Month

March 2020

Just Like You! by Jane Chapman

Piccolo is a tiny woolly mammoth who wants to grow up to be just like her Dad. She watches him topple trees so she can nibble the leaves and marvels as he ploughs through giant snowdrifts so that she has room to play. When she tries to copy him she gets very frustrated – she can’t wait until she is big and strong just like him.

One wintry day her Dad suggests that the two of them head off on a little adventure. Piccolo starts off bouncing with excitement but their journey turns out to be much longer than expected and soon her little legs are struggling. Despite her tiredness she doesn’t want to give up and when they arrive at their destination she discovers that her Dad has brought her to a very special place.

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International Women’s Day: Books Which Feature Strong Female Characters

March 8th 2020 is International Women’s Day so I have collated a list of our favourite books which feature strong female characters. Take a look and let us know in the comments if there are any others which you think should be included!

Fiction Books

Ada Twist, Scientist by Andrea Beaty & David Roberts – Little Ada’s endless need to question everything means that she is the perfect mini scientist. She devises experiments and builds hypotheses, trying to work out how the world around her works. Read the review.

Amazing Grace by Mary Hoffman & Caroline Binch – An uplifting story is about a little girl called Grace who loves stories and has a big imagination. Can she find the confidence to follow her dreams? Read the review.

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Scratch & Sniff Fart Book by Barney & Buddy Ltd & Nicola Moore

Most pre-schoolers find bodily functions hilarious so, unsuprisingly, this scratch and sniff board book about farting was an instant winner with Ivy!

Every page shows a different animal and your child is invited to lift a flap and then scratch a panel to discover what their farts smell like. Fortunately the smells are all pleasant ones. Unicorns smell like jelly beans, bears smell like honey, monkeys smell like bananas and horses smell like apples. Even the cheesy mouse farts are quite aromatic – in a good way!

The lovely illustrations are accompanied by rhyming text which makes Ivy laugh every time we pick up the book. The chunky pages are perfect for little hands (aged 3+) and despite lots of scratching, the sniffable panels seem to be holding their smells really well.

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Lifetimes
by Bryan Mellonie & Robert Ingpen

Most picture books about death for small children are fables – simple stories of loss with animal characters learning how to deal with their sadness. These work very well, but if you are looking for something more factual I would recommend ‘Lifetimes’ by Bryan Mellonie and Robert Ingpen, a work of non-fiction which looks at death as a natural process.

It teaches children that death is a part of life. All living things have a beginning and an end, and in between they live their lifetime. We learn that different animals, plants and trees have different life spans, some long and some short. It gently explains that most creatures live their full life, but sometimes the natural rhythm is disturbed and accident or illness takes them early.

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The Goodbye Book
by Todd Parr

Saying goodbye is hard, especially when you’re a child. This simple story from Todd Parr, helps children understand and process their feelings of grief when they are separated from someone they love.

Fish has lost his best friend and he knows that he won’t see him again. An unseen narrator talks to him gently about how this might make him feel.

He learns that sadness and anger are totally normal emotional responses and he may also want to quietly hide himself away. Eating and sleeping may seem impossible and he may even try to pretend that nothing has happened at all. But eventually the cloud will lift and he will  cherish all the special times he had with his friend. He’ll inevitably still have up and down days but he will be able to move forward and life will start to feel good again.

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