Friday, 2 February 2018

Monthly Book Roundup - What we have been reading in January (2018)

The start of a new year, and I still plan to let you know about all we have been reading on a monthly basis. 

Lily and I have read so many great books over the last year and we still have a huge pile of new books to get through. 

You can read all about the other books we read last year in my monthly book roundup section of the blog. 

As Lily is getting older, it is getting a lot harder to convince her to read some of the new books. She very much likes to make her own choice of which books we read at night. It's great that she has her own choice but I do have to encourage her not to just stick to her Bing or Peppa Pig books and enjoy some of the other stories that there are. The following selection of books are some that Lily enjoyed this month and also ones that I enjoyed reading. 



1. AGAIN by John Prater 
I Love how this story relates to every young child and every parent/grandparent. The story is about a little baby bear who wants to play with his grandbear. They play games such as building bricks and making sandcastles, but the best part of that game for baby bear is knocking it down and shouting AGAIN as he asks his grandbear to build them back up. I have witnessed many days myself where I have played this game and just like grandbear does in the story, I got fed up of it quickly and encouraged another game. The story has a lovely ending though where they have a cuddle, and this time its grandbear who says again, as he wants another. Lily really enjoyed this book which I picked up at the Works. 

2. A Tale From Percy's Park, The Rescue Party by Nick Butterworth 
This is the first tale from Percy's Park that we have read and I will definitely be getting Lily some more to read. The character of Percy is great. He is a kind guy who loves all the animals around him and is friends to them all. In this particular tale, a rabbit is needing saving from a well and Percy rallies up all of the animals to help him. As they try to pull the rabbit out of the well, the rabbit finds its own way out and ends up also trying to help. Which makes everyone laugh when they realise the rabbit isn't down the hole anymore. The comedy ending in this also made Lily laugh, and it also has a special pull out page which stretches long showing all the animals with the rope. Lily enjoyed opening this page up. I was sent this book from a bookshop as a prize but you can find it online. 

3. Nightbear by Rebecca Patterson 
This was one of my favourite stories out of the lot. It is a lovely story of a bear that is needing a home after being left at a charity shop. Eventually a little girl buys it and takes it home with her. The bear gets lots of new friends as the little girl already has lots of bears. All the bears in her home have jobs, like dressing up with her and going out on her bike. But it ends up that the night bear gets the most special job of all by being the one she needs the most. As at night time she needs something to cuddle, something to make her feel better when she is scared or ill and someone to talk to as she is on her own. This story made Lily want to get her yellow bear and cuddle it for a few nights. She also related to the story because she gets scared at night and she has been sick in the night and so we talked about how teddy bears make her feel better. I was sent this book from Books and Pieces where it is also available to buy. 

4. Pink Lion by Jane Porter 
This story was Lily's favourite from the books we read this month. It is all about a Pink Lion who lives with a family of flamingo's. He is quite happy being a flamingo until he meets a family of lions who tell him that he is not a flamingo and that he is a lion. They try to teach him how to become a lion, how to roar and lick themselves to wash and how to run. But the pink lion just struggles to do it all and decides he is better off as a flamingo. When he returns to the flamingo's he finds that a crocodile has taken over their home. But not for long as the lion finds his roar and scares the crocodile away. Soon after that, the lions and flamingo's all become friends and live together. Lily got me to read this story quite a few times and so I think she would recommend it as a good book. Her favourite part was when the lion gave out a big roar and Lily enjoying roaring too. I also won this book in a competition but you can buy it online. 

Which of the above books do you like the sound of? 

13 comments:

  1. We love Percy the Park Keeper books!

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  2. AGAIN! Sounds nice. Grandparent /s : Grandchild/ ren relationship /s can be so endearing, etc. To be acknowledged and appreciated. Just as all good friendships, etc should be :- In my opinion.

    Rachel Craig

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  3. Percy the Park Keeper books were always my favourite when I was younger and I still think they are great for kids.

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  4. think my daughter would love pink lion

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  5. A Tale From Percy's Park, The Rescue Party :- Seems like a great book. Good to encourage kindness, compassion, fun, humour, caring, heroism, etc. Would love to have this book for the children.

    Rachel Craig

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  6. Nightbear, sounds comforting for little ones.

    Rachel Craig

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  7. Pink Lion, I think the book would be enjoyed by many. Certainly not just Lily. Nice that she enjoys the book.

    Rachel Craig

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  8. I am.lookong forward to reading to our Grandson as he gets older. He is only 5 months now..

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  9. All of these books sound great, I especially like the sound of Night Bear and Pink Lion. I agree it's important that we read something other than Peppa Pig or other books tied to branded merchandise, as quite frankly the writing is often not much good in those types of books.

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  10. I like the sound of all of them, they seem lovely. Thanks for reviewing them :).

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  11. We haven't read any of these, they seem great :) xxx

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  12. Another really helpful review. I smiled when I read AGAIN but I really do like the sound of Nightbear. Many thanks.

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