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Sterling Children’s Books

Frog Boots by Jill Esbaum & Joshua Heinsz

Dylan is utterly fascinated by poison dart frogs so when he spots a pair of boots featuring his favourite amphibians he jumps for joy. He thinks they’ll be absolutely perfect for his first day at school – but his mum isn’t sure because the boots are purple and sparkly. She tries to steer him towards a different pair but Dylan won’t be swayed.

He wears the boots home feeling taller and cooler than ever before and that night he discovers that the frogs even glow in the dark. He is so excited to wear them to school and show his new friends!

Unfortunately things don’t quite go as planned. The children in his class call them ‘girl boots’ and laugh in his face. Poor Dylan feels embarrassed and retreats in to himself. The boots get kicked to the back of his wardrobe and he spends the rest of the week at school avoiding eye contact and playing alone.

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NERP! by Sarah Lynne Reul

Ivy and I both love books that are a little bit crazy, so when NERP! landed in our laps we instantly fell in love. Every single word of the story is quite literally utter nonsense, but somehow the whole thing makes perfect sense!

The premise will be very familiar to any parents out there with picky eaters. We see an enthusiastic mum and dad present their child with a series of lovingly prepared dishes in the hope that they might actually eat something, but nothing is quite right.

The frizzle frazzle hotchy potch? NERP! Mushy gushy bloobarsh? NERP! Even the garble snarfy barflecrunch and the yuckaroni smackintosh are rejected with a massive NERP! Will anything make this pesky child say YERP or SLURP? 

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Allie All Along by Sarah Lynne Reul

Allie All AlongWhen little Allie breaks her crayon she flies into a rage. Depicted as an angry red monster, her frustration is very much apparent as she tears up paper, throws her other crayons on the floor, stomps on the box and rolls around on the floor screaming.

Her older brother steps forward and thoughtfully offers up a pillow for her to punch so that she can release her anger without hurting herself or breaking anything further. This helps so much that the monster sheds her red furry skin and we see an amber-coloured monster emerge.

This version of Allie is still very angry and she’s still not able to articulate what’s wrong so her brother encourages her to hold her favourite toy and squeeze it as hard as she can. Another layer is shed and the fur is now green. Allie is now at that stage where she’s still pretty mad but she’s not really sure why so she’s irritable. This is solved with some breathing exercises which turn the monster blue.

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