New Picture Books from Little Steps

Little Steps Publishing have released some gorgeous new books for Spring 2020 and I am grateful to Lucy for sending them through for me to review.

Brave Adventures, Little Girl by Iresha Herath, illustrated by Oscar Fa

brave little girl

Four year old Anika loves to visit her grandparents each Sunday afternoon. She knows that she will be welcomed with hugs and laughter and shared food and stories. The gentle, simple text by Iresha Herath and beautiful digital illustration by Oscar Fa perfectly convey a loving bond between the generations of a family.

When Anika tries to demonstrate her newly learned skill of hopscotch to grandfather Seeya and grandmother Achi, she becomes nervous, loses her balance and hurts her arm. She then admits to Seeya that she wishes she could be as brave as he was when he had adventures all over the world in his youth. She gets a funny feeling in her tummy when she tries something new and thinks she has no bravery at all.

In his kindly way, Seeya explains that in each of his youthful adventures he had to face new challenges and that he always had a funny feeling in his tummy at those moments; bravery means recognising the challenge of something new and then doing it. These stories are wide ranging, opening new cultural experiences to young children, and all told with a wonderful sparkle of humour. The illustrated country maps are striking and I particularly loved the painting of Enzo Ferrari!

This is a perfect book to enjoy sharing with young children. The author’s Sri Lankan/Australian heritage provides an awareness of different cultures, the family dynamic is portrayed in a lovingly positive light, children will delight in the humour and it is a great discussion starter for conversations about confronting fears. Highly recommended for everyone of 4+.

Where Do Teachers Go At Night? By Harriet Cuming, illustrated by Sophie Nora

Where teacher go at night

Written by a teacher with many years’ of experience, this hugely amusing picture book with bouncy rhyming text reveals the secret life of teachers after the classroom door has closed for the day! The illustrations are perfectly designed, resembling a mixture of watercolour and crayon familiar to all who work in primary schools. They portray the activities with great humour and children will love spotting the accessories that highlight each teacher’s personality and speciality. In addition, this book falls into the category of teaching children new facts without them even realising it, with the action taking place all over the world and a summary map at the end.

I can see this book being extremely popular with young children and providing a creative spark for their own ideas about what their teacher might do out of hours!

Where Else Do Teachers Go At Night? By Harriet Cuming, illustrated by Sophie Nora

where else teacher go at night

Not content with their many adventures in Book 1, the intrepid and energetic teachers are off around the world on a new set of out-of-hours adventures! Again Harriet Cuming’s amusing, rhyming text is perfectly complemented by Sophie Nora’s colourful and richly detailed artwork. The locations ranging from the Andes, to Cork to Outer Mongolia are rendered with humorous geographical detail which both amuses and educates.

This is a book which will reward repeated readings and provides many fascinating details for young children to explore.

Little Steps Publishing provide teacher’s notes which include ideas for artwork and classroom activities based on these two books, you can find them here:

http://d.site-cdn.net/6cd93335c8/a13ed7/5589-where-do-teachers-go-at-night-teaching-notes.pdf

Atlas of Ocean Adventures by Emily Hawkins and Lucy Letherland

This stunning, oversized book is the perfect addition for any classroom or school library with a phenomenal quantity of information for children of 7+ to pore over.

You are invited to take a guided tour of the world’s five oceans, to meet their inhabitants and discover their behaviours. The book is divided into five sections, one for each ocean arranged in order of size. Each double page spread is fully illustrated by Lucy Letherland. Her style is packed with playfulness and humour, perfect for children’s non-fiction, clearly seen on the faces of the North American sea otters and the dance moves of the blue-footed boobies of the Galapagos Islands. Apart from multiple pictures demonstrating different characteristic behaviours, each page also contains a map clearly showing the location and an annotated diagram of the creature’s most significant facts.

