Blown Away

Author and Illustrator: Rob Biddulph
Publisher: First published by HarperCollins Children's Books 2014, featured board book edition HarperCollins Children's Books 2016

This book is an emerging favourite in our house. We've only had Blown Away since Christmas, but it's such a cheerful story it's a go-to. 
With character illustrations reminiscent of Oliver Jeffers, the book opens introducing protagonist Penguin Blue as he takes his 'brand new kite' on a 'maiden flight'. A series of mishaps then sees a collection of other Antarctic animals join the unplanned voyage to a 
tropical jungle island. Having found it too hot on the island, even after an ice cream,the  

penguins, polar bear, seal, and the fabulous stowaway monkey, hatch a plan to leave. Catching a breeze, in the same vein that they landed on the island, the travellers arrive home. Penguin Blue is last seen at home ( with hot water bottle and polar bear cuddly bear) -'A lesson learned, there's no denying, This penguin wasn't, built for flying.'  But the cheeky monkey escapee ends the book back on the kite and being blown away. An apt and satisfying ending. 
This is a lovely book to read aloud. The rhyme is structured in isometric quatrain with four syllables and four lines throughout. It's a catchy, lilting rhyme and easy to read from the outset. There's lots of opportunity for expressive reading, especially at the beginning with the action-adventure of the penguin train ascending into the sky unexpectantly. 

I really like the layout of this book, it's very minamilist and spacious with plenty of bright block colour, again, easy to read. The characters are quirky, with fun names, 'Clive' the polar bear, 'Wilbur' the seal for example, and there's a very humourous use of anthropomorphism,  



the seal for example, is introduced pegging out his washing. These human qualities are 
subtle though, and scattered throughout the book making Blown Away quietly witty and offering something on an adult level. 

The narrative works well by setting up the unexpected, much like Oliver Jeffers book Stuck. It's fun and imaginative, with a kite strong enough to drag creatures into the sky and plucky monkey stowaway to keep children aghast. My three year old girl,Edie, loves trying to spot the monkey and his antics and also loves trying to name all the animals. 

Themes in the book include working together, thinking outside the box, embracing the unexpected. Characters are inventive, but also 'know their limits' which is a great message to bring to preschoolers. I also like the use of pattern in the illustrations, making some pictures more symbolic in appearance, so for example, the wind with its direction lines and mini swirls. 
In terms of age recommendation, this book has a wide appeal; starting at 18months in board book edition  for instance, but is still humourous to my seven year old (ideally though, I would be using it 2-5 years predominately).  This is an amusing read, a lovable story with fun sincere characters. 

This is the Way

Author and Illustrator: Charles Fuge
Publisher: Gullane Children's Books, 2008. Featured board book edition, 2009.

Here's a fun board book that has really encouraged early language development in my children. This is the Way is simple action-noise book, very repetitive and very catchy. It's about a little boy (or girl, I can't quite tell...it's the 70s bowl cut hairstyle that's confusing) who follows behind various animals, copying the way they move with an action and sound. 
Some of the creatures the boy follows are slightly a-typical (for this sort of animal rhyme book), so a dinosaur and anteater for example, and the onomatopoeic noises they make are also a little uncouth (the dinosaur doesn't roar as one might expect, but he stalks and says 'snarl, hiss, gnash!')
I've found in the past that the flow of the rhyme works so much better in this book if you repeat the action-noise twice:
'This is the way the orangutan swings, Ooh,Ooh,Ooh! / adding - Ooh, Ooh, Ooh!' / And this is the way the tawny owl sings, T'wit, T'wit, T'woo!,/ adding -T'wit, T'wit, T'woo!'
: as my children tend to join in with the noise on the second repetition each time. 

At first the illustrations in the book put me off, particularly the boy/girl in corduroy trousers with big blue eyes as he looks very dated, but actually now I really like this about the book; the illustrations feel retro and quirky. 

Both the children and I like that this very short board book has a real ending, a 'reveal' nonetheless, as on the last page the boy is fast asleep in his bedroom surrounded by inspiration for his imaginative creature reenactments; his cuddly toy is the tree-frog he meets, he has a bumble bee poster by his bed, his book is open on the anteater page. Most of my children have come to this realisation at about 2 years of age, and it brings them a real sense of satisfaction, making this connection.  

The book is perfectly pitched at the 1-18 month audience, but equally suitable (and more engaging maybe) with the 18 month-2.5 year age range. I distinctly remember Bert reciting the whole book at about 2 years old, making all the lovely animal noises, but we're a long way off that recall with George currently (20 months). 

The book really invites joining in, making noise, imitation, and performance. It uses a 'follow the leader' scenario that even young children will be familiar with,  and promotes a sense of parallel play, with the boy moving alongside the creatures; this again is very age appropriate for the toddler audience. In all, an excellent and highly recommended toddler board book. 

