Monthly Book Roundup - What we have been reading in March

Its time for my monthly book round up again. Each month I write about new books that I have introduced to Lily at bedtime and what we think of them. We always read around 3-4 books a night and most nights we end up reading the same ones with a few odd ones read in between. I find reading the same books helps Lily relax and she does grow fond of the stories each month and gets excited when I get them out to read each night. 

You can read all our other monthly roundups here.

This month Lily has been really tired and so we have some nights not even had story time. She has totally cut out her naps. The nights we do have story we manage around 2 a night. The stories I read to her are getting a little longer now and so 2 stories is just about right. 

I didn't have a theme this month. At the end of the month I thought to myself that I should of had some mothers day books in, but with moving home at the end of february my mind was on other things and so I didn't end up buying any new books.  

So here are this months reads. 

1. Atchoo! by Mij Kelly 

To start with, this book is actually a lot longer and drawn out than you think its going to be. I did buy this for lily when she was a lot younger and really found sneezing amusing but it ended up being way to long of a story for her and so I put it aside for later. Now she is older she happily will lay there and listen to it until the end of the story. Atchoo is a story telling the complete guide to good manners. Its about a little girl who sneezes and doesn't cover her mouth. So the animals at the farm teach her about manners. The reason I say the story is drawn out as after the animals finish teaching the girl about manners, she then turns round and teaches them some lessons about being kind. The good points to the story are the rhyming aspects to it and it has fun phrases rhyming with the girls name which is Suzy Sue. For example "She hasn't got a clue, the child has no manners, was she born in a zoo? The Rhyming made it very nice to read. I did find that some of the words may be a little hard for a young child to understand though, like poise. The wonderful colours and illustrations will really capture your child's attention though and so over all its not a bad book. I found this book at a car boot sale but you can find it on amazon. 

2. The Brave Little Owl by Gill Davies

Lily has always loved Owls, though i'm not sure they are still her favourite animal. She really seems to like cats at the moment. Never the less I thought she would love this book with it being all about an owl and on the cover it says that the story is about a little owl over coming his fear of the dark. Lily is afraid of the dark and so I wondered if this would help. I actually found the story to be quite sweet, but also a little boring. But that may not always be a bad thing. We are trying to get our children to sleep at story time before bed and so stories that are to exciting may not help with that. I was really looking forward to the owl battling the fear of the dark, but the story seemed to stray away from it a little to much and was very focused on the little owl being afraid to learn to fly. So unfortunately I didn't find it helpful for the over coming of the fear of the dark. Lily did listen to the story very contently though and I think it was a nice calm story for bedtime. I bought this story from The Works.

3. Mog and the Baby by Judith Kerr

This story Lily loved the most this month. It involves 2 of her favourite things, babies and cats. You may already know about the classic cat Mog. In this story a baby comes to stay for the day and the baby really loves Mog and wants to play with it all the time. But Mog, like most cats, really wants to get away and carry on with its very chilled cat like day, sleeping and eating its fish for dinner. The owner of the cat keeps saying "Mog loves babies, which isn't entirely true but at the end Mog saves the babies life and gets a reward for it leaving the owner saying "See, I told you, Mog loves babies." Its a really good story and very amusing to read. I love how the story is just a simple classic story. Not far fetched and is something that can be very relatable to home with the characters in it. I bought this book from Waterstones and I would really recommend it to be added to your child's book collection. 

4. Freddie and The Fairy by Julia Donaldson 

As you may know by now. Lily and I are a very big fan of Julia Donaldson books. You may have noticed some of my past reviews are books of hers and so although we own many I try and space them out when reading them. Her books are great in the sense that some are long and some not to long. Freddie and the Fairy is just about perfect length wise for Lily's age. Its not to long, but also not to short and so just the right amount to keep Lily engaged with it. The story is about a little boy who is wishing for a pet from a fairy. But he keeps mumbling and so the fairy can't understand him and keeps conjuring up something else instead of what he has asked for. The story is really amusing and also has a really good rhyme to it just like most Julia Donaldson books have. At the end of the story the Fairy Queen comes to help and teaches Freddie not to mumble so then the fairy can understand him. Which is a great lesson to be learnt by most children. If you are a fan of Julia Donaldson books then this one is definetly a must buy. You can buy most Julia Donaldson books from stores such as Waterstones or WH Smiths. 

Which book do you like the sound of the most?