I remember these from when I was young so am pleased to see Bryn enjoying them. Scarry creates a wonderfully bizarre yet familiar world with fascinating detail & humour. I enjoy the illustrations more than the text but Bryn seems happy with both, based on the numerous re-readings. It is one I avoid it at bedtime as it’s easy to spend a lot of time exploring all the fun pictures & spotting what the characters are up to.
Things That Go
A few days on holiday at home means stories at breakfast, lunch, dinner & bedtime, luckily we currently have a good stash from the library which we are really enjoying
Zoe and Beans, The Magic Hoop by Chloe & Mick – this is the first story we’ve read featuring Zoe & Beans and we love it. A fun tale of a girl, her dog & a magic hula hoop which when she finally persuades her dog to jump through transforms him into different animals. The dog ends up as an elephant who get stuck so is put on a diet, reminding me of a Winnie the pooh story. Bryn liked hearing the list of things not allowed to be eaten & pretending to eat them all, probably as so many contain chocolate. While I liked the typography in the book with the emphasis on some words either in size or in bold
Egg by Alex T. Smith – a stylish book and a tale with a twist at the end. A fox entertains an egg for an evening with plans to eat it for breakfast but is in for a nasty shock. Bryn loves the climax of the story probably as one of his favourite games for the last few months is pretending to crack out of an egg to be a range of animals including ferocious dragons, sweet kitten etc. I chose the book owing to the front page as I was intrigued to meet ‘Foxy DuBois’. I enjoyed the illustration with humour filled little touches such as the pattern on the wallpaper, pictures on the wall, ornate bed stand etc.
I Am The King written & illustrated by Leo Timmers– this is a story of a group of animals who on finding a crown wear it & proclaim themselves king. Each animal puts on the crown to explain why they would make the perfect king until it is finally returned to the original King of the Animals, who unlike the others is silent. The story has an eclectic mix of animals which includes a goat & flamingo each with their very own voice & character. The illustrations are bold in colour and are solely of the animals, every double spread has a different background colour. It provides a really intense colour hit, with the consistency of the shining gold crown on each page.
Dexter Bexley and the Big Blue Beastie on the Road by Joel Stewart – a delightful adventure of a boy and his beastie who rescue a princess, meet up with a dragon, become a band of wandering minstrels while tooting their horns. The illustrations are charming & subtle, perfectly suiting this modern fairy tale. We’ve visited a few castles this summer hence tales including dragons & knights have been very popular. I was therefore particulary thankful to read this non typical knights tale where friendships are made as well as lot & lots of tooting.
I love Shoe Baby, we’ve read this to Bryn since he was a baby & at 3.5 continues to enjoy it as I hope Freya will. Her initial reaction has been plenty of smiles (something she excels at) Personally I think some of the enjoyment is from the lyrical text & the mouth shape as you read the repeated line ‘How do you do’. The illustration of the baby is also a delight to look at with his rosy red cheeks, big smile & big head.
The story is of a baby’s adventure flying in a shoe meeting birds, animals from the zoo and even a king & queen. The baby & the shoe are eventually found by the parents, I love the last page of the family of three beaming surrounded by the toys the baby met on his adventures (I am also taken with the mother’s skirt)
I adore the illustrations in the book with contrasting patterns & textures, mix of styles, beautiful colour palette & humour, it’s a real visual delight. The theme of shoes runs throughout the pictures as you can spot some the characters wearing very stylish boots, including a pink cockatoo.
It’s a great read aloud story with sing song text, the opportunity to do some dramatic sobbing as well as beautiful illustrations to look at.
How do you do?
All illustrations © Polly Dunbar
Over the last few weeks Bryn has been playing on 3 ebook apps for the iPad all have been very succesful in keeping him entertained & enthralled.
Goodnight by Sandra Boynton – this has the same text as the print book but with lots of interactive elements. The book & subsequently the app I think are probably too young for Bryn in terms of content, simple text & story. It does however include lovely features such as turning the tap on a page so the screen looks like it’s steamed up. I think this is a great use of the tablet & helps make the book more immersive.
