Featured children’s book – Page 8 – Bookmonitor

Ralf by Jean Jullien

Ralph is forever getting under his family’s feet, But when a fire threatens to burn the house down, Ralf stretches himself to the limit to save his family.

This is an intriguing book with a style of illustrations that turns over the page for you. When Ralf cannot wake his family you instantly feel the life of a dog when everyone is asleep and they are forever alert.

Ralf is published by Frances Lincoln and was released in February 2016, the hardback edition is well worth the money and has a lovely tactile sense to your fingers.

Jean Jullien is a graphic designer from France who is known for his symbols of peace in the wake of the terrorist attacks in Paris in November 2015. He now lives in London and is working on an eclectic body of work in illustration.

Now working on children’s books, his first book Hoot Owl, Master of Disguise is a huge success

We recommend this book for ages 2yr to share and for 4/5 years for beginning to read alone and for adults everywhere!

Sue Martin Dolphin Booksellers – the best in children’s books always on line

Bookmonitor is our news source for reviews and project information.

Books go Walkabout is our international books and literacy project - connecting authors and illustrators with children and young people around the globe.

We use Stripe to handle your e-purchase. Buy with confidence from BgW. Customer FAQ's here.

3,2,1…DRAW!

Re-imagine your world with Serge Bloch, the iconic illustrator who was awarded a gold medal by the Society of Illustrators in 2015.

3,2,1 DRAW! published in Feb 2016 is a completely different way of inspiring children to draw.

Each page has a similar image on the other side but without the cartoon or doodle drawings, so you can just complete your own and recreate some everyday objects. Great fun!

It’s perfect for taking away the fear of a blank sheet of paper and excellent for story telling, e.g who else could make a car out of a match box?

There’s more about Serge on his illustrations based website, fascinating style of drawings and design.

An inspirational book from Wide Eyed Editions.

We recommend for ages, well all ages and beyond!!

Sue Martin Dolphin Booksellers

Little People, Big Dreams

Coco Chanel cover image... — Buy this from Amazon.co.uk here…

This is a new series of books from Frances Lincoln Children’s Books, which tell people’s stories, and how they became famous. Starting off as children, finding a dream and following it through to a successful career.

The first book follows Coco Chanel, from her early life in an orphanage, where she is a genius with needle and thread, to her time as a cabaret singer, hat maker and international fashion designer.The book is written by Ms Isabel Sanchez Vegara and with beautifully stylised illustrations by Ana Albero.

The second book is about Frida Kahlo, she wanted to study medicine but had a bad childhood accident. But despite a terrible time her career culminated in a solo exhibition in America.

These are inspirational biographies perfect for encouraging children to follow their dreams. They are excellently published books in hardback and encourage you to open them from the start. I was in The British Library recently and noticed that many people just had to peep inside.

Frida Kahlo cover image... — Buy this book from Amazon.co.uk…

In each book there is a fact section and a timeline.

Future books will include Maya Angelou and Amelia Earhart, can’t wait for that one!

We love these books and recommend for children from 6 years to 9 years.

Sue Martin

Dolphin Booksellers and Books Go Walkabout

Children’s Books published by the British Library

My Book of Stories -write your own adventures by Deborah Paterson
This is a thrilling book and is packed with ideas to write your own adventures. Create your own characters and use your imagination to share adventures. Dream up thrilling pirate escapades on the high seas or let your ideas soar as you imagine life at a Jungle School.
The book combines as a book with ideas on every page and as an activity book to write or draw as your story unfolds. The pages are very tempting to start work straight away.
The story starters are from the very best children’s authors, such as Rudyard Kipling, J.K Rowling, JM Barrie and Arthur Ransome. Which new character, for instance, would you add to the Wizard of Oz and could you fill in the ships log for Phileas Fogg?
A great book for a gift, maybe following a visit to the library, or for in school. We recommend for 8 years and upwards.

My Book of Stories – write your own Shakespearean tales. By Deborah Paterson.
A wealth of Shakespearean characters, plots and stories are brought to life in this compendium of tales, activities and ideas. An intriguing book with an activity on each page, such as write your own fairy song for Midsummer Nights Dream or draw a secret disguise as in Twelfth Night.
The illustrations are beautiful and are taken from British Library collections.
This book would be an excellent resource as we celebrate the 400th anniversary of Shakespeare’s death and also on Shakespeare Week, on 14- 20th March.
We recommend for 9 – 13 year olds and for adults too!
Dolphin Booksellers and Books Go Walkabout are pleased to support the British Library through blogs and Twitter.
Sue Martin

The Jackal Who Thought he Was a Peacock and The Orange House, from Tiny Owl Publishers

The cover illustration on The Jackal Who Thought he Was a Peacock just makes you want to open the cover.

It is based on a fable by Rumi, a Persian mystic and poet and is retold by Fereshteh Sarlak.

Jackal is unhappy with his dull brown and grey. He dreams of looking resplendent like a peacock. He thinks that this new beauty will win him friendship, rather like the leopard who changes his spots.

The illustrations from Firoozeh Golmohammadi are very exciting and exotic and really engage with the text.

We recommend the book for 5 – 10 yr olds.

The Orange House written and illustrated by Nahid Kazemi and translated by Azita Rassi. Nahid is an award winning author born in Iran and currently living in Canada.

