Spinderella is a small, intrepid spider who wants nothing more than to learn about numbers. She finds her family’s absolute disinterest and even disdain on the matter frustrating. Luckily, she lives in a school. With the help of her “hairy godmother”, she learns to count up to twenty, divide up the teams and keep the score at football by paying close attention to the kids at school. She then uses all her newly acquired knowledge to organise her big family into peaceful and fair football playing. 

This is the first Julia Donaldson’s non-rhymed story and one of only two collaborations with other illustrators that we read. But such a big LIKE! The first “fairy godmother” encountered – and oh! Such an original one it is :))). A story about the importance of numbers and basic mathematics. How else would one know how many boots are needed to protect the spider’s feet when playing football, for example? A story about fairness and equal chance; encouraging thirst for knowledge and enabling learning; about not getting discouraged and overcoming surrounding ignorance. Bonus: two strong female role models. One determined and in control. The other one brave enough to learn from her mistakes.

Little gosling gets super excited every time the hairy godmother appears. We take turns counting up to 20 together with the kids and shouting “goooooal” when Spinderella scores the winning point. He finds it hilarious when Spinderella’s family counts everything in “lots” and “loads” and shouts “down with numbers!”. I love it when mummy spider respects Spinderella’s knowledge and takes her guidance, as well as the playful positive strong image school and learning this book portrays. We know now what spiders eat and the use of “up/down with” to express like and dislike. I love little gosling’s habit of repeating the new information and explaining it to me and his daddy again and again.. So sweet! 

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Oli is the cutest worm, with those big, red glasses and contagious smile, who unknowingly  lands in the Magical Garden, falling from an unfriendly beak. He makes friends with a Witty Apple who takes him to Madam Onion, the knowledgeable garden healer, master of the vitamins’ secrets and slayer of germs and viruses, to have his broken tail mended. Accidentally, he knocks down the jar where Mucus is locked away from the world. A fierce battle ensues between the inhabitants of the Magical Garden on one side and Mucus on the other.

Great opportunity to learn how useful and beneficial earthworms are to our gardens, true super-heroes, much like the broccoli, onion and garlic that put their strengths together to annihilate Mucus. Even more so as little gosling is not a fan of tomatoes, onions or garlic. Tomatoes, it beats me why, because he loves tomato sauce and ketchup. The other two he finds too spicy (“maybe I’ll like them when I grow up”), although he does occasionally taste some onion heart, but only because he can dip it in the salt and he loves that ;).

It’s an amazingly fun and playfully informative read. The scattered little poems and witty names are charming. The characters each have their own distinct personalities and add flavour to the story. The panicky Lisp Tomato and Madam Onion’s Whisk are my favourites. The illustrations marry well with the text, perfectly depicting the conviviality of the garden community. 

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The story captures in all its details the emotions Jabari goes through in attempting his first jump from the diving board. His initial courage (“how hard can it be?!”), his doubts, his fear and anxiety, finding excuses to delay the jump, whilst trying to put on a brave face, the courage he draws from his dad’s empathetic attitude and finally, the excitement of the accomplishment. Love dad’s attitude – encouraging in the key moments, without being intrusive or insistent. So effective! What a great bond the two of them must share! Great for modelling parental behaviour when little ones deal with challenges. 

After reading this, little gosling has become fond of squeezing. He gets it could be a part of a secret language we can develop together. And he’s been asking whether we could find a pool where young kids like him can swim and do exercises in water (alongside mummy and/or daddy, certainly). So, there’s some homework for me

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Sully feels anxious and intimidated to compete against his colleagues in the sea school contest. He’s not particularly good in any of the disciplines in the competition (that is being polite). He tries to avoid participating, but Miss Trout encourages everyone to just try their best and he feels obliged to do so, all the while fearing and knowing he’ll come last. He wishes he could have one of the talents his colleagues possess.. Until he amazes everyone with his ability to change colour and become invisible in the sea, in face of danger from being caught by a diver. He realizes, then, how special he is :). 

