Paddington's Picture Book

I have always looked forward to sharing books with my children that I loved as a child and my two have a special interest in Paddington since seeing the film at Christmas. 

We have occasionally got the current Paddington picture books out of the library but they've never been that excited by them. 

On a visit to my parents a while ago I suddenly saw my old edition of Paddington's Picture Book and quickly stowed it away to bring home. It even has writing in the front with my name, address, the last three digits of my phone number (was that all that was needed in the 80s?) and a picture of a bird with the word 'bird' written next to it. Priceless! 

I remember the stories in this book so well. I must have read them a lot when I first started reading properly. It has seven stories: Paddington Bear, Paddington's Garden, Paddington at the Circus, Paddington Goes Shopping, Paddington at the Tower, and Paddington at the Sea-Side. My girls particularly like Paddington at the Circus when he goes to rescue the high wire acrobats and then drops his ice cream on the Ring Master's hat. 

One of my favourites is Paddington's Garden where each of them get given a section of the garden and Paddington ends up making a rockery out of some cement from the builders after losing his marmalade. I can remember trying to make my own rockery as a child after reading that story. 

The Sea-Side is probably the most funny when Paddington thinks the Punch and Judy show is someone hurting the Brown's Judy and ends up with the show in the sea. 

The illustrations are beautiful and to me, because I grew up with this version, this is the definitive Paddington (I know Peggy Fortnum was the original illustrator for the paperbacks!). In fact Fred Banbery didn't do many of the Paddington illustrations and is probably one of the least known artists. It's got a very seventies feel to it but the detail and artistry is just lovely. It's wonderful having a trip down memory lane and enjoying sharing it so much. I'm not sure my kids are going to love all the books I loved as a child but so far so good! 

The First Hippo on the Moon by David Walliams and Tony Ross

We've had The First Hippo on the Moon out of the library for ages now. It's gone down a treat with both my girls and we've all been really enjoying reading it. So much so that I've been meaning to buy the Comic Relief book that David Walliams and Tony Ross have done called The Queen's Orang-Utan. That one looks fab too!

I did approach these with slight caution. I didn't want to be swayed by a celebrity name! It helped that I'd heard along the grapevine from trusted sources that these books are funny and also have a great style about them, not a million miles away from the comic twist of Roald Dahl. 

Anyway back to the Hippo on the Moon! Hilda (yes her name is Hilda!) has a dream and her jungle friends set about helping her to make it come true. It's a race to the moon for a very ordinary hippo and a rich, 'money will buy everything', hippo and guess who wins? It's full of little jokes and asides and some great bottom burps which really endeared it to my two year old and five year old. The typography is great as well. The 'BOOM' for the rocket really reverberates through the page! 

Dream Big everyone! 

World Book Day 2015

Well I haven't done anything extraordinary for World Book Day this year but we did dress a potato up as Sleeping Beauty, a thing of absolute wonder I'm sure you'll agree. We love the Fairytale Hairdresser series where Kitty Lacey the hairdresser saves numerous fairytale characters. They are lovely twists on the original fairytales and the series seems to be going strong!

I was all ready to send daughter number one to school dressed as a jampire but the school announced it was doing 'decorate a potato as a book character'. We could have kept to our original character but the clock raced on and at 7.30am this morning Sleeping Beauty seemed easier.

Rosie took an extra book into school to show everyone. 'Help We Need a Title' by Herve Tullet is a brilliantly interactive and fun book and we've been enjoying reading it at home very much. The characters in the book talk to the reader and tell them that they're not quite ready to be seen because the author hasn't finished yet. Then the author appears! It's a great, imaginative read and I'd highly recommend it.

Finally I went into daughter number two's nursery and read them a story as part of their World Book Day celebrations. I couldn't decide what to read until I remembered Monkey Nut and how much fun we've all had reading it together. It has two spiders fighting over a monkey nut with a surprising conclusion. The main fun is reading the noises aloud and enjoying it together!

I also took Wow! said the Owl which is a lovely gentle book about colours. They seemed to enjoy it. They all sat still and shouted out when I asked them questions!

 So that's World Book Day from me. Keep reading!!