Superworm, by Julia Donaldson and illustrated by Axel Scheffler

This story by Julia Donaldson is about a worm who is super-long and super-strong.  Watch him wriggle! See him squirm! Hip, hip, hooray for SUPERWORM!

Superworm goes around helping the other creatures , he is a Super-Hero and is loved by all the other creatures.  But there is a nasty Wizard lizard who wants to use Superworm for himself to find him treasure, his servant crow captures Superworm and brings him to the Wizard Lizard who puts him under his power, but when Superworm tries to escape he can’t as he is under the wizard’s magic spell.

Story continues with his little friends freeing him from the Lizard..

The book is fast paced, each page is full of action, exciting and fun to read, more great rhyming catchy text throughout from Julia Donaldson, kids quickly start to memorise and chant aloud with you.

The illustrations from Axel Scheffler are quirky and fun throughout, each page is full of bright and colourful detail helping children to understand the story even more.

Great story and nice to see the worm made into a Superhero, recommend this for ages 2up.

Adam`s Pirate Treasure

By bestselling and award winning author Benji Bennette and illustrated by Roxanne Burchartz (Cartoon Saloon).

This is one of a series of books about Adam and his amazing adventures; Adam`s Pirate Treasure is all about Adam being a pirate and his adventure with his crew of scallywags as they embark on a fulfilled swashbuckling adventure in search of Adam’s pirate treasure.

“Come on!” said Adam to the girls and boys, “Let’s take to the sea`s and find us some toys!”

With a hop and a skip they jumped on to their ship, hoisted the sails and set off on their trip.

The book is full of rhyme and fun; it’s exciting to read as each page is filled with beautiful illustrations to capture children’s imaginations. The crew head off to find the treasure of toys on a tropical island, the island is full of all the toys they could imagine, games, stickers, toys, everything a child could dream of.

As the sun starts to set, the crew bury the treasure chest and head back to the ship.

Would really recommend this book, it’s a lovely story for both girls and boys and the pictures on each page are magical.

Gangsta Granny by David Walliams

Story by David Walliams and illustrated by Tony Ross

Ben is an eleven year old boy who has to stay with his granny every Friday night as his parents are big fans of ballroom dancing and go every Friday night, leaving him to stay with granny. Ben finds this really boring and would rather be home, Granny eats lots of cabbage and wants to play scrabble all the time.

Ben mistakenly finds a selection of Jewellery hidden away. He is then intrigued about his Granny and when spying on her stops her breaking into a Jewellers. This leads to Granny explaining how she is an international jewels thief and Ben is amazed to find out that his granny isn't boring after all, she isn’t a regular granny!

Ben and granny go on a jewel quest, to steal the crown jewels and from here the adventure begins, there are lots of funny parts with some sad too, lovely story to share with children.

This is a fun book to read with great illustrations to go with the story, another David Walliams book with great humour for children and adults to enjoy.

 Children’s Book Festival

2013 marks the twenty-third consecutive year of the CBI Children’s Book Festival. It runs for the month of October every year and sees libraries, schools and bookshops across the country hosting events with the very best Irish and international children’s writers and illustrators.

CBI was able to spearhead this celebration of books for young people throughout the country. The Children’s Book Festival has now become an all-Ireland event. The idea of a recommended reading guide has been retained and CBI’s Recommended Reading Guide is published every year to coincide with the festival. The 2012 festival comprised of more than 1,000 events and involved almost 50,000 young readers spread across every county in Ireland.

Look out for an event near you!

http://www.childrensbooksireland.ie/childrens-book-festival/

'Billionaire Boy' by David Walliams

This book is very humorous and fun, enjoyable to read and can be a little sad at times.

Joe Spud is a twelve year old boy he is a Billionaire who`s overweight and has everything except a friend. He goes to a very expensive posh school and has everything his own formula one race car and a 1000 seater couch. He wasn’t always rich, his Dad worked in a loo roll factory making loo rolls every day and one day decided he was going to make something of himself he invented a special loo roll called Bumfresh and quit his job and started up his business which became a huge success.

Joe is lonely, he doesn’t have a single friend, the story follows Joe on his quest to find a friend, where he learns about trust and companionship, and ultimately that money can’t buy friendship.
One day Joe decided he was going to quit his school as he was being bullied and called names, he wanted to move to the local school and be a “normal” boy in the hope of finding a friend.

The story follows Joe on his quest to find a friend, I would recommend this book for ages 9-14

Some Dogs Do, by Jez Alborough

This is a magical story which really gets the imagination working, my children love this story and they are always really happy & excited after it. The story is about Sid a dog who sets off to school one day and on his way he discovers he can fly, he is really happy and excited and asks his best friend Ben “Did you see me fly just then?” “Don’t be daft” said Ben “Dogs don’t fly.”

Nobody believed Sid and when he tried to show them he wasn’t able to fly again, that day he went home feeling sad, he tried to do the things he normally did but something just wasn’t right.

Then as he sat looking up at the sky, his Dad came out to chat and see what was wrong with Sid, soon Sid discovered his Dad had a secret!

Once Sid learned the secret he was a very happy pup from then on. This is a lovely story to read with lots of rhyme so very easy for children to follow and easy for parents to read it gives a positive message to children and adults to believe in yourself and keep on trying and to always believe in your dreams.

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.

The Gruffalo writen by Julia Donaldson and illustrated by Axel Scheffler, is a witty story about a cheeky little mouse who finds a clever way to protect himself from animals such as a fox, a snake, and an owl as he makes his way through the deep dark wood.

The mouse invents a mythical creature the `Gruffalo` with which he uses cleverly though words to scare off the other creatures as he tells them he is going to have dinner with the Gruffalo! The mouse manages to get past all the animals safely only to be met by the Gruffalo, who also wants to eat him!

He must then outwit the Gruffalo as he makes the Gruffalo agree to follow him through the forest and see how all the animals are afraid  of the him.

There language is repetive with lots of snappy rhyme, which makes it very easy for the reader and the audience to follow and understand.  The illustrations are bright, colourful and very imaginative. This book is a big favourate for children of various ages, I have a three, four and six year old who all adore this book and will happily have it read to them over and over again.