Kids Book Club - June 2012

Confidentials 14 June 2012

0-4 years

Harold and the Purple Crayon

Crockett Johnson

£6.99

Harold And The Purple CrayonNot actually a new book, but rather a new edition of an out-of-print classic. Arguably, it's one of the progenitors of all modern picture books. First published in America back in 1955, it spawned a series of sequels and inspired many that followed in the field, not least the late, great Maurice Sendak. Simply enough, little Harold goes for a moonlit walk wielding a crayon and a healthy imagination. Everything he draws springs to life, right up until he draws his bed-covers and climbs in to sleep. The central idea's been filched many times, but this can claim to be the original. Within that spare, bold framework, Harold and his doodlings manage to be funny, strange, exciting, and still thoroughly refreshing over fifty years on.

4-6 years

A First Book of Nature

Nicola Davies and Mark Hearld

£14.99

A First Book Of NatureThe sun's shining, the birds are tweeting: it's time again to throw open the front door and explore the great outdoors. For young readers, to whom it's all still lovely and new, this acts as a very nifty, wide-ranging primer. Davies is a trained zoologist, perfectly qualified to inspire a love of wildlife in children. But with its pared-down text and scrapbook format, this covers everything from the seasons and the seaside to simple recipes using wild fruits. There's literally a bit of everything, reflecting the sprawling panoply of the natural world. It's all delightfully old-fashioned, but then thankfully, nature never really dates. It's all lovingly illustrated with line drawings and evocative washes of colour, and with in this lavish hardback edition its a glorious item in its own right.

6-8 years

Me, the Queen and Christopher

Giles Andreae / Tony Ross

£4.99

Me, The Queen And ChristopherIf jubilee fever has gripped your household, this could be worth its weight in crown jewels. When young Freya is invited to visit Buckingham Palace along with her wheelchair-user brother, she makes a special effort to practice her curtsey and study the form. But come the big day, Freya finds that the Queen is much less stuffy, and more normal, than she'd expected. There's nothing earnest or worthy here. The Queen that Freya meets enjoys dancing at home, eating beans on toast, and subsequently, of course, trumping on a royal scale. She comes across as a rather mischievous pensioner rather than a snooty, aloof monarch. With a bias towards storytelling through illustrations rather than text, it's a highly accessible, topical helping of silly, irreverent fun.

9-12 years

A Greyhound of a Girl

Roddy Doyle

£6.99

A Greyhound Of A GirlSince his early fame as author of contemporary Irish fiction such as The Commitments and The Van, Roddy Doyle has diversified, and alongside his adult work he's now a prolific writer of novels for younger readers. His latest is perhaps the best and most accomplished. 12 year-old Mary O'Hara lives in modern-day Dublin. She's one of four key female characters in the book, taking in her mother Scarlett, her dying grandmother Emer, and her great-grandmother Tansey, who is, in actual fact, long since dead. But in the form of a (fittingly very spirited) ghost, Tansey has appeared to pass on an urgent message to Emer. That's where Mary comes in: she's the only one who can see her. The end result is that all four set of on a journey, quite literally. Considering that this is steeped in the weightiest of themes – death, youth and family – it excels through a breathtaking lightness of touch. In fact it's full of vigour, humour and an infectious lust for life. At just over 150 pages, it's pretty short, and to its credit it really races along, often deploying Doyle's trademark finely-observed dialogue rather than dense prose. Spending time with four generations of this particular family is a warm, funny, heartening experience.