Wednesday, March 26, 2014

Our Favourite Reads: Seventh Edition

Back again after a long absence is the latest in a series of posts about all of my favourite children's books that come through the house. With weekly trips to the library, I suppose you'd expect more of these, but then, I've tried to save these posts for the absolute best of the best. So it gives a real thumbs up to this edition's authors that their books have brought back my once regular efforts.

The Emily Brown books are brilliant. My hat is off to Cressida Cowell and Neal Layton. The illustrations are cute, and the formulaic writing is brilliant. There's a great repetition of sounds and sentence structures that's perfect for toddlers, no made-up or intentionally misspoken words (my one gripe about the Charlie & Lola books), and a great picture of a child's imaginary worlds (Emily and her rabbit Stanley go into outer space, search for the source of the Nile, and scooba dive off the Great Barrier Reef).

In Elephant Emergency Emily Brown and Stanley go on adventures with their friend Matilda, but Matilda's Mummy keeps calling their emergency telephone. Only problem? She's not calling about emergencies. Emily Brown is at the end of her tether when she is the one with an emergency and Matilda's Mummy is unavailable!

That Rabbit Belongs to Emily Brown involves a spoiled queen who insists on having Emily's stuffed rabbit Stanley all for herself. Emily Brown rebuffs offers from the queen's Footman, Army, Navy, and Air Force, but the queen is insistent. In the end, it's up to Emily Brown to teach her an important lesson about toys.

I've loved these books from the minute they came back with us. Ethan can already tell me how Emily Brown puts the emergency telephone back on its cradle, and knows to recite the rat-a-tat-tat on the garden door when the queen's henchmen come to call. These are the sort of books that know their target audience well & will stretch them to learn new words & phrases with ease. I'm already resolved that the boys will have their own copies of these before the year is out.

3 comments:

  1. Awww, I totally need to get them for my little niece:) Hope you are having a beautiful day, sweetie.

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  2. I bought my daughter (Emily) "That Rabbit..." as part of a bag of books for Christmas, and she adores it. Reading this, we're going to have to get out hands on "Elephant Emergency" too, I'm sure she'd love it!

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  3. I hope your daughter enjoys the book if you find a copy!

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