Stone Underpants
Rebecca Lisle and Richard Watson
Maverick Arts Publishing
Stone underpants? Have you ever heard of anything more preposterous? Back in the Stone Age though, when young Pod lived there wasn’t an awful lot around to make bottom warmers from when your rear end felt decidedly chilly, so a pair of stone underpants is what he makes himself. Needless to say however, they’re not the best things for running around in, and as for swimming, well …

Pod decides to try another material, but wood proves equally unsuitable …

as do several others he tries. Is he destined to have a chilly rump for ever or is there something else he could try…

The very mention of underpants and bottoms frequently reduces young listeners to fits of giggles and I suspect this one will do just that. The whole scenario is totally crazy: beetles demolishing his wooden underpants overnight for instance; and what was wrong with using an animal skin, there are certainly wild beasts evident in some of the scenes; but this madcap romp requires total suspension of disbelief so, why worry. It’s assuredly something youngsters will raise anyhow and they’ll also more than likely ask about the material used for that football too, and perhaps question why Pod didn’t just try making leafy underpants But all this could lead very nicely into some investigative work on materials if you happen to work with young children. Alternatively you might just enjoy the ridiculous story as told by the aptly named Rebecca Lisle, and have a good giggle over the equally crazy pictorial rendition of same from Richard Wilson.

The Great Sock Secret
Susan Whelan and Gwynneth Jones
EK Books
My alternative uses for socks have been restricted to a resource for making puppets in the classroom; and when teaching yoga, as props for those needing a little bit of help in certain stretches.
In Sarah’s house though, the socks are put to all manner of imaginative uses by the fairies who share her home. When Sarah’s mum initiates a hunt for the socks that have mysteriously gone missing from the laundry basket,

the little girl has to stay one jump ahead as they search all over the house. She knows who the culprits are; but can she manage to stop her mum from discovering those borrowers?
This foray into the fanciful is most likely to appeal to imaginative listeners around the age of the young protagonist.