Morning everyone!

I hope you are all well and have been reading some brilliant books recently. I’m here with some more mini reviews today. My pledge to review every book I read in the year is going well… and that’s all down to mini reviews (when you read as many books as I do, you don’t have space/time/brain power to write full on reviews of everything!)

Today’s post features three picture books I’ve read in the past few weeks that I’ve really enjoyed! So let’s go…

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The Three Little Pigs and The Big Bad Book – Lucy Rowland and Ben Mantle

When Ben’s mum gets distracted halfway through his bedtime story, he decides to finish the tale himself. There’s only one problem – he can’t quite read yet. To Ben’s surprise, the three little pigs come knocking on the door, and the big bad wolf isn’t far behind … But this time, will the story have a different ending?

I loved this! I am a big big fan of retellings of fairytales or twisted fairytales, so when I saw this, I needed to get my hands on it ASAP. As soon as I picked it up, it filled me with utter joy. This is a gorgeous reimagining of the story of the Three Little Pigs! When Ben’s mum has to go answer the phone, things start going a bit strange… the pigs (and more scarily, the WOLF) show up in Ben’s home! This story proper made me smile and I think it would be such a brilliant story to read to kids regardless of their age! A massive shout out for the brilliant Ben Mantle – the illustrations are amazing and I’m particularly taken by the illustrations of the Wolf. The last page of the story made me so happy! This story proper celebrates the joy of stories and storytelling!

The Perfect Fit – Naomi and James Jones

No matter how hard she tries, Triangle doesn’t roll like the circles, or stack like the squares…so she sets off to find friends that look exactly like her. But when she finds the other triangles, playtime isn’t as fun. She misses the shapes that roll and stack; she misses being different. So she starts a new quest, one that gets all of the different shapes playing and having fun together!

This is adorable. A lovely story about how triangle is different, but that being different is good! Triangle goes on a hunt to find others the same, but realises that being different is what makes life fun. She goes on an adventure to find the triangles in the world and on her travels she comes across the rest of the shapes. This is perfect for PSHE and could be used with children of ALL ages! This is OBVIOUSLY a perfect Maths book and would be spot on in EYFS/KS1! We actually used this for World Maths Day across the whole school – everyone got the chance to listen to me read it and then we used it for everyone to do a shape-based activity! We had such amazing feedback on the story – the kids loved it!

Windows by Julia Denos

Walking his dog at dusk, one boy catches glimpses of the lives around him in this lovely ode to autumn evenings, exploring your neighborhood, and coming home.

This is one of those picture books that I’d not seen many people talking about, but I was most intrigued by! When it arrived, I was so pleased I’d bought it! This is a lovely simple picture book with a gorgeous meaning. This book takes you on an walk to take a look into the different things you see in homes. The main character goes for a walk around their town and describes the different things they see in the windows of the buildings. This would be perfect for use with younger children to see what they spot and to talk about their different homes and different kinds of families! The illustrations are lovely: some gorgeous use of colour and patterns, sunsets and lit windows. 

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ET VOILA. That is my post for today! I hope you guys enjoyed these mini reviews! I’d love to know what picture books you’ve been reading recently! Share with me in the comments or on twitter!

S x