Tag Susanne Strasser

Get Dressed Belly Button! / So Tired, So Wide Awake!

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Both these board books are from Gecko Press: thanks to the publisher for sending review copies.

Get Dressed Belly Button!
Lucie Brunellière

It’s a chilly day so the toddler must be suitably dressed before heading outside into the cold. Tinies will enjoy watching as the adorable infant is clad in ‘two soft socks’, a ‘toasty t-shirt’ and a pair of jeans; but there’s a belly button still visible. What else will be needed before we’re ready to sally forth? Squeaky sneakers, a cosy warm coat, two woolly mittens, a bobble hat and a scarf and a special kiss. Hurrah! Off you go, little one.
An external narrator, presumably the parent or carer, does the talking in this cleverly designed, vertical flip-flap board book

So Tired, So Wide Awake!
Susanne Strasser

A small bedroom drama unfolds as Hedgehog, Fox, Donkey, Pelican and Crocodile lie fast asleep in bed; but not so Seal. He apparently needs to visit the bathroom so up and out of bed he wriggles. Then in turn, his previously snoozing pals leave the bed and troop to the bathroom: Crocodile has forgotten to brush her teeth, Pelican needs a drink of water,

Donkey has itchy ears and so on, until only a scared Hedgehog remains. Up she scrambles and off she tip, tip tips to find the other animals. Where have they all gone? Somewhere where they can each receive a goodnight kiss before falling fast asleep. Unsurprisingly though, the kiss giver is still wide awake, squashed beneath the heap of slumberers.

Suddenly, a voice calls out, “What a stink! Who did that?” Thereupon, the animals rapidly return from whence they came and crash out in their own bed at last.

Little humans will enjoy watching the build up of tension before it’s revealed where the animals are all going, and delight in the whiffy solution that has them hastily retreating to their own bed. Fun to share with tinies especially as a pre-bedtime read.

Can I Sit in the Middle? / Can You Catch the Bunny?

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Can I Sit In the Middle?
Susanne Strasser
Gecko Press


A child sits on the sofa to read with Hamster. The enthusiastic creature alerts the other animals – zebra, cat and lion – to join them. Just before the story starts Stork arrives, but then Cat decides to try and take possession of the cushion and Hamster gets up, fetches Fish and hurrah! Let the story begin. Or maybe not: some rearrangement of listeners is demanded and then the patient story reader can share the book. Oh! I spoke too soon for Rhino has mislaid a pair of slippers.

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The large pachyderm upends the sofa to retrieve said slippers and OOPS! They all tumble into a heap. Does that mean no story? Happily thanks to a deft rearrangement of furniture and something else that Cat had found under the sofa, a perfect book sharing situation is created and finally, whoopee! it’s story time at long last.


As this drama unfolds small children will enjoy watching the chain of events, delighting in the details in the gently humorous illustrations and wondering who next is coming through that door to be part of the audience on the sofa.

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Can You Catch the Bunny?
Rosie Adams and Linda Tordoff
Little Tiger


Addressing the target audience of very young children directly, the author asks that they assist little Bunny in finding his way first through the vegetable patch and then out into the forest and from there around the garden and the orchard until finally he reaches the safety of the burrow wherein the rest of his family are waiting. With a wealth of treasures collected on his adventure, little Bunny is more than ready to share his spoils with his fellow rabbits.


Little humans will certainly hone their fine motor skills as they use a finger to touch and trace the trail on each spread as well as develop their powers of observation when with the help of an adult sharer, they look at the details – vegetables, other small creatures, fungi, flowers, mammals, and lots more besides, in each of Linda Tordoff’s scenes.