Michael Foreman
Puffin Books
Age 5-7+

The book introduces young children to ideas about valuing our world and sharing it with all living things. The main character, anxious to reach the stars, seems to represent mankind as a whole and what we are doing to the world in our ceaseless quest for power and technology. What would happen if all living things are destroyed in the process? Maybe, just maybe, below the Earth’s surface dinosaurs are waiting to reclaim the Earth! This is a story which will lead to lots of thinking and discussion.

Share the story

Read aloud
Before starting to read the story aloud, look at the cover together, what do you see? What might happen in this story?

Read the first page and talk about the man and what he might be dreaming. Read the story aloud to your child pausing to talk about what is happening when they want to.

Your child will enjoy hearing the story read again, they will notice different things and want to talk about them

Watch the story

From ISH Story Time Mr Silvester  PrimISHcasting

Talk about the book
Talk about the book together and share what your child likes or doesn’t like and anything that puzzles them. Think together about the world belonging to everyone, to be enjoyed and cared for. What can we do to help look after it?

Things to make and do

Play the story
Using a sand pit or earth your child could bury toy dinosaurs (or card shapes of dinosaurs) so they are just peeking out and re enact the part of the story when the dinosaurs emerge from under the earth.

Another way to play the story

You will need a large tray, eg builders’ tray or sand or water tray, fill it with a layer of damp soil and some  stones or rocks. Arrange a few items of clean recycling, eg  small plastic bottles or cartons and lids then sprinkle fast growing seeds over the tray eg cress, grass, forget me nots or sweet peas. You could talk about what seeds need to grow and that some of the rubbish will decompose and some won’t. Children could retell parts of the story in the tray with toy dinosaurs if you have them or make up a new story.

Paint a picture
Give children a  piece of paper and paints to make a colourful picture of the beautiful world at the end of the story with flowers, trees and lots of wonderful animals and birds.

Make a poster
Using the poster template provided your child can make a poster about looking after our world.

Find out more

Read more books written and illustrated by Michael Foreman

The Littlest Dinosaur

Why the Animals Came to Town

Fortunately, Unfortunately

War and Peas

Seal Surfer

Mia’s Story

If you are able to get to a natural history museum with dinosaur exhibits look at the dinosaur bones and skeletons, talk about how big they were.

Find out some theories why dinosaurs became extinct here.

Sort out your household waste for recycling with your child – what materials are they made from? Talk about the importance of recycling.

Reading a chapter book for the first time is traditionally viewed as a badge of honour on the road to becoming a confident reader. We have included a selection of titles here which children developing experience and confidence as readers may enjoy. However many picture books have plenty to challenge young readers so should not be cast aside.

You might want to share the reading for the books with more text here such as The Owl who was afraid of the Dark and The Magic Finger. Although children need to be able to read most words so that they can understand and enjoy the stories don’t worry if they can’t read every single word accurately.  Some children may want to read the books aloud to you, others may prefer to read to themselves (even if they are actually reading out loud as they do!)

The Greatest Show on Earth sets out to tell the 4.6-billion-year story of life on Earth in a picturebook. We discussed this wonderful book by Mini Grey with a group of young readers aged between 7 and 11. They had lots of interesting questions. We put their questions to Mini who has kindly answered them here:

