Stop That Squirrel!
Smriti Halls and Lucy Fleming
Scholastic

Scout the squirrel is an obsessive nut hunter and with autumn in the air she decides it’s time to prepare for winter. Off she goes, sack on her back, to collect as many nuts as possible.

Having filled her larder with her first haul, she sets out again, beating all the other creatures to each and every nut.

They decide to try and halt her greed so they put up a sign ‘STOP THAT SQUIRREL!’
When snow starts to fall, badger and the rest of the animals search desperately for nuts but to no avail.
Meanwhile Scout is busy baking and being delighted with her delicious-looking cake, she calls out, offering some to her friends. Suddenly she sees the sign and a horrible realisation dawns. Time to show the others what being a friend really means …

Lucy’s illustrations and Smriti’s rhyming tale show and the final line says, ‘… nuts taste the best when you share them around.’ That applies to so many other things too, something one hopes that young listeners will take from the book.

A Dinosaur Lives In Our Shed
Kaye Umansky and Pippa Curnick
Alison Green Books

Supposing a little dinosaur unexpectedly followed you home from the park, what would you do? The children in this story fed him and put him in the shed overnight. Thereafter they gave him cuddles, read him stories

and took him on excursions to the seaside and into the woods.

Then one day the dinosaur gave an almighty ROOOOAAAAR!!! and became so sad he didn’t want to go out with the children. What could be wrong. they wondered and then light bulb moment: he was missing his mum. But where was she? The concerned humans put up posters around the locality – not lost ones but found. After waiting a day and a night the children heard noises outside, so they thought. Could it possibly be …
The following morning when they look in the shed, what do they discover …

Kaye Umansky’s rhyming text in combination with Pippa Curnick’s uproarious illustrations full of fun details make this a book that will amuse young children and adult sharers alike.