Children's Books > M Children's Books

Advantages: imaginative, speaks volumes about who we are and why, and the emaning of family, doesn't talk down
Disadvantages: Child should be a proficient reader with a good vocabulary before attempting this book

...Meg's mother is brilliant as a scientist, but deluded that her husband is coming back. They all say he ran off and abandoned his family. And no wonder, his daughter Meg is dull witted and stubborn as well as disruptive, his twins full of mischief, and his youngest, Charles Wallace is obviously defective as he never speaks (not in front of non family anyway). That is how the townspeople see the family. The reality is quite different. Meg is a very ...
...very obvious. Charles Wallace is a child genius, possibly on the autistic spectrum, and though a genius, he is still a child and misses his father very much. The truth about their father is that he did not run off at all; his wife hopes he will someday return from the secret Tesseract project he was working on. The children learn all about the truth of his disappearance one day when they meet a very unusual being who explains what happened to their ... Read review

Advantages: Well-written, honest, emotionally engaging.
Disadvantages: Young Manchester United fans may not like it so much!

...did, once." It is Billy the Kid's eightieth birthday, and as he sits on his favourite park bench, whiling away the hours before the match, he reminisces about his life. And it has been an eventful life. All Billy ever wanted to do was to play football for Chelsea FC. And he did too, before the war. He was good, scoring nine goals in his first season. Word had it that he would be playing for England before the year was out. But then Hitler came. ...
...Dunkirk. Because of Joe's death, Billy broke his promise to his father and joined up too, as a medic. And from then on, nothing went right for Billy. Nothing went right for Billy for a long, long time. The peace and safe harbour of that park bench has been so very hard to find… A story for young, but confident, readers of perhaps six to nine, Billy the Kid is not one that will last them forever. The narrative is simple but the vocabulary fairly ... Read review

Advantages: Sweet story
Disadvantages: none

...that he is concerned, as Frog doesn’t look very well. He explains that he feels a thump-thump inside of him and that he feels like laughing and crying at the same time. Piglet thinks it might be a cold and tells him to go to bed. He decides to ask Hare, who is very wise and explains his symptoms and tells him he keeps going hot and cold. Hare looks in his books and decides that Frog must be in love. This cheers Frog up and the next time he meets ...
...each other dearly. A frog and a duck… Green and white. Love knows no boundaries.” ***The Illustrations*** The illustrations in this book are drawn in picture frames. The text is simply written underneath these picture frames and this makes it very easy for the reader to follow. The pictures themselves are simply drawn and this seems to compliment the story very well. Although the colours are bright, they blend together and it doesn’t glare out ... Read review

Advantages: Gentle story that follows the series well
Disadvantages: none

...favourite colour. Being a frog is the best thing in the world.'" Duck then asks his if he thinks she's beautiful too but he says that she can't be because there's no green on her at all. Duck then tells him she can fly though and this amazes frog. He wants to learn how to fly too but duck tells him he can't because he has no wings. Frog tries to fly by flapping his arms about wildly but to no avail. He decides he needs to make himself some wings ...
...cakes and being pink. Frog then tries to make a cake but it goes really badly and he ends up burning it. He is very upset because he can't do anything that his friends can do. He goes off to borrow a book from Hare but he can read and gets very upset until Hare reminds him that there are things that he can do that none of his friends can. Thinking about this he goes down to the river and looks at his reflection again. "Suddenly, Frog felt very ... Read review

Advantages: Nice story, simple for children to understand
Disadvantages: None

...book. PRODUCT Gumboot's Chocolatey Day is written and illustrated by Mick Inkpen and was originally published in 1989. The particular copy that my son brought home from school was published in 2001 for The Book People Ltd. ISBN number for this book is 0 333 51440 8 (hardback) and 0 333 56074 4 (paperback). The copy that I have is paperback and was originally priced at £4.99, although I am sure you could pick up a used copy much cheaper. THE ...
...An example of this is Gumboot's aunt gives him the chocolate and we are told it has fifteen squares, but Gumboot doesn't know this because he can only count to ten. The book I think also encourages a simple learning of animals. Through talking to the little girl in the park Gumboot learns that ducks do not like chocolate, only bread. This book is also nice because it encourages kind acts - such as sharing. Gumboot has two squares of chocolate, ... Read review