Tag Noodle Juice

Bees & Beetles / Not Just Another Book about Farm Animals / Not Just Another Book about Things That Mooove

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Bees & Beetles
Nia Gould and Molly Littleboy
Little Tiger

A surprising amount of information about bugs, in easily digestible portions, is found on the pages of this sturdy, split page ‘flip-flap’ book, the second in a series for the very young.

Children will enjoy being able to change the scenes by flipping the cut portions of the alternate pages to create a different but related scene for first ants, the second showing the inside of a nest; 

then spiders – the start and finish of a web. Following this, youngsters will encounter several different creepy crawlies – dragonflies, grasshoppers, beetles, fireflies and ladybirds on and among flowers in a meadow; transforming the habitat they’ll discover snails and slugs, earwigs, centipedes and below ground level, wriggling earthworms. Bees come next and finally various caterpillars and butterflies.

A useful book to support a minibeasts theme; one that is frequently explored by foundation stage learners.

Presenting information to young children in an entirely different, but equally effective way are

Not Just Another Book about Farm Animals
Not Just Another Book about Things That Mooove
Noodle Juice, illustrated by Jake McDonald
Noodle Juice

In the first the author offers facts in mouth- watering morsels about farms, and their livestock in a humorous style, with contributions from the animal residents along the way. There are spreads featuring hens, pigs, horses, sheep, cows, turkeys, ducks, geese, goats and even llamas. Did you know that you can tell whether a turkey is male or female by examining its poo?

Jokes abound – these are as likely to appeal to adults as the intended young audience and Jake McDonald’s illustrations are suitably comical.

The same is true in the second book that begins by giving a simple definition of transport and goes on to present spreads on myriad modes of moving from place to place. The information is presented by a cow narrator that seems to have a penchant for puns. Here’s an example. 

Readers will encounter feet (as in walking), boats, cycles, trains, cars, buses, trucks, planes, helicopters and rockets all of which have bovine drivers or pilots.

The busy final spread of both books asks ‘Can you find …’ In the farm book, readers have to try and spot the farmer; in the transport book there’s an elephant to locate.

Wacky fun for fact fanatics.

Not Just Another 123 / Not Just Another abc

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Not Just Another 123
Not Just Another abc
illustrated by Jack Viant
Noodle Juice

All kinds of crazy shenanigans occur between the covers of these concept books; their creators clearly had both adult and child audiences in mind when they dreamed them up. Whether or not young children will understand the clever combinations of visual and verbal humour, I have yet to decide. However I certainly had a good laugh at for example, in 123 the chicken and egg conundrum, the flexible flamingos working on their yoga asanas

and the sheep endeavouring to emulate them and the not so elegant octopuses getting their tentacles in a twist as they do a repeat performance of the hokey cokey. After a tongue twister involving toucans, a representative of each animal group turns up on the final spread – a number line – to encourage little humans to count from one to ten.

The abc book uses three letters per spread (except for the y and z page), and the chosen words on each verso combined with the illustration on the recto, present a mini story as well as perhaps, a starting point for a longer tale co-created by adult and child. Facing the words ‘alligator before crocodile’ are two scaly creatures standing outside a door above which is the sign ‘Dr Smiles Dentist’ and via speech bubbles they discuss who should go in first. The possibilities are many here, but my favourite is this …

I suspect the dragon’s thought bubble will go way over the heads of young children though they can have great fun generating ideas as to what might happen next. The fairy is clutching a wand so maybe she can find a way to save herself …

Different parts of speech – adjective, verb, noun, preposition – comprise the word combinations used adding the possibility of an extra grammar lesson for older readers.

As the characters’ speech bubbles on the covers assert ‘Boredom-free guaranteed!’

Begin the New Year with a Board Book or Two

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Name Your Numbers
Smriti Halls and Edward Underwood
Walker Books

Using a jaunty rhyming text Smriti Halls introduces little ones to eleven different creatures, each of which offers a counting opportunity and is accompanied by a bit part player (or two). Here for instance is Leopard Evan:

Both words and number symbols for one to ten are used and the final spread has a snappy stand-out surprise, no numerals or number words but a chance to take those counting skills to twenty and beyond. Edward Underwood’s illustrations cry out for youngsters to emulate the subject of each spread be that with some bouncing, trumpery-trumping , growling, roaring or whatever.

One slight snag rears its wings however when Billy Bee states with reference to his stripes, “I’ve got three!” Astute observers may well point out that here the image shows the bee with four yellow stripes and three black ones.

Zebra Won’t Wear Spots
Noodle Juice and Mr Griff
Noodle Juice

Zebra detests spots, so much so that she never wears any clothes, until that is, her pals point out that going nude can be thought of as “rather rude!” There’s a snag though, Zebra doesn’t possess clothes of any kind. So, her friends take her on a shopping spree and after an exhausting day, Zebra has clothing for all occasions. Even then, so unused to being clad is our stripy friend, that she gets all in a tizzy when she has to choose what to wear for a trip to the pool; and as for drying herself with a spotty towel – not a chance: nor will she don a spotty sweater in the park as darkness descends

or join in the game of Twister at Giraffe’s birthday party.

However hard she tries though, there are some spots that simply cannot be avoided …

This board book about an aspect of good manners presented in a rhyming text and accompanied by wacky illustrations of Zebra and her friends will certainly amuse little ones who will love the unexpected turnaround.