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Dear Zoo - Rod Campbell
by Mama-Q
Rod Campbell is a Scottish writer of many well loved and well known children's books with 'Dear Zoo' being amongst the more popular of the books he's written. It has been a best seller in Britain for over 25 years and can be found on most under 5's bookshelves. The book has been translated into Albanian, Arabic, Bengali, Chinese, ... Persian, French, Gujarati, Hindi, Panjabi, Portuguese, Russian, Simplified Chinese, Somali, Spanish, Turkish, Urdu, and Vietnamese.
'Dear Zoo' is a board book, aimed at the under 5 age group, with flaps to lift on each page. The premise of the story is a child who has written to the zoo for a pet and on each page it reveals the unsuitability of each pet the zoo sends; for instance the elephant that is too big, the giraffe who is too tall or the lion who is too fierce. At the end of the book the zoo finally sends a puppy - who is perfect!
I remember this book from my childhood and have very fond memories of it. As a child who could read from the age of 3.5 years old I can safely say this book was in my collection at home and was something that was read over and over again so when I spotted it in Mothercare (currently on sale for £2.99) I was sure I had to buy it for my son. He was a few months old when we bought the book and it wasn't long before he could lift the flaps on the book and enjoy it so I felt it was worth buying.
My son is now three and has the story committed to memory so whenever we read the story together he knows what animal is coming next. He did rip a few of the flaps when he was 18 months, though, so it's not in pristine condition and I might consider buying another book to replace the ripped one. It does seem to be fairly tempting (and easy) for little people to rip so I would watch out for that with wee ones if you don't want the book getting ripped.
Overall I rate this book quite highly as it's age appropriate for under 5s and can be enjoyed by adults - even if you're reading it for the 20th time that day! At £2.99 I consider this a decent price for such a book as it's a classic children's book and is so enjoyable that even though it's only a few pages long it's still a 'good' price for this type of book.
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Who's Afraid of the Big Bad Book? - Lauren Child
by cha97mw
Lauren Child is well known for her Charlie and Lola series of books. All of her books we own feature characters that are children, and they all have the same sort of illustrations that are quite flat and child like in appearance.
This short story features a little boy called Herb. He is having a sleepover with his friend ... Ezzie. When they are dropping off to sleep, Herb picks up a book to read, and he finds himself in the middle of this book of fairytales. We get to see Goldilocks and Cinderalla how they have never been before.
Herb has previously vandalised this book by drawing in it and tearing out parts of pages, and the characters are not at all happy about it and want Herb to sort it out. Can Herb escape from Cinderella's stepmother in time?
The joy in Child's books comes from the non-linear appearance of the pages. It can make it a little tricky for a younger reader to tackle alone, but there is something very fun about parts of the book being written in a coil shape, and other parts being printed upside down, and one page there is even a great big hole in the page which is written into the story. My favourite page has a picture of a door. you can then open out both pages in the double page spread to view a scene within the palace. There is a great sense of expectation as you open the door to find what is inside.
This book for me is better for slightly older children who are familiar with the plot of fairy tales as they were originally written. They can then get the humour of the tales being twisted as they are in this novel.
My children also initially found the start of the book a bit scary. It describes things that Herb usually reads, and there is a picture of a vampire which my son was covering with his hand, so I needed to just reassure him that it was only a story briefly so he could enjoy the book.
I find this can be a bit scary, the concept of a book coming to life and some of the fairy tale characters are not that nice. Goldilocks in particular is horrid, and the little boy Herb is quite scared as he runs between all the stories in his book.
However, all is well before the end of the book, and I felt that my children were reassured by the end and did find it an amusing story.
This is quite a long story, but the lovely illustrations and interesting text mean that it is a great story to read to children and chat about the plot with them. My son is currently doing a topic about Goldilocks and the 3 bears at school in year one, so he particularly enjoyed seeing an alternative version to the story.
I think Lauren Child is a fabulous childrens writer, for me in the same league as Julia Donaldson, though I feel her audience should be slightly older. My children have appreciated Donaldson's writing style since they were about 18 months to 2 years old, whereas its only now that they are almost 5 and 6 that they are appreciating the style of this book and adequately able to understand the concepts.
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Looking for JJ - Anne Cassidy
by miwa
Looking for JJ is a Young Adult novel by Anne Cassidy. The novel is split into four parts and roughly follows the lives of those involved and the aftermath of an event that happened seven years prior: the violent murder of Michelle Livingstone by her best friend, Jennifer Jones, both girls only ten years old at the time. Now it's coming ... up to the end of Jennifer Jones' prison sentence, and the media are having a field day: painting JJ an evil convicted killer and an imminent danger to all children about to be set loose on the world.
Like everybody else, seventeen-year-old Alice Tully follows the papers intently. However, unlike everyone else, she knows exactly what happened that day - because she was there, swinging the bat that killed her friend. Despite being a relatively normal older teen, with a boyfriend and a place at university, Alice lives in constant fear of her true identity being revealed. She knows that her fragile world will all too easily crash down around her, if and when her loved ones learn what she did that day seven years ago. Will she be able to live a normal life with the threat of her past threatening to ruin her?
Each of the four parts that comprise this novel relates to a facet of the incident: we see how Jennifer Jones' life was before the murder, neglected by her mother and craving love that never materialised; we see her relationship with Michelle; we see how she is just out of prison and rebuilding her life; and without giving too much away, we see what happens even after all of that. I thought this was the best way to present the differences between past and present incarnations of JJ - as I think some of the thriller-like pacing would have been lost if Cassidy had kept seguing into flashbacks - and this pacing is by far the best aspect of the book.
The weakest points of the novel are probably the characterisation and the writing style. Cassidy's characters are more like paper puppets moved along as the plot decrees; none of them had the spark which made them feel real. JJ, as our protagonist, does wring out sympathy in her backstory, but otherwise Cassidy doesn't reveal much of her personality. This may be a gambit to show how tight-lipped JJ is about her past, but really just feels more like shoddy writing. As for real shoddy writing, Cassidy has a habit of oversimplifying things in a bid to appeal to younger readers, but unfortunately just alienates the adult audience who are more likely to pick this book up.
Despite feeling that this novel explores new territory for the YA genre, I am left feeling conflicted as to who Cassidy really wrote this for. Unfortunately, the subject matter is a little too mature for younger teens to properly ruminate over, but for an adult, the writing is a little too simple and clunky to appreciate; the suggested demographic for this novel seems conflicted. Personally, I would not recommend this for anyone under fourteen or over eighteen, which only leaves a sliver of an audience that could appreciate this book fully. For any thoughtful teenager, there is a lot that could be gained in reading this book. For anyone older, I would say give this a miss and read Natsuo Kirino's "Grotesque" instead, which has a similar moral dilemma delivered in a more stylish and intelligent way.
Of course no work of fiction, whether written for a child or an adult, can escape reality. The fact is, children do murder and get murdered, and no work of fiction can ever hope to deliver answers as to why this still happens in our society.
In Looking for JJ, any justification for Jennifer Jones' behaviour is obviously deeply flawed. However, Cassidy does ask some important questions in telling JJ's story: do murderers deserve sympathy? Should the family or community around a child-murderer be held accountable for their actions? Should someone convicted of a crime who has served their time behind bars be allowed a normal life? What if you found out someone close to you hid a dark and life-changing secret? Unfortunately, just like everyone else, I am still looking for answers.
Paperback: 304 pages
Publisher: Point; 1 edition (18 Feb 2005)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 0439977177
ISBN-13: 978-0439977173
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