Gorilla Loves Vanilla

by Chae Strathie (illustrated by Nicola O’Byrne)

Five hungry animals walk down jellybean street to get to the ice cream shop that Sam runs. Each animal asks for something different like layers and layers and layers of vanilla ice-cream or worm ice-cream or a mud-bath of chocolate and sprinkles ice-cream.

My favourite characters were the Gorilla and the Cow. The Gorilla is nice because he shares and I liked the flavour that the Cow picked (it was full of grass and flower ice-cream in a glass vase).

If I made up a flavour of ice-cream it would be vanilla and cinnamon with strawberries and coconut and mango. But I don’t actually like ice cream, because its a bit too cold and it’s full of sugar, and I don’t eat processed sugar.

The words on the pages are nice and big which is good for young kids that might be able to read. It is also good that its a rhyming book. I like reading stuff that rhyme out loud because it feels like singing. The illustrations suit the book really well and I thought the mouse in particular was super realistic. It was also good that the book had lots of colours. My brother liked it so much he ended up snatching it from mommy when she was trying to read it.

I would recommend this book to 1 to 4 year olds and older kids with little brothers and sisters.

The Bolds to the Rescue

  • The Bolds to the Rescue by Julian Clary
  • Illustrated by: David Roberts
  • Number of Pages: 274
  • Cool Words: swooped, magnificently, darkened, gifted, indignantly

This book was more exciting than The Bolds, because the Bolds had to take care of loads and loads and loads of animals.

This Bolds story is about four hyenas that save animals by keeping them safe in their house. The first animal that came to them because she didn’t like the life she had was Sheila the crocodile. Sheila was from the pipes that go down from the toilets! In group therapy (in the Bolds house they have group therapy everyday) she told everybody that she doesn’t want to live there anymore. She wanted to go out and swim in the seas. At the end she ended up going to the sea with Fifi the dog. They went on a cruise ship!

Let me tell you the schedule they have in the Bolds House, because thats one of my favourite parts.

Sheila the Crocodile
  • 8 a.m. Table Manners.
  • 9 a.m. Walking on Hind Legs.
  • 10 a.m. Toilet training.
  • 11 a.m. break
  • 11.30 a.m. Speech Therapy and Reading
  • 12.30 p.m. Lunch
  • 1.30 p.m. Playtime
  • 2.30 p.m. Careers Advice
  • 3.30 p.m. Dressing up
  • 4.30 p.m. Emergency Drill (TOP SECRET)
  • 5.30 p.m. Group Therapy

The book really funny, like the first book but better. I was laughing like crazy when the seagulls were pooing on Dodgy Dean the horrible baddie. Fred Bold was telling terrible jokes again and so were Bobbie and Bettie.

The Illustrations were good and I really liked the front cover. Sheila especially looks really funky .

I would recommend this book to my best friend Hollie because she likes animals and she is really funny so she might like a funny book like this too. I would also recommend this to Daddy, because he tells lots of jokes like the Bold daddy in the book, although Daddy’s jokes are a bit better.

Aliens In Underpants Save the World

In this story, the Aliens save planet Earth with underpants. Earth is about to explode, so they tie together all their underpants and use it like a patch.

I like that the book rhymes. The illustrations are also really good. There is a lot of detail and colours in the drawings. The coolest word in the book is “elastic”, because it sounds stretchy!

This book would be good for kids who like alien invasions and things like that. There might be too much going on for a toddler like my brother , so I would recommend this book for someone a wee bit older, like a 3 or 4-year-old.

The Bolds

  • The Bolds by Julian Clary
  • Number of Pages: 263
  • Cool Words: affectionate, restraining, heartily, lumbering, torrent 

The Bold names are Mrs Bold (Amelia), Mr Bold (Fred), Bobby and Betty.  At first the Bolds live in Africa, but they move to New York. Then they discover that next door, there is a grumpy old man, who is spying on them… And that’s a big problem, because the Bolds are actually hyenas who are pretending to be humans!

Mr & Mrs Bold

Since they are hyenas, they do hyena things, like rubbing their bums on bushes because its itchy. One day, Bobby even does it as school, but he is lucky that nobody catches him!

This book was very funny and easy to read. There were no boring parts at all. My favourite character was Boo who is also a hyena. Boo is from the Safari Park where the Bolds go every night to dig a hole. They are trying to help Tony, a super old hyena, get away from the park.  I also liked Miranda, the monkey, because she is pretty funky. 

