Tag Richard Merritt

Ten Whizzy Racers: Chaos at Crackling Creek

jillrbennett Leave a comment

Ten Whizzy Racers: Chaos at Crackling Creek
Timothy Knapman and Richard Merritt
Ladybird

This is the first in a new countdown series with a racing theme. The whizzy racers are Boo, Bolt, Bounce, Dash, Drift, Glint, Scoop, Speedy, Tricks and Zip. As the book begins they’ve all assembled in their vehicles at the start line in Fairytale Forest ready for the great Beanstalk Cup race to begin. The starting gun pops and off they go, but almost immediately there’s some thieving, out goes Drift and on go nine whizzy racers. Zip’s a kindly character and he pulls out of the race to pick up Red Riding Hood and deliver her safely to her Grandma’s house. And so the number of whizzers diminishes as all manner of accidents, alarming incidents

and other reasons for pulling out occur until only Bolt and Bounce remain in the running. Who will be first to cross the line and take the cup? One very happy racer. However, there’s another racer that is anything but happy and that, despite his shenanigans.

Timothy Knapman weaves a host of fairytale characters into his bouncy rhyming narrative including infuriated fairies, a terribly large troll and a mischievous unicorn. Each of these and lots more appear in Richard Merritt’s vibrant, action-packed scenes of the event. There’s so much to look at on each spread that little humans will be reluctant to whizz through the pages, rather they’ll want to take it slower and savour all the details.

The Fairy Dogmother

jillrbennett Leave a comment

The Fairy Dogmother
Caroline Crowe and Richard Merritt
Little Tiger

This playful modern fairy tale has its origins in Cinderella and is set in Woofington’s Dog Shelter, home to most of the characters in the book including Cinders. This resident is just contemplating lunch when suddenly one Priscilla Paws, Fairy dog mother announces herself and offers Cinders a wish – “Whatever will make you the happiest you can be,” she suggests.

Now Cinders is pretty satisfied already with his home, food and friends so he tells Priscilla, but the fairy urges him to make haste before the wish times out. Unable to come up with anything, Cinders consults his friends and every one has a different suggestion, Boris’s idea being a ball … How do you think Priscilla envisages that one?

The clock ticks on and Cinders’ time is almost up …

when suddenly Old Wally has a brilliant proposal. Kind-hearted Cinders happily makes the wish but it leaves him without any companions. Or does it? For as Priscilla’s experience tells her and she tells Cinders, “fairy tails always have a happy ending” …

Dreams sometimes do come true, perhaps even when the dreamers don’t realise what their deepest wishes are.

Be they bursting with detail and pattern or less ornate, Richard Merritt’s vibrant humorous scenes completely fill every page and along with Caroline Crowe’s positive message about Cinders’ kindness and generosity,.this is a fun book to share with youngsters, preferably once they know a traditional version of Cinderella.

Love Makes a Family / I Want to Be … a Doctor

jillrbennett Leave a comment

Little Tiger have published several board books to start the year: here are two examples:

Love Makes a Family
Sophie Beer

Diverse families demonstrate the meaning of love – family love – through a variety of day-to-day interactions. Starting with an early awakening by two exuberant little ones of their still rather sleepy parents, or it might be baking and sharing a very special birthday celebration cake. Sometimes, something as simple as knowing where that lost toy might be found is an act of love;

but it’s also enjoying playing in the rain, helping a toddler; showing your appreciation of your children’s performance put on specially for you; comforting, bath time fun;

sharing just one more book or that bedtime kiss.
All these things constitute part of something we all need – especially after the past year – and that is LOVE. Joyfully illustrated in bold bright scenes rich in pattern, Sophie Beer’s celebration of simple loving acts shows the very youngest children, what makes a family a family.

I Want to Be … a Doctor
illustrated by Richard Merritt

The small girl narrator peeping through the die hole in the cover explains why her ambition is to become a doctor. Most importantly she wants to help ‘poorly people get better’, but she’s also excited (as we’re shown in Richard Merritt’s illustrations that show our narrator playing with her teddy), about the prospect of wearing a white lab coat and having lots of doctorly accoutrements.

Then there’s the possibility of an ambulance ride, siren blaring and lights flashing while at other times there’ll be patients visiting her surgery (‘office’) when she might need to use some of the instruments from her doctor’s bag.

She shows readers both the stethoscope and an x-ray machine at work, as well as issuing a prescription based on her observations: all in all, lots of reasons that inspire a young child to aspire to become a member of the medical profession but it’s not everybody’s ambition of course, and the final page with its mirror asks about that very thing.