The Fairytale Hairdresser and Thumbelina by Abie Longstaff and Lauren Beard. I’ll make a confession right now. We have all of the books in this series. My youngest daughter loves them. The construct of a hairdresser who gets woven into traditional fairy tales is a quite bizarre at first, but after a while it all seems perfectly normal! Thumbelina is …

Otto Blotter, Bird Spotter by Graham Carter. The story follows an adventurous boy who lives in a tree along with the rest of his family. Whilst his family stay in the tree spotting birds, Otto goes out and discovers something unusual. There is something about stories that focus on nature that is a joy to read. The themes and messages …

The Runaway Pea by Kjartan Poskitt and Alex Willmore. This one will really get the kids interest. This is a fun story of one pea’s bid for freedom as he pings off the dinner plate. The resulting chain reaction of events sees him getting into a variety of tricky situations, but how will he end up? Of course I’m not …

Penguinaut! By Marcie Colleen and Emma Yarlett. Another delightful story! This follows Orville the penguin who lives at the Zoo. The other animals all do exciting things such as the Rhino that goes hang gliding and the giraffe that goes deep sea diving. Clearly this is no ordinary zoo! Orville however dreams of his own adventure and starts building a …

Waiting for Wolf – Sandra Dieckmann. Essentially a story about coping with death, this story captures a beautiful friendship between fox and wolf, until, sadly one day wolf is no longer around. Fox eventually sees the joy in his memories in what is a very positive, though still emotional ending. It is of course heart wrenching, but the stylish and …

Wild by Emily Hughes. This is brilliant. The striking cover alone of this book is enough to grab your attention! In short, it’s about a feral child, brought up by animals in the wild, who gets taken back to civilisation and expected to readjust. Part Jungle book, part social experiment, it succeeds in tapping into the free spirit in all …

The Bear and the Piano by David Litchfield. This has been out a few years now so some of you may know it. It has become a bestseller, an award winner and a classic. It’s also spawned a sequel which I hope to review soon. ‘Heartwarming’, ‘delightful’ and ‘stunning’ are all words used to describe this book and quite rightly …

Kitchen Disco by Clare Foges and Al Murphy. This one’s a bit of fun! The fruit are moving and grooving when the lights go out and it’s time to party! There’s not much more to the story than that, but the characters (the contents of the fruit bowl) and their dance moves are all given a moment of description that …

The Snow Lion by Jim Helmore and Richard Jones. When you have read a lot of children’s books you start picking up on similar themes. This book’s central premise is around a little girl who has had to move into a new house and happens to find a magical friend. It’s a familiar premise but not an unwelcome one. The …