Blog posts of '2013' 'July'

A squash and a squeeze written by Julia Donaldson and illustrated by Axel Scheffler.

Another great story by the writer of the Gruffalo, this story is about a lady who feels her house is too small, my house is a squash and a squeeze she grumbles, when a wise old man hears her and offers to help.

The wise old man says bring in your hen; bring in my hen what a curious plan!

So the story proceeds with the wise old man advising the lady to bring in all her animals one by one and each time the house is getting to be more and more of a squash and a squeeze!

In the end the wise old man tells her to take out all the animals, to which she realises her house is perfect for one, it isn’t a squash and it isn’t a squeeze!

This is a lovely story for children, with great pictures and lots of rhyme, easy to follow and great fun to read again and again.

My three children love this story and we have been reading it for the last few years, they never get bored of it and now the two year old is really enjoying it!

Room on the Broom written by Julia Donaldson and illustrated by Axel Scheffler, this story is about a friendly witch and her cat which take a journey on her broom, but as they are flying through the sky on this gusty day, the witch has the misfortune of losing some of her possessions.

As they fly down to find them they meet some new animals who ask if they can join them on the witch’s broom.  The witch being the friendly witch that she is and thankful to the animals for finding her belongings invites these new friends to join herself and the cat on the  broomstick.

The animals fly up into the gusty sky and unfortunately the broom breaks with the weight of all the passengers and the animals go crashing down. The witch is then chased by an angry dragon who wants to eat her.

How will the witch escape this scary dragon and will she see her friends again? This is a fantastic story told in the Julian Donaldson rhyming form easy to read and lovely to listen to with beautiful illustrations which are bright, colourful and very imaginative.  Another excellent story by Julia Donaldson and Axel Scheffler.

Zog written by Julia Donaldson and illustrated by Axel Scheffler, this story is about a young Dragon who is attending dragon school and is the “keenest one by far, he tries his hardest every day to win and golden star”. Each year othe dragons are given different tasks to learn, in year one the dragons are learning how to fly. Zog flies into a tree and is helped out by a little girl who gives him a plaster.

Each year the dragons are given new tasks to learn by Madam dragon, each year Zog gets himself into a spot of trouble only he is lucky enough to be rescued by the same little girl.

She comes to his rescue once again as he needs to capture a princess which luckily for Zog she is and agrees to go with Zog, then the following year the dragons learn to fight, a knight in turns up to rescue the prince and Zog prepares to fight, but the princess doesn’t want to be saved.

She wants to be a doctor as does the knight, together they decide they will help people and Zog decides to be their air ambulance, this is a wonderful story,  fun and told with the Julia Donaldson rhyme throughout, with colourful and great illustrations from Axel Scheffler.