The text, by Emily Hawkins comprises a main summary paragraph on each page, with wave-shaped sentences arranged around the pictures, which add to the overall feel of movement within the book. The level of detail will keep even the most enthusiastic wannabe oceanographers entranced for many hours. I spend two hours mesmerised, and could easily imagine spending many more studying the astonishing variety of life that our oceans sustain..

At the end of the book you will find a section about the dangers to our oceans and some practical ideas about actions that might help protect these essential habitats. Finally, there is a “seek-and-find” challenge, which I know that many children find extremely appealing.

This is a book that I am sure will provide hours’ worth of entertainment and education for primary school children, and I expect that this particular copy will be out on permanent loan as soon as I add it to the library. I will certainly be looking for further titles in the series by this talented author and illustrator partnership.

Amazing African Storybooks

The Small Five written by Ralph Johnstone, illustrated by Harriet Stanes

Most of us have heard of the Big Five, those five magnificent animals that safari holidaymakers most wish to see; but have you ever heard of the Small Five? No? Neither had I, until I read this hilarious book by Ralph Johnstone, gloriously and riotously illustrated by Harriet Stanes.

Told in humorous rhyming text, the story introduces the big five of lion, elephant, leopard, rhino and buffalo; I loved the adorable puns, such as lion being the “mane man”! The Battle of the Bush begins when their tiny namesakes – antlion the doodlebug, rhinoceros beetle, buffalo weaver bird, leopard tortoise and elephant shrew challenge them to a test of survival skills.

This is an entertaining introduction to some amazing African wildlife which I feel sure will be enjoyed again and again by young readers and any adults who have the pleasure of reading it aloud. It also contains the excellent message that being big and tough isn’t everything, no-one should be overlooked just because they are small. I highly recommend it, and don’t forget to look out for the little Colotis butterfly on every page.

My thanks to Little Steps Publishing for my gifted copy of this book, in exchange for an honest review.

Africa Day written by Chi Mary Kalu and illustrated by Jelena Jordanovic-Lewis

This is a vibrant and wonderful celebration of the joy of African culture as a little boy accompanies his mother on a trip to the Africa Day Festival. From the glossy illustrations on the front cover of you feel the joy of Emeka as he embarks on his exciting day out. The illustrator Jelena Jordanovic-Lewis has captured the exuberance of the festival on every page with her kinetic artwork in earthy tones.

Readers are introduced to the new vocabulary of Emeka’s culture: Ankara and dashiki shirts, kente shorts, the language Igbo, jollof rice and moi moi and share his exhilaration as he dances through the day.

A marvellous picture book, pulsating with energy, which I highly recommend for any child of three years and older to explore.

Thank you to Little Steps Publishing for my review copy of this glorious book.

Review: Seek and Find Cities by Kate Baker

This colourful, informative book is perfect for opening up the world to primary school-aged children. The “blurb” describes it as “The ultimate urban treasure hunt” which is an excellent description. Cat and her friend Bird, set off on a whistle stop tour of celebrations, sights and marketplaces around the world, with each full-colour double-page spread featuring a different city. Starting with an ice-rink in a Toronto city square, the variety in this book includes Carnival in Rio de Janeiro; a Running Festival in Sydney; The Day of the Dead in Mexico City; and marketplaces in Marrakesh, Nairobi and Moscow.

As you visit each scene there is a list of objects to spot on the busy, bright, boldly illustrated pages, which encourages careful observation from the reader. This will appeal to fans of “Where’s Wally” with the added appeal in this book of a short, factual description of each object. I shared this book with a Key Stage 1 child during library time and he was utterly engrossed throughout a 20 minute session and asked to borrow it from the library immediately. It was very clear that the task of seeking the objects was totally engaging. At the end of the book there are pages of additional facts on flags, clothes, animals, landmarks, food and souvenirs from the featured countries. A perfectly balanced combination of child-friendly text from Kate Baker and visually arresting illustrations by Sandra de la Prada make this an excellent addition to any school or home library.

Thank you to Toppsta and Lonely Planet Kids for my copy of this super book, which is already a big hit in the school library!