Monthly Book Roundup - What we have been reading in February

Lily is a lot fussier with the stories I read her now, and she does go back to her old favourites a lot of the time, but I do get chance to introduce her to new books each month. Just don't get to read them as often as I would like. I think it is because she is getting older and the repetition of the same books doesn't interest her as much as it did when she was little. 

I still like to read 2 - 3 stories a night to Lily though. Usually we have one long one and 2 shorter stories.

You can read all my other book reviews Here

I introduced Lily to 3 brand new books in February, all with a love theme to fit in with Valentines.

Here is what we read -  

1. Ella by Alex T Smith 
This story is a twist on the tale of Cinderella, only instead of it being about a girl, it is about a bug called Ella. Ella has 2 evil step sisters who are wasps, and they treat her horribly. Just like in cinderella there is a bug trying to find love. This time he is an artist called Pierre rather than a prince. He puts on a bug ball to find his love. Ella sneaks her way to the ball after her fairy godmother helps her get ready, and there she meets pierre and he falls in love with her. But just like in cinderella she needs to leave at midnight and as she does she drops her glasses. So pierre searches the city to find who matches the glasses and thats when he finds her again and they live happy ever after. Lily enjoyed this story and I think I preferred it to the original Cinderella story. You can buy this book online.

2. Kiss the Crocodile by Sean Taylor
This was my favourite book I read to Lily this month. It was cute, and had a really fun storyline to it. The story is all about the animals playing games. Then they bump into crocodile, he tells them all about this great game called Kiss the Crocodile. To play the game, crocodile pretends to be asleep and each player much creep over to quickly kiss the crocodile with out waking him. Each animal creeps up and manages with great success to land a kiss on the crocodile. But now its monkeys turn, he tries to sneak up but lands a really big kiss on the crocodile and the crocodile chases him. Feeling afraid the monkey reminds the crocodile its only a game, and the crocodile agree's and wants to play other games with the group of animals. I think it is a lovely tale of friendship and is also a story that children can easily follow. You can buy this book from Walker Picture Books. 

3. The Fairytale Hairdresser and Beauty and the Beast by Abie Longstaff
This story is a twist on the tale of beauty and the beast but still contains the character of the beast in it. Beast meets a hairdresser called Kittie and her friend who was an artist called Bella. One day out and about they have to go into beasts castle because of the rain and they meet beast. At first beast was a little scary but over dinner the girls started to realise he was nice and they became friends. Beast falls in love with Bella who paints half a painting of him and promises to come back. But she never does. He goes to Kittie who had been very busy hairdressing and asks if she thinks Bella could ever love a beast like him. So Kittie decides to give beast a make over and invites him to the party. Lots happens at the party and beast gets the chance to show he is a hero and helps save a baby, but hurts himself. Bella rushes to his side, kisses him and turns him back into a prince.
The story has moments that are like the real beauty and the beast tale, but also lots of little random parts into it to which make it a compleatly different story. You can buy this book online.

Which of these books do you like the sound of?