From the first page of this book, I was in stitches. I adore this book.
We all do it: if we find a pair of sunglasses in the house, we put them on and strut around the kitchen thinking we look cool. Men In Black cool. Blues Brothers cool. But no sunglasses can hide the adorable klutz inside for long.
Pets these days come in all shapes and sizes but not everyone wants a bearded dragon of their very own, especially if all they have ever dreamed about is owning a rabbit. What was Rita’s Grandad thinking? How could a scaly, scrawny and spikey pet like that ever be as lovable as a rabbit? Unless….
Janik Coat’s latest board book, Comparrotives, is fast paced and visually rewarding. It features a parrot protagonist who undergoes many situations to explain to the reader how to compare a mild state of being to a more extreme state – for example, brave to braver.
Barbara the cat is having one of those bad days, although she refuses to admit it at first. It starts with a frustrating sock problem in the morning, followed by a tense lunch, thanks to the presence of a rather strange-looking pea on her plate. Despite her perplexed friends’ best efforts, her mood just gets worse and worse … until she throws a real wobbler.
Peter Brown has a way of sharing heartwarming, sweet stories about human connection and understanding, and Fred Gets Dressed is no exception.
Over-protective parents, a tendency to ‘shutdown’ when things get too much and a chronic fear of water make Rex a very unlikely candidate for a summer of gallivanting on an island, camping on the side of a mountain (in torrential rain) and, indeed, robbing a bank. Yet, when his parents separate and he has no choice but to stay with wild, funny, unpredictable Uncle Derm on Achill Island, Rex finds that he is not so ill-suited to the role after all.
When we first meet Welton, he’s about to start one of the worst days of his life. Although utterly chuffed that he asked out Carmella the day before, Welton wakes up with a dead phone and so no way to text and firm up their date. Once at school, a catalogue of hilarious slapstick disasters ensue as he vomits his breakfast over the girl in front of him in class, sprains his ankle, is bullied and threatened (a routine part of his day) and gets detention.
It’s hard to resist the madcap enthusiasm that the irrepressible Scout brings to every page that he bounds across. Daisy is going on holidays with her dad and her dog, Scout, leaving Gran at home to mind Cat. Cat doesn’t look too impressed, but never mind: Scout will send a postcard from every place they visit, telling all about his best bits. For Scout, every day with his family is the best day, as they tour around Ireland visiting vibrant towns and cities and enjoying activities in places of natural beauty.
Do you fancy the sound of Extra Minty Grapefruit and Smoky Bacon Flavour Ice Cream? The Cow People of Pluto certainly can’t seem to get enough of it, as best friends Connor and Ethan find out when they agree to run Ethan’s Uncle Nick’s ice-cream stall on the mind-boggling space station Starville during the summer holidays.
Most children know their parents keep little secrets from them, but what if you found out that your mum was keeping huge, life-changing, amazing secrets from you? Everything changes for Valentine (Vi) Day the minute she hears that her mum and her nan were both top secret agents and that her dead hero dad wasn’t a hero or, well ... even dead. Suddenly everything begins to make a lot more sense. Determined to join the family business of top secret spying, Vi must use all her innate spy skills to save her family and the world from evil.
