Bryn & I wrote this for the Guardian Family Reviews

We put this activity book to the test during a recent two hour car journey. For about an hour we barely heard a peep from Bryn aside from the odd chuckle & ‘that’s disgusting’.

The book has a good range of activities with word searches, spot the difference, mazes, codes to crack, drawings to finish off and more. There are also pages & pages of stickers which I suspect will be popping up all around the house.

The activities revolve around Dirty Bertie’s favourite things so fans of the series will know what typically gross things to expect.

Entertaining puzzles & Dirty Bertie in glorious technicolor this book is a winning combination.

Bryn, Freya & I wrote this review for the Guardian Family Review

A little girl & boy are less than impressed when they find out they are getting a babysitter, the titular Aunt Amelia. They begin the story in a ‘bad mood’ but by the end they are all smiles. The parents leave Aunt Amelia with a long list of instructions,lucky for them she’s a firm believer that rules are made to be broken leading to a fantastically fun time.

Bryn, feeling uncomfortable at all the rule breaking, described it as “too naughty”. Freya on the other hand giggled her way through the story, approving of such behaviour. Bryn and Freya’s reactions accurately reflect their different characters! For me, Aunt Amelia was the type of aunt I always wanted to be.

Freya and I have read this book many times and she gleefully uses the pictures to tell me the instructions which aren’t being followed. This is a book about the joys of being a child & the pure fun to be found in abandoning the rules

This is a review Bryn, Freya & I write for the Guardian Family Review

This is a glorious little book full of vibrancy, rhythm & colour. It’s a story about a girl exploring a market with a pocketful of change to spend and a head full of ideas of what to buy. Set in India she darts around the market from bangle stall to flower stall to a stall selling livestock & another selling spices having lots of fun.

I love the vivid detailed illustrations and how the text on the page mirrors the quirky rhyming narrative. The kids were equally intrigued and had plenty of questions about what they could see in the pictures & some of the words that were used.

A perfect glimpse into another country & culture.

Bryn, Freya & I wrote this for the Guardian Family Reviews

This is a stunning ‘coffee table’ like book; sumptuous, enticing, stylish and ready to whisk you away to another country.

The book invites you to “take a stroll to the four corners of the globe” and explore different cultures. Each double page spread depicts a city with lots of flaps providing funny & quirky glimpses into people’s flats, shops & vehicles.

I had fun reading this with the children, they were fascinated at opening a flap to a picture of a child in the bath or a crocodile on a leash. With so many things for us to spot and talk about, including a cat eating spaghetti, we were easily engrossed. With Freya (2) it was fun the spotting animals in the different cities and she enjoyed lifting all the flaps. With Bryn (6) I was able to talk about the differences between the cities and which ones he’d like to visit.

The stylish illustrations make this book really stand out – this isn’t your typical children’s book.

This is a review Bryn, Freya & I wrote for the Guardian Family Reviews

This book helps answer the important question of “what would you do if you found a shark in the bath?”. Quick thinking Dulcie has some great ideas for dealing with a whole family of sharks which had us in giggles.

Bryn declared “this is a brilliant book because it’s so funny”. With all those sharks’ teeth on display, Freya found the story both scary and exciting, but her eagerness to find out what happened to Dulcie eventually outweighed any fears. Balancing Dulcie’s perilous situation with a lot of humour, this is a perfect book to entertain them both.

It’s a great book to read aloud with fabulously fun turns of phrase and plenty of drama at each turn of the page. With lines from Papa, Mama & baby shark on nearly every page it reminded me of reading Goldilocks, but I’ll need to work hard on my ‘shark’ voices before they reach the standard of my well practiced Daddy, Mummy and baby Bear voices!

The mix of absurdity with the familiar in this story makes for a fantastic read. Bath times, however, might become a little more tricky, now we never know what we might find in the bathtub.

After reading this we checked out Sarah’s website as she always has fun activities to go with her books. We made our own books while Freya tackled one of the colouring in sheets

This is a review Bryn & I wrote for the Family Guardian Reviews

This is an enchanting story about a little boy called Noi. Noi is very lonely until he discovers a small beached whale to care for. Hiding a whale (even a small one) however, proves to be tricky and when the whale is discovered he has a difficult decision to make.

Bryn enjoyed reading this book to himself and then encouraging me to read it because he thought it was ‘lovely’. He found it easy to read as it’s a short story with little text, but the illustrations provided lots of detail to study. We both loved the illustrations which conveyed the warmth and tenderness of the story beautifully.

We really enjoyed this story, leaving us with a warm glow, it’s a true beauty

This is a book review Bryn & I wrote for the Guardian Family Reviews

‘The funniest thing about this book is it has no words,’ declared Bryn.

This wordless picture book tells the tale of a fox stealing a chicken with the chicken’s friends in hot pursuit. Or does it? With no text for guidance there are numerous interpretations to discover – one of the many charms of this book. The real joy came from the pride Bryn took in ‘reading’ this book to us. He enjoyed being the storyteller and the lack of text helped him focus on the pictures & observe some of the clever tricks used to move the story on. The lack of text helped emphasise the mechanics of storytelling, something we take for granted in the stories we read.

This is a very clever and liberating book; an unexpected treat.