Favourites Shelf - Summer 2018

It has been such a wonderful summer so far and we have been spending so much time outdoors that we have been particularly selective about what we are reading. So our 'Favourites Shelf' really represents the best of the best! And I've tried to include a mixture of BookBairn and The Wee Page Turner's favourite books.

Here are our most recent favourites and repeat-reads:

One book that we have read again and again is 'The Bear and the Piano' sound book by David Litchfield that we got for Christmas but didn't really get into until I had a bookish spring clean in April. It's the beautiful story of a bear that finds a piano, and having learned to play beautiful concertos, he heads to the big bright city and sees his name in big bright lights. But he longs to return to the forest. And will his friends be waiting for him after he left the behind? The illustrations in this book are some of the most beautiful I have ever seen! They really are incredible. It's sensational. And if you want an added element, the sound book features short snippets of beautiful piano music. BookBairn said when we read this recently: "I love the music, it makes me feel happy."

The book I have read the most this month with BookBairn is "Mrs Mole, I'm Home" by Jarvis. We picked it up in the library and have pretty much read it every day since. She loves Morris and his escapade to find his way home without his glasses to help him see where he is digging. She finds it so funny that his glasses are balanced on his head throughout the story (perhaps this reminds her of her Papa who is constantly laying his glasses down and asking her to remember where they are?). The illustrations are packed full of fun details and BookBairn particularly enjoys spotting all the books in the owl residence (one of them has her name on it) and tracing the maps of where Morris has been digging. It's a lovely story packed full of humour and I have enjoyed reading it every day for a month so it's got to be pretty good to keep our attention that long.

This is a great example of a story told with very few words! (And it's great for bedtime because it doesn't take too long to read after a long day!) It tells the story of Dave, the caveman, who decides that he is fed-up with his cave and he packs up his things and heads off to find a new cave. He tries out a few but none seem to fit. And he slumps, downhearted back, when he spots one last cave. It's perfect! But is it a new cave? Or has he returned to his home sweet home? The illustrations are great - all the humour packed into them makes me laugh and we spend as much time discussing the pictures as we do reading the actual story. The only problem with this book is that I don't do a very good caveman voice apparently.

This is a story packed full of wit and humour that I absolutely do not mind reading over and over again. It tells the story of Triangle who sets off on a journey to see his 'friend' Square and to play a trick on him. And when the trick creates hilarity for Triangle, Square is furious and chases Triangle all the way home and gets stuck in the triangle-shaped doorway. But perhaps he's about to get his own back? So much is conveyed through the illustrations that it's no wonder that BookBairn loves it. I wouldn't say it was laugh out loud funny, but rather more a deep, wry humour, which I love! And so does BookBairn!

The Wee Page Turner keeps bringing this book from room to room (which is rather funny in that he puts his hands on it and uses it to slide around on!) and he loves to be read the story. It's a tale of a lost hat blown away by the wind. But it's the Queen's hat. And so it flies all over London landmarks. Using a simple red, white and blue colour palette, the landmarks are set to shine on each page. BookBairn loves this too as she is utterly fascinated by Big Ben and Tower Bridge. And it's a great one for us to read when Daddy is away working in London.

'I Thought I Saw a Bear' by Lydia Nichols has been pulled out of The Wee Page Turner's book basket time and time again! As with the others in the series, each page repeats the phrase “I thought I saw a...” and then using the slider you can reveal the creature. He particularly loves when the bear slides on the cover and when he pops up in the car. This book has a transport theme with bear popping up in lots of different vehicles and modes of transport so it's perfect for adding in lots of transport vocabulary too. These are very simple, very clever little books that are great for entertaining little readers and perfect for popping in your bag for out and about stories.

We borrowed this from the library and The Wee Page Turner loved it so much that I bought him a copy of his own. He seems to prefer this to some of touch-and-feel books that we have, perhaps it's the mixture of textures and photographs or perhaps it's just because I have to make lots of silly animal noises as we read? But he simply loves it.

Postman Bear is a lovely lift-the-flap story about a bear, who is a postman, delivering party invitations to three of his woodland friends. It's an incredibly simple story making it a great one for The Wee Page Turner, and with interactive elements to keep his fingers busy it's no wonder that he enjoys this one so much!


So those are our most recent favourite reads! What have you been enjoying reading recently? And if you can't wait to see our next quarterly installment of our Favourites Shelf, I always include a book or two in our monthly Little Loves blog posts!

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*Disclaimer: Some of these books were sent to us by publishers for review and others are ones that we have borrowed from the library or purchased ourselves. These are our genuine re-reads so all opinions are our own.