Betty reminded me a bit of Adrian in my class, because she is always chasing her brother and Adrian really likes chasing people too. Betty, Bobby and Mini are quite naughty. Like one time they were biting the legs of the teacher’s chair and when the teacher sat down she fell over. 

Mr. Bold is funny, because he tries to be funny and he is so NOT funny! He is always telling jokes. Here is one of the jokes:

Question: “What does a clock do when its hungry?”

Answer: “Goes back four seconds!”

The illustrations were okay, but I wish they were colourful. 

I would recommend this book to my mum, dad, Maide and Mr Webster because they really like funny things. 

Miranda

The Perfect Hug

The Perfect Hug is by Joanna Walsh and Judi Abbot. I really enjoyed this book. It didn’t start the way I thought it would start. When I saw the cover, I thought it would start with “I am a Panada” or “My name is Bob” or something like that, but it didn’t do that. Instead it starts with: “There are hugs for wrigglers, and hugs for gigglers. Hugs that are tickly and hugs that are prickly…” I like that it rhymes. I also like the beat. Its kind of like a primary 2 book, because it uses … and you only learn what … means when you’re in primary 2 or older. There are two amazing words which are also for older kids: enthusiastic and boa constrictor. I really like those words. The drawings are really well done and all of the characters look very very sweet. Even the boa constrictor looks sweet. 

The main character is a Panda who is looking for a perfect hug. He sees animals such as snakes, mice, cats, bugs, bears, snails, spiders and jellyfish…he even sees aliens, robots and dinosaurs but none of them give him a perfect hug. The last page has the perfect hug when he finds a panda friend to hug. 

Hugs are my favourite things. I think they are really important, that is why I loved this book about hugs. Lots of kids my age don’t like hugs, but I think hugs help with all problems. I kind of wished the story was a bit longer and that he tried to hug a cheetah or a dog or some other things as well. 

I would recommend this book to Hollie and the Tavils because they all like hugs too!  

ESIO TROT

  • Esio Trot, by Roald Dahl
  • Number of Pages: 57 
  • Cool Words: gobble, peering, tortoise, popped

I read this book in one night. It’s pretty long, but it was really exciting. Mrs Silver had a tortoise pet called Alfie. She was unhappy, because he wouldn’t grow. Mr Hoppy, her neighbour, wanted to make her happy so he took  Alfie and he replaced Alfie with another tortoise. (He got three-hundred-million-billion tortoises!) That went on and on, until Mrs Silver had a tortoise of the size that she wanted. Then Mr Hoppy put all the other tortoises back to the pet shop. 

I don’t think Mr Hoppy did the right thing. Its not nice to take somebody’s pet when they don’t know. If they know and its just a game, then its okay. But Mrs Silver didn’t know and she thought she was doing magic. The magic part was fun to read, because it was very tricky to read and I like reading tricky stuff. It was all backwards writing and Daddy helped me with it. 

The end of the story is pretty sad because Alfie has to go to Roberta. Roberta is nice, but why wouldn’t he want to be with his actual owner? His real, nice, kind owner? 

I would recommend this book to Zehra and Sophie M. because they really like animals. 

Wizarding For Beginners

  • Wizarding for Beginners, by Elys Dolan
  • Number of Pages: 203
  • Cool Words: glossy, trotted, flagrant 
  • German Words: Dummkopfe (stupid), Schnell (quick), Unterhose (underwear), Ja (yes), mein Hintern (my bottom)

This book is pretty difficult to read because some of the words are in German. I already knew some of the words because my mom is part German, but the people who don’t know German will find it a bit tricky since Albrecht uses a lot of German words. 

the mean mirror

The story is pretty exciting. There is an annoying mirror that keeps telling the monster which is very very friendly, that it’s hair is awful. That makes the monster feel bad. It made me furious. I would frown at him and he’s lucky it’s just a frown! I think the mirror is a boy, because every time I read about the mirror it feels like its a boy.

The mirror is actually not really important in the story. The important characters in the story are Dave, Albrecht, Terrence the Terrible and Brain (I call him Brain, but his actual name is Belinda because he is only pretending to be a boy so she can be a wizard). Oh and there is also a beast that is important. I like the friendly beast (most beasts aren’t friendly). 

The story is also pretty funny and mysterious. There are parts that are sad, like when Terrence tries to cook Albrecht (he is a goat). Terrence is cooking him so that the tiger can eat him. Darcy in my class also likes to pretend to cook people and Heather has a toy tiger that says “Raaaar!”. 

