Trip to Readers' Feast

I went to Readers' Feast today at lunchtime and bought Benji two new books - Rosie Sips Spiders and Hairy Maclary's Bone. We read each book twice at bedtime as well as Who Sank the Boat once, just for old time's sake.

I was looking for the Hairy Maclary books when Rosie Sips Spiders leaped out at me. I grabbed it after flicking through it and realising that it had the same layout as one of our faves, Ernie Dances to the Didgeridoo, in that it also features 6 children, including one called Ernie, who share various aspects of their lives with us on each page. The spiders Rosie sips are of the fizzy icecream drink variety, which Ben has never had, so as far as he's concerned it's called Rosie Sips Milkshakes.

It wasn't until I started to read the blurb on the back cover that the penny dropped that Rosie Sips Spiders and Ernie Dances to the Didgeridoo are actually part of a 6-part series... excellent! Four more excuses to buy Ben books.

He liked Rosie Sips Spiders more than Hairy Maclary's Bone. He dragged his finger across each page, pointing at each child and making the occasional observation as to what they were doing. Frank flying his rocket to the moon was a popular picture and we had a giggle when we saw Ernie's bum while he was having a shower under a tree.

Hairy Maclary's Bone features Hairy's canine friends getting stuck in awkward places while trying to snatch his bone from him. Hercules gets stuck in a sign, Muffin in a hedge, Bottomley in some fishing baskets, Bitzer in some builder's rubbble and Schnitzel on an old stone wall. Poor old Schnitzel just can't take a trick.

Another penny has dropped as to the type of illustrations that Benji likes, those being simple and colourful drawings (Sometimes... is an exception to this). I tried to read 2 of our library books - Scoot! and We're Sailing to the Galapagos - to him earlier this week but he wasn't the slightest bit interested. This was to my dismay because I thought they were both completely ace in terms of both story and illustrations, which are paper collages. I had selected Scoot! because it has onomatopoeia AND alliteration in it (Liz did we learn about them in year 7 or 8 English? Maybe it's more primary school level, I can't remember). And I had selected We're Sailing to the Galapagos because I want to sail to the Galapagos and see the blue-footed boobies.

Anyway, no matter, I will make a note of them and try them again in 6 months' time.

Rosie Sips Spiders is by Alison Lester

Hairy Maclary's Bone is by Lynley Dodd

Scoot! is by Cathryn Falwell

We're Sailing to the Galapagos is by Laurie Krebs and illustrated by Grazia Restelli