Tag Simon & Schuster Children’s

My Small World: Dinosaurs

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My Small World: Dinosaurs
Caryl Hart and Harry Woodgate
Simon & Schuster Children’s Books

Two small children take readers on an adventure to their imaginary prehistoric world, the land of the dinosaurs.

Therein among erupting volcanoes, they will watch dinosaur cousins – baby pterosaurs learning to fly,

encounter the herbivorous Europasaurs, dive down deep in the ocean and meet an Ichthyosaur, not strictly a dinosaur but a dolphin-like, fish-eating lizard,

take a ride upon the back of an enormous Brachiosaurus while tempting it with something delicious. Suddenly though there comes a fear-inducing ROAR made by a ravenous T.Rex, time to take cover or else perhaps become its next meal. Off go the little humans, following the tracks left in the swamp by a family of Stegosaurs having some fun, then watched by smiling Triceratops they climb up the volcano side and look down upon other dinosaurs hunting or swimming until sunset.

Time to bid farewell to those dino-friends and return to reality. Little humans (with a bit of adult help) can then start assembling some materials to create their very own Dinosaur Land. Instructions are offered at the end of the adventure and the book ends with a ‘my small world’ map.

Author Caryl Hart and illustrator Harry Woodgate have chosen a topic that’s sure to appeal to small children in this, the first of a new series where imagination is key and there’s playfulness aplenty. The rhyming story reads aloud well and the illustrations are infused with gentle humour and alive with vibrant colours.

Flights of Fancy: How to Drive a Roman Chariot / The Girl and the Dinosaur

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How to Drive a Roman Chariot
Caryl Hart and Ed Eaves
Simon & Schuster Children’s

This tenth Albie adventure that celebrates young children and their imagination, begins as he’s out with his mum feeding some horses when the rain starts.

Taking shelter in a barn, Albie comes upon a girl named Julia with her problematic knitting. The next thing he knows is that he is whisked back in time to Ancient Rome and he and Julia are chasing after a runaway chariot.

Having managed to leap aboard as the horses gallop straight for the crowded market, a fearless Julia grabs hold of the reins and steers the chariot clear.

That however isn’t the only thing she wants to do: young Julia is determined to prove to everyone who says they can’t, that girls CAN drive chariots. Can they win races too, I wonder?

Whoever said ancient history is boring?

The Girl and the Dinosaur
Hollie Hughes and Sarah Massini
Bloomsbury Children’s Books

Just imagine if you had a dinosaur: that is what happens to the little girl Marianne we see digging on the beach of a seaside town on the first spread of this book. Watched by the fisherfolk concerned about her lack of friends, Marianne methodically digs up and assembles (Mary Anning style) a complete skeleton that she names Bony.

Back in bed that night she wishes life into her ‘stony bones’ and in a sky aglow with dreams, awakens a deeply slumbering dinosaur and takes off on its back into a beautiful world of wonder and magic.

The two go first to the sea and then after a dip, visit an enchanted forest alive with fairies and unicorns.

They climb to the top of a mountain, then taking a ‘mighty leap of faith’ soar up and away towards a magical island among the clouds to a very special party for children and their dream world creatures.

However eventually slumbers call, the party must end; and reveries over, it’s time to return to those empty beds.

Thereafter the story comes full circle and we’re back on the beach, only now Marianne is not alone and the fisherfolk are no longer concerned, for the single girl has been joined by lots of other children each one digging for their very own dinosaur.

Hold fast to dreams as you share Hollie Hughes’ lyrical rhyming story and Sarah Massini’s wonderfully whimsical, atmospheric illustrations of the real and dream worlds.

A great snuggle up at bedtime tale that will linger long in the mind and perhaps fuel the dreams of your little ones as, lulled by the soporific nature of the narrative, they too head off to slumberland.