Children's Books > C Children's Books > less than 5 GBP

Advantages: Amusing book
Disadvantages: None

Animals Scare me stiff An amusing picture book by a well known author. ~~Story and Illustrations~~ The story focuses on Tom, who is followed by a dog. Tom is scared because he thinks the dog will eat him, and here we have a picture which children find amusing- Tom in a bowl labelled Pedigree Boy, whilst a huge dog bends down to start his lunch! After the dog, a horse follows Tom, then a bull joins in the procession, then a snake, birds, spiders, ...
...when the big line of animals are following Tom, the spiders are bouncing around on threads. After following him for a while, the animals come up to Tom and sniff him, and because Tom is so frightened, he falls to the ground but doesn't notice the ants. When he has sat on the ants, Tom screams and pulls off his trousers, at which point we have a funny picture of all the animals running away in terror at such a horrible sight. We see even the ants ... Read review

Advantages: Newspaper cuttings and interviews break up the text
Disadvantages: Weak storyline

After a terrible fight with her parents, a young girl runs away from home, to a motorway cafe, where on a dare she breaks out in song - and is discovered by a group of boys, who are starting a band. They immediately sign her up, and without a moments hesitation, this young girl jumps in the back of their run down van, and speeds down the motorway to freedom. After reading other works by Gillian Cross, this book tends to lack her usual strong storyline, ... Read review

Advantages: Lovely story introducing mothers and their young in the animal world.
Disadvantages: None

...me a star ~ Does a kangaroo have a mother, too?~ This doesn't really have a story line as such, it's more of a question and answer book. It begins with; 'Does a kangaroo have a mother, too?' Yes! A kangaroo has a mother just like me and you.' 'Does a lion have a mother, too?' and so on, going through the following animals: * giraffe * penguin * swan * fox * dolphin * sheep * bear * elephant * monkey It ends with the question: 'And ...
...course they do. Animal mothers love their babies just as yours loves you. ~ Illustrations ~ As an adult, I admire Carle's colourful illustrations just as much as the children I read his books to. All of the illustrations are set against a white back-drop making them stand out. His illustrations have a collage-effect. He paints over coloured tissue paper with acrylic paint using either his fingertips, brushes or sponges. Each animal is beautifully ... Read review

Advantages: has a nice ending, funny characters, unique layout of the page.
Disadvantages: quite corny, a bit unrealistic.

I think that this book is very hard to get into but when you get into the heat off the story I think that the story is well thought out. The characters in this are slightly unrealistic although I still found the way they acted in the story quite amusing. I found this book entertaining and it made me happy when they got together at the end (like they always do). In my opinion, I think that this is a corny love story that is funny to read. The pages ... Read review

Advantages: fascinating, nice and easy, not too long, developed
Disadvantages: excessive use of clauses and commas

A five-hour car journey can be quite a bore without a good book, so I decided I had to buy something to read in time for Easter weekend, and went into the bookshop, fortunately with a voucher left from World Book Day, to browse the latest titles. Now, I can be quite awkward when it comes to books; I'll read almost anything, but I have to be in the right mood. It didn't take me long to find a book that seemed quite appealing. One of my favourite ...
...titles recently which I had yet to read, so I decided to give one of them a go, and opted for 'Hidden Child', by Anne Cassidy. The cover didn't give too much away; an image of a teenage girl half-hiding herself with her sleeve. The blurb simply asked a question or two, not going into too much detail, yet somehow managing to lure me in. After purchasing and reading the first two pages, I was itching to continue, but thought it was best to wait until ... Read review