Imogen How/when did you get the idea to create The Greatest Show on Earth? Did someone inspire you to make this book?  Mini When my son Herbie was about 5 years old, we spent a lot of time hanging out in the Oxford Museum of Natural History. Gazing at the dinosaur skeletons, I realised there were enormous gaps in my knowledge of prehistoric life, and I didn’t even know how old the Earth actually is.  So really it was the dinosaur skeletons in the Oxford Museum that inspired me! Matthew Why did you make it? Mini  I wanted to show life on earth as a story, and I wanted to show the whole story so the reader gets an idea of the framework of time.  The more you find out about the evolution of life on Earth, the more staggering and awe-inspiring it is, and that’s really why I made this book. Finding out about how everything evolved means you start to see the story of evolution in everything around you and how we’re all connected. Imogen Why did you choose to do this book as a shoe box theatre?   Mini In my book I wanted Rod and the Troupe to tell Earth’s story – but with ordinary materials, with cardboard and string and packaging – the sorts of materials anyone might be able to find around the house or in their recycling bin. My story is told by insects: even the smallest creatures with the humblest materials can aspire to tell Earth’s amazing story. We all can, it’s all of our story. Naomi  How do you know about the different facts inside the book?  MIni When I’m making pictures, I often like to listen to online talks and one of my favourite topics is prehistoric Earth and animal evolution. But then when I started properly researching the Greatest Show I read books – some for adults, but also books for children (which always have more pictures!). I had to check my facts, and also draw different prehistoric animals – and researching images and content online was a good way to do this. I also asked expert professors to check I had my facts straight. Esme How did you choose what (ie information) to put in and what to leave out?   Mini This is such a good question – sometimes what to leave out can be as important a decision as what to put in. The amount I had to leave out was colossal – I only had 48 pages to work with! I decided to focus mostly on the evolution of animals a bit like us, eg fish, amphibians, reptiles, dinosaurs. In the timeline at the bottom, I could only really tell one or two things about the Earth’s climate and geological goings on – so again I tried to pinpoint one or two key things that affected animal life particularly at the time. Naomi How/why did you decide on a timeline tape measure?  MIni When I found out the age of the Earth I just wanted to see what that looked like, and hold 4.6 billion years in my hand. A tape measure is a pretty ordinary household object that you might just find lying about, and it can be rolled up and unrolled, which is useful. Esme How did you come up with the idea for how you have set it out and organised the information?   Mini I sometimes find non-fiction books difficult to read because there’s so much information presented simultaneously, and I don’t know where to look first. I made a toy theatre for a project with Pollocks Toy Theatre Museum, and I realised that the toy theatre layout gave me different areas for different activities to happen: a main stage, wings on either side and an orchestra pit along the bottom. I thought I could use this format to break down my information, so you know where to look first. Dylan What gave you the idea of using household objects to describe the history of earth? Mini I wanted this story to be a performance – so that you’re not seeing what actually happened, but a re-enactment of it. It started with wanting the story to be told by a cockroach – and from there – the shoebox theatre had to be on a dump. The dump could be full of materials the insects can use to make their props: I love the idea of transforming rubbish into puppets. Also I love drawing tin cans, bottles and packaging. Dylan How long will it take for humans to really respect other life forms?  MiniDylan – that is an incredible question to ponder! I think there are many, many people who love and respect nature – including all the people who work with nature – and I think children particularly love nature and animals. Scientists, especially, can see that we live within a precious, unique cathedral of life, and we mustn’t carelessly let all this diversity ebb away. But the voices of the people who care don’t seem to be heard by the people in power – the people in government. How can we get them to care too? Imogen What was your goal for this book – was it for people to really enjoy reading it?  Mini Yes! I really wanted my readers to enjoy the show and to entertain them! I wanted my book  to be easy to read, but also for lots of facts and insights to be there if you wanted to look for them. My goal was to bring Earth’s timeline to children –and to show our Earth and the animals on it changing through time, enormous amounts of time. We live on an extraordinary, unique planet: everything – from the mites in your eyelashes to the woodlouse under that stone – is interesting.   Matthew Was The Greatest Show on Earth your favourite book you made?  Mini It’s been the longest book to make! But, yes, it could be my favourite because the making of it involved finding out as much as possible about the story of Earth. The more you find out, the more you find out you don’t know! So, I still want to carry on finding out more about this story – and new animals are being unearthed all the time, so there’s always more to discover.   The book prompted lots of conversation For example: ‘If we carry on evolving – will humans have noses in the future?’ The cataclysmic events in the Earth’s history were of particular interest and ‘what came first the chicken or the egg… ?’ Here are some of the children’s comments: Matthew (7) I like the cover, it makes you want to read it. Naomi (9) It’s funny, informative and clever. Instead of a full-on facts book, it’s insects doing a show. Imogen (10)  It’s intriguing. If you want to learn about the earth but don’t want to go through all that studying, you could read this book and you’d be happy as well as knowledgeable! Dylan (11) It brings adults and children together with the illustrations – they start a discussion. Esme (8)  I like the cooking up a planet idea, it’s like a recipe – though it’s going to take much longer! Buy The Greatest Show on Earth available in hardback now, paperback edition available from April 2023.

