Mini Grey (Jonathan Cape) When they are left outside in the garden overnight, an eclectic group of toys discover the dark and the night sky for the first time. When they become a little worried about the night ahead, WonderDoll decides to tell them all a story to pass the time until dawn, and this takes them on a …
adventure
Guinea Pigs Online
Jennifer Gray & Amanda Swift, with artwork by Sarah Horne(Quercus) Fuzzy and Coco the guinea-pigs live a rather uneventful together since their respective owners have got married. Coco likes to spend her time pampering herself, while Fuzzy spends his time cooking and is desperate to become a chef. When Fuzzy discovers that celebrity chef Scarlet Cleaver’s ad in the …
Vulgar the Viking and the Rock Cake Raiders
Odin Redbeard, with artwork by Sarah Horne(Nosy Crow) Vulgar wants to be a Viking, a real Viking, because, unfortunately, his people seem to have renounced their old ways and become a rather boring bunch. Vulgar reminisces fondly upon their history of rampage and pillaging. Vulgar has great hopes to learn more about it on History Day, but …
The Whizz Pop Chocolate Shop
Kate Saunders (Marion Lloyd Books, an imprint of Scholastic) When twins Oz and Lily’s family inherit their great uncle’s old house, they are grateful for the extra space, as there is a new baby on the way, but also very much intrigued by the old chocolate factory that is downstairs. Lily can feel straight away …
Sky Hawk
Gill Lewis(Oxford University Press) When Callum discovers village outcast Iona on his remote Scottish farmland, he is not to know that his life is going to be turned upside down. Not only because of the friendship he strikes with the little girl, but more so because of the secret she soon shares with him: there …
The Ministry of Letters: Operation Alphabet
Al MacCuish (text), Luciano Lozano (illustrations) & Jim Bletsas (design)(Thames & Hudson) Young Charlie Foxtrot is in a bit of a pickle. You see, he has a tendency to daydream at school and so it comes as a bit of a shock when he realises he has to learn his alphabet. “The Alphabet-a-whattie” wonders Charlie? …
You Can’t Scare a Princess!
Gillian Rogerson (text) & Sarah McIntyre (illustrations)(Scholastic) When King Cupcake is captured by a crew of the baddest, meanest pirates in the whole wide word, there is only one person fit to go and rescue him: his daughter, feisty and fearless Princess Spaghetti! Captain Waffle may think he is the boldest pirate to sail the seas, …
Knight Night
Owen Davey(Templar) When it is time for bed, little knights are just like ordinary little boys: this knight might be climbing mountains, fighting monsters and crossing crocodile-crowded rivers, but at the end of this treacherous adventure, he too must brush his teeth and eventually switch off the light. I had loved Owen Davey’s first book, Foxly’s Feast, which was published …
The Wide-Awake Princess
E.D. Baker(Bloomsbury Children’s Books) What if Sleeping Beauty wasn’t an only child? What if she had a younger sister whose only gift from the fairies was that she could not be touched by magic, and that in fact magic recoiled from her? Princess Annabelle has not had a great childhood; her family hold a distance …