Goodnight Book
Three Little Pigs by Nosy Crow – this app is a complete delight with its quirky & engaging illustrations & characters. The pigs & wolf are developed enough to provide some real personality to the story. So far out of the three apps this has been the most successful in terms keeping Bryn entertained for a time. One if his favourite interactive elements is blowing in the mic to make the wolf blow the house down – the downside is that he often doesn’t have enough puff or is not positioning himself over the microphone effectively enough. As it’s such a well established story for Bryn he is really comfortable navigating through it which allows him to engage with the interactive elements without it detracting from the story. I also think he likes the control over the characters, in terms of choosing when they speak. One day while playing with this app he declared he would like to pick up the wolf & throw him out of the story – what a different tale that would be.
Three Little Pigs
The Fantastic Flying Books of Mr Morris Lessmore – this app is where film meets book. It has stunningly beautiful animation and some very intelligent charming interactive features. One of Bryn’s favourite pages is touching the grey sky to turns blue – while playing this in the car during a long drive through the rain we both would have loved the chance to paint the real sky blue. One of my favourite pages is when 3 of the characters in the story change to reflect the book they are given, I just wish there were more titles. I really enjoy this app as I love the animation and that it is centered around books, stories and characters. It is however a little buggy and a some of the interaction is currently a little too subtle for Bryn, but something I think he will grow into to.
The Fantastic Flying Books of Mr Morris Lessmore
In general using these book apps with Bryn reminds me of reading ‘lift the flap’ type books, as often Bryn is keen to pull, lift etc on the page and this distracts from the story however it does not detract from his love of books. While he enjoys this level of distraction he also equally enjoys having print books and stories read to him. I think there is a real value in having so many routes to exploring stories, characters, themes etc. I also think there is much more to come with feature rich ebooks and we definately have room for both print and online books in our home.
Otto the Book Bear is a
tale of a bear from a book who gets left behind in a house move, after wondering around the city he finds confort & friends at the public library.
I was excited to buy this after having read a great review (Library Mice) & a little about it’s creation on the authors site, after such investment I had high hopes and I wasn’t disappointed. The simple illustration with muted colours provide a gentle background to the heartwarming tale. I have to confess after reading the Box of Tricks I was expecting a similar style of illustration & my favourite page is the bear looking out of the window in the rain. Bryn liked the page when the bear sees the light in the library, the point where the bear senses some hope is a welcome contrast to the busy city.
Otto the Book Bear
Seeing the characters out of the book playing is such a lovely idea, reminding me of a fun activity over on blog ‘Playing by the Book’. I think we invest a lot in the characters within the stories so the idea of them popping out is charming, much like the idea of toys coming to life when not being played with. I also loved the idea of the characters from the books reading other stories, I wonder if they were ever tempted to swap places.
The love of books & stories shines throughout this book. I imagine it will become a firm favourite in this house.
Bryn's bear on an outing while Bryn slept
All illustrations © Katie Cleminson
Just a quick post about how much Bryn enjoys this Moshi book, it’s been a great source of entertainment. He really enjoys spotting the different characters and this book is the perfect level of difficulty for him. We did try Where’s Wally first but found pictures too densely packed where as I think this book is less intimidating, with enough white space & super cute characters (am sure once this gets to easy we will be rediscovering Where’s Wally?)
I think Bryn would enjoy more books like this but perhaps with other characters, such as the Barabapapas
Title: Captain Duck
Author(s): Alborough, Jez
ISBN: 71301150007130112
Date of last Loan: 27/02/2011
Price: 4.49
Add to LibraryThing (make sure you are logged into the right account!)
Purchase on Amazon
Title: Betty and the yeti
Author(s): Burfoot, Ella
ISBN: 9780330511179
Date of last Loan: 27/02/2011
Price: 5.99
Add to LibraryThing (make sure you are logged into the right account!)
Purchase on Amazon
Title: Hugless Douglas
Author(s): Melling, David
ISBN: 9780340950630
Date of last Loan: 27/02/2011
Price: 3.99
Add to LibraryThing (make sure you are logged into the right account!)
Purchase on Amazon
Title: Small Knight and George and the royal chocolate cake
Author(s): Armitage, Ronda
ISBN: 9781846169137
Date of last Loan: 27/02/2011
Price: 5.99
Add to LibraryThing (make sure you are logged into the right account!)
Purchase on Amazon