BfK Crunch!


Under 5s Pre - School/Nursery/Infant contd. Daddy I can’t Sleep


HHH HHH


Carolina Rabei, Child’s Play International, 32pp, 978-1 8464-3732-8, £5.99 pbk


Meet Crunch, a guinea pig of rather portly appearance. Despite having all the creature comforts in abundance – a cosy bed, water and food aplenty – there is something missing in his life, although what, he knows not. Enter one small hungry mouse, Cheddar, who’s


acquaintance and even more eager for a share of his breakfast leaves. A tiny morsel is all that Cheddar wants, but even his offer of a hug meets with a hostile response from Crunch, so off he goes to try his luck elsewhere.


Then breakfast complete, the sated guinea pig begins to have pangs of conscience; after all, the mouse did look SO scrawny and undernourished. Seeing the error of his ways, Crunch resolves to track down his would-be friend and make amends, but first he has to overcome his reluctance to face the world beyond his safe little abode.


Although surprised and delighted at what he discovers outside, Cheddar remains elusive; however, there’s an unexpected and altogether satisfying surprise awaiting him when he gets back home …


Change-averse Crunch and cheeky Cheddar are an appealing pair of characters beautifully portrayed by Caroline Rabei in muted, often two-toned illustrations. The gentle humour


issues about sharing what we have in abundance with those less fortunate than ourselves.


JB My Stinky New School HHHHH


Rebecca Elliott, Lion Hudson, 27pp, 978-0-7459-6501-7, £9.99 hbk


Toby thinks all schools have smells. His sister’s smells of ‘rainbows, paint and chocolate’, while his small brother’s


playdough and bananas’. nursery has ‘sunshine,


Toby’s school, on the other hand, ‘stinks of pigeon poop, ogre armpits, and sadness’. He really doesn’t want to go to school! He doesn’t know anyone there


does meet an alien, a pirate, some mermaids, and a dinosaur – but no friends. It takes his mum to point out that these are friends, and it is only Toby’s over-active imagination that has turned them into other things. Elliott’s illustrations are a delight as always, and her books, many of them about her own family with Toby as the star turn, are imaginative, clever and beautifully written in both text and picture. This one is no exception, and Toby quickly learns how wonderful and exciting school can be. Full of colour, fun and joie de vivre, this picture book will prove an excellent way of convincing reluctant scholars that school is okay!


ES for a start, but he raises thought-provoking keen to make Crunch’s


Alan Durant, ill. Judi Abbot, Random House, 32pp, 978-0-5525-6059-7, £6.99 pbk


Unable to sleep, Little Panda is afraid of the noises and the dark outside. Well, we’ve heard that one before, I hear you say, but this is a subject that needs readdressing with each new generation. And what are books for the very


ways of looking at familiar matters? Fortunately, Durant manages to expand a well-worn theme with some creative ideas.


Daddy takes Little Panda outside to the scary woods and shows his offspring that things are just as pleasant in the dark as the daylight. Using a comfortably concrete series of natural finds from the forest, he fashions a leaf mobile and a bamboo flute with which he soothes the little bear to sleep. Durant’s language is simple, with some very well chosen words which bring the reader right into Panda’s world, ‘They ate the sweet crunchy bamboo shoots’ and ‘snug and safe in his soft bamboo bed, lulled by the soothing lullaby of the forest, Little Panda fell asleep’.


Abbot’s rich, painterly technique and bold, vibrant colours make this a joyful book. The characters are drawn in a simple childlike fashion, making them altogether winsome and adorable. This is a good, solid bedtime read, which both parents and children will return to again and again.


I’m a Girl! HHHHH


Yasmeen Ismail, Bloomsbury Children’s Books, 32pp, 978-1-4088-5700-7, £6.99


I absolutely loved Yasmeen Ismail’s Specs for Rex but I love this one even more. Herein she counters pretty much every gender stereotype going with her wonderful ‘No holds barred’ aardvark heroine who charges around in shorts doing stunts on her scooter, is super-brave and has a seemingly insatiable thirst for knowledge about anything and everything. ‘Surely that must be a boy,’ thinks the librarian, and a whole host


encounters as she zooms about doing things very much her own way, having to counter each and every assumption with her assertion ‘I’m a girl!’


of others she young but fresh new


of the finish line and let others win the race, so determined is she to get her message across to all and sundry.


