I’ve been frantically chasing up Jane Shaw’s “Susan” books all over the place, and thanks to Ebay, Bookfinder.com and my friendly local bookshops, I’m only missing the last three books. (I have registered my plea with Girls Gone By Publishers to reprint them and they have replied with a tantalising “watch this space”).
Susan Pulls the Strings is the book where Susan first goes to stay with the Carmichaels. Jane Shaw presents each of the characters as beautifully flawed, yet somehow awfully likeable, with the exception of Aunt Lucy’s new friend, “The Plum” who seems determined to meddle in everyone’s business to the extent that Susan is just bound to do a little meddling herself in order to put things right!
Pants! by Nick Sharratt and Giles Andrae is destined to keep raising its brightly coloured head (or should that be tail) in my classroom. Deeply loved by children of all ages (and several gangly teenagers too!) choosing your favourite Pants! will get everyone involved whether it’s “hairy pants, scary pants” or “no pants at all!”
Written in flowing rhyme, it’s not easy to stop once you’re on the Pants!-wagon but thankfully the book isn’t too long and is a great feel-good way to start or finish the day. The colours are dazzling and the pants-strewn pages are a joy to look at, accompanying the verse beautifully without overcrowding the pages. We were all duly devastated when Pants! lost out on last year’s Kate Greenaway medal.
Fairy-tales have been told and retold many times, and recent years have brought about a number of reworked versions. A boxed set of Laurence Anholt’s Silly Stories have been most enjoyable and amusing, so far. Cinderboy and Eco-Wolf and the Three Pigs both offered a modern-day slant on classic fairy tales. The three gangsta-rapping pigs taking on a peace-loving hippy of a wolf were particular sources of mirth.
I’ve been rather caught up in the horror of Eric Schlosser’s Fast Food Nation (not a Kidz Book in any sense, but definitely worth a read if your kids love a MacDonald's) and the resulting appearance of various healthy cookbooks, the combination of which has somewhat restricted my children’s reading this month. However I did finally manage to bully Brian into trying an Enid Blyton St. Clare’s book. He wasn’t impressed. See Brian’s Reads for the critique, but be prepared for some harsh words!
Excuses over, my book of the month is the stupendous knicker-fest that is Pants!
All the above-mentioned books may be ordered from Kidz Books by sending an email to sales@kidz-books.net