We have chosen some of the most exciting children’s picturebooks published this year. There are books for a range of ages, books reflecting diversity, and having lots
Lantana Publishing
Age 3-7

A Story about Afiya, James Berry, illus. Anna Cunha
Lantana Publishing
Age 3-7

In this beautifully illustrated re-imagining of the poem by celebrated poet, James Berry, Afiya’s childhood world is magically created and captured in the ever-changing patterns on her white cotton dress. From sunflowers to butterflies, pigeons to tigers, waves to boulders, the dress is printed with images. Yet, next morning, it is fresh, like a blank sheet of paper, and ready for the new day’s adventures.

Listen to the story read aloud by a young reader 
Visit our activity page
Buy here 

Albert Talbot Master of Disguise 
Ben Manley, illus. Aurélie Guillerey
Two Hoots
Age 5-7

Albert Talbot has a very vivid imagination. He spends his days imagining he is a dangerous villain or a brave adventurer. His journey to school is an expedition as he becomes fearless mountaineer Rusti Buffels. When sharing his model at school during show and tell he is famous inventorProfessor Octavious Pickleswick. During swimming lessons, he is a brave undersea explorer. But when nighttime comes Albert decides it is nice to just be himself being tucked in cosily by his mum. A book which will encourage lots of imaginative play, dressing up and conversation, turning everyday events into mini adventures.
Buy here 

Bears Love Squares
Caryl Hart, illus. Edward Underwood
Bloomsbury, 
Age 3-5

Bear is very fond of squares and no matter how much raccoon tempts him with a variety of other shapes pointing out the distinctive features eg a triangle and all the fun you can have with circular hoops or balls even stars do not tempt him. Becoming desperate raccoon has one last go and makes a heart for Bear. Bear is very impressed, but he still loves squares!

An amusing rhyming book in a highly appropriate square shape which is great fun to share and return to. It is likely to prompt an interest in shapes around us too.
Buy here

The author Caryl Hart looks for squares at home and introduces her book. 

The Book of Not Entirely Useful Advice 
AF Harrold, illus. Mini Grey
Bloomsbury
Age 7-11

If you ever considered wearing a snake as a belt or having a picnic with a tiger this is the book for you. Packed with (not entirely useful) advice and lots of warnings eg that bears might be hiding under your cornflakes or the dangers of confusing your lunch box with your pencil case.

Topics range from food and animals to school life and indeed life in general this book packed with very silly poetry by AF Harrold perfectly matched Mini Grey’s brilliantly comic illustrations likely to lead to lots of giggles.

There are interactive elements where readers can for example use the Advice tron to select their own advice and add their own ideas for ways sausages might be useful if you are lost at sea.
Buy here

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Clean Up                                         Nathan Bryon, illus. Dapo Adeola
Puffin Books
Age 5-7

Rocket is really excited; she is going to visit Grammy and Grampy who live in Jamaica. They run whale watching tours, own a wildlife sanctuary AND Grammy is brilliant at surfing! While there, Rocket is shocked by the amount of rubbish on the beach and how it is affecting the wildlife. She decides to do something about it.

This is a delightfully illustrated story with a determined main character who sets out to make a difference. This is a story to raise awareness of the threat of plastic pollution on our oceans and ocean creatures and encourage small scale activism.
Visit our activity page
Buy here

Honey for you, Honey for me  
Michael Rosen, illus. Chris Riddell
Walker Books
Age 0-5

This is a collection of playground songs and nursery rhymes collated by Michael Rosen and beautifully illustrated by Chris Riddell. Adult readers may recognize a few here eg ‘Jelly on the plate’ and ‘The North Wind Shall Blow’ but there will be lots of new discoveries too.

Great to share with children dip into develop favourites read or sing and maybe act out together.
Listen to Michael Rosen reading some of the rhymes.

This book would make a perfect companion to A Great Big Cuddle by the same team which contains Michael Rosen’s original rhymes. See our activity page here for A Great Big Cuddle 
Buy here

Just One of Those Days
Jill Murphy     
Macmillan
Age 3-7

The Bear family are having one of those days. After oversleeping, just about everything goes wrong. Both Mr and Mrs Bear have mishaps at work and at Nursery things don’t go well for Baby Bear either. ‘Someone Else’ has his favourite dinosaur toy and ‘Someone Else’ has his favourite mug. When they get home, they console themselves and put it all behind them. Mr Bear treats them all to a pizza and a surprise for Baby Bear.

This is a delightful story full of warmth and humour in the words and the illustrations which both adults and children will relate to. A welcome return of the Bear family we first met in the picturebook classic Peace at Last 40 years ago.  

