Once you start it, you won't be able to switch it off!
Advantages:
witty, laugh out loud, loved by children
Disadvantages:
wish they were colour pictures
Recommend to potential buyers:
yes
Full review
If you want a great story or set of stories to read, to children 6 and above, then I can highly recommend these books. fabulously written by Laurence Anholt, these stories take well known and loved fairy tales, and twist them on their head, giving a great contemporary twist. and they are great value for money - very affordable with pocket money.
for example...in Little Red Riding Wolf, the villan of the story is NOT the wolf, but its the big bad girl. She's terrible, spending her days bullying the gentle animals of the forest, and she loves nothing better than picking on our hero - Wolfie...or as the author calls him "cutesy wolfie cub!" my class of 6 and 7 year olds absolutely howled and roared with this story, and let out an almighty cheer when the hero of the story changes the big bad girlie for the better. and the hat the wolf wears had me in hysterics too!
The pictures are truly brilliant - I can compare it to the simspons in that you look more closely, at the background or for a 2nd time and notice al the subtle humour and comedy within. Thats my only real criticism, these books are fab to read with 2 or 3, because you can really get the most out of the illustrations, where with a group it's hard to show them all - he'll just have to bring out the book in big book format. it'd be great if they were colour too like the cover, but i guess this would put the price up.
In "Ghostyshocks and the three scares" the little girl ghostyshocks is afraid of everything, esecially the vampire bears that live up in the woods and apparently have big bowls of vampire blood for breakfast - one day she creeps in, but all is not what it seems in the house and she realises that these bears are nothing like she expected.
In "Daft Jack and the Bean stack" Jack is sent out to the shops but comes back with baked bean tins - he uses them to build a giant stack of cans and explores the giants world at the top of the stack - this story ends very happily for Jacks mum.
In "Snow white and the 7 aliens" snow white dreams of being a popstar and meeting her idol Hank Hunk out of the boy band Boysnog. Her wicked stepmother can't bear snow white's beauty and tells her gentle father to take her into the woods and kill her - and bring back her beautiful nose to prove she's dead. Her father can't bear to,. so he makes a pretend nose out of plasticine and takes that back. Meanwhile snow white gets a job cleaning at the spaceship nightclub, where she meets seven aliens, including botty, grotty and snotty and yes snotty even has snot hanging out of his nose on the picture! My kids really loved that bit...but does she realise her dream of singing? you;ll have to read it and see.
The big favourite with the 7 yearold boys in my class was "cinderboy" based on a boy who dreams of being a top footballer, but is always left behind at home to do the chores when his family go to the big match...until one day he becomes the masked footballer and plays in the cup final...
there are many more titles than I can list here, and some I'm still longing to read for the first time, but I've never been disappointed, and they are books the kids love to hear over and over again. Read one and see...
More details
How does it compare to similar audio books?
Excellent
How does it compare to audio works by the same author?
Excellent
Evaluate this review
How helpful would this review be to someone making a buying decision? Rating guidelines
