What the ladybird heard is a smart little book by the prolific and popular Julia Donaldson. It is colourful, beautifully paced and an easy yet enjoyable story for little ones:

What's the story?

The story tells the tale of a happy farm where all the animals are content, one day some thieves decide they are going to steal the farmers prized cow and hatch a plan to do so. The silent ladybird hears their plan and creates a plot with his friends on the farm to foil the dastardly thieves and save his friend the cow.

How does it look?

This is a lovely book, the cover is so colourful, it is brighter and livelier than many of Donaldson's other books, perhaps due to a different illustrator, the animals are vibrant and very visual, I think this doesn't have the beauty of some of the other books but is much more appealing to young children in immediate impact terms, my little one loves the look of this book and keeps picking it out simply because it is so bright and colourful.

How does it read?

I really like this book, like the best childrens books, the key is for parent and child both to enjoy it, i've found books which I really don't enjoy reading (Stick Man) which make the whole tale laborious for parent and child, but this is short and snappy, the story is fun and there are lots of animal noises to make together during the story.

How much does it cost?

This cost us £2.99 on Amazon, it is a well designed hardback book with 32 pages, it looks great, isn't too taxing but definitely tells a fun story very easily.

Overall:

This is a fun story, if I was being ultra critical i'd question how a ladybird sitting in a tree could hear the conversation of passing thieves in a van, if I was also being ultra critical i'd really complain about the glitter on the cover, which seems to end up on the readers face for no discernible reason, during a presentation I gave at work yesterday I had to have it pointed out to me that I had purple glitter around my cheekbone which took some explaining. A good book with a good story at a good price, my little one and I both love this and will continue to read it for a long time to come. 5 out of 5.