Visit our activity pages for Peace at Last and Whatever Next (also about the same family) 
Hear the book’s creator Jill Murphy talk about the book 
Buy here

Last                                                  
Nicola Davies
Tiny Owl
Age 7-9

A lonely rhino pacing a zoo in a cold colourless world fears he is the last of his kind. He dreams about happy days with his mother before she was killed, and he was snatched from his home. Look closely and you can spot a child watching, a child who grows into an adult who helps return the rhino to the wild where he finds another rhino and is no longer alone.

There is lots to talk about here in a book Inspired by a true story, which highlights the plight of the white rhino and the power of every individual to notice and take action. This is the first book which acclaimed author Nicola Davies has illustrated as well as written. Colour is used very effectively to contrast the rhino’s experiences in captivity and in the wild. Carefully selected snippets of text support of the theme of the book.

Buy here
Nicola Davies

Pirate Stew
Neil Gaiman, illus. Chris Riddell
Bloomsbury
Age 7-9

What if mum and dad go out for the evening and choose a pirate cook as a babysitter? In Pirate Stew we find out exactly what might happens. This is a splendid, rollicking rhyme of a picture book guaranteed to delight young readers. The illustrations are just fabulous, packed with comic characters, lots of detail and pirate themed fun. Look out for the many references drawn from classic pirate books such as Treasure Island and Peter Pan.
Buy here

Author Neil Gaiman introduces his book and reads aloud from it here;

You Choose Fairy Tales 
Nick Sharratt (illus) and Pippa Goodhart
Puffin Books
Age 5-9

Imagine you could be in your own fairy tale, what kind of a hero would you be? This book gives you lots of choice to help you build a fairy tale in which young readers take the starring role. Choose to be a pirate, a princess or a billy goat. Decide whether you live in a palace, a gingerbread house or a crooked house. What are your talents? Where will you go, what will you take? Who is your friend and who is your enemy?  

Every page presents a stunning array of new choices in Nick Sharratt’s distinctive artwork. As you work though the book your tale can build. When you finish start again and build a different story! Creative and interactive this is a book designed for sharing and lots of talk. The latest in the very popular ‘You Choose’ series which includes You Choose in Space, You Choose your Dreams and the original book You Choose.
Buy here 

Neil Gaiman reads aloud from the book here

Ted Hughes
Faber and Faber (other editions available)

Age 7-9

The Iron Man was written nearly 50 years ago by the poet Ted Hughes, originally to entertain his own children. Told in five chapters representing five nights it is ideal for bedtime story reading over a week.

The book tells what happens when a mysterious iron giant arrives in a farming community. Initially treated as a threat, The Iron Man later becomes a hero saving the world from a dangerous space monster. It is mainly told from the point of view of Hogarth, a young boy who forms a friendship with the Iron Man. Exciting, poetic and dramatic this book is great for read aloud to children. There is lots to think and talk about too with the dilemma of what to do about the Iron Man for example.

Watch a narrated animation of the opening of the story here.

Talk about the story

If you pause after each chapter you could talk about:

Ch1: What might happen next.

Ch 2: What the farmers could do about the Iron Man and how Hogarth felt.

Ch 3: How the Iron Man felt about being in the scrapyard.

Ch 4: What the Iron Man’s idea to save the world from the space-bat-angel-dragon might be

After finishing the story you could talk about:

Favourite parts of the story and anything your child wonders about.

What everyone thinks about the Iron Man at the beginning of the story and at the end – and why this changes.

 Things to make and do

Re read parts of the story

Go back to the opening and have fun reading it together: ‘Where has he come?’ from ‘Nobody knows’ etc

Make an iron man

Make an iron man from junk – cardboard packets cover in foil.

Make a story scene

Create a scene from the story using small figures, collage pictures and your junk model Iron Man. Watch this animation for inspiration:

Write a menu

What would an Iron Man eat? Write a menu for him

Make a picture

Draw or paint a picture of the final challenge between the space-bat-angel-dragon and the Iron Man

See our print-off activity book with some of these ideas and other activities

Find out more

Read more books by Ted Hughes. Titles for children include:

The Iron Woman

Nessie the Mannerless Monster

Meet my Folks

How the Whale Became and Other stories

Although most of his books are out of print secondhand copies and Kindle versions are available.

Watch a film

Watch the Iron Giant, a film animation based on the Iron Man. See trailer.

