Ed Vere
Puffin Books
Age 0-5

Max is a lovable kitten who does not like been dressed up in ribbons. He wants to show he is fearless and to spend his time chasing mice. The only trouble is he doesn’t know what a mouse looks like… The story follows Max’s adventures as he meets a range of creatures and tries to find a mouse to chase. This is an amusing story and Max is a very appealing character. Children will enjoy his encounters with a number of animals and the fact that they know what Max doesn’t – the difference between a monster and a mouse!

Share the story

Read aloud
Read the story to your child allowing time to talk about what is happening as you do. The font size helps to indicate when bits should be read loudly eg when Max is waking the monster.

Join in
As children become more familiar with the story they may like to join in by answering Max’s questions as if they are the different animals and shouting to wake the monster.

Talk about the story
Children may want to pause or return to certain pages to talk about what is happening in the story and pictures. You could talk about how the different animals react to Max eg Why the birds fly down from the tree and how the mouse tricks Max.

Watch the author, Ed Vere read the story aloud

From Booktrust

Things to make and do

Make a Max sock puppet
Use an old black sock to make a Max sock puppet. Stick on felt or paper circles for eyes and nose.

Re tell the story
Help your child to retell the story using the illustrations in the book and their Max puppet.

Play the story
Using toy animals as some of the different creatures in the book children could use their sock puppet to play the story. This is more fun if you join in too perhaps by being the monster – trapping rather than eating Max!!

Find out more

Read more stories by Ed Vere here

Titles include:

Max at Night

Mr Big

Bedtime for Monsters

Banana

Buy online

A large number of children’s books are published every year. Here is our selection of some of the best newly published picture books to look out for.

Maurice Sendak
Red Fox                                      
Age 3-5

Dressed in a wolf suit, Max gets up to mischief and is sent to bed without any supper. In his imagination or dreams his bedroom becomes a forest. He  finds himself on a journey to the land of the Wild Things. After a strange adventure Max realises he is lonely and wants to be ‘where someone loves him best of all’. This is an award winning picture book which taps into children’s sense of mischief, magic, adventure and ultimately, need for the security of a safe and loving home.

Share the Story

Read  aloud
As you read the story aloud pause occasionally to allow children time to talk about the pictures and think about what might happen next.

Join in
When you read the book again encourage children to join in with the parts they remember – they might like to read the words in capital letters eg ‘WILD THING!’ And ‘WE’LL EAT YOU UP!’ Encourage them to roar ‘terrible roars’, roll their ‘terrible teeth’ and show ‘terrible claws’ as if they are ‘wild things’ too.

Talk about the story
Children may have thoughts and questions about the story they want to share with you. Allow time to discuss them.

You could ask children how they think Max felt when he was sent to bed without any supper or if they think the wild things are scary. It doesn’t matter that there isn’t a ‘right’ answer to questions like these. Talking about their ideas and feelings will help children deepen their responses and develop their understanding of the story.

Tell the story
Encourage children to tell the story in their own words as you show the pictures. Listen to the way they tell it, they may begin to use some of the words or phrases from the story in their own re tellings

Watch the story read aloud here 

from Happy Cultivated

Things to make and do

Make a map
Using a large sheet of paper pens and pencils children could draw an imaginary map of Max’s journey to the land of the wild things.  Encourage children to talk to you about their map and show you Max’s route.

Story play
Fill a baby bath, tub or paddling pool with water. Place a small figure to represent Max in a toy boat so he can go on a journey to the land of the wild things.

If you don’t have a boat you could make one from a plastic container, with a stick for a mast and paper or fabric sails. Don’t forget to put Max’s name on the boat – or perhaps your child’s own name!

Make a crown
Using card make a crown for your child to wear to be Max king of the wild things. Children could gather toys together to be the wild things and act out the story.

Have a wild rumpus!
Play some favourite party music and dance together just like Max and the wild things.

Write a postcard
Give children a postcard shaped piece of card or download this postcard template and suggest they pretend they are Max writing a postcard home to tell his Mum what he has been doing in the land of the wild things.

Find out more

Read another story by Maurice Sendak
In the Night Kitchen

Many new picture books are published for children every year. It is often hard to know how to choose. Here is a selection of some of our current favourites. You and your child will meet a range of appealing characters in these beautifully illustrated picture books and discover amusing, intriguing and thought provoking stories. We hope you enjoy them.

See our Top 10 new picture books for 2014 here

There are so many books which would make fantastic bedtime reads. We hope you will discover lots of stories to enjoy on Lovemybooks and develop your own favourites with your children for bedtime or anytime!