This is a cute, lovely rhymed story, populated with sea creatures, full of emotion, with brightly coloured illustrations. Sully is relatable and one can’t help wanting to hug and comfort him. For some reason, little gosling is hooked on Miss Trout, the teacher. He gets excited at every start of a race “On your marks, ready, get set… go!!!” and he’s fascinated by the shadow of the boat underwater. He calls it “the book with the shadow” On one of our readings, I told him the words in the book : “you are amazing” and he said “no, I am not amazing, I am a baby!” :))) 

Little gosling has his own little pink seahorse buddy, which he carefully chose himself after our visit summer 2020 to Sea Life Blankenberge, where we saw some less glamorously coloured seahorses. 

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“The wonderful wizard of Oz” was one of my favourite stories growing up. I still carry with me bits and pieces of its dramatised version for radio/vinyl in Romanian and have been singing its song about the yellow brick road to little gosling to sleep. I’ve long wanted to share the story with him and I finally decided to do it when he showed a strong and persistent interest in tornadoes

It’s retold in a simple fashion, a bit abruptly, but totally easy to follow for my 3 years and a half old, without it being too poor in language. Little gosling has been totally fascinated by the words “cellar”, “twister”, “booming” and “scrub”:)); he keeps asking me every time about their meaning and then runs to ask his daddy “daddy, did you know that….?” 

The whole page spread out illustrations help a lot with the understanding of the text and have captivated his attention. The tornado, the witches and the wizard, the flying monkeys (“we all know monkeys can’t fly, but these ones do”), Oz’s giant head screen and megaphone (“to make the booming voice”) are elements on which we dwell quite a lot each time we read it.. Which is pretty much every night for more than a week, already.

I get lots of “why” questions: why do they have to go in a cellar? Why does Dorothy live with her uncle and aunt? Where is her granny? Why is her uncle called Henry? And so on…We talk about emotions and what each of the characters experiences in different situations, particularly who gets scared of what. Dorothy and Toto look quite fearless. He also has me singing “We’re off to see the wizard, the wonderful wizard of Oz” from the movie several times :))).

Can’t wait to read the original story and watch the move with him when he grows a bit older! 

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Until such time we go to the forest (one without mean wolves!!!, only with friendly wolves) to pick up sticks and twigs to make our own witch broom and wand, he runs around the house in complete outfit: our (much smaller and different, imperfect-looking) broom; a big bucket for a cauldron; one of his daddy’s fancy hats, almost invariably covering half his face; and a spatula for a wand It’s cute, albeit a bit anxiety-inducing :))) seeing him ride the broom up and down the living room and struggling to hold everything together, just  like the witch in the story. 

The wonderfully catchy rhyme (one of those that stick inadvertently and definitively onto your cortex) goes about the witch losing some of her items, one after the other. As she does, she repays the animals who help her get them back by taking them on her broom. Until… the broom snaps in two!!! A chase ensues, with a dragon and a terrible four-headed monster involved. But the story has a happy ending! The witch gets to show she can do magic, when all her gratefulness translates into a plane comfortable-like broom. 

A truly engaging read-aloud, it is fast-paced, full of suspense, loud, scary, funny, happy. Little gosling has fun reproducing all the sounds in the book. I love his shrieks and croaks :)). He never lets me forget going in a lower, scary voice for the dragon and gets so excited with the jumping; the one that gets the broom to break and the jumps for joy at seeing the newly refurbished broom. He’s truly fascinated by the cauldron and he uses his most mysterious tone to recite the witch’s spell: iggety ziggety…..

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In “Anna Hibiscus’ Song” by Atinuke, illustrated by Lauren Tobia, Anna Hibiscus explores her extended family’s ways to express happiness, until discovering her own. There is counting the reasons why, holding the loved one’s hand or telling them “I love you”, the quiet contemplation or dancing, working or walking on one’s hands. Whilst all are valid, Anna feels inspired by the birdies that keep her company up in the mango tree in the middle of the family yard, to sing, to sing about everything that she sees and makes her heart burst with happiness. 

I just love this book! I love the intimate vibe, the conviviality of sharing a home with the extended family, the sheer joy it exudes in the simplest and most familiar context possible. Little gosling was fascinated (and a little intrigued) with Anna Hibiscus and her cousins running around barefoot. He also promptly asked to visit his grandparents, so that we could climb trees in the garden together.. So, that’s two things we have on our to do list when the weather gets warmer, although I was not the climbing trees kind of kid growing up. The walking on our hands part we can do already in our living room :P. As for ways to express happiness, smiling blissfully while sitting still is what seems to be working these days. I saw him smiling without an immediate reason the other day, laying back in his chair at the dinner table; when I asked what made him smile, he simply said: “I am happy” :). Singing also works, but only if it’s about his best friends, the kitchen robot and the mixer :))))). What I like most about the book is that it reminds me the delicious taste of my favourite jam: the mango jam…

Such a great reminder of the importance to share all the good emotions, feelings and sensations with the loved ones.

