Showing 1-16 of 23 Results.
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Humour and heart in the same breath, on every page.
Lauren Kate - 15/06/2012 |
Perfect dystopia; an eye-opening read.
Lauren Kate - 15/06/2012 |
My first memory of The Tiger who Came to Tea is hearing it at story time in nursery school. I love the way that Sophie and her mother treat the arrival of the tiger as they would a neighbour by politely inviting him in. At four I was fascinated that the tiger managed to drink ‘all the water in the tap’. Judith Kerr’s illustrations and storytelling are full of charm. Definitely a classic.
Emily Gravett - 10/11/2011 |
The story of Mary Lennox, the unloved, unloveable orphan warmed to life along with her secret garden, gave me one of my first female heroes. They should try moving her from the kiss-of-death Children’s Classics shelf, let her slug it out with the newcomers and see what happens.
Moira Young - 09/08/2012 |
A zany, brilliant, funny story.
Lauren Kate - 15/06/2012 |
I couldn’t put together a list of my favourite books without including a Dr Seuss. To be honest you could swap The Cat in the Hat for Fox in Socks, The Lorax, or any Dr Seuss, but The Cat in the Hat is the first one I reach for when only Seuss will do (I have days like that). I like the limited colour palette, but it’s the rhyming, slightly anarchic story that I love.
Emily Gravett - 10/11/2011 |
Allan Ahlberg; Janet Ahlberg I could pretty much be happy with any Janet and Allan Ahlberg book here, and in fact I’ve just spent a very pleasant hour sat on the floor reading a selection out loud to myself (it’s one of the perks of my job!) I could have chosen any Jolly Postman, and Burglar Bill came close, but in the end I chose Cops and Robbers because I couldn’t resist Grandma Swag . . . who could?
‘Hallo, hallo,’ said Officer Pugh,
‘Now then, what’s going on here?’
‘Not much, young man,’
Said the criminal gran,
‘We’re just having a robbery, dear.’
I was quite glad she got away!
Emily Gravett - 10/11/2011 |
Johanna Spyri; Eva Ibbotson HEIDI: Heidi is responsible for many a late-night under-the-covers reading session when I was a child. I admired her compassion for her invalid friend, Clara and her naïve flirting with Peter, the goat herd. It’s the first book I remember where I was completely taken up by the story. I even refused to go to school one morning, claiming to be sick and demanding to be sent to Switzerland! For me, it’s stood the test of time and I still love it.
Sara Sheridan - 19/06/2012 |
John Vernon Lord; Janet Burroway This book is my all time favourite picture book. It was first published in 1972 (the year I was born) and I still own my childhood copy complete with my name written inside with multi coloured felt tips.
The Giant Jam Sandwich's rhyming text is the tale of a village invaded by wasps (can you guess how they solve the problem?). It's brilliant to read out loud with witty and intricate illustrations. As a child I used to spend hours poring over the details and loved looking for the three men who were chased from the village by wasps and turned up in subsequent pages.
Emily Gravett - 10/11/2011 |
There’s really not enough Slow Lorises in picture books. Probably because they’re so s...l...o...w, or are they? Alexis Deacon’s drawing are fresh and sketchy and full of personality, and the book is quirky and stylish.
Emily Gravett - 10/11/2011 |
This is a recent favourite of mine, and another that falls into my ‘Why oh WHY couldn’t I have thought of this’ category. It’s clever from beginning to end. The illustrations are bright and friendly, but it’s Viviane Schwarz’s use of flaps that lifts it out of the ordinary. It’s truly interactive, and I know that kids love it as much as I do because when I opened it to write this piece I found it stuffed with pieces of tissue where a three year old visitor had ‘tucked’ the cats in at the end of the book with extra blankets.
Emily Gravett - 10/11/2011 |
Sticking with food, and indeed with colourful characters: Albert, the cut-and-come-again runaway pud, is a joy. I’m thrilled that this brilliant Australian classic is still available. It made me the anarchist I am today. In which spirit: Albert is a Puddin’. Any mimsy, namby-pamby Apostrophe Thieves who insist on the g should be put on the RHS pest list!
Lindsey Davis - 20/03/2012 |
Hughes is one of the most powerful imagists in the language and his portraits of wildlife and landscape have a compelling, precise and unsentimental sense of what is so other in nature. This collection includes brilliantly perceptive poems on such familiar species as swift, swallow, song thrush and starling.
Jeremy Mynott - 13/03/2012 |
Werner Holzwarth; Wolf Erlbruch Oh how I love this book! One day Little Mole pokes his head out of his hole only to have something rather nasty land on his head. I suppose you could class this as educational (I can certainly identify more types of poo than I could) but I chose The Story of the Little Mole Who Knew it Was None of His Business because whoever you read it to, will love you for it. The illustrations are sketchbook gorgeous, and the text . . . I’ll let speak for itself . . . ‘Rat-a-tat-tat-fifteen little round beans shot past the mole’s ears. He saved himself with a daring leap.’
Genius!
Emily Gravett - 10/11/2011 |
Polly Dunbar; Polly Dunbar This is a VERY funny book! Ben is given a present. His very own cuddly toy penguin. Ben does everything he can to make the penguin talk to him, but of course it can’t. Penguin falls into my ‘I wish I’d done that’ category. I adore Polly Dunbar’s illustrations. They have wit and yet are gentle without any twee-ness (quite tricky to pull off). The colours are clean, and the page layouts really carry the reader through the story.
Emily Gravett - 10/11/2011 |