Smallprint - Your guide to the world of children's books

New release: Tell Me Something Happy Before I Go to Sleep

Willa is afraid to go to sleep – the little bunny is worried that she will have nightmares. Fortunately, her brother, Willoughby, is older and wiser. He teaches her to think only about all the happy things that will be waiting for her when she wakes up again. Covering a theme that is sure to strike a chord with many young children, Tell Me Something Happy was written by Joyce Dunbar, with illustrations by Debi Gliori. This boardbook version, priced at £4.99, is published by Doubleday (an imprint of Random House) for children up to five years of age.

New release: The Saddest King

The Saddest King is the story of a land of very happy people. By order of the King himself, everyone has to be happy. All the time. So when a young boy flouts the law by crying, he is sent to see the King at once. Will he be able to convince the King that there’s nothing wrong with feeling sad sometimes, and that emotions are nothing to be scared of? Chris Wormell’s new book, from Jonathan Cape (an imprint of Random House) costs £10.99 in hardback and is for children between five and seven years of age.

New release: A Kiss Goodnight

Lullabies are popular at the moment, with Little Tiger Press also releasing a collection of bedtime writing for children between two and six.

A Kiss Goodnight is a collection of lullabies written by Claire Freedman, with illustrations from a variety of classic artists. Priced at £5.99 in paperback, it should be perfect bedtime material.

New release: Amazing Baby

Three new books have been added to Templar’s popular Amazing Baby range. Lullaby Baby!, Yum, Yum Baby! and Night, Night Baby! are all mid-sized books with simple themes that babies can relate to.

Lullaby Baby! (£9.99) is a collection of some of the most familiar and well-loved lullabies, accompanied by a 30-minute CD of soothing lullabies performed by the group FUNtastic.

Yum, Yum Baby! and Night, Night Baby! (£4.99 each) deal with food and bedtime in the distinctive Amazing Baby way, with photographs of babies and bold, simple graphics of familiar objects.

More information on the range is available at www.amazingbaby.net.

New release: The Tale of Tales

With echoes of The Canterbury Tales, this new book from Corgi (an imprint of Random House) tells the story of a group of animals travelling to Volcano Valley to hear the greatest story of all – the Tale of Tales. On the way, the animals take it in turns to tell stories to entertain their friends.

Priced at £4.99, The Tale of Tales is aimed at children between five and seven years of age and is written by Tony Mitton, with black and white illustrations by Peter Bailey.

New release: The Junkyard Dragon

Daisy is nearly six and she knows exactly what she wants for her birthday – a dragon. That’s not so unusual, but Daisy actually wants a real, LIVE dragon! What is her family to do? Dinosaurs in the museum aren’t good enough, neither are crocodiles in the zoo, and elaborate dinners cooked in the shape of dragons (with bacon for wings) don’t really come close. The big day dawns, but will Daisy get her wish?

Written by Beth Webb, who has been performing The Junkyard Dragon in schools for several years, the book is illustrated by Russell Julian. From Lion Children’s Books, it costs £5.99 in paperback and is aimed at children between five and seven.

New release: Mini-hardbacks

Little Tiger Press has released a range of popular picture books in a mini-hardback format. Running to 32 colour pages, each book costs £4.99.

The titles include I Don’t Want to Have a Bath (written by Julie Sykes and illustrated by Tim Warnes), Dora’s Eggs and Smudge (Julie Sykes/Jane Chapman), When Will it be Spring (Catherine Walters) and Little Mouse and the Big Red Apple (A H Benjamin/Gwyneth Williamson).

All of the books fall into the 3-7 age range.

New release: Rotten and Rascal

Rotten and Rascal are twins. That’s often a recipe for trouble at the best of times, but when you consider that these are twin pterosaurs, you’ll understand that the trouble is on a different scale altogether. Rotten and Rascal spend the days screaming, snarling and shrieking at each other. One day their arguing is louder than usual and the other dinosaurs try to calm them down, but it takes the intervention of the biggest, baddest dinosaur that ever walked the earth to finally make them shut up. Written and illustrated by Paul Geraghty, and published by Red Fox (an imprint of Random House), Rotten and Rascal is on sale now, priced at £5.99 in paperback.

New release: The Amazing Spider-Man Pop-Up

Templar is launching a new series of Marvel pop-up books, spearheaded by The Amazing Spider-Man. The first in the Marvel Comics True Believers Retro Character pop-up books, the webslinger’s adventures are yours for £14.99 and feature stunning artwork in the finest Marvel tradition. Told in comic strip format, with pop-ups, fold-outs and pull-tab action, the book details how Spider-Man came into existence and introduces seven of his deadliest adversaries, including Doc Ock and the Green Goblin. Details on further titles in the range will follow soon…

New release: Mole’s Bedtime Story

Doubleday (an imprint of Random House) is re-issuing this popular children’s story with new artwork by Richard Fowler and a Pop-through-the-slot feature. Mole is tired, but he keeps getting into the wrong bed. Elephant’s bed is lumpy, Mouse’s bed is squeaky and Kangaroo’s bed is bouncy. The Pop-through-the-slot feature lets children slide mole into each bed in turn and, hopefully, finally find his own comfy bed and get to sleep. Written by David Wood and priced at £6.99, Mole’s Bedtime Story is aimed at children up to five years of age.

Review: Bruno

Publisher: Robinswood Press
Author: Guy Hallifax
Illustrator: Rebecca Sands
Age range: 3-6
Price: £7.95 (paperback)
Website: www.robinswoodpress.com

Bruno flumped down on the back
doorstep. This was not good.
Not a good day at all. He’d got his
mouth all ready for biscuits. He
really, really wanted biscuits.

