Little Baby's Playtime, by Nick Sharratt and Sally Symes, reviewed by Pippa Goodhart

This is a book of simple genius. A sturdy, square, little board book, it has two holes that allow you to poke fingers through to make a pair of wiggly baby legs.
Each spread shows a different baby, sitting in a high chair, going down a slide, and more, each picture brought to giggly delightful life by those finger legs.
Sally Symes' text is a simple, pleasing rhyme with a refrain that babies can join in with. We have 'One little baby riding in a sling', then 'One little baby on a playground swing', with a 'wiggle waggle' to accompany each.
A blissful book to share with babies ... and there's another book, a 'busy day' version, coming out soon.
Highly recommended.

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YOU CHOOSE IN SPACE, CHRISTMAS FAIRY TALE MIX UP and HIDE AND SEEK. Review by Penny Dolan

I’ve always loved seeing small groups of children poring over favourite "sharing" books. I like the way they talk about the pictures and pages, pointing out characters and interesting things and making or retelling their own mini-stories. Sharing with friends or with grown-ups – especially those who enjoy the playfulness of the task and delight in funny choices - is a positive and friendly part of a child’s reading experience.

Today’s review includes three titles that fit into the “books for sharing” picture book category.

YOU CHOOSE IN SPACE, created by NICK SHARRATT and PIPPA GOODHART, is the latest title in the popular You Choose design formula, offering a tool-kit of “space” ideas to enjoy and bright, detailed spreads. The young readers are led through the spreads by two “human” characters ( a boy in a wheel-chair and a mixed-race girl) whose speech-bubble suggestions help the reader to create their own individual imaginary story. What job will you do on the space ship as you fly to Planet Pick and Mix? What clothes and shoes, friends and monsters and more will you choose? The spreads are full of ideas and visual jokes while across the end-papers, just inside the covers, are examples of wonderfully expanded adventures to guide the space journey.

CHRISTMAS FAIRY TALE MIX-UP, my second “sharing book”, comes from HILARY ROBINSON. (Mixed-Up Fairy Tales, created by Hilary and Nick Sharratt, has been a favourite in schools for some years.) CHRISTMAS FAIRY TALE MIX-UP, her newest title, is another in the hands-on, split-page, spiral-bound format, but this time illustrated by Jim Smith. Children can flip and re-arrange the flaps to create story variations involving characters like Santa Claus, Jack Frost, Cinderella, Snow White, Christmas Fairy and more. So, for example, the three flaps could create Little Red Riding Hood / went shopping for a special present for / the Big Bad Wolf or Santa Claus / got stuck in the chimney of the house belonging to / the Three Little Pigs  or several alternative combinations.

HIDE AND SEEK, the third picture book, is told in a much quieter and more thoughtful mode than the titles above. HIDE AND SEEK is by well-established illustrator ANTHONY BROWNE, with scenes that remind me of earlier books, especially his version of Hansel and Gretel.  Poppy and her bored, younger brother Cy are in the caravan, feeling sad because their puppy Goldie is missing. Poppy takes Cy outside and sends him off to hide in the wood outside their door. As Poppy seeks for Cy, and Cy waits to be found, the wood takes on a shadowy feel and strange, surreal things are glimpsed, half-hidden, within the spooky trees. What can you find? asks the book. I felt the items were very well hidden, but thankfully, there's a page at the back listing the eighteen hidden objects, and HIDE AND SEEK does have the hoped-for happy surprise ending. There's an anxious mood to the spreads which, combined with the lack of any parent roles around in the story, makes me feel that it would be good to have a book-sharing, talking adult by your side for comfort as much as for help with the seeking task. I felt HIDE AND SEEK is more suited to book-shelves and book-boxes of KS1 than to EYFS collections.

I wonder if you have any favourite sharing books?

