run!” completely starkers. It’s still hilarious!
And so in keeping with that theme, I grabbed her a new book the other day called Nuddy Ned and she loves it too. Ned takes off after his bath and refuses to put any clothes on, much to his parents horror, and they chase him through the town asking him to put his clothes on, until the end when they realise that maybe Ned is on to something and running around stark naked really is the fun way to go! It’s very cute and has some very funny lift the flaps throughout.
#teamIBOT
I’m so glad you loved Rudie Nudie. After recommending it I felt nervous!
Will keep an eye out for Nuddy Ned. Thanks for suggesting it – sounds great!