Tag Kaye Umansky

Sharing & Caring – Stop That Squirrel! / A Dinosaur Lives In Our Shed

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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.

This Rock is Mine!

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This Rock is Mine!
Kaye Umansky and Alice McKinley
Alison Green Books


What starts as a silly spat between two frogs about the ownership of a small rock quickly escalates into a full scale fight with each frog in turn drawing the other’s attention to belongings that prove the rock is theirs..

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Unbeknown to the two little amphibians, their altercation has been watched by a very large long-legged, long-necked bird. Suddenly, as we see in Alice McKinley’s close-up scene, a menacing shadow appears over the disputed rock and two tiny lives are in danger of being extinguished.


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After a desperate dive and a decision about the worthiness of the cause of their argument, the frogs come to two conclusions: the first is that the rock is after all, ‘no good’ and another needs to be found; the second is that friendship is far better than fighting and sharing is the way to a happy co-existence.


Kaye Umansky’s bouncy rhyming text combined with Alice McKinley’s dramatic visuals make a superb read aloud that adults will delight in presenting to young children; they in turn will delight in the unfolding of events. I really love what happens on the penultimate spread where we see two rocks and an indication that frogs are not the only creatures with a possessive streak.

Dick the Delightful Duck

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Dick the Delightful Duck
Kaye Umansky and Ben Mantle
Alison Green Books

Dick the Duck has been dubbed a delight by all who know him. Polite, considerate and thoughtful, a wonderful listener, cheerer-upper and fantastic friend. Then one day, he isn’t. When he rises one morning he feels at odds with himself – cranky, grouchy and ready to snap at anyone that dares to cross his path including his unsuspecting cat companion.
Stamping and stomping, off he goes down the street, ignoring friends, jumping the bus queue and then occupying a seat he wasn’t entitled to before storming off at his destination and striding past everybody.

His pals are puzzled but rather than being equally unpleasant in return, they realise that everybody has an occasional bad day and decide, “We’ll do for Dick Duck what Dick Duck does for us.” And so they do. Duck is treated to kindnesses galore until little by little his frown becomes a smile and he’s back to his usual self and ready to apologise.

He even invites his pals over for a meal that evening (after he’s said sorry to his moggy and done a bit of furniture moving in his bedroom, that is).

Kaye Umansky’s rhyming text bounces – or should that be – waddles – merrily along and reads aloud well so long as you can get your tongue round those Duck Dick and Dick Ducks. Ben Mantle’s splendid illustrations of Dick Duck et al are an absolute delight – funny and bound to make you quackle. You’ll need to grab a copy of the book to discover what a quackle is, but it’s well worth so doing as it offers plenty for young listeners to enjoy.

Naughty Naughty Monster

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Naughty Naughty Monster
Kaye Umansky and Greg Abbott
Templar Publishing
This is utterly delicious: from the moment I set eyes on that monster grinning at me from the book’s cover I was ensnared. The thing is though, he’s – as we’re told from the outset – a monster of the naughty naughty kind. Forget kind – he’s the one and only Naughty Naughty Monster and he has the woodland creatures shivering and shaking in their holes when he’s peckish and on the rampage. Not so one particular Fairy however –

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looks pretty sweet I agree, but not when she’s riled and she is – on account of the NNM. “I am sending you straight back home again./ Be off! Back to your cave!/ And don’t you dare come out/ Until you’ve learned how to behave.” she tells him. This instruction, the NNM ignores completely and continues rampaging, through the farmyard causing terror therein until the Fairy arrives on the scene. She calms the frenzied animals but not the NNM who ignores her “… back into your cave until you learn to be polite” order and proceeds down the street, alarming , nay terrorising, the children with his dustbin kicking and acting tough.

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And that’s when the ‘goody-goody’ Fairy finally goes crazy. She sends him into his cave and blocks the entrance (and of course, the monster’s exit) with ‘a great big, heavy stone’ leaving him to stew  and ponder on his wicked ways, for try as he might, no matter how hard he shoves and thumps, the NNM cannot shift the stone, not one little bit. Is that a tiny tear I spy being shed by the creature here …

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Days pass, a lot of thinking gets done and finally the Monster sees the error of his ways, grabs pen and paper and writes …

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A helpful bird delivers the letter, the Fairy – now happy – reads it, considers, has doubts but decides one more chance is the order of the day. The NNM is released from his solitary confinement and … ‘The Naughty Naughty Monster went rampaging through the wood … ‘

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Surely after all that, the Fairy wasn’t wrong in letting him out, was she?
Kaye Umansky’s rhyming text simply rocks: it’s perfectly paced, marvellously mischievous and reads aloud like a dream. In combination with newcomer Greg Abbott’s superb scenes of mischief, mayhem and a winsome monster, the result is pure picture book pleasure.

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