Here we’ve chosen a selection of books specifically about bedtime. There are stories to reassure: about fears of the dark or being alone. There are stories about being reluctant to go to bed, and stories about being desperate to go to sleep. There are night time adventures and stories about loving relationships. In addition we have included a collection of rhymes for the very young. Some of the books here are linked to our activity pages with ideas for daytime story fun too. We hope you enjoy them.

Chae Strathie, Nicola O’Byrne (illus)
Scholastic
Age 3-7

Max loves dinosaurs and is delighted to visit the dinosaur museum. One of the staff, Dinosaur Dora tells him that he can send questions to Tyrannosaurus Rex who might even answer them. Amazingly, this is what happens and in no time a correspondence develops, with letters, postcards, a birthday card and even an email. Max and the T-Rex become ‘dinopals’.

Dear Dinosaur is great fun and very interactive with lots of letters and cards to open. Real dinosaur facts are cleverly incorporated in this highly imaginative and amusing story.

Share the story

Read aloud
Read the story aloud to your child, reading the words in bold louder and pointing one or two of these out as you do. Children can help by opening the letters and cards. Pause to talk about the story or illustrations if your child wants to.

Join in
As children become more familiar with the book, encourage children to join in with the words in bold and also what the characters say to each other.

Talk about the story

Max’s favourite dinosaur is a T-Rex. Which is your child’s favourite, and why?

Find the dinosaur facts in the story eg the size of a T-Rex or its teeth. What else do you both know? What would your child like ask a dinosaur?

See links below to help find answers to children’s questions.

If you have been to a dinosaur museum or display talk about what your child remembers about the visit.

If Max is a ‘Maxosaurus’ what would your child or other members of your family be called if they were dinosaurs? Have fun talking about this.

Does your child think Dinosaur Dora is writing the letters or is it really the T-Rex?

Things to make and do

Did you Know?
Children could make a set of dinosaur ‘did you know?’ cards. Using facts from the story and from more things you find out about, T-Rex, Compsognathus or any other dinosaur (see links below). They could try out their cards on members of the family or friends.

Make a dinosaur museum
Arrange toy dinosaurs if you have them as if they are on show in a museum. Alternatively children could make some from modelling material.  Add labels for each ‘exhibit’.

See Natural History Museum Dinosaur section and the New York Natural History Museum Dinotour

Design a funny dinosaur
Max drew a picture of a sausageosaurus. Children could draw their own funny dinosaur, and think up a name for it.

Find out more

Find out more about the Compsognathus

Find out more about the Tyrranosaurus Rex

For more information on dinosaurs see here

Read Gorilla Loves Vanilla, another story by this picturebook duo

Find out more about author Chae Strathie here 

Find out more about illustrator Nicola O’Byrne

Titles include Open Very Carefully, a book with bite

Buy here

The Explorer
Katherine Rundell, Hannah Horn (illus.)
Bloomsbury
Age 8-11

Fred, Con, Lila and Max find themselves alone in the rainforest after their plane crashes. Facing incredible danger they gradually learn to trust each other and find ways to survive including eating grubs and even tarantulas. After finding a map they set off for the city of Manaus on a homemade raft and find a mysterious man living in a hidden city. Is this one of the lost explorers Fred is fascinated with? Will he help them find their way back to civilisation? In time the children discover a little about this enigmatic man, his sad past and the reason he wants to keep the hidden city secret.

The Explorer is an exciting and beautifully written adventure story which describes the wonder, beauty and danger of the rainforest. This is a story about being brave despite your fears, paying attention to the world just as explorers do and why it might sometimes be ok to keep a secret.

The book itself is really beautiful with many wonderful pen and ink line drawings of the setting and wild life framing the text.

Share the story

Talk about the story

• Which character do children find most interesting and why?

• Did the children do the right thing in keeping the explorer’s secret? Is it sometimes ok to keep secrets?

• Which is your favourite scene in the story?

• Could you survive in the rainforest – what would be the hardest part?

Frances talks to us about sharing The Explorer with her daughter Zoe

Sharing books with older children, reading them aloud or discussing what children are reading really helps them become thoughtful and enthusiastic readers. Frances told us about the experience of sharing books with her ten year old daughter Zoe, including our book of the month, The Explorer.