The small Orange House stands at the end of the alley and is feeling sad and left out as all the other buildings are tall and new.Workmen arrive and head towards the Orange House and eventually she has new things too and knows just how good it feels.

The story is all about relationships and isolation and will help children to find new ways to make friends.

These books are both from Tiny Owl Publishers, they have the most beautiful website, which reflects the care and imagination in their books.

We recommend this book for 5- 8 year olds.

Sue Martin Dolphin Booksellers and Books Go Walkabout

The Wonder Garden and One Thousand Things from Wide Eyed Editions

Sometimes you come across a book that is just wonderful in every way and The Wonder Garden is one of those! Written by Jenny Broom and illustrated by Kristjana S Williams it is one of the brilliant books from Wide Eyed Editions.

It is an exploration of five of the world’s Wildest Habitats’ the Amazon, the Himalayas, the Chihuahuan Desert, the Black Forest and the Great Barrier Reef.

The illustrations are stunning and the information is well crafted by Jenny into immediately inspiring texts.

We recommend for ages 7 -11 years.

One Thousand Things by Anna Kovecses is a beautiful and very tactile book in hard back. It has a range of words and objects and is an introduction to vocabulary,with wonderful illustrations and a Little Mouse who helps you through the book.

An excellent book for schools and at home.

We recommend for ages 4 – 6 years.

Sue Martin Dolphin Booksellers and Books Go Walkabout

A Journey Through Series – QED Publishers

Two great books in this new series from QED Publishers. A Journey Through the Human Body, and A Journey Through Space are written by award winning author Steve Parker and illustrated by John Haslam.

The Human Body starts what it means to be human, why we are different to other animals and then takes a journey through the main functions of the body; breathing and the journey of air and into the blood stream, the journey of food. Mmmmm…, the journey of thoughts and the brain and the central nervous system. A real journey and once you’ve read the book there is not much more that you would need to know!

A Journey Through Space will see you take a journey from your doorstep into outer space!

Find your way through the Solar System, explore craters on Mars, journey through towards the Sun.

Both books have a wonderful poster in the book cover and are excellent non fiction books for children in school and at home. We recommend for ages 6 and upwards.

Sue Martin Dolphin Booksellers

Super Skills Series

We were really impressed with this series from QED-publishing and the books How to Code and How to Cook in 10 Easy Lessons are just brill!!

They are very attractively illustrated and the hard covers and spiral binding make them very practical and long lasting.

How to Code by Sean McManus gives plans that in 10 lessons, helps to understand coding, use Scratch to start programming, manipulate graphics, fix bugs and just about everything you need to know about coding to get started.

Coding is not one of my strengths and to be honest I haven’t even tried,we have a team thought that ‘even I’ may now be able to code!

Sean has a brilliant website included in the book index, along with other really useful stuff.

How to Cook in 10 Easy Lessons by Wendy Sweetser gives a whole range of skills for cooking in 10 lessons. From peeling and grating to making sweet and savoury sauces, each section has 4 recipes that I immediately wanted to try; carrot and pecan muffins, chicken satay or vegetable fried rice.

A great series, 2 spectacularly good books. We recommend for children from 8 years and onwards in schools and in the homes.

Would make some excellent presents in Father Christmas’s sack!

Sue Martin Dolphin Booksellers & Books Go Walkabout

50 Things You Should Know About Series from QED. Human Body, Prehistoric Britain

50 Things You should Know about the Human Body by Angel Royston

This has everything you would need to know about the Human Body, unless you are about to embark on a medical degree!!

The facts are really clearly presented with illustrations that are accurate and easy to identify how parts of the body are working. The pages are well laid out and text and illustrations are combined to make an engaging impact. Each section has a different colour and the glossary and index at the back of the book will point the reader to the right places in the book without being off putting to children with any reading difficulties.

The start of the 50 Things You Should Know About Series from QED Publishing, well worth buying for home, school or the library. We suggest the book for 6-9 year olds and beyond.

50 Things You should Know about Pre-Historic Britain by Claire Hibbert

From The Old Stone Age, through the Ice Age, Bronze Age, Iron Age and touching on the Romans, this book has everything you need to start work on prehistoric Britain and to lead the reader into all sorts of interesting directions.

Particularly good section on an Iron Age Village and dwellings in Scotland called, crannogs, brochs and wheelhouses. For instance a crannog is a roundhouse that stood on a jetty and Loch Tay there were 18 crannogs.

We suggest the book for 6 – 9 year olds and beyond.

Great new series from QED Publishing and is part of their new books published in November 2015.

Sue Martin Dolphin Booksellers and Books Go Walkabout

The Snowman and the Sun

The Snowman and the Sun is written by Susan Taghdis and illustrated by Ali Mafakheri.

It is a delightful story about a snowman and his journey. You may think that a snowman stays firmly put on the ground. But in fact in this story the sun warms him and first of all he melts and then he evaporates and climbs high into the sky.

He turns into a cloud drifting free in the sky until it gets cold again and he falls as snow on the ground. Along come the children and once again he becomes a snowman.

A story about change and an explanation about how water is everywhere, the water cycle explained for young children.

The book is translated by Azita Rassi and published by the brilliant new publishers Tiny Owl, publishers to watch out for.

We recommend this book for 3- 7 years, either reading together or late on their own.

Sue Martin – Dolphin Booksellers and Books Go Walkabout