Race To The Finish!

Author and Illustrator: Benedict Blathwayt
Publisher: First published by Hutchinson 2006, subsequently published by Red Fox

Benedict Blathwayt stories are good, but Benedict Blathwayt illustrations are sublime! Rarely is it this way round for me when it comes to children's literature, so the books of Benedict Blathwayt buck a trend. 
'Race to the Finish' is my favourite of Blathwayt's Little Red Train series (and we own every book in the series). In this title, do-gooder Duffy the driver, on old vintage steam train 'The Little Red Train', together with back-up-man Jack the Guard, are challenged to a race by the sneering cheating train crew of the modern 'Swish Train'. In a simple tale of old versus new
the rickety old (nostalgia ready) steam train is the eventual victor; the great British underdog does it again! 
The fun and drama are built nicely in this book when the reader is privileged in knowing (through being party to small, meandering illustrations) that The Swish Train drivers are cheating in order to win the race. My children squeal in disgust at the cheating tactics, such as putting oil on the track and letting sheep out on to the line to slow The Little Red Train down. 

Now because 'everybody loves the Little Red Train' and 'it's not that slow,' (or so asserts

protagonist Duffy the Driver) the community of passengers get behind The Little Red Train and she wins by an exciting, narrow margin. 
It's the pictures in this book (the whole series in fact) that takes the readers' imagination astray  as there is just so much sensual detail in the illustrations on every page (birds in the sky, deer in the wood, rainbows, waterfalls, depth of perspective in billowing and changing landscapes - beautiful!). The book showcases the British countryside in all its glory. 

The Little Red Train series has been a huge hit with Alf ( now 7) since he was 3, and Bert (now 5) from a similar age, but because of these rich pictures, with a real fix on the 
environment and wildlife, Edie (currently 3) also gets behind them. Normally she rejects any 'train, plane or boat' or general transportation book deeming them as 'for boys' (very sadly- I quite condone this) but she does make an exception with these books, based on their 
"things -to- spot per ratio of the page" factor. Now based on this, I would say The Little Red Train Series should be applauded for being amongst the most gender(s) neutral of 'train' books for pre-schoolers. These books have a very charming longevity, and will be a staple of our bookcase for many years to come (suitable for a good breadth of ages covering 3-8 years). 

The Tale of the Tooth Fairy

Author: Helen East
Illustrator: Katinka Kew
Publisher: Macdonald Children's Books, 1989

Well it came to pass tonight, finally, that 5 year old Bert lost his front tooth. Off I skedaddled to the bookshelf to find this mainstay of our household tooth loosing experience - a fiction book about the origins of the tooth fairy. 
Yes indeed, the cover illustrations look a bit menacing, and the idea of a 'tooth gang master' called Justice Fang, who recruits trolls and ogres, goblins, witches and hard-up highwaymen to collect teeth in all manner of ways, is a tad on the fearsome side for bedtime, but giving substance to the tooth fairies actions and motivations is so worth it. 

The book tells the story of an average fairy with no remarkable attributes, so her fairy visitors name her 'Nothing'. However, Nothing amounts to so very much as she discovers her first pearly white tooth to take to Justice Fang, and gifts the sleeping child before her, with a bright new shiny coin. Nothing then revisits the child to find a note requesting she returns for the next tooth, and could she please visit and leave coins for the child's gappy-mouthed friends? Meanwhile the story-in-the-story tells of sceptical Jack, a boy who, like my son Bert, awaits the tooth fairy with many questions, such as, 'how can one fairy visit all the children in one night?' 
This is a magical read helping to 'inform' and so fuel the excitement of a tooth-loss evening. It's an old book, and possibly out of issue (I found it in a charity shop a few years ago) so it might be difficult to acquire. I would also suggest it is suitable for the over fives and not preschoolers, as the illustrations are just a bit too creepy to share with children any younger. The head-shot pictures in particular, show shallow, sunken faces, and they're very ghoulish and haunting. The 'baddies' in the book are depicted as plentiful, thriving and sinister. The story captures a sense of foreboding for poor doomed fairy Nothing, but there's an underdog-victor outcome, a message of hope. Children who like books about legends and myths will enjoy this; it's very macabre and in all, one of those books that lodges in the memory well, balancing on that fear/pleasure binary.  

Tyrannosaurus Drip

Author: Julia Donaldson
Illustrator: David Roberts

Publisher: Macmillan Children's Books, 2007

This is Julia Donaldson at her very best. An exciting 'underdog wins' story wherein a vegetarian duckbill dinosaur egg ends up in a Tyrannoasaurus nest. The hatchling does his best to fit in with the meat eating T Rex family, but instinct takes over and the T Rex family want to hunt while the duckbill runs away. 'Drip' as the duckbill is named, accidentally discovers his heritage and then saves the duckbill herd from being eaten by grisly and grim T Rex's when they strike lucky with a new way to get across the river. 

The illustrations in the book are a little chaotic, and according to my five year old tonight, 'don't look enough like real T Rex to be a T Rex' ( the caricature of small arms, sharp teeth, claws don't really go alongside the pink plump bodies), the rhyming narrative is fantastic though, and just rolls into rote. Children probably get slightly more out of this book if they understand a 'reflection', in that dad T Rex falls into the river after seeing his, but the way this book reads aloud (sumptuously) means it's suitable for a broad age range (as is the case with most Donaldson books, the secret, in part, to her success I think).  

I'm not sure the book promotes any helpful messages, 'nature over nurture' (not sure I agree with this one), 'running away to find oneself' (not a message I'd normally advocate in a children's book), the tearful looking T Rex family on the back sleeve always rouses sympathy and questions from my children too, 'what happens to the T Rex family mummy, do they find food?' So possibly not the most well thought-out children's book, but in terms of oral and aural readability - divine.