Woolly and Tig: I Love Mummy

I didn't really expect to be writing a post about Woolly and Tig: I Love Mummy. We picked it up in the library a couple of weeks ago and I grudgingly said my kids could bring it home. I have nothing against Woolly and Tig, I like to watch the programme. I just prefer to read original picture books when possible and I find that sometimes the books that tie-in to a TV programme tend to just be retellings of an episode (nothing that wrong with that of course, heaven knows I've been responsible for a fair few myself!).

But when we read this story I was pleasantly surprised (and not for a totally honourable reason!). It is a book about Tig and her mummy and delves into the relationship between a working mother (from home) and a child who wants constant attention. I can more than relate to this because it's very much how I work, although I tend to do most of my work when my two year old naps or when they are both at school and nursery. Anyway the message that sometimes mummy needs to concentrate on other things and can't play all the time was an interesting and helpful one. And both my kids loved reading it, although I think it was partly the novelty of seeing the faces from the programme on the page!

Katie Morag by Mairi Hedderwick

Ok so I'm going to jump on the bandwagon and blog about Katie Morag. Partly because we have been very over-excited recently seeing Katie Morag on cbeebies! Last week was a very long week because every day Rosie would ask if Katie Morag was going to be on cbeebies that day and I had to keep replying 'not until sunday.' But finally we got there and were rewarded with a double episode to start us off. It was nice to see that they used stories from the books as the basis for the episodes.

We have the mini treasures boxset which has eight Katie Morag stories in including: Katie Morag and the New Pier; Katie Morag and the Big Boy Cousins; Katie Morag Delivers the Mail; Katie Morag and the Riddles; Katie Morag and the Wedding; Katie Morag and the Two Grandmothers; Katie Morag and the Tiresome Ted; Katie Morag and the Grand Concert. 

I think our favourite out of all of these is The Grand Concert. Rosie particularly likes the bit at the end where Katie Morag's dress is the same as her friend's and she's really upset. She doesn't understand why she would be upset and it fascinates her! The two uncles Sven and Sean are good characters and fun to read about in this one as well.

Rosie loves a wedding (I think it might be something to do with having been a flower four times before she was three!) and so she likes the wedding story a lot as well. It's very sweet with Grandma Mainland marrying Neilly Beag and Grandad Island turning up to put a smile on Grannie Island's face. 

One of my favourites is Katie Morag and the Big Boy Cousins because Katie gets led astray by her naughty cousins and then is the sorriest of them all and makes them all make amends to Grannie Island. It also features the phrase 'Gee Whillickers' which I can't stop saying since I first read it. It's such a perfect exclamation!

The cbeebies episodes so far have been Katie Morag Delivers the Mail and Katie Morag and the Two Grandmothers. I like the fact they've chosen to dramatise rather than animate the stories, in fact it's interesting that Rosie's preferred shows at the moment feature real people rather than animation - Swashbuckle is her other favourite! 

So to conclude we love Katie Morag in storybook form and we are loving the TV show - at the moment!

I will not ever never eat a tomato by Lauren Child

The title of this always gets me in a bit of a muddle. I'm sure it's supposed to! I suspect this book is really brilliant if you have a fussy eater for a child and you're at your wits end and can't see how they'll ever eat any vegetables. So far Rosie is pretty good with food so I don't love the book for that.

What I love about this is the funny characters and the contrariness of young children that is captured perfectly by Lauren Child. Of course it's a book that's been around a little while so everyone knows who Charlie and Lola are because they now have a very successful TV series.

This particular book tells the story of Charlie having to feed Lola and what a difficult job that is because she doesn't like - in no particular order: peas, tomatoes, carrots, fish fingers, potatoes (even mash), bananas, oranges, eggs and the list goes on. Charlie decides to entice his little sister to eat by calling the food exciting and mysterious names, so mashed potatoes become 'cloud fluff from Mount Fuji' and carrots are 'orange twiglets from Jupiter'. By the end Lola is enjoying herself so much that she even starts to eat tomatoes, or what she call 'moon squirters'.

It's a great book and I have no doubt that Rosie will be renaming all her food very shortly!

Peppa Pig Little Library

Now I'm not going to try and claim that Peppa Pig is up there with the best children's books but we do have a few of the books and I think that this format is a brilliant one for taking out and about.

Rosie has been going through the Peppa Pig stage for quite a while now. I've been told it's a stage every child goes through and you just have to wait it out. I must admit I don't mind too much. I quite like the TV series, although why can't they be longer than five minutes?! I even have a favourite episode!

The little library is a format that lots of publishers use, mainly for series that have already done well and especially for TV or film tie-ins. Because of the size of the mini books the content is usually pretty basic but they work and I find that kids really like the way the books are so tiny.

The Peppa Pig Little Library has six books: Peppa at Playgroup, Peppa's Friends, Peppa's Garden, Peppa's Favourite Things, Peppa at Home and Peppa's Family. I think Rosie's favourite is probably Peppa's Friends since she likes to name all the different characters. Favourite Things is a hit too. It signs off with Peppa's most favourite thing of all - muddy puddles! Rosie loves to shout this out at the top of her voice! The books can be flipped over and used as a puzzle to form a picture of the Peppa Pig family in a muddy puddle. All in all for £4.99 it's great value!

Angelina Ballerina by Katharine Holabird and Helen Craig

I feel like we've come to Angelina a bit earlier than I expected but I think that's partly due to Rosie doing Baby Ballet and loving it. Therefore anything that involves ballet is a firm favourite. We started off with Angelina's Christmas (which is lovely) but have since bought the first book Angelina Ballerina.

Angelina is pretty well known. There's a new series on Milkshake with different artwork from the classic books. I haven't watched it with Rosie because I really prefer the classic books, I think there's an older TV series as well with the original artwork but we haven't watched that either.

The first book introduces Angelina and her passion for ballet. She can't think about anything else! As a consequence she's always late for school, never tidies her room and is always getting into trouble. Then her parents come up with the perfect solution. Ballet lessons! Angelina is suddenly a model mouse.

The artwork is beautiful with lots of detail and plenty of things to point out and discuss. The story is sweet, not too long to read to a two year old(!) and well told. We're looking forward to gradually collecting the rest of them!