Woooo!
Gerry Turley
Hutchinson
“Squeak”, “Meep” two baby owls wait hungrily for their mother owl to return with some nourishment before they take their first flight. Then it’s a case of ‘flap your wings and swoosh’ or rather flop and flump, swump, and swoosh.

One ‘whoa’ … follows the mother into the wild woods; the other remains on the branch, “waaa”, stuck. All around other animal sounds come closer, “gnash gnash” and “nosssssssshh” …
Just in time, with an almighty “Screeeeeeeeech!” comes father owl and oops. Time to get those wings moving little one… flap flap off he goes –

just – up and away, even as high as the moon …

Beautifully simple, beautifully told, this tale of a maiden flight is rendered through a brief text comprising brief sentences and animal noises together with illustrations crafted with deft strokes of pen, brush and crayon.
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Tiger on a Tree
Anushka Ravishankar and Pulak Biswas
Tara Books pbk,
A baby tiger wanders off, crosses the river, encounters a goat that causes him to dash up a tree and there he surprises the village men who now have a dilemma: what to do with the animal. They confer on the tiger’s fate and fortunately for all, the decision is in its favour … Satisfyingly circular in nature – the opening ‘Tiger , tiger on the shore’ is the book’s finale too.
Told in slightly erratic rhyme, that swerves across the pages, this tale is full of drama and tension: Armed with an enormous net the men cry

‘Get him! Net him! Tie him tight!’… ‘He’s caught. He’s got. Now what?’
The tiger colour illustrations around which the author wove her tale are wonderfully expressive and abound with energy; Biswas was one of India’s leading illustrators, so this paperback edition will surely one hopes, help keep him in the public eye.
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Little Frog’s Tadpole Trouble
Tatyana Feeney
Oxford University Press
Little Frog was happy being the only offspring of Mummy and Daddy Frog. So, when he learns of new additions to the family – nine no less – he is far from impressed. Can tadpoles build with blocks, play drums, jump even? Oh dear no. Moreover their doing nothing commands all of his parent’s time so,

no bedtime story, no goodnight kiss, just one thoroughly fed-up Little Frog.
But as we all know, tadpoles quickly grow into little frogs and soon …

One big, happy family.
As with her two previous titles, Tatyana Feeney’s limited use of colour and brief text combine to great effect producing a charming whole that, despite the small size of its main character, is much greater than the sum of its parts.
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More about new additions to the family in:

Miffy and the New Baby
Dick Bruna
Simon and Schuster
Once again, Tony Mitton has created a new translation, in rhyme, of the original story wherein Miffy is thrilled to learn of a forthcoming addition to her family and straightway gets to work making treats for her new sibling to be.

And, what a proud big sister she is when she finally holds the baby bunny and when she takes that special ‘Welcome Baby’ cake to school to share with all her friends.
Full of charm, as ever.
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