Room on the Broom - Julia Donaldson > Reviews > "Iggety, ziggety, zaggety, ZOOM!"

Author's product rating:   

Would you listen to it again?	Absolutely
Story	Outstanding
Characters	Good
Listenability	Once you start it, you won't be able to switch it off!

Advantages:	See below
Disadvantages:	See below

Recommend to potential buyers:

yes

Full review

My little monster, Mia, turned 4 on Sunday, where do the years go? Luckily for me she has the same love of books as I have, thus making it easy for me to buy “stocking filler” gifts for her after her main presents have been bought. Because it’s usually me who gets the job of reading her bedtime story, I try to look for books that appeal to me too. After a couple of weeks of the same book, the same stories time after time, I tend to get a bit sick and I know it’s time to change. I bought Room On The Broom from the Early Learning Centre and it cost me the princely sum of £5.99 in paperback.

The book itself is written by Julia Donaldson and illustrated by Axel Scheffler, the same people who did The Gruffalo (another favourite of my daughter and myself), The Smartest Giant In Town and Monkey Puzzle. The front cover shows a witch and her cat on a broomstick flying through a starlit sky over a stream. The stars and book title are printed in metallic silver, so they reflect the light and really catch the eye. No mistake I suppose, if you want to get your book noticed on a shelf. The back cover shows a Dragon, with one horn like a unicorn and smoking nostrils, popping his head from behind some Christmassy type fir trees.

The Blurb:

“The witch had a cat
and a very tall hat,
And long ginger hair
which she wore in a plait.
How the car purred
and how the witch grinned
As they sat on their broomstick
and flew through the wind”

This gives you an idea of the way the book is written. The rhyming lines make it great fun to read, and my daughter loves it and wants it reading constantly. The story goes a bit like this.

The witch is flying around on her broomstick and she keeps dropping things. She swoops down, but has no luck finding the things herself. A dog, a green bird and a frog find them for her and in return she gives them a ride on her broomstick. Off they go again, flying over moors and mountains, when something happens and she ends up flying on half a broomstick into a cloud. Of all the clouds she happens to fly into, she ends up in the one which housed a scary dragon who wants to eat her. Luckily the critters she’s picked up manage to scare off the dragon and save the day. She does a bit of magic and gets herself A TRULY MAGNIFICENT BROOM then off she flies, everyone happy.

I definitely recommend this book to anyone who has kids and who enjoys reading to them. The story, and especially the illustrations, would appeal to kids of all ages. I find Room On The Broom a pleasure to read, and after reading it at least twice a day for 4 days I’m only getting into it more. Mia can’t read it for herself yet, but by looking at the pictures she makes a damn good effort of “reading” the story back to me. I think that if a child can tell a story from the pictures alone, that’s got to tell you something about a book.

Published by Macmillan Children’s Books

ISBN 0-333-90338-2 Paperback

Thanks for reading,
Jo x