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Our Junior Librarians, Mae and Ayomide considered very carefully their Book of the Week choice and I’m sure that both books will become firm favourites with our Grimsdell audience.
This week, we have two very humorous stories available in our library for you to explore and enjoy, chosen by Mae and Ayomide from 2YM. Both of the authors started out life as illustrators …
Firstly, Mae recommends One Hundred Sausages written and illustrated by Yuval Zommer.
Mae’s reason for her choice:
“I LOVE dogs and this is a very funny story about one particular dog, who has a passion for sausages …!!!”
Mrs Harvey would also support Mae’s choice.
Scruff the dog loves sausages. He’ll eat any variety and his particular favourites are those on display in the butcher’s window. He spends his days seeking out sausages at barbecues, picnics and restaurants. At night time he dreams of sausages.
One morning, as he stops for his daily sniff at the butcher’s window, he discovers that there’s been a break-in and all the sausages have been stolen. Unfortunately, Scruff’s predilection for sausages makes him the prime suspect! Soon there are wanted posters with Scruff’s face on them plastered all over town. There’s only one thing for it – to prove his innocence Scruff must catch the real thief. So, with the promise of sausages, he enlists the help of his canine friends and they begin searching for clues.
This is a gorgeous book – the sausage-packed endpapers alone are mouth-watering. The lively illustrations are really engaging and full of humour. From the scene where Pixie the poodle is painting her nails to the picture of Sidney the sausage dog disguised as a hot dog, children will find plenty to giggle about. It’s an exciting, light-hearted tale that’s great fun to read – a perfect book to snuggle up and share on the sofa!
Our second Book of the Week has been selected by Ayomide from 2YM. He recommends Spyder by the author and illustrator, Matt Carr.
Ayomide’s reason for his choice:
“This is a really funny book and a spider is a very unusual superhero. I like how the font changes in the story.”
Mrs Harvey is a great supporter of Matt Carr.
His narrative has our super spy facing all sorts of obstacles on her way down to the cake, with lots of spy jokes thrown in for good measure. The use of bold, primary colours liven up the scenes no end, with a lovely variety of vignettes adding to the pace of Spyder’s adventure.
There’s been a spate of picture books recently that play on words or names, and I’m loving this one, Spyder by Matt Carr. Readers may think it’s easy being a spy when you’re small and have many legs to scuttle about on, but Spyder has problems with her size. Sometimes it means she ends up in the bath – a tricky place from which to escape. But by the end, Spyder saves the birthday cake from the evil fly and all is well.
This delightful picture book follows Matt Carr’s debut, Superbat, which also features a bold and bright animal behaving like a human, with some factual animal information at the back, a story packed full of humorous adventure and huge bold illustrations in comic book style. This time, our protagonist is female, and although immured in a retro colour palette, she is daring and brave with a very modern outlook and set of gadgets.
At each stage of her adventure, sounds create refrains and the text unfolds with insistent rhythm. Zommer’s extensive use of onomatopoeia is used to great effect and there is a natural instinct to join in with the refrains. The story presents many opportunities to talk about how questions work; the role of inflection and intonation of voice when reading.
Happy Reading!
Mrs Harvey