This is a book I’d like to see in every Bookstart bag in the near future. JB


Rosie’s Special Present HHH


Myfanwy Millward, ill. Gwen Millward, Jonathan Cape, 32pp, 978-1-7800-8037-6, £6.99 pbk


JNH


This tale of a small girl’s excitement is a book to enjoy as birthdays loom. We are introduced to Rosie, hoping for a very special birthday present, but we see the action from the point of view of the present itself … which is inside a large yellow box with a slit. Out of the slit peer two anxious eyes. Whilst Rosie is keyed up with excitement about receiving her very special present, yellow box is over-anxious. Will he live up to her expectations? Might Rosie prefer a magical bird, or a juggling rabbit … or a hundred dancing mice? The illustrations clearly show his fears. Meanwhile Rosie is too excited to eat party food, telling all her friends about her special present. We see what the friends imagine it to be … and yes, each one thinks the present could be something akin to


The illustrations here


their own dressing-up clothes. give lots of


opportunity for discussion, about the dressed-up characters as well as desired gifts. The special present at last shows himself to Rosie, but not in a conventional manner, with every drawing showing the delight of both the unveiled yellow-box- contents and Rosie. Being told he is the best present ever, the little kitten is cuddled and christened Max. So ends the best birthday ever, but it is only the beginning of a very special friendship for Rosie and Max.


GB My Alien and Me HHHH


Smriti Prasadam-Halls, ill. Tom McLaughlin, OUP, 978-0-1927-3634-5, £6.99 pbk


CRASH! On the first page we see a smashed rocket plunged nose down … and an excited Creature discovering the pilot earthling and claiming him, whilst his UFO-expert Dad sets about repairing the rocket. But this new alien doesn’t like Jupiter jellyfish, the offered refreshment, and is terrified by Miss Eight-Eyes, the teacher. Nor will he eat with his toes like everyone else, or moonwalk, or solar surf. There just seem to be no points of contact, so Creature says, ‘I wish you’d go home!’ at which point earthling-alien disappears. Creature, feeling remorseful, discovers him hiding in his rocket, but here they do find lots of games to play together, and both have great fun. When the rocket is announced as fit for travel, both characters are sad, but … a visit to Planet Earth is promised! The illustrations are bold, uncluttered, and expand lots of the action, highlighting the similarities more than the differences between the two main characters. Aliens become friends! With the subtitle, ‘Who’s the Alien Round Here Anyway?’ this book is sure to have great appeal.


GB 5 – 8 Infant/Junior Little Bear 978-1-7829-5504-7


Father Bear Comes Home 978-1-7829-5505-4


HHHHH


Else Holmelund Minarik, ill. Maurice Sendak, Red Fox, 64pp, £5.99 each pbk


For an older reviewer


But it’s not only the adults who get it wrong: ‘Mummy, look. He’s going to win’ states a young onlooker at the race. Even at nursery some of her contemporaries need setting straight. ‘There’s no right or wrong way to play when you “pretend” ’ she asserts in response to the ‘Dolls are for girls’ comment from one of the group. And then, at last, she meets a small lion with similar ‘be yourself, no matter what’ ideals who is happy to be his very own unique individual.


anarchic illustrations of the young are so full of a zest for life and I particularly enjoyed the fact that the heroine is prepared to stop just short


Yasmeen 22 Books for Keeps No.214 September 2015 Ismail’s wonderfully


difficult to be objective when titles like this reappear. To my mind, Little Bear, alongside Frog and Toad, Dr Seuss, the Berensteins and for the UK, Ahlberg’s Happy Families titles, are


books. Each in their own way makes brilliant use of a restricted vocabulary and necessary repetition of words and phrases, aided by outstanding illustration, to


uniquely delightful for younger readers. If Seuss and Ahlberg depend on the zany and exaggerated, then Little Bear and Frog and Toad are the opposite, their careful dialogue – and the story is largely carried by conversation – gently evoking the characters and the


relationships create something the classic beginner reader like me it’s


between them. Little Bear is about family. It’s a classic 1950s family, although Sendak’s illustrations hark back to an earlier nineteenth century golden age. Little Bear is at home with a cooking and cleaning Mother Bear; and Father Bear is either out in the world, and possibly returning with a mermaid, or a settled paterfamilias in his armchair with his newspaper, wearing a curious tassled pillbox hat. But the mention of the mermaid (and there’s a princess, a Viking ship and a trip to the moon, too) reminds us that these are stories above all about a child’s, or a little bear’s, imagination in which Little Bear, Cat, Dog and Owl can all be friends, have a birthday party and go fishing together. Sendak’s illustrations, in which Little Bear and his family alone are on two legs and just the adults are clothed, offers not only this clever gradation of the anthropomorphic but an apparently effortless portrayal of character and mood. For me, as ever, these have to be five star books


CB


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