What Little Miss Read – New Releases

As I’m only in the process of turning this into a parenting blog, Little Miss has never really benefited much from it in the past. However, she has been lucky over the past few weeks as I’ve been sent some new release books for us to read. Which is actually amazing since every night I have to read one or two stories to her, depending on however she’s behaved throughout the day. However, mummy has a little secret.. mummy hates reading the same story over and over, I need a good few months break before I’m happy to revisit a book. This has only come into affect since May when she had me read her Big Hero 6 books every day for a week. I swear I know that story by heart!

Anyway, today we have 5 books that are due to be released, or have just been released. Here is what we thought about them;

Monster Trouble! by Lane Fredrickson*
As soon as this book arrived we knew we were going to love it, especially over Halloween. The little girl standing on the bed is Winifred Schnitzel and she reminded me a lot about Little Miss. Like Winifred, LM is fearless, so a book where the girl isn’t afraid of the monsters, just bored of them, definitely appealed to her. The illustrations are fun and bright coloured but what I loved most about it was the rhyming text. We’re a big fan of anything that rhymes because it encourages Little Miss to participate by trying to guess what word comes next. It also makes it an easy read for mummy. I love everything about this book, and if I hadn’t been sent it to review, I probably would have been drawn in by the cover anyway. Although LM isn’t afraid of monsters, it would work as a great book for children who are, especially the ending. It reminded me a lot of Monsters Inc.

Hey Duggee- The Best Scarecrow Ever*
Based on the Cbeebies show of the same name, Hey Duggee The Best Scarecrow ever is the first book to be released (with more to follow seemingly!) Any fans of the TV show will love this, and even those that aren’t fans (like Little Miss) will probably still love it just to the fun story and bright colours. Having watched the show myself I feel like it did translate well into the book and for fans of the show they will be able to recognise the characters through the story easily. At the end it gives your child the chance to earn their own “Scarecrow Badge” which is some little questions about the story. That was actually LM’s favourite part, because she’s a weirdo and loves anything remotely education. She’s also incredibly competitive and loved the chance that she could win something even if there was technically nothing to win haha.

What the Ladybird Heard Next by Julia Donaldson*
In our house we’re huge fans of Julia Donaldson. We love Room on the Room, The Singing Mermaid, The Gruffalo and The Gruffalo’s Child and What The Ladybird Heard, which obviously made us excited to learn there was to be a sequel! What draws us to Julia Donaldson books is the fact they rhyme. Like with Monster Trouble, LM was able to anticipate (or at least guess) what word would be coming next. I like how clever the book is, and I personally feel poetry is such an underrated way to tell a story. Although, there is a lot of text, because of how the story flows, it didn’t feel like a long laborious read. LM likes it because it feels like it has beginning, middle and end which is another thing I really like about Donaldson’s books. She also liked that this version had glitter on each page and she was able to hunt it out. The illustrations are really great for young children, nice, bright and simple. Over all, another winner from Julia Donaldson but I personally feel you can’t go wrong with any of her books.

Lady Pancake & Sir French Toast by Josh Funk*
If I hadn’t been sent this book to review, I would have 100% bought it for the name. I’m a sucker for pancakes and french toast, so personify them and I’m going to want to read it. The book is another rhyming one but this one had Little Miss in stitches. It was so clever, and such a funny story. Although I don’t like re-reading books I have read this one twice purely because I wanted to read it to my nephew. The illustrations are great too, really child friendly and the world of these personified foods really appealed to Little Miss. This was definitely our second favourite book out of the lot purely because it was so silly, and we love a bit of silliness.

Imaginary Fred by Eoin Colfer & Oliver Jeffers*
Before receiving this book, I can say I was familiar with both Colfer who is the author of the Artemis Fowl series & Jeffers who wrote one of my favourite children’s books, How to Catch a Star. I was excited about a collaboration and I wasn’t in the least bit let down. Although the illustrations didn’t really interest Little Miss, she did love the story. However as an adult, I can appreciate both and I think this is a truly beautiful book both in story and to look at. It would make a really great gift in my opinion. Kids are really complex, especially imaginative ones like my daughter and this book tackled the idea of imaginary friends very well. The story was just long enough to hold my 3 year old’s attention since the pictures didn’t and it definitely made her think as afterwards she had a lot of questions which I never see as a bad thing.

The publishers were also kind enough to send me a fab graphic giving you 10 reasons why everyone needs an Imaginary Fred which I think was just adorable so I wanted to share.

Lets face it, we all need an Imaginary Fred sometimes. Over on the website there is a competition to enter as well as an activity sheet and poster for you to print out.

Over all, we both really enjoyed all 5 of these books, a lot of them for different reasons. Little Miss loves stories that make her laugh, but also books that make her think and ask questions. She likes books with bright coloured illustrations but also books with good substance which I believe each one of these covers at least one, if not more of these things. I asked her if she had to pick just one, which would it be and she’s gone with Monster Trouble, I don’t blame her really, I rather liked that one too!