The Runaway Bunny (children’s picture book review)

24 February, 2013 By 2 Comments

the-runaway-bunny

It made me feel truthful about my mummy – JD, 5

We’ve enjoyed reading The Runaway Bunny this week. It’s a children’s picture book written by Margaret Wise in 1942, with the illustrations updated in the 1970s, which makes it instantly stand out from most of the other books in Miss J and JD’s collection.

Here’s the blurb:

While the young bunny claims he will run away in all sorts of magical forms, the mother bunny counters each one with how she would still find a way to take care of him. Black and white illustrations are brought to life with scattered double page spreads of colour in this true picture book classic.

And it does indeed feel like a classic. It’s brief in words, simple in language, sparing in illustrations and yet it says so much about the love between mother and child.

Here’s what JD has to say about The Runaway Bunny:

  • I thought it was very, very, very nice and about how your mother looks after you
  • The mother was a tree maybe because she really, really wanted to look after her children all the time
  • The drawings on the front are quite nice – I like the way the flowers are bending in the wind
  • It was really funny seeing the bunny in the trout stream and the mummy fishing with a carrot!
  • It made me feel truthful about my mummy, because my mummy does always look after me
  • It made feel a little bit sad because I don’t want to be without you but that bunny did want to be without his mummy and it made me feel like I wouldn’t want to be alone

The Runaway Bunny is available in softback for £6.99.

Disclosure: We were sent The Runaway Bunny free of charge for review. No payment was received for this post. All posts are 100% honest.

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Have you met the Hueys? (review)

27 June, 2012 By 9 Comments

The thing about the Hueys was that they were all the same…

JD and I have been smitten with The Hueys – The New Jumper ever since it arrived. Why? Because the illustrations are brilliant.

The characters are simple, identical creatures, drawn in pencil lines. Yet somehow creator Oliver Jeffers manages to convey the most wonderfully comical emotions from each of them.

The story is cute and relevant – all about wanting to be the same as your peers, while also wanting to stand out and be different. The back page is a bit of a joy too, but I won’t spoil it by saying why.

Here’s a great little animated teaser, narrated by my teenage crush, Jarvis Cocker:

If you want to grab it, it’s published by HarperCollins and available in hardback for £10.99.

Disclosure: we were sent The Hueys – The New Jumper free of charge for the purposes of this review. No payment was received. All reviews are 100% honest.

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Real Reads: making classic literature accessible to children

5 June, 2012 By 3 Comments

Real Reads - illustration from Great expectations - do not reproduce

Can we read a long story tonight? – JD, 4

JD is developing a bit of a pattern in his reading. Daytime reading is about dinosaurs, space and other factual books, while bedtime is more for story books.

Real Reads are re-tellings of classic works of literature, each condensed down into 64 illustrated pages. They’re faithful to the original style and language, but offer a simplified, shortened version that makes the tales more accessible to children.

We chose some Dickens titles, and because Dickens didn’t shy away from dark themes, including murder, the content is not entirely suitable for younger children.  However, since JD isn’t yet reading independently, we are able to gloss over the nasty bits without losing too much of what makes the stories great.

A nice touch added to the end of each book is a resources section, which contains a variety of extension materials, including a bullet pointed summary of the elements lost in the condensing process, some background information about the era, and some ‘food for thought’ questions about the story.

It’s early days for JD and clearly these books are aimed at older children, but we can already appreciate the educational benefit and I look forward to revisiting them with him as his reading develops.

Disclosure: we were sent a selection of Real Reads free of charge for review. No other payment was received and all reviews are 100% honest.

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Grandparents are people too: The Frank Show (a review)

25 May, 2012 By 1 Comment

I wonder if there is anything about Frank that will make my talk interesting – The Frank Show

It’s show and tell time and our hero has been asked to talk about a member of his family, but the only person available is Grandad Frank and he’s boring, right?

The Frank Show, written and illustrated by David Mackintosh, perfectly captures the difficulty children can face in understanding the older generations. The rhythm of the words is very pleasing when read out loud and the closing pages bring the story to a delightful climax when Frank turns out to be a lot more that ‘just a grandad’.

The Frank Show is published by HarperCollins and priced £10.99.

Disclosure: We were sent a copy of The Frank Show free of charge for review. No other payment was received and all posts are 100% honest

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