We are just moving into the best season to curl up and cosy up with a good book! And we have read lots of really great books recently. I...

Favourites Shelf

Wednesday, October 24, 2018 BookBairn 5 Comments


We are just moving into the best season to curl up and cosy up with a good book! And we have read lots of really great books recently. I have shared our favourite Autumn stories (linked here) if you're looking for a seasonal book, so in this post I'm just sharing our 'Favourites Shelf' books. The books that we have read over and over again in the last couple of months. And as The Wee Page Turner continues to develop his own reading taste (I think he might enjoy books more than his sister as he chooses books over toys so many times a day!), I've included some of the books that he grabs out of the book basket most often alongside BookBairn's favourite books at the moment. 

Here are our most recent favourites and repeat-reads:

Bizzy Bear Building Site by Benji Davies


The Wee Page Turner is beginning to enjoy books which have more of a story to them than the simple first word/primer/baby books that we had been enjoying up until now. And don't get me wrong, those books have their place and we still read them lots but it's nice to share something that has more of a flow of a story. And these books are a great start for that! In Busy Bear Building Site by Benji Davies, Busy Bear is working on the building site and he does all sorts of things but the best part is that little fingers can use the mechanisms to keep them entertained whilst you read. These books are also super sturdy and have great illustrations (Benji Davies is one of our favourites and he wrote and illustrated The Storm Whale which BookBairn and I also love). We also have Busy Bear Racing Driver from the library at the moment and I think I will put some on his Christmas wish list. A wonderful series.

Bedtime with Ted by Sophy Henn


Ted has long been a favourite in our house - so much so that we have all six of the Ted books. I've written about them several times in the past (you can read the most recent one here) because we read them so often - I'm sure Bedtime with Ted by Sophy Henn was on BookBairn's favourite shelf over and over! The story has a simple premise (don't the best ones always?): it's Ted's bedtime. On each page a speech bubble shouts through "Bedtime, Ted!" and on the reverse page... "Not yet says Ted". I mean, how many parents haven't heard that phrase over and over at bedtime?! Under the full-page size flap you then see the reasons why Ted is too busy for bed: it's bath time with his penguin friends, or he's brushing his teeth with a crocodile or my personal favourite he's "jump jump jumping out the fidgets like a bouncy kangaroo." All parents will be pleased to know that he does eventually get into bed with all his animal friends and drifts off to sleep. The Wee Page Turner loves to lift the flap and reveal Ted making mischief with his friends. And of course, the illustrations are just fabulous! Bright coloured backgrounds with a few simple objects to help you identify which room of the house you are in but most of the detail is in Ted and his friends and their antics allowing little ones to make the connections between the words and the illustrations so easily! Ted is irrestible in his red and yellow wellies with his orange and turquoise bobble hat (I'll be he chose his own outfit that day!) and his animal friends are as cute and cuddly as can be.

Shifty McGifty and Slippery Sam: The Missing Masterpiece by Tracey Corderoy and Steven Lenton


We adore the Shifty McGifty (got to be one of my all time favourite character names) and Slippery Sam stories and Shifty McGifty and Slippery Sam and the Missing Masterpiece by Tracey Corderoy and Steven Lenton has to be BookBairn's favoruite. It is a truly brilliant rhyming tale of two pooches that foil an art heist with humour galore! Tracey Corderoy has the most brilliant talent at writing rhymes without comprising wonderful storytelling (and I would love to be able to write like she does) and Steven Lenton packs so much humour into the expressions of characters and brings to life scenes that will have your little readers wanting to turn the pages to see what happens next! BookBairn truly adores these books! And finding the hidden little spider on each page - nice touch from the illustrator. Looking forward to exploring the chapter book with her now that she loves the characters so much. Shifty and Sam are a formidable team - much like their creators. If you like a crime caper - your kids will love these!



