JuniorBookWorm.com

Moving House

    I am a great fan of Tony Ross and I love his little princess with the big mouth. If you have a three year old and you are moving house, buy this book. If you are anyone else, take it out of the library (unless you can't resist the illustrations and must buy it anyway. The pictures in this book are brilliant).
    The Duke of Somewhereorother buys the princess' castle and paints it pink, chops down the trees for a car park and does up the kitchen in green, pink and orange. The princess discovers this when she goes back to her old home hoping to reclaim it.
It is hard for little people to move but if their parents are positive, they should pick up those vibes and ignore their own.
My nieces moved last week and so far they are enjoying their new library and supermarket in Philadelphia, PA.

Seal Surfer

Michael Foreman is a prolific writer and illustrator. He often tackles big issues with a subtlety that avoids preachiness and makes children come to their own conclusions. This time he may have been too subtle.
Seal Surfer is about a disabled boy surfer who befriends a seal. The seal ultimately saves the boy from drowning.
The story is interesting and Foreman's watercolours really capture the coast and the movement of the water. But it is within these illustrations that we discover that the boy is disabled. Otherwise, there is no mention in the text. Perhaps, this is the true definition of inclusive. The boy is a surfer who happens to be disabled. Certainly the Special Educational Needs Book Award liked it.
    And perhaps it does not matter that my six year old didn't notice that he needed crutches to walk. Maybe it is simply for the wheelchair bound, to see herself included in a book that isn't about being wheelchair bound. In that case, I think it is great for Foreman to have written this book.

The Boy in the Striped Pajamas

    We drove to Amsterdam for the week, a six hour drive from London, not including the Channel Tunnel. We are not big drivers but we were trying out a GPS navigator called a Tomtom, and we actually had a pleasant journey. We, in the front seat, didn't fight about map reading, and funnily enough, those in the back seats hardly did either. I don't think marital bliss was the reason for the children's harmony. I think it was Michael Maloney's succulent voice reading John Boyne's brilliant book, The Boy in the Striped Pajamas.
    The jacket gives nothing away about the plot, but I had an inkling they were worried that people would say, "not another holocaust book". It is a holocaust book but told from the perspective of a nine year old boy, son of a Nazi commandant at Auschwitz.
    The back of the book says that it is not for nine year olds. I had not read that before the trip. But we launched into the four and half hours and were gripped (listeners aged between 6 and 41 years old). We listened to half of it to Amsterdam and the rest on our way back to  Antwerp. Even though we were really tired, it was late, we sat for ten minutes in the car, in front of our terrific hotel (check out: Slapen Enzo) and waited till the heartbreaking end. Sandwiched between the beginning and the end was our trip to the Anne Frank House. Going there made the story that much more powerful. Going there made it seem perfectly natural that there cannot be too many holocaust books. The idea that such an atrocity, so carefully planned, on such a scale, only 60 years ago, is simply unfathomable.
    Like Morris Gleitzman's book Once, that I recommended last month, this book is really worth reading. But I must admit that listening to it together, as a family, was the perfect way to experience it.
It is probably appropriate for ages 10 and up but like Once, it is for any age that you as a parent or friend feel ready to discuss it.