Gabby Dawnay, illus. Alex Barrow,”
Thames and Hudson
Age 0-5 years

A little girl thinks about different animals she might have as a pet and decides that she would like a sleepy sloth. She describes the reasons she would like one, because they are smiley and good at gripping and hiding. She talks about all the things they might do together, playing games, swimming but mostly…. chilling!

This is an appealing and amusing picture book for the very young with great illustrations. The rhyming text and picture clues make it easy for young children to join in with reading once they are familiar with the story. This is another in the series by the same team. See our activity page for If I had a Dinosaur.

Watch the story read aloud by David Schwimmer on CBeebies

Share the story

Read aloud
Before starting to read the book to your child look at the cover together and talk about the animal pictured and other kinds of animals your child knows it reminds them of. If you have a copy of the hard back book you could feel the texture of the sloth on the cover too.

Read the story aloud to your child.

Join in
Children can join in with the opening spread – naming the animals the little girl might choose as pets from the images. If you leave pauses your child might like to supply the rhyme at the end of each couplet. Children of 4 or 5 beginning to learn to read can follow the words as they curve over the pages with their finger as you re read the story.

Talk about the story

• Share favourite pages together and why you like them.

• There are some words which are likely to be new to your child such as ‘peek’, ‘hammock’ and ‘camouflage’

• Talk about what pet each of you would like if you could have any animal in the world and why – as exotic as you like.

Things to make and do

Be like a sloth
You could both try being very, very still like a sloth. Which of you will move first?! Can your child close one eye like the sloth in the cover illustration? Try dragging your body along the ground like a sleepy sloth. Go to the park and use the climbing frame to hang upside down and move like a sloth. Make your movements very slow, gripping on really tightly to the climbing bars.

Play hide and seek
See if you can be as good at hiding like a sloth, trying to keep very still and choosing where you hide carefully so you can’t be seen.

Make a rainforest setting in a large tray
Set up a large tray or builders tuff spot with greenery cuttings and house plants, pieces of bark, twigs and logs. Add some small wild animal toys. You and your child could hide different animals in the foliage and see if they can be found.

Make a picture
Make your own picture of a sloth hanging upside down. You could add camouflage to your picture with tree bark, twigs and leaves using paint or collage.

Find out more

Read more books by this author and illustrator team:
There are two more books In the same series:
If I had a Dinosaur (see here for our activity page) 
If I had a unicorn

Other books by the same team:
London Calls
A Possum’s Tail
A Roller Coaster Ride Around the Body

Find out about sloths:

• Find out about sloths from information books or online

• Watch a video filmed in an American zoo

• If possible visit a zoo such as London Zoo to see sloths living in a rainforest environment

Find out about animal camouflage:

Look at photos of some camouflaged animals, can you spot them? See here

Your child might like to make their own picture of imaginary animals hidden by their camouflage.

Adopt a sloth

To help with their protection and conservation adopt a sloth

https://www.folly-farm.co.uk/adopt-an-animal/sloth-adoption/

https://shop.zsl.org/content/adopt-sloths

Julia Donaldson, Rebecca Cobb (illustrator)
Macmillan
Age 5-7

A little girl makes some paper dolls with her mother’s help. She names and plays with them constantly, having all sorts of adventures including escaping danger from a dinosaur, tiger and crocodile. Holding hands, the paper dolls escape all of these dangers until they meet the ultimate threat – a pair of scissors! Cut to pieces, the only place the dolls can fly is into the little girl’s memory along with many other very special things. And then, years later, she is able to teach her own daughter to make paper dolls too.

A lovely story with beautiful illustrations about imagination, memory, and links between generations which will give you lots to talk about and do.

Watch a trailer which animates the beginning of the story

Share the story

Read aloud
Read the book aloud pausing when your child would like to talk about what is happening in the story or pictures. Pause when the boy cuts up the dolls. What would children like to happen next?

Join in
When children become familiar with the story they could join in as you re read it with the paper dolls’ song and the words of the dinosaur, tiger and crocodile eg ‘I’m coming to crunch you!’

Talk about the story
Talk about the different dolls and the names for them, what might each of them be like?

Can you spot the butterfly slide on every page?

Talk about the boy cutting the dolls up. Why might another child (boy or girl) do something like that?

Talk about how the little girl might have felt at different points in the story

Share memories; what special things (toys, places, or people) do children remember or which nice things would they like to remember when they grow up? Talk about your own childhood memories. Did an adult teach you to make something special?

