Orangey the Goldfish, by Eddie Bee

Orangey the Goldfish, by Eddie Bee
Published by Fiction Entertainment
Amazon.co.uk/Amazon.com

This fun children's picture book follows the story of a growing relationship between an adventurous boy Billy and his new pet goldfish named Orangey. As Billy learns how to take care of his new pet goldfish who really loves to eat, we learn Orangey is a goldfish that talks.

I bought this a while back - it was a freebie on the Kindle charts. I hadn't looked at it since then so I took a small risk when I was visiting my brother's family and the kids asked for another bedtime story (we'd just read Billy and Monster's New Neighbor has a Secret).

Orangey the Goldfish isn't a very long story at all, and for a bedtime story, probably isn't the best. It's told in speech bubbles, so I had to try and change my voice a lot so the kids didn't get confused about which character was speaking. It's very simplistic, but ends really abruptly. I don't think I'll be buying the next book, so I don't know if it picks up at the beginning of #2, but it ends with Billy leaving Orangey to have his dinner, and Orangey getting panicked about where he's gone. That's the end. Very odd.

A sweet idea, but it didn't follow through properly. Probably one for children to read themselves.

It's been a while...

I've had a really busy couple of weeks, what with moving, settling in and visiting friends. Funny how everything comes at once!

Anyway, today I'm writing about a book I found out about a few months ago. Room on the Broom was written by the current Children's Laureate, Julia Donaldson; and illustrated by Axel Scheffler. I'd seen something about a theatre show based on it, and while circumstance stopped me from taking Caitlin and Lewis to go and see it, I bought the book straight away. (Since then, I also found out it was on CBeebies as part of Jackanory.)

Room on the Broom, by Julia Donaldson and Axel Scheffler
Published by Macmillan
Amazon.co.uk/Amazon.com

The witch had a cat
and a very tall hat,
And long ginger hair
which she wore in a plait.
How the cat purred
and how the witch grinned,
As they sat on their broomstick
and flew through the wind.

Room on the Broom follows the witch and her cat, who are travelling on a broomstick. The witch will lose something and they'll go to retrieve it, only to pick up another animal friend. This is until the broom gets so heavy, it snaps! The witch falls in the path of a dragon, who declares:

"'I am a dragon, as mean as can be, And I'm planning to have WITCH AND CHIPS for my tea!'"

This was a really fun story to read. It's written in rhyming quatrains and is filled with onomatopoeic rhymes that make it really satisfying to read and listen to. The best one is on the first page:

"But how the witch wailed       
      and how the cat spat..."

The text was really lively, and filled with whooshes and tumblings and loud, scary roars. It was so much fun for me to do, and even better when I got the kids to act it out! The accompanying illustrations were awesome, and if the story didn't let Caitlin and Lewis anticipate what was coming next in the story (which it did!), they engaged really well with the pictures. It's one of those that they'll quite happily go into the corner with to 'read' on their own.

Caitlin and Lewis have often referred to this book when looking for something to read - in our house it's known as 'the witch book'. My family and I also love it - the first time I read this to the children, it was in front of everyone and I'd been reading really fast. I got to the dragon part (quoted above), and instead of saying "witch and chips", I came out with "witch and tits" - oops! I was laughed at for a fair bit after that one!

It's World Book Day!

As you may have guessed from the imaginative title of this post, it's World Book Day today in the UK. For any readers not from around here, schools (especially primary) generally encourage children to dress as their favourite character from a book. Then, every child gets a £1 book token to spend within a certain amount of time either towards a book over £2.99, or in exchange for one of the World Book Day £1 books for that year. This year the books are:

Alfie's Shop, by Shirley Hughes (2+)

Giraffes Can't Dance Colouring and Puzzle Fun, by Giles Andreae & Guy Parker-Rees (3+)

Horrid Henry's Guide to Perfect Parents, by Francesca Simon & Tony Ross (5+)

Tony Robinson's Weird World of Wonders: Funny Inventions, by Tony Robinson & Del Thorpe (7+)

The Diamond Brothers In... Two of Diamonds, by Anthony Horowitz (8+)

Hang in there, Bozo, by Lauren Child (9+)

Tom Gates: Best Book Day Ever! (so far), by Liz Pichon (9+)

The Chocolate Box Girls: Bittersweet, by Cathy Cassidy (11+)

I think I've pretty much been on all sides of this one - as a child, a (trainee) teacher and now as an aunt (although the latter is obviously not as good as being a mother!). I've never been brilliant at fancy dress, so as a student I've previously come dressed as Pippi Longstocking (although I haven't read those books yet!), and as a teacher, dressed as a (non-green) wicked witch of the west, from The Wizard of Oz. Bad costumes aside though, the day I'm referring to when I was a trainee teacher was actually by far the best day of a really stressful training course - children were encouraged to build reading forts under the tables, hold mini-performances in groups, and generally have a lot of fun with books. I wish there were more days like that, to be honest!

In honour of World Book Day, I'm reviewing one of its eight '£1' books.

Giraffes Can't Dance, by Giles Andreae and Guy Parker-Rees
Published by Orchard Books
Amazon.co.uk/Amazon.com

Now every year in Africa
They hold the Jungle Dance
Where every single animal
Turns up to skip and prance

A best-loved, rollicking, rhyming story - perfect for little ones.

I must admit, this book got a little overlooked, because I bought it at the same time as the Dr Seuss books I previously blogged about, and Caitlin and Lewis went straight for those. However, Caitlin loves both giraffes and dancing, so even though I've only read this story to her once, she thoroughly enjoyed it and still knows which book I'm talking about a few weeks on.

First off, the illustrations in this book are, I think, the best I've seen. When the warthogs started waltzing and the lions danced the tango, neither Caitlin nor I knew what the dances entailed, but we could see from the pictures. And as you can probably see from (my bad photo of) the front cover, the contrasting colours are amazing! Every illustration stands out and makes the story even better.

Not that the story needs to be better, though. Gerald the giraffe's height makes dancing too awkward for him, and at the beginning of the book he finds himself being laughed at at the Jungle Dance by the other animals. However, he comes across a cricket who reminds him that:

"'Sometimes when you're different
You just need a different song'"

I really loved the message that this sent across. Gerald is reminded that everyone is different, and so has different strengths. It reminds me of the saying that says something like if you tell a fish to climb a tree, he looks stupid; watch him swim in water though, and he's a genius. Children can really take away the positive messages and use it to build their self-confidence - not that they'll be thinking of it like that, obviously!

The story is written in 4-line poems, with an ABCB rhyme scheme, which really set the rhythm well in a story about dancing. From my point of view, this made it really fun to read aloud, as well as doing all the funny voices of the laughing animals. From Caitlin's perspective, she loved the fact that most of the story could be acted out. From gently swaying necks to rock 'n' rolling rhinos, there was a multitude of things for Caitlin to engage with, and she really enjoyed it.

Thoroughly recommended, for adults as much as children!