 My mum has always shared her favourite books with me and similarly Zoe and I enjoy sharing books; this now includes discussing books we’ve both read rather than me reading whole books aloud to her. Sometimes the sharing is as simple as me ‘clocking’ where she’s got to in the book and making some sort of evaluative or predictive comment about that part; at other times she asks me to read the first few chapters of a book aloud which seems to help her become quickly immersed in it. At other times she’ll share puzzles with me:- in The Explorer she asked why Con lived with her aunt which led us to look back through the book together because it was clear that she missed the part where Con confided to the other children that she was an orphan. Because we’ve built up quite a ‘bank’ of shared reads over the years, Zoe will also volunteer connections between books or characters. For example, she drew parallels between ‘The Explorer’ and ‘The Wolf -Wilder’ (by the same author) because in both books children had to set out on expeditions without adults.
I tend to let her lead book discussions because I want her to view them as enjoyable and interesting rather than ‘chore-like’. Generally she initiates conversations about why characters are behaving in particular ways and makes connections to our own life experiences.
 
Zoe’s favourite part of The Explorer was where ‘the children made their own food out of natural sources’ because she loves cooking and liked imagining how to cook in the jungle. She made her own version of the ‘chocolate pancakes’. She also said that the loved the part about the children swimming with dolphins because, like the children, she had a  pleasant surprise to discover the dolphins were not sharks after all.
Lila is her favourite character because she likes animals and is funny. Zoe said she dislikes Con but then immediately corrected herself by saying that she’d liked all the characters but hadn’t liked Con when she was grumpy or Max when he was annoying. She reflected that Con became nicer over the course of the book; she’d made friends with the other children and Max sometimes wanted Con to look after him. It did seem that talking about the book encouraged a more nuanced response.’

Things to make and do

• Make a setting from the story in a shoe box opened down two sides using paint, collage twigs and foliage to decorate it.

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• Make a zig zag book about the characters in the story with drawings and labels

• Write a letter Fred, Con, Lila or Max would have liked to write to the Explorer after returning home

• Using a scrap book make an information book about the Amazon. Research information using library books or the links below on the Amazon River, the rainforest, its wildlife, stories of lost cities or explorers who have disappeared.

  
  

  See our print-off activity book with some of these ideas and other activities

Find out more

Read more books by Katherine Rundell. Titles include Rooftoppers and The Wolf Wilder

Find out more about the inspiration for The Explorer here

And here

For another adventure story set in the Amazon see The Journey to the River Sea by Eva Ibbotson.

Find out more about the rainforest

For information on surviving in the rainforest see here

Find out more about Percy Fawcett and other explorers who disappeared in the Amazonian rainforest.

Buy here

Giles Andrae, illus. Guy Parker Rees
Orchard Books
Age 0-5 years

Little Penguin Pip Pip lives with his family and friends. His friends all love swimming in the sea but Pip Pip is too scared to try and feels very sad. His mum is understanding and helps little Pip Pip take his first tentative steps into the sea. In no time at all he is having an amazing time.

A delightful rhyming, rhythmic picturebook with very appealing illustrations and a strong message about being brave enough to try things that are new to you. Children will enjoy returning to this picturebook and sharing Little Pip Pip’s excitement at the end of the story.

Some of the activity ideas here are likely to be more suitable to over threes so choose what seems most appropriate for your child.

Share the story
Read aloud
Read the story aloud to your child talking about what is happening in the story and pictures as you do.

Join in
As they become more familiar with the story you can encourage children to join in with some of the words eg Little Pip calling out ‘I am swimming, I am swimming’ and SPLASH

Talk about the story
Read the story aloud, taking time to talk together about the pictures as you do. Encourage children to imagine what might happen next and turn the page to see if their predictions were right. Talking about the book deepens children’s enjoyment and understanding of the story.

Talk about the different sizes of penguin in the first picture.
Talk about the bits you both liked best?}
Talk about how Little Pip Pip feels at different points in the story?
Talk about things that are big or small, biggest and smallest.
Talk about when you have needed to be brave like Little Penguin. Share ideas you’re your own memories.

Watch the story read aloud

Watch a musical version of the story

Things to make and do

Role play

Act out the conversation between Pip Pip and his Mummy ‘What if….’ This would be fun with you (the adult) playing Little Pip Pip with all his anxieties and your child playing his mother, reassuring him.
Act out the story in the bath or paddling pool with a toy to represent Little Penguin.
Go swimming – have fun in the water like Little Penguin, putting a toe in first 

Make a picture
Give your child a large piece of paper some paints or crayons to make a big picture of Little Penguin with lots of other penguins of different shapes and sizes.

