Toys in Space by Mini Grey

We invariably love Mini Grey's fabulous picture books and Toys in Space is no exception. It's conceptually brilliant and we've been enjoying it a lot recently. It's similar in style to her Traction Man series (which is also completely wonderful) but the story is more rounded and less wacky (I do love both though, the 'wacky' is not a criticism!).

It's essentially the story of some toys left out in the garden overnight and the adventure they find themselves on, or the story they tell themselves - does it really happen?!. They get beamed up into a space rocket and meet Hoctopize, the very sad alien. He looks like a glove wearing pyjamas(!) and has lost his toy, Cuddles. He shows them all the thousands of toys he has collected in his quest to find Cuddles and they are slightly horrified by all the children that have lost their toys and must be feeling bereft. So they help him to send them back to their homes (handily Hoctopize labelled them by their addresses as soon as they were beamed up!) and then to cheer him up they throw him a party. All too soon they have to go and they float gently back to the garden leaving Hoctopize to continue his sad search. But as Hoctopize prepares his spaceship to leave he spies a little someone. Can you guess who?!

The artwork is amazing and as I mentioned at the beginning the whole concept of this book works really well. It almost has a filmic quality to it which draws you in, I think it's partly the way it is laid out.

The funny thing is that since reading this story Rosie has not liked to leave her toys out in the garden. So she's tidying up a bit more. It can only be a good thing!