We’ve had some wonderful potential presents for review recently. It’s been a real pleasure reading most of them.
I adore Stick Man.
His adventures are quite woeful in a way (Big has declared that pooh sticks has been ruined forever!), but the easy rhyming of the story carries you along, and makes this a wonderful read aloud. Don’t race through without checking out the pictures carefully for some old friends though. Or as is preferred here, just accept you’re going to read it over and over. And stick (hoho) with it, because there’s a touch of magic coming to sort everything out.
And if you’d like to experience a Stick Man trail, the Forestry Commission is running them at 13 sites up til the end of January. Well worth exploring to see if there’s one near you. They’ve also got some wonderful Christmas events on around the country, so why not combine your visit?
Another absolutely glorious picture book is When It Snows
This is all about the pictures and the magic. There’s a very different take on the traditional reindeer and I just adore the feeling of these pictures. There’s warmth and emotion somehow spreading through the sparse words and drawing you into the story with the little boy. I adore this – I love the little teddy towed along throughout the adventures.
And I love that it introduces the idea of a book as a magical place. Forerunner to Narnia.
Now. Um. Not sure how to describe this next one. 
is not really my kind of book. I know that children often go through a period of fascination with bodily functions – we try to accept that these things are natural and don’t need to be emphasized or giggled about. That probably makes me sound like an absolute prude, but that’s just the way it is here. I can see that this would be a massively popular book with many children, but probably slightly older than my younger two. However if the word fart gives you a problem, you might not want to bother.
We’ve also recently been sent 4 Babar books to review. I hadn’t realised the books were first written 80 years ago. I have fond memories of them from childhood, and I guess the parts that sailed over my head then will sail over my children’s head now. Or maybe I just never read the one where the baby elephants are given top up bottles :/ Barring that, these are wonderful trips down memory lane, though it’s amazing how much has changed since these books were written. You may find yourself having to explain rather a lot of them, but it’s worth it.
So there’s a few recommendations (or not) for picture books that you might enjoy this year.
What are you reading with your children, or for yourself at the moment? Stick a link in the linky so we can all see.
Disclosure: thanks to the Forestry Commission and various publishers for these books.
