My three year old daughter is a big fan of the Winnie the Witch series of books by Korky Paul and Valerie Thomas - and this book 'Winnie at the Seaside' is a particular favourite. All of the books feature Winnie, a rather funny and sometimes incompetent witch, and her long suffering cat Wilbur. In this story, as it is an extremely hot summer, they take off for the seaside...
Winnie and Wilbur fly off on her broomstick to reach the seaside. When they arrive though, they discover the beach is really packed, and the only space they can find to spread out their towel is very close to the water's edge. Winie has a lot of fun frolicking in the sea but as Wilbur does not like water he remains on the shore. Unfortunately, the tide comes further up the beach and washes all Winne's things out to sea including her broomstick! In order to retrieve it she has to perform some magic which involves causing some rather large waves and also bringing in a whale. These cause a rather enormous splash soaking all the sunbathers on the beach! As you can imagine this does not make Winnie and Wilbur very popular so they have to beat a hasty retreat!
When they arrive home it is still incredibly hot so Winnie has a brainwave - if they can't go to the seaside she shall bring the seaside to them! With one waveof her magic wand and the immortal words 'Abracadabra' Winnie's garden is transformed into a swimming pool and Winnie and Wilbur can swim and sunbathe in peace!
As I said earlier, my daughter really enjoys this story and finds it very funny! Winnie is a very funny character and the illustrations back this up as well. She wears very strange clothes - often stripy and very brightly coloured! She wears a very interesting bathing costume with her funny witch's hat to match! Her hair is very wild and she has a very long pointed red nose! Also, once in her swimming costume, her hairy legs are revealed. My daughter loves looking at this character and spends a long time talking about what she is wearing!
In fact, on every page the illustrations are very full and entertaining, and also involve a lot of detail. We like looking at the multitudes of people on the beach - thin, fat, old and young - there is so much detail to take in! There is even one dressed as a pirate and another as a scarecrow! The illustrations do really help the story come alive!
The story itself is quite simple but also amusing and entertaining. All of the books tend to follow a similar structure -Winnie does something quite ordinary but then things start to go wrong and she has to use her magic spells to put everything right, as Wilbur watches from the sidelines knowingly. My daughter loves it every time there is a spell because the word 'ABRACADABRA' appears in large wriggly capitals, and as she is able to recognise these she knows when to join in with the magic words!
There are a number of Winnie the Witch books that have been written. They all tend to be stand alone stories, but obviously, once you have read a few, the characters start to become familiar and little children will anticipate the enjoyment they will get from reading the books!
'Winnie at the Seaside' is published by Oxford University Press. The actual story is about 24 colourful pages long and it has a RRP of £5.99. We would definitely recommend it as a good book toshare and enjoy!
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