Watch the story
The author, Julia Donaldson reads the story and talks about it here.

Things to make and do

A parent writes...

Samantha tells us about sharing the book and our activity ideas with her daughters.

‘Both my girls (aged 6 and 8) really enjoyed The Paper Dolls. It is a tender, partly rhyming and comfortingly repetitive tale that is easy for children to remember and recite back - it was a real winner with my two.

My eldest daughter enjoyed reading it out to us herself and using the repeat of the dolls’ names in a rhythmic way which sounded nice. The book is not without its emotional challenges, and my youngest in particular was a bit upset when the paper dolls were destroyed. Although the dolls’ destruction was a shock, it does teach young children about loss, how ultimately nothing lasts forever and how all things change which is a valuable life lesson to take away. Her favourite part was the scene in the girl’s imagination where the dolls live again and as she rather poignantly said; “the granny is keeping them safe.” 

In response to the demise of the dolls, both my girls made their own paper dolls, the eldest from a book where they could be cut out and designed, and my 6-year-old made her own jellyfish versions! (She has a particular interest in jellyfish, the reasons for this are known only to herself!)’

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Make paper dolls
Help your child make a chain of paper dolls. You could follow the instructions on the video link or webpage or use the pictures in the book to guide you so that some dolls are wearing trousers and some dresses. Your child could then decorate and name them, making sure each one is special and different.

Make your own story
Children could make up a story with their own paper dolls – perhaps their dolls will be in danger from a scary animal attack. You could play the story together using a toy or improvised glove puppet (oven glove perhaps?!) for the imminent danger to the dolls.

Make a story book
You could help your child write their paper doll adventure story in a zig zag book and then they can illustrate it.

Make a memory box
Using a shoe box children can put in a few special things, objects, photographs and drawings. They could decorate the box to make it look special with wrapping paper and label it ‘my memory box’. Encourage your child to tell another member of the family about their memory box and what is inside. This would be an opportunity for older family members to share memories with your child too.

Find out more

Find out about the record breaking longest chain of paper dolls made in 2013 here

Maybe you could make a really long chain of paper dolls too! Maybe some friends could help.

Read more books by author Julia Donaldson here

Titles with activities on LoveMyBooks are:

The Gruffalo

Room on the Broom

The Snail and the Whale

Tyrannosaurus Drip

What the Ladybird Heard

Read more books by Rebecca Cobb here 

Lunchtime

The Something

Missing Mummy

Aunt Amelia

The books in our list challenge traditional stereotypes and gender marketing, demonstrating that being a girl does not require you to dress or behave in a certain way and you can be the hero in the story too. They show strong female characters choosing what they want to play with, having adventures and standing up for themselves. Our list includes recently published books and well known stories. There are also real life stories here of significant women, some alive today such as the inspirational Malala and some who have made a difference throughout history as well.

We hope this collection will help inspire girls to aspire and that you will enjoy sharing them with your daughters, and with your sons too.

Many young children are endlessly fascinated by dinosaurs, enjoy playing dinosaur games and finding out amazing facts about them. Here you will find a selection of some of the best dinosaur stories for you to share together with lots of ideas for fun activities to extend children’s imaginative play. Ways of learning even more about dinosaurs are included as well for budding experts.

IT’S EASY! JUST CLICK ON A BOOK FOR ACTIVITIES

Our specially chosen books about dinosaurs

Maurice Sendak
Red Fox                                      
Age 3-5

Dressed in a wolf suit, Max gets up to mischief and is sent to bed without any supper. In his imagination or dreams his bedroom becomes a forest. He  finds himself on a journey to the land of the Wild Things. After a strange adventure Max realises he is lonely and wants to be ‘where someone loves him best of all’. This is an award winning picture book which taps into children’s sense of mischief, magic, adventure and ultimately, need for the security of a safe and loving home.

Share the Story

Read  aloud
As you read the story aloud pause occasionally to allow children time to talk about the pictures and think about what might happen next.

Join in
When you read the book again encourage children to join in with the parts they remember – they might like to read the words in capital letters eg ‘WILD THING!’ And ‘WE’LL EAT YOU UP!’ Encourage them to roar ‘terrible roars’, roll their ‘terrible teeth’ and show ‘terrible claws’ as if they are ‘wild things’ too.

