My Penguin Osbert is a delightful picture story book written by Elizabeth Cody Kimmel and illustrated by H.B. Lewis. It is a story that is told with much warmth and humour but also delivers a slightly more serious message which is that if you are given something that you ask for you have a responsibility to look after it. In this story, the main character who is a little boy but we don’t know his name has been given a real live penguin by Santa Claus. However, he soon discovers that looking after a penguin is ever so slightly tricky!

Elizabeth Cody Kimmel, H.B. Lewis, picture book

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My daughters love picture books and they always make a beeline for these whenever we visit our local library. Normally it is the picture on the front cover that inspires them to pick up a book and start reading and this was definitely the case with ‘There’s No Such Thing as Monsters!’ where on the cover we see a very cute cuddly bear peeking out from under the bed covers with only his startled eyes showing! The girls couldn’t wait to read it!

‘There’s No Such Thing as Monsters!’, which is written by Steve Smallman and illustrated by Caroline Pedler, tells the story of two bears.

Caroline Pedler, picture book, Steve Smallman

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Flinn, a seemingly ordinary boy who likes pirates and dinosaurs, is on a school trip to see dinosaur skeletons at a museum. He and his friends are in awe of the huge skeleton of the giganotosaurus, which the guide tells them was even mightier than Tyrannosaurus Rex. They are also intrigued when the guide shows them an empty glass case from which Captain Rufus Rumblebelly’s treasure was stolen the night before.

Flinn and friends follow a trail of feathers and gold coins, thinking that it might hold a clue to the treasure.

Giles Andreae, picture book, Russell Ayto

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Flinn, like so many other boys his age, loves dinosaurs and pirates. One day at school his teacher sends him to a walk-in cupboard to look for the pens he needs to colour a dinosaur picture. While inside, Flinn hears the sound of a man crying. He is amazed to find Captain Stubble, a pirate, shaking and shuddering on the floor under a curtain. The reason for Captain Stubble’s despair is that his ship has been stolen. Flinn offers to help him get it back, and out of nowhere three of his friends appear, all clamouring to join in the adventure.

Giles Andreae, picture book, Russell Ayto

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‘Aliens in Underpants Save the World’ is a fabulously funny book that is bound to appeal to most children’s sense of humours. Well any mention of underpants is usually enough to have my daughters in fits of giggles! It is written by Claire Freedman and illustrated by Ben Cort, and provides a sequel to their book ‘Aliens Love Underpants’.

In this book, the aliens spot a giant meteorite heading towards Earth that has all the scientists baffled. No one knows how to stop it but the aliens realise that if they don’t do something quickly, their source of underpants will not exist and then what will they do?

Ben Cort, Claire Freedman, picture book

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A boy and girl try to convince their parents to let them get a dog; they say it could guard the house and play with them. Mum and dad protest at first, saying that dogs need to be fed and walked, and they make a lot of mess. The children promise that they will take care of everything, and Mum gives in. The children set off for the Dogs’ Home, pushing the baby in the buggy. Their parents stress that they must get a dog with a pedigree.

John Burningham, picture book

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Although my daughters are often quite good at remembering to say thank you, they do sometimes forget and I find myself having to remind them. This is one reason I was pleased that they selected ‘Harvey Hare Postman Extraordinaire’ during our recent library visit as it really does have a strong message about appreciating what people do and remembering to say thank you!

This lovely book is written by Bernadette Watts and features a little hare called Harvey who is a very busy and dedicated postman.

Bernadette Watts

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Reading aloud is an ideal activity to follow a free play session when the children are ready to sit still and be calm for a while. It fosters listening skills that are the basis of the learning process, encourages a love of books and instils a desire in the children to be able to read the stories themselves. Whilst the children I read to love traditional tales such as The Gingerbread Man or Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, we usually read contemporary stories. I’m listing some of our favourite books here.

Shark in the Park by Nick Sharratt (Corgi Childrens, ISBN 0552549770) is the story of a young boy, Timothy Pope, who goes to the park with his telescope (which obviously rhymes with his name). Each time he looks through the telescope, he sees something that looks like the black fin of a shark, so he shouts out ‘There’s a shark in the park!’. This is repeated several times throughout the book, and the children know when it’s coming and love to shout the phrase out themselves each time.

Helen Oxenbury, Kathryn White, Michael Rosen, Michael Terry, Nick Sharratt, picture book, Sally Chambers

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A little white mouse comes running to a frog to ask for help because Big Bro’s coming: “He’s rough, he’s tough, and he’s big.” The mouse stretches his arms out as wide as he can to show just how big, then he runs away to hide. The worried frog conveys the same information to a parrot before hopping off to hide as well. The parrot tells the story to a chimpanzee and stretches out his wings to show just how big Big Bro is, but of course his wing span is far greater than the span of the mouse or the frog’s arms.

Jez Alborough, picture book

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My daughters have been big fans of the Little Princess character created by Tony Ross pretty much since they started picking up books. Therefore I was not surprised when on a recent visit to the library, my youngest picked up ‘I Want My Present’ which is another book featuring this funny and quirky character. It is also a ‘lift the flap’ book which of course adds extra appeal!

One of the nice things about the Little Princess books is that they all contain the same set of eccentric characters including an admiral, a general, a French chef, a gardener as well as her parents – the king and queen.

picture book, Tony Ross

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My young daughters are both very loving and are often drawn to books that have the word ‘love’ in their titles. One of their favourites is ‘Guess How Much I Love You?’ by Sam McBratney, and so when they spotted ‘I Love You as Big as the World’ by David Van Buren and Tim Warnes I instantly knew that it would be a book that we would definitely be taking home with us. It certainly does fulfil its promise of being very cute – just as I expected.

The book features another set of characters called Big Bear and Little Bear. I think I have lost count of just how many books we have, written by different authors, which feature these two characters.

David Van Buren, picture book, Tim Warnes

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