Talk about the two versions and which your child prefers

Listen to sounds from Space in this YouTube video ‘The Music of the Spheres’

Buy The Iron Man

Kes Gray, Garry Parsons (illus)
Red Fox
Age 3-7

Many children might want a bike or a computer game for their birthday, but not Billy. He is determined to have a bucket, nothing else will do! Having persuaded his parents to buy him one Billy chooses his birthday bucket very carefully, a magical bucket with amazing discoveries inside. This appealing story about the power of imaginative play is great fun to read aloud and provides lots to talk about and do

Share the story

Read aloud
Before starting to read the book aloud look at the cover together. What might Billy be looking at? What do children think will happen in the story?

Read the story aloud allowing time to pause and talk about what is happening or the pictures.

Talk about the story
Look back at the beginning of the story and talk about why Billy might want a bucket for his birthday, why his parents seem to think this is strange and why they keep asking to borrow his bucket. What do children think?

Join in
Re read the book encouraging children to join in with some of the things Billy says such as ‘You must never ever borrow my bucket.”

Tell the story
Once children have heard the story a few times they can be encouraged to retell the story in their own words using the pictures to guide them. They may well slip in some of the words and phrases from the story as they do, listen out for that!

Watch the video
Watch the video on the author’s Youtube channel:

 From: Kes Gray

Things to make and do

Play a memory game
In the same way as the game I went to market and I bought adds a new item with each turn play ‘In Billy’s bucket there was’ with children. Each person can choose things from the story and perhaps, other creatures as well. For example:

First person ‘In Billy’s bucket there was a crab’
Second person ‘In Billy’s bucket there was a crab and some seaweed’
First person ‘In Billy’s bucket there was a crab, some seaweed, and a shark’ etc…

Bucket play
If you have a seaside bucket children can fill it with water and choose plastic toys to put inside. A washing up bowl could be used as well. This could become a ‘Guess what’s in my bucket’ game. It’s great if you have plastic ocean creatures but other small plastic toys would be fun as well, after all it is a magic bucket! Children can make up their own stories about the creatures in the bucket or bowl.

Make a picture
Using paints or crayons children can paint or draw a ‘What’s in Billy’s bucket?’ picture choosing some of their favourite creatures from the story.

Make an information book
Make a mini book about some of the sea creatures in the story. Children can draw a picture on each page. Children beginning to write for themselves could write something they know about their creature on each page as well.
Click here for how to make a zig zag book.

Sing a song

Make up a song about the creatures in the story to a well-known tune.eg

To the tune of ‘Down in the Jungle’
Deep in the bucket where nobody looks
There’s a great big whale washing his socks
With a rub a dub here and a rub a dub there …

Deep in the bucket where nobody goes
There’s a great big shark washing his toes…. Etc

Or a new version of Old McDonald had a farm:

‘Billy had a new blue bucket….

And in his bucket he had a….’

Sing an Under the Water Song together here.

 
Find out more

Find out about Kes Gray and his other books here

Titles include:

Eat Your Peas

Yuk!

Leave me Alone

Find out more about ocean creatures by going to the National Geographic for Kids website and typing in ‘ocean creatures’ into the search bar at the top. 

Children love hearing funny books read aloud and returning to them again and again. Stories in which absurd things happen, stories which use funny words, stories in which adults and children’s roles are reversed, stories which reflect and exaggerate everyday situations, stories in which the illustrations add to the humour.

Here is our selection of funny picture books compiled with the help of our patron Marilyn Brocklehurst.

We hope you and your child enjoy them.

Counting books offer lots of fun opportunities for learning about numbers and counting.

Hippos go Berserk  Sandra Boynton
Simon and Schuster
Age 3-5

First published in 1977, this tale of a hippo preparing for a party with groups of friends, helpers and an unexpected monster guest arriving is great fun. The groups of hippos can be counted as they arrive; with older children you might attempt a running total of the hippo arrivals. There is a climax midway through the book as the party gets going and the hippos go… berserk! This appears an all-night party and the next morning they gradually leave, so you can count down until one hippo is left all alone again.

Ten Fat Sausages Michelle Robinson, Tor Freeman (illus)
Andersen Press
Age 3-7

The ten fat sausages in this version include some rebels who refuse to comply with expectations. Disrupting the traditional rhyme, they try to escape before going ‘pop’ or ‘bang’. However their plans are thwarted when they each meet an equally awful fate within the kitchen. Definitely a case of out of the frying pan into the fire. Magnificently macabre with humour which will delight many children, this is not a book for the faint hearted! The illustrations are very striking with very expressive sausages and a rhyming text which skips along. As well as introducing the idea of subtracting twos this book would be great fun to read together – with one of you as narrator and the other as one of the would be escapees. You could have fun with dramatic sound effects. It may inspire more sausage storytelling with other bids for freedom.

Watch a trailer

Watch an animation of the original rhyme from the BBC website

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YNNBHQTfb8k