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Little gosling took to Paddington quickly and passionately :). He rediscovered one of his first stuffed toys, a gentle bear more than half his size, whom he diligently makes space for under the covers every evening now, keeping it close to himself so that they can listen together to our bedtime stories, declaring with a big smile: “I also have a bear called Paddington” :)))). And Paddington is sure to find his way among his chosen stories at least one every two evenings. 

The first in the picture book series, it introduces Paddington and the Browns, telling how they found him at the train station and decided to take him home to stay with them, his first encounter with a loaded tray of sweets, a grumpy taxi driver, as well as his first bath and his falling asleep whilst recounting his adventures to his new family. It does feel unfinished, so I’ll just have to get my hand on further picture books with Paddington Quickly! 

Little gosling loves the way Paddington politely raises his hat to say hello and his eyes sparkle and laugh when the bear shows the almost empty jar of marmalade that has fed him on his journey from darkest Peru (bread with jam may be his favourite snack !!!) He frowns at the grumpy cab driver who seems less than happy to have a bear in his back seat and loves Paddington bath time. He asks for our bath mirror to be full of steam when he takes a bath! 

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It is a rhymed chronicle of a first day at the bug school, equipped with dedicated classes for different insects: spiders, crickets, ladybirds, fleas…, complete with a vibrant dining room, a playground, busy toilets, an assembly first thing in the morning and storytime in the afternoon. I only remember one story from my time in nursery, with all of us gathered round on small chairs, hands behind our backs. A bit less relaxed than little gosling, who seats with his colleagues in a circle, on cushions brought from home.  

There’s something to learn about bugs and about school time, different school subjects or behaviour in a school setting. And it all transpires naturally, funnily and gently from both rhymes and illustrations. We spend a lot of time chatting about the lovely, playfully detailed illustrations. Little gosling is fascinated by the abacus in the ladybird math class; makes me vocalise repeatedly the song that Chloe is learning in cricket class ; has us identify the individual bugs by name in the group pages; we talk about the emotions reflected on the tiny bugs faces and we discuss about which bugs we want to be/which class we want to be in. Best of all, when the story ends with the tiny, happy bugs shouting “can we come again tomorrow?”, he responds deliciously squealing “yeeeees, you can”!

Needless to say, this is one of the books that I take on the go that little gosling is sure to delight in whenever, wherever.

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It was one of those times that little gosling dwelled on a back cover. He pointed to James Mayhew’s “Katie and the dinosaurs”: “I want to read that one!” He received it, weeks later, with his shyly happy smile and placed it in my hands to read straight away. We read it again many consecutive nights after that :P.

A lovely introduction to dinosaurs. A story about friendship, kindness and loads and loads of imagination! The added plus: I love stories that teach kids about the value and pleasure of visiting cultural and science establishments. We have two other books from the Katie series, that little gosling devours equally avidly, focusing on Impressionist and post-Impressionist paintings.

This was our first dinosaur story and it took several readings to get the names right! On a trip to the Natural History Museum with her grandma, Katie immerses herself in a world of dinosaurs and erupting volcanoes. She befriends and helps a baby dinosaur find the way back to its parents, after being chased by a T-Rex. She meets all kinds of other dinosaurs on the way, has a picnic with them and, in the end, even manages to escape the hungry T-Rex, by throwing her meat pie at him. 

We talk a lot on the margins of this story. Little gosling is usually impatiently waiting for the T-Rex: “when does the T-Rex appear?”, flipping through the pages to find it chasing Katie. He gets excited every time a new dinosaur comes into the picture: “What kind of animals are these?” Giggles when Katie and Hadrosaurus slide down the Apatosaurus’ long tail “wheeee!!!” and is so happy when baby Hadrosaurus hugs his parents again. “Which one is mummy and which one is daddy?” And whenever I expect it the least during the day, I can hear him go: “He was hungry! And he didn’t want cucumber sandwiches or chocolate biscuits, he wanted meat! He wanted Katie!”

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