TEY_10_1_2020

THE MOONLIGHT ZOO (Little Tiger Press, hardback, £12.99) All great picture books have visual appeal, but whereas some opt for striking simplicity, others are made to pore over and never cease to yield previously overlooked details to the attentive reader. That The Moonlight Zoo , written by Maudie Powell-Tuck and illustrated by Karl James Mountford, falls into the second category is apparent from its blue-foiled cover alone, its die-cut windows offering a taste of the magical illustrations within that leaves you hungry for more. Inside, we follow Eva as she discovers a zoo for lost animals beneath her bed, and sets out to track down her missing cat before it closes at dawn. The scenes and creatures depicted have a wonderful dreamlike quality, while peep-through cutouts offer glimpses of what’s to come. There are humorous touches which lend a surreality to proceedings that children will love, and a happy ending that will please all pet owners. This is also a title that flies the flag for inclusivity, with Eva’s unremarked-upon hearing aid a simple but powerful detail. FLY FLIES (Cicada Books, hardback, £9.95) Children face many frustrations, one of which is being told on a regular basis that they’re ‘doing it wrong’, and that if they’d only change their approach to ours they’d enjoy far more success. No matter that we have their best interests at heart, no matter that we (hopefully) make our suggestions sensitively, it’s still got to rankle. Fly in Fly Flies can definitely relate – she’s happily minding her own business, practising her own particular brand of flying, but a succession of other airborne creatures can’t help but butt in to tell her that she’d be, amongst other things, much quicker/more graceful/less lonely if she adopted their own personal technique. Understandably, she eventually loses her cool – but then she finds a fan, who doesn’t believe she needs to change a thing. Author Ziggy Hanaor’s story contains the valuable lesson that others don’t always know better, while Alice Bowsher’s striking, high contrast illustrations will engage even the youngest children. GNOME (Andersen Press, hardback, £12.99) Have you ever wondered where all those garden gnomes come from? The answer, according to Fred Blunt, is far more shocking than you might have expected (particularly if your answer was “the garden centre”). The truth is revealed through the story of one Mr Gnome, who, it’s fair to say, is not a people person. No matter what question the polite narrator puts to him, he answers in the negative; when faced with an equally polite hedgehog in distress, he becomes downright aggressive, culminating in a two-page tantrum worthy of the most ‘terrible’ two-year-old. Not even the arrival of a witch with a perfectly reasonable request is enough to persuade him to change his ways, and… well, you can probably see where this is going. Now, we certainly don’t want to threaten our obstinate naysayers with supernatural retribution, but there’s no harm in conveying the message that it’s nice to be nice; most importantly, though, your children will love this laugh-out-loud tale at every telling. TheBookCorner GREAT TITLES TO SHARE WITH YOUR BUDDING READERS 56 Teachearlyyears.com