Tag / We Love Books

by jo

Richard Scarry’s Best Word Book Ever

Richard Scarry’s Best Word Book Ever is a fabulous book I remember from my childhood.

Richard Scarry's Best Word Book Ever

Richard Scarry’s Best Word Book Ever is celebrating its 50th Anniversary. I remember this book so well, I think we had it in hardback and I’d spend days looking over the pictures and naming them until eventually I got too old for it.

HarperCollins have just brought out an anniversary edition (priced at a very reasonable £6.99 rrp) which brings back the memories,  which keeps them going for future generations. I’d love to think H will read this until she too decides she’s too old for it which gets passed on to any future children of hers – I believe this kind of thing is known as a timeless classic?

The book has pictures, and is based around Busytown, everything has a name and is labelled, and as your child starts to learn to read this kind of thing is going to be really helpful with learning.

Looking through the pages I don’t remember a huge amount, until I got to the one about painting and drawing with colours and they flooded back. The two paint colours are mixed together to make another colour and to me it looks identical to the way I knew it 40 or so years ago. (gulp)

Richard Scarry's Best Word Book Ever

Richard Scarry comes from America but I didn’t spot any words which felt like this was a US edition. I did spot there were no eggplants or zucchini’s, so maybe they were avoided in the first place?

Richard Scarry’s Best Word Book Ever has pictures on each page and within that you’re asked lots of questions which is perfect for H at the moment. She loves to go through the contents of a page and examine everything so I feel this is a book she’s the perfect age for. She also starts school in a matter of days and I think it will help her a lot with word recognition. There are also lots of counting challenges as well.

If you remember Richard Scarry’s Best Word Book Ever from when you grew up, you’ll probably want to consider it for your child as well.

My best memories are the ones I can pass on to H which don’t feel out of date – this is one of them. I love it.

We were sent a copy of this book for review, all opinions are my own nostalgic ones and honest. This post contains an affiliate link.

by jo

We Love Books – The Runaway Bunny by Margaret Wise Brown

runaway bunny

This book was first published in 1942 and is a classic picture book. HarperCollins have made it available as part of their Essential Picture Book Classics.

In a lot of ways, this reminds me of ‘Guess How Much I Love You’ – which of course came many years later – but the themes are similar and are full of love (and rabbits).

The Runaway Bunny thinks about running away, but his mother has other ideas – but in a positive way. Bunny will be a boat, mother will be the wind that blows him home, for example.

H loved looking at the illustrations and enjoyed reading it – and it has a good loving message too.

 runaway bunny

Runaway Bunny by Margaret Wise Brown (and pictures by Clement Hurd) is published by HarperCollins Children’s Books in paperback and eBook formats.

We were sent a copy to review, all opinions are our own.

by jo

We Love Books – Wagtail Town – Lulu and the Treasure Hunt by Emma Chichester Clark

lulu and the treasure hunt

We were sent a copy of ‘Lulu and the Treasure Hunt’ from the Wagtail Town series by Emma Chichester Clark to review, and it has gone down really well with H.

Her first impression was what won her over – the first page is a map of Wagtail Town and given H loves those parts of her Topsy and Tim books, we were given detailed information (by H) of what was in every building – like ‘Mount Fuji Sausage House’ (we’ve no idea either!).

I’m definitely more of a dog person than cats, and enjoyed reading the story – Lulu is taking part in the New Tricks School treasure hunt, and has promised to look after little Bonnie who can’t run very fast. What will Lulu choose to do when she’s faced with staying with Bonnie or finding a clue?

lulu and the treasure hunt

There’s a good lesson to be learnt here – and I’ve found this book to be perfect for H’s age (3.5 years). We’ve been collecting more of the author’s ‘Blue Kangaroo’ series and yet again there’s lovely illustrations.

Wagtail Town – Lulu and the Treasure Hunt by Emma Chichester Clark is published by HarperCollins Children’s Books in paperback, priced at £6.99. It is also available in eBook formats.

We were sent a copy of this book to review, all opinions are our own.

by jo

We Love Books – The Paper Dolls by Julia Donaldson

The Paper Dolls by Julia Donaldson and Rebecca Cobb

Oh boy. The Paper Dolls by Julia Donaldson makes me want to cry. It’s good – but it’s a proper lump in the throat kind of book. H loves it – she doesn’t quite get it yet, so it’s currently a magical book where she’ll try to spot the butterfly hairslide on each page, and where a little boy ‘isn’t very nice’.

The book starts with a child who makes paper dolls with her mother. The paper dolls have adventures with the child and a happy time – but then something bad happens. But, as with all good memories, they don’t go away, even if they don’t exist in a physical form any more, and are passed on through the years.

The Paper Dolls by Julia Donaldson and Rebecca Cobb

That’s the bit that gets me. Every time. As a parent who will one day have to explain about my dad dying before H was born, I think this is a good book to explain if something isn’t there any more the good memories are – which is why this gets me every time. On a simpler level, a child losing a loved toy would also get it at this level.

We borrowed this book from the library, and I suspect we’ll be owning our own copy very soon. I had no idea a book, especially one for children, could make me well up like this. Highly recommended!

The Paper Dolls by Julia Donaldson is also illustrated by Rebecca Cobb, published by MacMillan Books, ISBN 0-230-74108-9

We Love Books at Mum Friendly