Poppy Cat Birthday Treasure and The Mystery Trail are part of a collection of books about Poppy Cat. There is also a TV series on Nick JR and Poppy Cat can be found at http://www.poppycat.com/

Birthday Treasure finds Poppy Cat on her birthday where she is given lots of lovely presents by her friends including a treasure map that takes her on an adventure in a hot air balloon into the mystery jungle.

The Mystery Trails find Poppy Cat and her friends on the mystery of Owl’s disappearing book complete with their own detective kit. The adventure takes them on a trail to the purple pine forest.

Poppy Cat is illustrated with bold bright colours with the characters drawn in a simple way and Poppy Cat herself has a lovely beaming smile. My 2 children love watching Poppy Cat on the television so were very excited when these books arrived and they read them straight away. As the books are simply written they are ideal for reading aloud with your children as well as early reader books.

Reviewed by Wendy.

Thanks Wendy and thank you to Macmillan for sending us a copy to review.

What’s black and white, and flies faster than the speed of light? The Space Penguins!
These books are part of an action-packed new series that feature intergalactic penguins and their foes.

There are five main characters, each of whom is introduced at the start of the book with their own little biography and mug shots. The names are based on famous space characters and heroes – Captain T. Krill, Beaky Wader, Rocky Waddle, Fuzz Allfrin and Splash Gordon. The books can be read alone, as their as an introduction to the story in each book or as a series.

Each book sees the space penguins off on a space exploration, in their ship Tunafish with the help of their speaking computer ICEcube that are filled with adventure and excitement.

Star Attack sees them receive a distress call and ongoing to help they are captured by their old friend Beaky Wader, who now likes to be known as Dark Wader! And his band off robot seals. They manage to escape but they don’t realise that a jelly-can from Dark Wader has attached to the Tunafish.

In Cosmic Crash the book starts with the Tunafish being chased by Squid-G Fighters to teach them a lesson for escaping and they end up splash landing on a watery planet with a monstrous sea creature.

The books are a great read and are written with humour that both adults and children will love. They are written and illustrated in black and white and I particularly love the illustrations of Dark Wader. They are ideal for boys, and am sure would encourage reluctant readers to pick up a book, but they will also appeal to girls and my daughter loved them and found them very funny.

Reviewed by Wendy.

Thanks Wendy and thank you to Stripes Publishing for sending us copies to review.

This storybook is about all the shapes that we see around us. It starts with the shape we are and moves through the day and all the shapes that we see, such as a noisy street full of cars and a zoo full of animals. It ends with the most important shape of all that of a heart, which is full of pictures that have been seen in the book and the lovely words … ‘and this is the shape I love you with.’

The illustrations are bright and very busy and great for little ones to study at great length. They are though nice and simple and ideal for copying to encourage children to draw. All in all a lovely book to share and look at, my little boy particularly liked all the pictures and naming everything that he could see.

Reviewed by Wendy.

Thanks Wendy and thank you to Bloomsbury for sending us a copy to review.

The First thing that you notice about this story is the beautiful illustrations that are individual works of art, and when I looked into the author I found out why, she is also an artist who has exhibited her work in over 100 shows in Britain and overseas
The author was apparently inspired to write this story by a portrait painted by her grandfather, who had a pet lemur. The Lemur’s Tale begins with a sad Lemur who has been stolen by thieves from his home in Madagascar and is now stuck in a cage on a boat. One evening the Lemur finds that his cage has been left open and he escapes and makes himself at home in a cosy house where Mr and Mrs Laruby and their daughter Lara lives. He eats various sweet treats and a rare orchid and then finds the perfect hiding place. Lara gets the blame for eating the treats until the family find the Lemur fast asleep curled up in the teapot!

The story is longer than the normal picture book and would be ideal for early readers too. It is an original story with great eccentricity which is brilliantly depicted in the inventive and humorous illustrations. The illustrations of Lara stomping off in a strop after she is wrongly accused of being naughty are pure perfection and one that every parent will identify with.

Reading it with my 6 and 7 year old they were captivated by the pictures, as well as the story and had great fun looking for the Lemur on each page.

Reviewed by Wendy.

Thanks Wendy and thank you to Templar for sending us a copy to review.

This book is part of a series of books designed for toddlers to show them what they can do for themselves. As the name suggests this book is about toddlers and their pets and it is a lift the flap book, which children all seem to love.

This is a simple story book about things you can do with animals, such as taking them for a walk, cleaning them out and of course giving them lots of love. On each page it starts with the affirming ‘I can do it….’

The illustrations are bright and comical and the flaps are large and easy for little hands. A nice little book to help children learn what they can do with animals.

Reviewed by Wendy.

Thanks Wendy and thank you to Templar for sending us a copy to review.

Toothy! is the nineteenth book in the Dirty Bertie series by Alan MacDoanld and David Roberts.

In Toothy! Bertie has to make a visit to the dentist with his mother and sister. Bertie is actually quite scared of the dentist (although he pretends not to be) and will go to extreme lengths in an attempt to miss the visit. There are a total of three mini stories in the book, which are Toothy, Zoom and Hot.