 Find out more

Read more books by Giles Andrae. Titles include
Giraffes Can’t Dance
Rumble in the Jungle
Commotion in the Ocean.

Find out about illustrator Guy Parker Rees Guy Parker-Rees – Illustrator (guyparkerrees.com)
Find out more about penguins

Share another story about penguins Lost and Found by Oliver Jeffers

Find out more

More books by Chris Haughton
Oh No George! Click to see our activities

Shh! We have a plan! Click to see our activities

Find out more about the author

Jennie, a mother,  tells  the story of her daughter Lizzie and her development as a reader.

April 2018

Lizzie is two and a half and enjoys books but often finds listening to a whole story difficult unless it’s bed time and her focus is helped by cuddles and milk. She loves bedtime stories but often requests the same book night after night (her current record is the same book for three weeks and counting). We have tried reading more than one book at bed time; my choice and her choice, going to the library to choose books together and buying books in areas of her interest but she seems to like the predictability of a known story or information book.

We encourage her to choose books when we play and she has books in her room, the living room and our room so we can always access them easily and always try and have books and cuddles in the morning before we get up properly. She often asks for books during the day as she knows this is quality focus me and her time, unlike playing time where suddenly I may get up and go and empty the dishwasher!  She is also enjoying rediscovering some of her favourite early baby books with her nine month old brother and often shows him the feely parts or how to use the flaps.

When we read during the day she often gets distracted, turns the pages too quickly or goes off and does something else. When she was younger we often just looked at the books together as she couldn’t sit still long enough to focus on the actual story, she also preferred non fiction for a very long time although this has evened out now.

I knew Max the Brave would initially appeal as the illustrations and pages are eye catching and bright and the main character is a cat, which is a good start. The story also has similarities to The Gruffalo in the flow of the story, the range of animal characters and a good amount of sneakiness.

I began by reading Max the Brave to her a couple of times and she listened to the first half only. I then decided to do the puppet making activity with her and see if her engagement increased. She loved putting the eyes and nose on the sock and played with the puppet and the other toy animals.

We then watched the video from the Lovemybooks site and she played with the animal toys and the puppet as she watched. We then acted out the story and she demonstrated good knowledge of the story, finding the pages to match the animals and vice versa.

She is really enjoying the book and I am enjoying doing more than just reading, questioning and discussing the book but actually interacting with it through play.

Lizzie’s speech has developed more slowly than her peers. Since we started to focus on Max and look at it in a different way she has started to demand more stories. As an English literature and teaching graduate, the semi shouted ‘book, read’ command is almost as sweet as ‘Mummy’

Ed Vere
Puffin
Age 0-3 years

One monkey has a banana, and he is very pleased. Another monkey arrives very excited to see the banana. He wants some too. But the first monkey doesn’t want to share. The second monkey is very disappointed he pleads, he has a tantrum but in the end he realises the other monkey is waiting for him to say please. The first monkey gives him the banana –just to have a bite but the second monkey looks all set to eat it all! Eventually they find a solution.

An absolutely brilliant study in jealousy, sharing and politeness told through humorous illustrations, an excellent design and just two words.  

Share the story

Read aloud
Before reading the book to your child look through it yourself and think about how you will read it – the more dramatic the better to show the desperation of the second monkey to eat the banana – there are lots of clues in the illustration and text design!
Read the story aloud adding actions perhaps when the monkey is beating the floor in frustration.

Join in
You could encourage two- and three-year-olds to join in as you read, shouting ‘banana’ and saying ‘please.’

Talk about the story
Spot the banana on each page
Talk about how the monkeys are feeling, read the illustrations together – the monkeys’ expressions and body language.
Talk about sharing – what would your child tell the monkeys?

Watch the story read aloud

Things to make and do

Role play
For babies beginning to explore different tastes you could show them a banana before mashing or cutting a piece for them to taste

Make a playdough banana
Children over two could make playdough bananas. This is more fun if you do it together by rolling and coiling the playdough.

Practise sharing and saying please
Find reasons to share perhaps with fruit or snacks eg banana, pieces of apple or raisins and to say please and thank you.

Have a toy tea party
Using soft toys and play or real food fruit or snacks set up a toy tea party. Your child could share the food between them, reminding them to say please and thank you!

Find out more

Watch the book’s creator, Ed Vere draw the characters Draw with Ed Vere: Banana! – YouTube

Read more books by Ed Vere. Titles include
Max the Brave activity page
Max at Night
Max and Bird
Grumpy Frog activity page
How to Be a Lion
Bedtime for Monsters
Mr Big