He closed his eyes for a big think.

Bruno, the little bassett hound puppy in this book by Guy Hallifax, does a lot of thinking – but then, there’s a lot to think about when you’re the smallest puppy in the litter and you need to work hard to get noticed.

Bruno contains three stories, ‘Bruno and the big think’, ‘Bruno and the biscuits’ and ‘Bruno and the snowy stuff’. The illustrations, by Rebecca Sands, steal the show. Bruno himself is an extremely lovable creation, perfectly capturing the charm of a puppy.

New release: Row Your Boat

Everyone knows ‘Row, row, row your boat’ and this board book from Egmont gives it a new lease of life. Pippa Goodhart has penned a new version over 10 colourful spreads (with illustrations by Stephen Lambert) and there is a push-button sound chip to help your little ones sing along. For children between two and four, Row Your Boat costs £4.99.

New release: My First Christmas

This ‘magnetic adventures’ book from Candle Books features a simple retelling of the Christmas story for children of three and older, with bright, colourful cartoon drawings. The bonus is that you get a set of magnetised cut-out people and animals (and a bright star), in the same fun cartoon style, to place on scenes in the book. Written by Tim Dowley, the illustrations are by Helen Prole and the book costs £7.99.

Review: The Emperor of Absurdia

Publisher: Macmillan
Author/Illustrator: Chris Riddell
Age range: 3+
Price: £10.99 (hardback)
Website: www.panmacmillan.com

The Emperor of Absurdia was having
the most extraordinary dream.

All of a sudden
he woke to the
hoots of the sky
fish nibbling the
umbrella trees.

Absurdia is a very strange place indeed. A place where lunch is served immediately after supper. A place where emperors go on dragon hunts (and, for that matter, a place where dragons go on emperor hunts).

Having dressed with the help of his loyal subject the Wardrobe Monster, the young Emperor navigates umbrella trees, pillow hills and bouncy mountains in search of a little dragon.

New release: Kofi to the Rescue – Bullies Beware

Kofi to the Rescue – Bullies Beware is the second title in Mushirah Wilson’s ‘Bad Bwoy’ series, from BIS Publications. In his first adventure, Kofi wanted to be a ‘Bad Bwoy’, a rebel who is both admired and feared by other children, but now he’s mended his ways and is standing up to bullies in his school.

At a time when bullying is getting a lot of attention in the national media, Kofi to the Rescue emphasises the message that bullying is not cool, and that bullies should always be identified so they can be dealt with. Aimed at children of four and older, Kofi to the Rescue costs around £5.99.

Review: Greedy Grumpy Hippo

Publisher: Rockpool Children’s Books
Author/Illustrator: Stuart Trotter
Age range: 4+
Price: £5.99 (paperback)
Website: www.rockpoolchildrensbooks.com

Hippo filled his picnic basket with…
sandwiches, apples, bananas, strawberries,
yoghurt, carrots, cheese, orange juice and
boiled eggs. “Yum, yum!” he said.

You can understand Hippo’s enthusiasm. That really does sound like a great picnic, but the problem is he has no intention of sharing it with anyone else – because today, Hippo is greedy and grumpy.

Review: Big Bully Hippo

Publisher: Rockpool Children’s Books
Author/Illustrator: Stuart Trotter
Age range: 4+
Price: £5.99 (paperback)
Website: www.rockpoolchildrensbooks.com

“Give me a drink,” roared Big Bully Hippo.
“Say please,” said Lion.
But Big Bully Hippo didn’t
and he drank all of Lion’s drink.
“What a big bully Hippo,” said Lion.
“He didn’t even say thank you.”

Oh dear, this is just one example of the boorish behaviour of Hippo, who really is a big bully. He squashes bicycles, pops balloons and kicks footballs, all without so much as a “please” or “thank-you”.

Review: The Fantastic Mr Wani

Publisher: Little Tiger Press
Author/Illustrator: Kanako Usui
Age range: 4-7
Price: £5.99 (paperback)
Website: www.littletigerpress.com

Mr Wani the crocodile was in a hurry.
He was almost late for a party in town.
So he started to run.

So starts the incredible tale of the fantastic Mr Wani. Late for a party (the Froggies have asked him to come along at 11 o’clock on Sunday) he starts to hurry.

This is a bad idea, but this isn’t a simple ‘more haste, less speed’ story. A lack of speed is not the problem for Mr Wani – the trouble is he is going much too fast.

New release: Little Red Riding Hood

The London Philharmonic Orchestra has released a CD featuring three classic children’s stories, narrated by CBeebies presenter Chris Jarvis. The orchestra is conducted by David Parry.

First on the CD is Little Red Riding Hood, adapted from Roald Dahl’s version in his Revolting Rhymes. The Three Little Pigs follows, also adapted from the Roald Dahl version, while The Snowman, with music and words by Howard Blake, rounds off the disc.

Priced at £9.99, the CD is available now.

Review: Our Stripy Baby

Publisher: Macmillan
Author: Gillian Shields
Illustrator: Paula Metcalf
Age range: 3+
Price: £10.99 (hardback), £5.99 (paperback)
Website: www.panmacmillan.com

Zack didn’t have spots,
like everyone else.
He had stripes.
The stripiest stripes
Zara had ever seen!

When Zara’s new baby brother arrives, it is something of a shock. Everyone in Zara’s world has colourful spots, but Zack is stripy. At first, Zara is hugely disappointed – Zack just doesn’t seem like a ‘proper’ baby at all, and she looks with envy at Max, her friend’s little brother.