Talk about the story
Children may have thoughts and questions about the story they want to share with you. Allow time to discuss them.

You could ask children how they think Max felt when he was sent to bed without any supper or if they think the wild things are scary. It doesn’t matter that there isn’t a ‘right’ answer to questions like these. Talking about their ideas and feelings will help children deepen their responses and develop their understanding of the story.

Tell the story
Encourage children to tell the story in their own words as you show the pictures. Listen to the way they tell it, they may begin to use some of the words or phrases from the story in their own re tellings

Watch the story read aloud here 

from Happy Cultivated

Things to make and do

Make a map
Using a large sheet of paper pens and pencils children could draw an imaginary map of Max’s journey to the land of the wild things.  Encourage children to talk to you about their map and show you Max’s route.

Story play
Fill a baby bath, tub or paddling pool with water. Place a small figure to represent Max in a toy boat so he can go on a journey to the land of the wild things.

If you don’t have a boat you could make one from a plastic container, with a stick for a mast and paper or fabric sails. Don’t forget to put Max’s name on the boat – or perhaps your child’s own name!

Make a crown
Using card make a crown for your child to wear to be Max king of the wild things. Children could gather toys together to be the wild things and act out the story.

Have a wild rumpus!
Play some favourite party music and dance together just like Max and the wild things.

Write a postcard
Give children a postcard shaped piece of card or download this postcard template and suggest they pretend they are Max writing a postcard home to tell his Mum what he has been doing in the land of the wild things.

Find out more

Read another story by Maurice Sendak
In the Night Kitchen

Michael Rosen, Chris Riddell (illus)       
Walker Books
Age 0-5 years

This is a delightful and award winning book. Full of fun and language play, it’s a perfect entry to the world of poetry and rhyme. Very young children will want to hear, and repeat these contemporary rhymes again and again, just as they can with traditional nursery rhymes.

There’s lots which will resonate with young children and their parents as many of the poems tap into familiar feelings and experiences; being excited about a party in Party Time, feeling anxious in Lost, being told what to do in Are you Listening? or wanting to have a go at something in Let me do it.

This is an inspired collaboration between two of our Lovemybooks’ patrons; a great poet, Michael Rosen, and a great illustrator, Chris Riddell, with joyous results.

Share the book

You could read the poems in order or browse and dip into the book, stopping to share the pages that take your fancy. Children will develop their own favourites (and so will you!) and enjoy hearing you reading them again and again. Encourage children to join in with the words and actions and perhaps with completing the rhymes.

I don’t want, Oh Dear and Let Me Do It are just three of the poems with repeated lines or choruses which would be great fun for children to join in with.

The illustrations are absolutely delightful and children will enjoy looking at them and talking about them. Which are their favourite pages?

Watch Michael Rosen perform ‘I am Angry’ here:

Kids’ Poems and Stories With Michael Rosen

Visit Michael Rosen’s YouTube channel with more performances from A Great Big Cuddle

Things to do

• Recite The Button Bop  when you are buttoning up clothes.

• Dance to Tippy-Tappy and Music.

• After sharing Boing Boing children can try to roll up like a ball or pounce like a tiger. Wiggly Wiggly will encourage lots of delightful wiggling, jiggling and giggling.

• Finger story  will encourage finger play and thinking together what fingers can do.

• Practise counting down together with Party Time.

• At mealtime you can repeat the words of Lunchtime, crunching and munching.

• In I AM HUNGRY you can have fun together talking about all the things you’d eat if you were really hungry, or what makes you really angry in I AM ANGRY. Can children make a really angry face?

• With Once they can enjoy looking scary like a terrible ‘Berrible’ perhaps looking at their faces in a mirror! Children might like to draw their own picture of a terrible Berrible.

Find out more

See our top ten poetry books here

More about poetry and rhyme here

Walker and Booktrust have produced some downloadable activity sheets on this book.

Read more books by Michael Rosen. His books for the very young include:

We’re Going on a Bearhunt

This is Our House

Little Rabbit Foo Foo

Michael Rosen has also written a wide range of poetry and information books for older children and also the Uncle Gobb series of novels Uncle Gobb and the Dread Shed

Chris Riddell  has illustrated many children’s books and is author and illustrator of the Ottoline and Goth Girl series. See our activity ideas for Ottoline and the Yellow Cat here.