If you like this you might also like: Hug by Jez Alborough

Meg's Castle

Author: Helen Nicoll
Illustrator: Jan Pienkowski
Publisher: William Heinemann Ltd 1975, Puffin Books 1979, edition featured 2009

I think this is a 'Marmite' series, you either love these bizarre, nonsensical, bold, bright books of the 1970s Nicoll and Pienkowski Partnership, or they furrow your brow in a bad way. I love watching adults who aren't familiar with the series, try to read these to children for the first time. The series  borders on the psychedelic, with dystopic plots and a strange sort of coherence. They leave you filling puzzled and yet fulfilled. 

Cartoon witch Meg lives (in a house) with Mog the black cat and Owl, the white bird.
Together they go on an adventure or celebrate an event, usually involving making spells that go slightly wrong, always ending peacefully with the characters waving their goodbyes. The books are made up of exuberant colourful illustrations, pop-art style, and incredibly short stanza, one- six words per page normally.  There's a a lot of onomatopoeia used, mixtures of font sizes and styles, and grabbing impact words such as ' victory!' ( huge font). In Meg's castle there are interesting cultural references to the Green knight legend and St George, with snippets of rhyme and proverb thrown in for good measure, 'I'm the king of the castle.' Meg, Mog and Owl books are action-filled as well as eye catching, and are great fun to read aloud. Here's my favourite high-drama page of this title: 

The Meg, Mog and Owl series are perfect share-with stories for the 18month- 3 year old old range because these books are loud, fun and the snippets of speech, rhyme, spell are very catchy and memorable, 'call me George'! This series also comes into its own again for 3-5 year olds, with such simple sentences, making them suitable 'first readers.' I'm also finding the series quite useful to inpart the principles of comic- book writing on my 7 year old, encouraging him to add speech bubbles and sound tags to his pictures, as those techniques are abundant and effective here. Now as this series is over forty years old, it is understandable that it's somewhat of an institution, and as such, the series has a huge array of resources to support reading available online. Here's a selection: Pinterest Meg and Mog resources, Meg and Mog WordSearch

Betty goes bananas in her pyjamas

Author and Illustrator: Steve Antony
Publisher: Oxford University Press, 2015

Voices, is what we say about this book, really fun to read-out-aloud voices.  
Toddler ape Betty is resistant to bedtime, and, like many an ape before her, she borders on the edge of extreme meltdown distracting herself and procrastinating at the same time with any toy that comes to hand. And my my is she active, wanting to play instruments, paint on her easel, and play with all manner of transportation device, anything but go to bed. 
Meanwhile, poor tired looking Mr Toucan (Toucan? Yes, we were baffled at first, but then this strangely makes sense alongside toddler-gorilla-in-pyjamas), Mr Toucan manages to keep very calm and in a soothing (if slightly wearisome voice), he convinces Betty to go to bed. Until one final amusing calamity, as Betty's toys burst back out the cupboard and she once again looks (very) awake. Doh!

This book succeeds where many don't attempt to go, hitting at the stormy waters of the 2-4 year old age range. At 2 and a half years old Edie (now 3) turned ape every night demanding this book was read before she'd get in her bed...oh the irony! The comic timing, as Mr Toucan finally looses his rag with Betty, then returning his composure by summoning his inner super nanny, is genius. The very keep-calm-and-get-them-to-bed of Mr Toucan resonates brilliantly, and my wry smile increases every time I read Steve Antony's dedication at the end of the book 'To Mum, the best storyteller ever, and all other toucans.'

Main character Betty, is probably one of my favourite of all fictional characters. Her expression-filled face says it all, you almost don't need to 'read' this book, as little ones can certainly follow the gist of how Betty feels from the illustrations alone (excited, elated, engrossed, sleepy, wired). The voice of Betty, for us, is this monosyllabic butch ('Little Britain' style) man voice. Our children roll about in fits of hysterics when we read this book, especially if we have Mr Toucan's voice the same as our own 'get to bed' voice ( and roll our eyes and sigh at the same time). At 5 (Bert) and 7 (Alf) the older boys still like this book, but mainly reading it and imitating 'the voices' for the younger two. There's a good amount of repetition in the story, so again, really perfect for the 2 year olds, and there's plenty of bright colours and inanimate objects in the illustrations such as lorry, teddy, drum, that the little ones enjoy spotting/recognising/naming/pointing at. There's also lots of little quirks I enjoy about the book; Betty's romper suit has a banana print, there's letter blocks scattered about 
on each page which cover the whole alphabet from start to finish, there's no hint of a gender stereotype- Betty plays with her bananas lorry and pink open top car. 
We love this book- big thumbs up for Betty and her weary toucan parent /carer. 

Here's a link to The BookTrust's review and e-card request for this book as we love it so: BookTrust - Betty Goes Bananas