Simon James

Easter bunny happened to leave us two picture books by Simon James this Easter - The Wild Woods and Leon and Bob .

We have actually borrowed most of his books from the library over the last few years but had never read these particular two.

These are definitely my kind of books - gorgeous illustrations, reminiscent of Quentin Blake (another big favourite of ours), the double page spreads are stunning and the stories are sweet and touching.

Most of his books seem to revolve around nature and have a lovely message for children.

If you haven't come across him, he comes highly recommended from this household.

Vintage Ladybird books

I found three rather old, rather scruffy ladybird books in a charity shop this week, and I am very excited about them so thought I would share them with you one by one.

I have had a lifelong love affair with Ladybird books because as a child my Mum used to buy me one a week, so as you can imagine we had lots of them! I'm not sure what happened to them all - probably disintegrated form overuse, but have recently been on the search for vintage copies like the ones we used to have. Ladybird books are still going strong today of course, but most no longer have the original illustrations (which hold the most vivid memories for me)nor the original wording.

This is my favourite of the three - 'Talkabout Home'. When I first picked it up (the spine is completly worn away, so I had no idea what it was as I pulled it out of the shelf) I recognised it immediately and it almost made me cry, the memory was so sweet and strong. As I turned the pages I was faced with familiar image after image and it was a wonderful moment for me. I am desparate to show it to someone else who might also remember it so vividly (Matthew? Mum?) - my husband never had this particular one and therfore no memory of it.
Here are a few of favourite pages:








I won't say they don't make them like this anymore because they do - there are so many fantastic children's books about, it's just that this one has special memories for me. It honestly feels like I was reading it yesterday.

Roald Dahl

My eldest son has just about reached the age where he can start to enjoy longer story books. By 'longer' I mean books that have chapters and a few well-placed black and white illustrations - you know the kind. Books that take a few weeks (or even months) to read aloud chapter by chapter, and require him (and me!) to remember what happened in the previous chapters.

We have just finished The BFG by Roald Dahl - which I loved as a child. It was quite a slog at times. The Big Friendly Giant has quite a unique use of language which (although hilarious to an adult) can be quite tricky and tongue-twistering (there's a unique use of language if ever I saw one!) when you are reading aloud to a small boy. My son had to stop me several times to complain because he couldn't understand what the BFG was saying - so I did simplify the dialogue at times. (The BFG's language was apparently inspired by the way Roald Dahl's wife mixed up her words after suffering from a brain tumour). But we enjoyed it, it is a great story, and what a sense of accomplishment we felt when we finished that wonderful final chapter this afternoon.

We have now moved onto The Twits, which I am glad to say is much easier to understand for an almost 5 year old boy. It is also a joy to read out loud, and very funny to boot.

The Twits is quite a short book, so we have already decided that our next adventure will be with Fantastic Mr Fox. Partly inspired by the film due out shortly, (check out the trailer here) and also because I never read it as a child.

It is safe to say that Roald Dahl is widely regarded as one of the greatest children's authors ever - and his books continue to inspire and delight children everywhere. Not just a writer for children though, I was given a copy of this book a few Christmas's ago and it has to be one of my favourite books. It is great to just dip into as well as the fact that every story has a little surprise hidden inside.

Elephant and Piggie by Mo Willems

These books are great. Mo Willems is a genius in our house! They are funny, just the right length and great for learning readers. My 4 year old can 'read' them all the way through. I say read - it's more like memorise, but thats how they learn isn't it? The illustrations are also hilarious. There is a whole series of them available and new volumes are being released all the time - they don't seem to have caught on in the UK as yet (although you can buy them here), but they are huge in the US.

Mo Willems also writes the Pigeon books - another favourite character in our house. I wasn't impressed when we first borrowed this one from the library but when you've read it a few times it really grows on you, plus the fact that my kids find it side-splittingly funny.

If you like the look of these, check out Mo Willem's website - lots of games, colouring pages and info.

Spot It by Delphine Chedru

My 3 year old got this book for his birthday recently and we adore it.

Each page consists of a stunning pattern and there is a small animal (think foxes, owls and sea urchins) to find somewhere within it. The patterns really are amazing - I could gaze at them all day!

The Haunted House by Kazuno Kohara

We all love books in our house.

I readily admit that I am obsessed with them , particularly children's books - and we have a huge collection. I will be sharing some of our favourite ones regularly.

We got this one out of the library last week - both my boys love ghosts and scary stories.
We loved the simplicity of the story, and the illustrations are amazing. Only three colours used throughout but so effectively.

The author has a new book Jack Frost out in September - we will definitely be checking it out.