Review (Gifted)¦ We have been big fans of Nosy Crow books in our house for years! Whenever I’m browsing the children’s section of a bookshop and I see the Nosy Crow logo in the corner, I know it’s going to be a good ‘un! All their books are just so fun and interactive, really helping to spark a joy of reading within children. Aged 5, Autumn is quickly developing her reading skills and always thirsty to learn more. Reading books together, is of course, a great way to help this! We’re at the point where we’re teetering on the edge of needing picture books that you can read in one go and stories with multiple chapters. Aimed at ages 5-7, Wigglesbottom Primary: The Talking Lamb, Princess Minna: The Enchanted Forest and Cosmic Creatures: The Runaway Rumblebear are perfect for us to take the leap into reading longer books this summer.
Reading is one of our favourite things to do together. Now that Autumn can read and is steadily improving, I love listening to her read. We had a lovely chilled out moment reading in amongst the melee of the Blog On kids conference last week.
I’ve always been passionate about books (much to the annoyance of my husband and brother when they had to lift heavy boxes of all my books when we moved house), so it’s always a true delight for me to introduce Autumn to brilliant new books that I’ve found. The three we were recently sent by Nosy Crow to review definitely fall into that category. Let me introduce them to you too!
Wigglesbottom Primary: The Talking Lamb
Written by Pamela Butchart, Wigglesbottom Primary: The Talking Lamb is for lack of a better word, random! The craziest things happen to this Year 2 class and it results in an equal mix of cheeky trouble and hilarity. Autumn and I couldn’t stop giggling the whole way through.
The illustrations by Becka Moor are equally quirky and fun. They definitely help to keep the interest and engagement present for children who are just transferring over into slightly more grown up books. I like how specific words are also bold and capitalised to emphasise them. The way the book is written makes it ideal for children who are early on in their reading journey. Autumn is at the younger end of the suggested age range and could read most of the words in there, so by age 7 I expect she’ll be able to read this by herself very comfortably.
Rather than being one long story, this book is actually split into three stories: The Talking Lamb, The Art Class and The Wildcat. Our personal favourite was The Art Class. They are given free rein with their creativity by their art teacher while she meditates with her eyes closed and end up drawing on the walls, themselves and the curtains! Just as it looks like they’re all about to get into huge trouble with the headteacher, their art gets noticed as being something quite special and they all end up on TV!
This book is just one of a whole series of Wigglesbottom Primary books. We had so much fun reading this one that I’m definitely going to be buying her some of the rest of the series for her birthday next month.
Wigglesbottom Primary: The Talking Lamb is out now and available at Amazon for £5.95.
Princess Minna: The Enchanted Forest
Like most 5 year old girls, Autumn is obsessed with anything Princess related. As such, Princess Minna: The Enchanted Forest by Kirsty Applebaum was the book she was most excited about (especially when she saw it comes with stickers!)
The book is one story, divided into chapters with truly beautiful, colourful illustrations by Sahar Haghgoo. Autumn really loved the pictures and the storyline following Princess Minna’s adventure to wake up a sleeping prince with her best friend Lorenzo, the dragon. She loves sorting out problems in the kingdom. She can tame unicorns, kiss frogs and fight dragons (apart from Lorenzo) and she is very good at fixing things before it’s time for bed. Lots happens along the way in her exciting journey, but the heroine of the story manages to sort it all out.
Again, I like how certain words are emphasised for young readers in bold and a larger font. Autumn is easily distracted, but she was engaged the whole time!
When I was growing up, there didn’t seem to be many stories where girls saved the day and achieved the tale’s happy ending. It’s wonderful to see a character like Princess Minna in which young girls can see themselves.
Princess Minna: The Enchanted Forest is out now and available at Amazon for £5.95.
Cosmic Creatures: The Runaway Rumblebear
When I read the blurb to her, Autumn was really excited about this story about cute alien animals! I think the picture of the cute, fluffy, pink rumblebear on the front cover also helped to fuel her excitement. The main character Charlie, discovers that a cheeky rumblebear is stealing the town’s food and keeps him hidden while she tries to find his home. However, it’s not easy as he won’t stop eating and roars like a lion!
Written by Tom Huddleston and illustrated by Sophy Williams, I’d say this is the most ‘grown up’ of the three books we reviewed. The illustrations aren’t coloured and don’t feature quite as often, but they are gorgeous. This is also probably the hardest for children to read, so they’re likely to be at the older end of the target audience to be able to read it independently. Autumn read parts, but for the most part I read this story to her. There were a lot of words she hadn’t come across before, so it certainly helped to expand her vocabulary! She made really good predictions throughout about what might happen next and thoroughly enjoyed it.
Cosmic Creatures: The Runaway Rumblebear is out now and available on Amazon for £5.99.
Disclosure: We were gifted the aforementioned books in return for this review. As always, all views and opinions are honest and my own. Prices correct at time of publication.