As with all of the ‘Dirty Bertie’ books, Toothy! is full of fantastic illustrations that really bring this hilarious story to life. Both children and adults alike will be laughing out loud at Bertie’s escapades.

Thank you to Little Tiger Press for sending us a copy to review.

Scroll down to enter our giveaway to win 1 of 10 copies of Toothy!

You can follow the Dirty Bertie blog tour tomorrow by visiting: http://sbroadhurstreviews.blogspot.co.uk/

Award winning author-illustrator Polly Dunbar is set to be the star of a magical free event on Thursday 25th April, which will be broadcast live over the internet to tens of thousands of primary school pupils across the UK.

Young fans of Polly’s books are invited to tune in as she brings her latest picture book, Arthur’s Dream Boat, to life with a little help from the Long Nose puppets, a variety of charismatic hand puppets, full body costumes and masks, all with huge personalities. This event is suitable for children aged 4-7.

Primary schools, families and, of course, kids will love this free Authors Live event, run by Scottish Book Trust and BBC Scotland Learning. The live event will be streamed live from the BBC Scotland Learning website on Thursday 25th April at 11am but will be available to watch again later the same day at: www.bbc.co.uk/authorslive.

The author and illustrator of many picture books, Polly is the daughter of the distinguished author Joyce Dunbar whom she collaborated with on the picture book Shoe Baby. Polly’s Tilly and Friends series of books has recently been made into an animated adventure for CBeebies and her best-selling book Penguin won the Nestle Silver award 2007, The Book Trust Early Years award 2007, The Red House Award 2008 and was shortlisted for the Kate Greenaway Medal. Polly is also the co-founder of Long Nose puppets, a touring puppet company who create inspiring, inventive and colourful puppet shows for the very young and have made successful adaptations of the books Shoe Baby, Fly Away Katie and Penguin.

The award-winning Authors Live programme is an exclusive series of authors’ events streamed live over the internet to provide young people, parents and teachers with the chance to get up close and personal with some of the world’s leading children’s writers. Run by BBC Scotland Learning and Scottish Book Trust, Scotland’s leading agency for the promotion of literature, reading and writing, the programme was the first of its kind in the UK. Anyone can sign up to watch and it is completely free.

All the events are available to watch again at www.bbc.co.uk/authorslive and http://www.scottishbooktrust.com/learning/authors-live/on-demand.

Bookbabbler Wendy has reviewed Bear’s Best Friend for us…

This picture book is a sweet touching little story about friendship.

Bear had lots of friends but he does not have a Best Friend. All his friends have best friends, for instance Squirrel has Mole and Rabbit had Frog so Bear thought who could be his best friend. Whilst Bear was thinking he made special topiary pictures for his friends and his friends liked them so much they held a party to show them off and soon everyone wanted a topiary picture of themselves but Bear was still sad as he had not found his best friend. Then one day he hears a shy voice and it is another Bear who becomes his best friend.

This book is illustrated in a slightly child like way with the Bear drawn as a child would draw and a restricted colour pallet of mainly brown and green that makes them feel slightly dreamlike and lovely and calm. The end picture of the Bears cuddled up with the topiary I love you is lovely and sweet. A perfect bedtime read.

Thanks Wendy and thank you to Bloomsbury for sending us a copy to review.

The Star Paws series is a fantastic set of animal sticker books for children. Books available include Party Time, Super Heroes, Princesses and Pirates.

In the Pirates sticker book, there are over 200 stickers with a pirate theme. Scenes in the book include a cat, dog and mouse at ‘Pirate Breakfast’, a Shipwreck scene and a Hidden Treasure page among many others. The centre of the book is filled with stickers, which can then be on all of the scenes.

This is a brilliant, fun book that will keep you busy for hours. Perfect for the upcoming Easter holidays.

Thank you to Macmillan for sending us a copy to review.

Bookbabbler Jan has reviewed Oh Dear, Geoffrey for us…

This picture book is about Geoffrey, a young giraffe who stumbles and falls when he tries to bend down to speak to the other creatures. It is a tale of friendship, differences and resilience.

This is a lovely book to read to younger children or to help early readers gain confidence.

There is a pleasing amount of repetition (“he’s very, very tall with a very, very long neck…and sometimes he’s very, very clumsy”) and alliteration (“his legs are wibbly-wobbly…and his knees are bendy-buckly”) with just the right amount of words on a page to engage with the reader.

It is a sweet little story but what really makes Oh Dear, Geoffrey special is the illustrations – Gemma O’Neil has hand rendered traditionally using watercolour, gouache, colouring pencils and collage. It really is a treat to look at each page.

We particularly liked the beautiful bright blue birds which appear on almost every page…which brings me to my only (slight) criticism of the book: we would have liked to know what kind of birds (and tree) were shown.

This is Gemma O’Neil’s first picture book – we look forward to her next one.

Thanks Jan and thank you to Templar for sending us a copy to review.