Reviews by Penny Dolan

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The Cat and the King, written and illustrated by Nick Sharratt, reviewed by Pippa Goodhart

This handsome hardback chapter book has a gold foil front cover, and every single page inside is illustrated in black and red and pink toned artwork that makes every page accessible to even non-reading children.  It's a lovely object, and a treat to open and read.  What you find inside is Nick Sharratt's first published novel, and its great fun.

This story of an innocent but proud king and his clever cat, displaced from the palace and learning to live in the more ordinary world, is charming; funny and poignant.  I love the family next door with the sulky dad who is determined not to be impressed by a king, and the children who earn medals from the king for their artwork and recorder playing.  There's are entertaining sub-plots  where we can spot which of the dozen palace servants who lost their palace jobs turn up in ordinary life as bus drivers,  shop staff, and more.  And what, exactly, will the King and the Cat use that wheelbarrow and feather boa for which were amongst their car boot sale purchases?  The story is a simple one, seasoned with jokes and with odd moments of danger to thrill.  In spite of being about a moustachioed king and a cat, it is actually about anybody displaced from their familiar home surroundings and assumptions, and having to adapt and find new friends in a new life.  We see the King in tears before he settles happily into his new life.  All that is very pertinent to today's global world, but also to the immediate lives of young children starting in new classes in school or moving house.

The story is aimed at children of perhaps three to sevenish, but there is plenty of humour for the adult who is likely to be reading the text out loud.  What a handsome Christmas present it would be to unwrap ... if its not too early to make a remark like that!

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"Just Imagine" by Nick Sharratt and Pippa Goodhart, reviewed by Penny Dolan and two accomplices.

The picture book “JUST IMAGINE” came through the post at just the right time. The two small people staying here rushed to it as a treat as soon as the cover appeared from the cardboard wrapper.

During the week of their holiday, Daisy (8) read it to herself. Then she read it with Milo (6) and then they took turns at reading it, singly or together, on the sofa, on the floor, and in their beds.

Both children read stories way beyond the simple text, speech and thought bubbles found inside these pages but they both took delight in this book.. Ah yes! Time to reiterate that picture books reading isn’t just for Nursery and Reception Classes. Older children benefit from time spent enjoying and relaxing with picture books too!

JUST IMAGINE is what I’d call a very sociable book. The overarching idea and the size and layout of the pages are clearly meant for sharing and talking over as much as they are for private daydreaming, whether between child and grown-up or among a small group of children.

The main premise is posed by Pippa Goodhart’s easily read and remembered rhyme, reaching across all the pages. What would it be like, JUST IMAGINE asks the children, if they were really big? Or really small? Or invented a machine? Or lived at another time? Or were characters from stories? Or animals? Or if they lived somewhere very different? 

Every spread has plenty of illustrations – twenty-two on both the first and second spreads – each encouraging the child to imagine what would happen if they found themselves in different situations. Some spreads have lots of “individual” illustrations while others offer a crowd of ideas, almost “where’s wally-style”, suggesting answers in the cheering Nick Sharratt style.

Don’t just take my opinion. Here's what Daisy told me:

“I liked it a lot. The main thing I liked about it is that it really gets your imagination going. There are some really funny bits and some strange bits and all sorts of different bits. Also it had quite a nice ending to it. And also instead of telling you “it should be like this” or “it happens like that” you choose for yourself.

It could be for quite young people and would be good for kids who’ve just learning to read – it is mainly pictures - but it’s still quite nice for older people like me.”

Thank you for you help, Daisy. 
(Milo agreed with all that she’d said.)

This title is a follow-on from “YOU CHOOSE”, a book that was a classroom favourite as well as "Mumsnet Book Of the Year 2011 for 3-4year olds". JUST IMAGINE would – she said, finding her teacher hat – offer lots of opportunities for language learning, vocabulary building and conversation in schools. 

JUST IMAGINE is out tomorrow in hardback, which may be what you'd need for the tough use that the book is likely to get on the classroom carpet.

Review by Penny Dolan. 

JUST IMAGINE is published by Random House on August 30^th. Hb. £10.99

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