Odd Bods
Steven Butler and Jarvis
Puffin Books
We’ve all got our little quirks and foibles, and this is just what is celebrated in Butler and Jarvis’ crazy A to Z of weird and wonderful child characters. Let me introduce a few, starting with these two:

With those never-trimmed nails, Duncan’s certainly not somebody I’d want to encounter. Then there’s Franklyn; now he would be pretty useful on occasion …

Iris’s special skill is something I once got given a detention for at school, when eating, or rather not eating, my disgusting school lunch. Now that proves I was (and still am) something of a wild child

I blame the quality of the cutlery though I’m sure the adults here would say it’s all down to those children.
Let’s mention a few more: there’s Kitty who loves nothing better than to flash her knickers, bogey-filled Larry and leaking Mathilda. Skipping a few letters takes us to Stanley though heaven knows where he might be now …

Will is something of a yogi …

and Yasmine is extraordinarily adept at fishing on account of her slight stickiness, which takes us almost to the end; and that’s where we’ll say farewell to the whole crazy cast …

Take a long look and see how many you can identify already. For the rest, you’ll need to get hold of your own copy of this hoot of a book and enjoy encountering each and every character yourself.
And teachers, you don’t need me to point out the tremendous classroom potential of this one.

Animal Alphabet
Kay Vincent
Button Books
Alliterative alphabet fun is what we have in this retro style A to Z of creatures great and small. Each animal has its own double spread and there’s an adjective starting with the same letter to describe it. Thus Bb ‘busking bear’ shows a banjo-strumming brown bear playing to a couple of birds. Here’s another musical animal …

and a rather sporty one …

Kay Vincent manages to give each and every animal a real personality in her stylised depictions.
This one’s definitely a visual treat but at the same time there’s plenty of space for youngsters’ own flights of verbal fancy: What is that ‘jolly jellyfish’ with the yippee flag celebrating for instance? Or, how is the xylophonist X-ray fish able to play under water and what is the music? Each letter offers storying potential – an added bonus and one that makes this more than just an ordinary animal alphabet book. And, if that’s not enough, the removeable dust jacket becomes a mini frieze to adorn your early years writing area, or child’s bedroom, perhaps.

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