Actually Wizarding for Beginners is a bit complicated because there are loads of different characters and loads of languages. I also didn’t like the illustrations so much. They have too much going on. Mrs Szczypka, my photography teacher, says to only take pictures on a grey surface or a gold surface or just a really plain surface so that there isn’t too much going on. Because if there is too much going on, people don’t focus on the main thing.

I would recommend this book to 10-year olds that are studying German. I think its not really good for 6-year olds. 

Don’t Call Me Choochie Pooh!

Don’t Call me Choochie Pooh by Sean Taylor & Kate Hindley 

The main character in the story is a dog and the lady who owns him keeps calling him “Choochie Pooh”. This makes the dog super grumpy which is really funny. He is embarrassed because his owner treats him like a baby, but in the end, he makes friends with other dogs and sees that their owners also call them weird things like: “Jiggins Wiggins Cuddle Pie!” and “Hunky Punky Pumpkin Bottom!” and “Little Cutie Patootie!” It’s a lot of fun to say all of the ridiculous names out loud. The story has a happy ending because the dog decides that even though his owner treats him like a baby, he really likes the baby dog treats, so its okay. 

The illustrations in this book are great. Although some pages are dark, most of them are bright and colourful. The pictures are clear and there’s lots of details; there is even dirt on the grass.

I would recommend this as a book to read for your little brother or sister, but actually I think even six-year-olds will find it funny!

To Wee or Not to Wee

  • To Wee or Not to Wee, by Pamela Butchart
  • Number of Pages: 168
  • Cool Characters: MacBeth, Hamlet, Bottom, Lysander, Demetrius, Puck, Titania, Oberon, Helena, Hermia, Romeo & Juliet

This book is a Shakespeare and Pamela Butchart book. I read this one for Shakespeare week this year. Shakespeare wrote plays like A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Hamlet, Macbeth, Tempest, Romeo & Juliet and The Twelfth Night. My favourite is A Midsummer Night’s Dream, because its really funny.

Even though I like some of the stories, I think Shakespeare plays are pretty much for older kids. Most kids don’t like sad things and many of the plays are pretty sad. And the language in the original Shakespeare plays is hard to understand. 

Imagine you were reading a Shakespeare play and your parents were working and you had to keep asking them ‘what does this mean’ and ‘what does that mean’? That’s pretty much what would happen if you read original Shakespeare and you’re under, maybe 13-years old. 

I watched the CBeebies Presents versions of some Shakespeare plays and it’s still pretty hard to understand because they use Shakespeare talk like “Doth” and “Art thou”… Although watching the shows is a bit easier than just reading the play, because in CBeebies Presents ‘A Midsummer Nights Dream’ they have Cook and Lime explaining what’s going on and in CBeebies ‘The Tempest’ they have Captain Captain explaining what’s happening. 

3 Witches in MacBeth

To Wee or Not to Wee is not hard to understand at all. It’s like an easy way to read about Shakespeare’s stories and Pamela Butchart makes everything funny. She can make anything, like sad things or angry things or things that are not so nice into funny things. In the book she uses Hamlet, MacBeth, A Midsummer Nights Dream and Romeo & Juliet.

One of my favourite parts of the book is when Jody tells Zack that he is being like Hamlet because he can’t decide on anything. I also like it when Hamlet says “To Wee or Not to Wee” although mom says that in the real play Hamlet says “To Be or Not to Be” -I don’t know what that’s supposed to mean though. How can you Be or Not Be? 

It’s a bit scary when they murder the King in MacBeth, but its super funny when Titania the queen of the fairies falls in love with Nick Bottom.

I would recommend this book, but not to kids in my class. I think you should be around 10 years old to read this because it can be a bit scary and a bit sad some times. 

The Owl Who Was Afraid of the Dark

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  • The Owl Who Was Afraid of the Dark, by Jill Tomlinson
  • Number of Pages: 99
  • Cool Words: Knackety, Thunderbolt, Enormous, Nocturnal

I love this book. Plop, the barn own, is really cute. He is round and has knackety knees and he keeps falling off his branch. He is also always hungry, like me and my brother!

At the beginning of the book, he is afraid of the dark, but thats a big problem because owls are meant to be nocturnal.

As he goes along and tries going into the dark, he meets different people who tell him something good about it. He meets a boy, who tells him about fire works which Plop really likes. He meets a man who shows him what a telescope is and lets him see the stars. Slowly Plop stops being afraid of the dark and its nice to see him get over his fear.

I would recommend this book to Maide and anyone who is afraid of the dark.