As it's getting into autumn time and we've been enjoying conker gathering, we have started to cosy up with some autumn reads. BookBairn adores the character in Tidy by Emily Gravett and we have been reading this one most bedtimes at the moment. Personally, I sympathise greatly with Pete, the badger who likes everything neat because anyone who knows me, will know I like things neat. So when all the leaves falls off the trees in Pete's forest, I completely understand why he felt the need to tidy them all away. And then I can understand that the trees look rather scrappy without their leaves on them. So they get tidied too. Until the forest becomes a concrete abyss. Badger has taken it a little bit too far. But is it too late? With humour and delightful illustrations, this is a lovely autumn read. BookBairn just loves this story so much!

Billy and the Beast by Nadia Shireen


Billy and the Beast by Nadia Shireen is a book we have been raving about since we first read it. When a terrible beast starts roaming the forest in search of tiny creatures to make a big bowl of monster soup, Billy and her Fatcat cannot let him get away with it. He's got boil in a bag bunnies, spicy mice and grated hedgehog all on his list but can Billy outwit this ferocious beast and save the inhabitants of the forest? Packed full of humour, fun illustrations and a heroine who stashes doughnuts in her hair for emergencies this is a brilliant new fable that will empower as well as make you giggle. And BookBairn loves it!

Lottie Potter Wants an Otter by Jeanne Willis and Leonie Lord


This is the story we read on repeat. Lottie Potter wants an Otter by Jeanne Willis and Leonie Lord. It has the most brilliant rhyming scheme - who knew so many things rhymed with 'otter'? And the story of the little girl Lottie Potter who really wants an otter but gets stuck with a rotter who bit little Lottie very hard upon the botty is one that we never forget! It's truly a delight to read and the illustrations are so much fun! And if your name is Lottie it's even better!

Ada Twist, Scientist by Andrea Beaty and David Roberts 


When my parents were in America last year I ordered this gorgeous doll to go with a story that I was itching to share with BookBairn, but at the time it was probably a bit long for her. But now Ada Twist Scientist by Andrea Beaty and David Roberts is not only a great read but it's one of our favourites. Ada is a might little girl with great ambition, intelligence, courage and gumption! Ada’s head is full of questions and she is endlessly curious and her efforts to answer them lead to scientific experiments. Some of which go too far, leading to her parents becoming more and more frazzled and they banish her to the Thinking Chair – what will they do with her? And the wonderful, supportive parents that they are, they join in sorting fact from fiction embracing their little scientist’s fascinations, “because that’s what you do when your kid has a passion and a heart that is true.” (This is perhaps one of my favourite lines from a picture book ever!). Written in rhyming verse, giving brilliant pacing and momentum to the story these books (there are two more picture books and now an early chapter book) really celebrate little heroines that children can look up to. The mixed media illustrations are a delight and capture the magic of what it is like to be little and to imagine and to create. They really are perfect inspirational stories for children about pursuing their own passions.


So those are our most recent favourite reads! What have you been enjoying reading recently? And if you can't wait to see our next quarterly installment of our Favourites Shelf, I always include a book or two in our monthly Little Loves blog posts!

Happy Reading,
Mummy, BookBairn and The Wee Page Turner




*Disclaimer: Some of these books were sent to us by publishers for review and others are ones that we have borrowed from the library or purchased ourselves. These are our genuine re-reads so all opinions are our own. If you click on the title or image of the book you will be sent to amazon.co.uk using an affiliate link. This means that if you choose to purchase on amazon.co.uk, I will receive a small sum (around 20-70p per book) from amazon at no extra cost to you. I understand that you may not want to use an affiliate link, but if you like reading our blog please just think of it as a small tip for a tip-off to an awesome book. And know that your support means I can buy more books! For more information check out our 'For Our Readers' section.


                      

5 comments:

  1. The Favourites Shelf is a great idea and these are genuinely BookBairn's favourites. The Where's Spot book looks remarkably similar to one of BookBairn's Uncle Al's. ???

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    1. It probably hasn't changed much in the last 25 years! But this one hasn't been pinched, I promise. I'm not sure the lift-the-flaps would survive more than one generation! x

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  2. Nibbles is one of my favourites too.

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