Spalt! by Vanessa Horn and Georgia Przygocki

2025           

There is a problem at Muddlepuddle: the geese keep dropping poo on the village.

Emma and her mum and dad, Mr and Mrs Chatterbustle try to solve the problem.

Using umbrellas isn’t enough.  Giving the geese mirrors doesn’t put them off.  

Then Emma realises they are very good at fertilising the soil. They all set to and create targets for the geese. The goose poo now lands in the right place and the crops grow well on the allotments of the Muddlepuddle residents.

A little fanciful, yes, but full of fun. 

The book is a typical picture book with additional story in the pictures. There are twelve double spreads. The font is without a serif but has difficult ‘a’s. The last spread gives information about the museum of poo on the Ilse of Wight and some general information about animal poo. 

 

Find your copy here  

 

Happiness Seeker by Jennifer Burkinshaw

2023 

Allie goes on a school trip to Grange-Over-Sands with its fast moving tide and quicksands can be a treacherous place. She is there with her classmates and two of their teachers. Some students including Allie are working on plays they are writing.  Others are studying the geography of the area.

There are all the normal issues that teens such as these face; Finn is her best friend but he is also on intimate terms with Allie’s nemesis Courtney.

Allie meets Maren who knows Morecombe Bay well   - he is involved in modern slavery and has to collect cockles illegally.  We have a little romance here.

Allie tries to help by reporting the illegal traders to the authorities but it is too late for Maren; they get wind of what is going on and flee.  

Courtney misunderstands Maren and makes a bad decision about him. She realises her mistake and tries to make amends but this involves her and Finn crossing the sands. And Courtney gets stuck.  There is then a race against time. Allie stays with Courtney whilst Maren and Flinn go in opposite directions to find help. Finn does not make it, despite being a strong swimmer.

Help comes for the two girls; they both survive.  

Maren disappears.

This is a very well written novel which will engage the reader emotionally. Jennifer Burkinshaw also provides maps and photos of the setting.              

Leila and the Blue Fox by Kiran Millwood Hargrave and Tom de Freston

 2022 

Leila and her mother are refugees from Syria.  Leila lives with her aunt and cousin in England.  Her mother works away from home. Leila doesn’t realise that her mother does this in order to support them all and thinks it’s because she does not want to spend time with Leila. Their big adventure shows Leila that her mother is really the loving parent she wished for.  

Leila joins her mother for the summer. Her mother is tracking the journey of a blue fox, Miso that has trekked over 2000 miles across the Arctic. This part of the story is based on a true event. A fox that the scientists called Anna covered over 2000 miles in seventy-six days.

Miso  gets into trouble and becomes trapped on a thin ice-floe. Leila, being the smallest in the team, rescues her. There is a moral dilemma here: should humans who are observing nature interfere in nature? They do anyway but this only leads them into further trouble: they stray into a territory for which Leila’s mum does not have a visa and where Leila isn’t even registered as being on the ship.  

Leila, Matty and Britta have created a Twitter account for Miso. Support for Leila and her mum from Miso’s Twitter followers and the help of a good lawyer get them out of trouble. However, it is traumatic for them; it brings back memories of their former escape from Syria.  

Leila and her mum are eventually returned unharmed. Miso finds a mate.      

Leila’s story and Miso’s story are intertwined.  We have both points of view.

There are some blue monochrome illustrations throughout and even some transparent overlays. This a beautiful and very tactile book.

The text is quite dense, blocked and in a serif font with difficult ‘a’s and ‘g’s. There is a note about Anna the fox at the end of the book and a short bibliography of Millwood and de Freston.  

 

Find your copy here 

 

Amara and the bats by Emma Reynolds

 

 

 

2021  

Amara becomes interested in bats when one is trapped in the attic. The animal rescue comes and helps the bat.  She then moves house and visits a local park where the bat population has diminished because more and more land is being built upon.  She and her school friends raise money in order to buy bat nesting-boxes for the park. And the bats return.

The text is somewhat denser and more sophisticated than normal for the preschool child.  However, the pictures both illustrate and tell more story.

There is a lot of information about bats throughout the text and in a really dense section at the end. The caring adult who reads with the child has their work cut out.

The text uses mainly an adult serif font with difficult ‘a’s but with an easier ‘g’. Some parts of the text use a simple font, without a serif and with simple ‘a’s and ‘g’s.  These are labels on pictures and in some of the material at the end of the book. The text is ragged right throughout apart from in the back blurb and the author bio.

Hatch by Jill Atkin and Emma Latham

 

2019 

This tells the story of a family of blackbirds. The parents build a nest.  There are three eggs. The mother and father take it in turns sitting on the eggs and fetching food for the other one.  The eggs hatch. The young birds soon leave the nest and learn to fly.   

The text is aimed at the very early reader and is part of Badger Learning’s Reading Scheme. This is in Blue Band 4. It is published by Franklin Watts.  The books are quite expensive for parents or even schools to buy but I obtained mine form the local library. It may be worth looking there for texts like this one.

Although a parent or teacher may monitor the choice of the child, according to what they know about that child’s reading ability, if the book is picked up from the library or chosen from a book box in the classroom the new reader will have the feeling of making their own choice about what they read.

The story is just nineteen pages long with only a little text on each page. Some pictures are integrated, others are blocked.  The pictures both illustrate and supplement the text.

The text is ragged right. Significant chunks of language are grouped together with extra line breaks separating them.

The font is clear with simple ‘a’s and ‘g’s.   

The end papers include a section on advising the caring adult how to work with the child.   

The Lost Spells by Robert Macfarlane and Jackie Morris

2020  

Robert Macfarlane and Jackie Morris introduce us to some strong images of nature.  As we turn the pages we can hear the wind swirling in the trees, we can feel the cold softness of the snow and we can hear the cry of the birds.

The verses make an extraordinary use of language.

The book is very tactile and is one anyone would be proud to have on their bookshelf.

Who is the reader, though? This could be a book for sharing though the language is possibly a little sophisticated for the preschool child.  It would be excellent for reading aloud – either by  an adult or by a reasonably fluent new reader. The latter would be aided by the simple font.

It is longer than standard picture book though is divided into “chapters” with a few pages being dedicated to a particular animal or plant.

The illustrations are superb and would provide a good talking point-  

 

 Find your copy here. 

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