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Giles Andreae |
Egmont |
9781405258463 |
April 2011 |
32 pp |
Whole book & series read |
Read On? YES |
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During Easter weekend I was made to read aloud all thirteen of these quirky World Of Happy titles in a single sitting. The books are mini modern Aesopian fables in which unhappy situations become resolved, but not in an overly educational way. In The Knitting Gorilla, for example, one of the gorillas’ children, instead of growing up to be big and fierce like his daddy, defies convention by developing a knitting habit. The jumpers he knits are too small. To begin with, the other gorillas jeer and mock, but after a while they begin to RESPECT the jumper as an item of distinction. Likewise in The Pink Cricket, instead of playing the violin like all the normal green crickets, the one and only pink cricket takes up the drums. Despite the inevitable ridicule and teasing, the pink cricket sticks to his dreams and ends up playing drums in the band.
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Little Leap Forward: a boy in Beijing
Gue Yue, Clare Farrow, Ill. Helen Cann |
Barefoot Books |
1846861136 |
Jul 2008 |
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“With music and your imagination you can travel anywhere; you will always be free.”
Barefoot Books have drawn upon the self-same creative sensibility, attention to detail and high production values that have earned them the place as one of the most distinctive and stylish picture books lists, in this their first forray into fiction. |
The Bare Bum Gang and the Football Face-off
Anthony McGowan |
Red Fox |
186230386X |
May 2008 |
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Watch out people here they come
They are the gang with the big bare bum
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My Dad’s a Birdman
David Almond, ill. Polly Dunbar |
Walker Books |
1406304867 |
Oct 2007 |
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Lizzie misses her mother, however, her dad and his quite literal flights of fancy provide plentiful diversion and distraction, as too do Auntie Doreen’s endeavours to normalise the situation that father and daughter find themselves within through her homely domesticity and the cooking of doughy dumplings! |
Big Ben
Rachel Anderson, ill. Jane Ray |
Barn Owl Books |
1903015707 |
Oct 2007 |
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Matthew has a deep level of care and respect for his elder brother Ben. He endeavours to protect Ben from the types of assumption and stereotype that he is subjected to by neighbours and his peers. The strength in Anderson’s text lies in its awareness that even the best intentions of his brother Matthew, do not really allow Ben’s skills and abilities to shine through and that accordingly, his departure to a residential school tailored to his needs comes as a liberation. |
The Trouble with Wenlocks
Joel Stewart |
Doubleday |
0385610076 |
Jul 2007 |
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Jack Stalwart: The Pursuit of the Ivory Poachers
Elizabeth Singer Hunt |
Red Fox |
186230128X |
Apr 2007 |
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Continuing his missions with the GPF (the Global Protection Force), and in so doing desperately seeking information concerning the current whereabouts of missing elder brother Max, Jack Stalwart is called to Kenya to protect the African Elephants which have been being slaughtered as part of elicit ivory trading. |
Ivan the Terrible
Anne Fine, ill. Philippe Dupasquier |
Egmont |
1405233249 |
Jun 2007 |
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The Tortoise and the Dare
Terry Deary, ill. Helen Flook |
A&C Black |
0713682205 |
Mar 2007 |
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The Killer Cat Strikes Back
Anne Fine |
Puffin |
014138283X |
Jan 2007 |
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Nonchalant Tuffy the cat makes his triumphant third outing in this latest tale by Anne Fine. Tuffy is fast becoming an archetype in children’s literature. In him, Fine has perfectly captured the nuances of cattish behaviour. Just as it is now almost impossible to speak of bear stories, without Pooh or his alliterative counterpart Paddington coming to mind, Tuffy is the forerunner in feline fiction. |