Author & Illustrators
The story offers a calm, nature‑centred reading experience that encourages children to slow down, observe and connect with the world around them. Rosie’s journey mirrors a child’s own developmental arc of curiosity, exploration, risk‑taking and forming bonds. The illustrations deepen this sense of wonder, making it ideal for shared reading at home or in the classroom.
The Summer Puppy is a beautifully crafted picture book that blends poetic language with evocative illustrations. It supports curriculum learning while nurturing empathy, observation skills, and a love of nature. It’s a strong choice for whole‑class reading, small‑group discussion or quiet bedtime sharing.
The Panda’s Child offers a familiar traditional story set in a different culture and context. If readers are familiar with the fable ‘The Lion and the Mouse’, they will hear the resonances in this beautiful picture book.
The illustrations are exquisite and truly draw the reader in. The colours are vibrant in some illustrations and muted in others, to reflect strong changes in mood and atmosphere that enrich the storytelling. Sometimes the illustrations accompany the text and at other times they stand alone, inviting the reader to linger, to immerse themselves into the picture and to ponder on the inferences that can be made that foreshadow the climax of the story to come. There is a perfect arc to this story, which has been crafted into three chapters. This makes the story ideal to share with children either as a read-aloud or as part of a unit of literacy learning. This is a beautifully produced book and one that would be a fabulous addition to any class book library through the primary age range.
The Panda’s Child is the sort of book that requires reading and re-reading and plenty of time to dwell on the pictures and to raise questions about some of the motifs that appear throughout the book – the leaves and the red string, for example. Today, the only natural habitat left for the Panda is in China, but this story is set in the past and children may enjoy investigating where pandas used to live, – Myanmar and Vietnam for example – and to consider the destruction of their natural environment. The relationship between humans and the Panda in this story mirrors the global environmental issues of today.
A wonderful book.
With stunning pictures and lyrical words, this is a book to savour and read time after time. A proper feast for the eyes and an utter delight to share and read aloud. A story that will keep you dreaming of dragons for years to come.
Enchanting, beautiful, evocative, imaginative and poetic.
The Lost Words is a collaboration between Robert Macfarlane and Jackie Morris, seeking to ‘summon what has vanished’ and celebrate a host of disappearing words relating to the natural world. This is a poetry book about preservation – of nature, of language and of childhood – and the beautifully illustrated over-sized hardback volume is in itself a book to preserve and treasure. Inside the book, readers will find acrostic ‘poem-spells’, with each one intending to preserve a nature word that has disappeared from the dictionary as well as to evoke the unique sounds, sensations and moods associated with the experiences of encountering wildlife firsthand.
Inspired by the removal of a number of nature words from children’s dictionaries while the same plants and animals are in very real decline, this magnificent book will please children and adults alike. Each word is accompanied by a breathtaking illustration and poem (or ‘spell’ – the authors encourage you to sing them). Children with an interest in the natural world will discover new words along the way.
review
Year group(s) the book is most suitable for:
Year group(s) the book is most suitable for:
Does the book contain anything that teachers would wish to know about before recommending in class (strong language, sensitive topics etc.)?
Does the book contain anything that teachers would wish to know about before recommending in class (strong language, sensitive topics etc.)?
Would you recommend the book for use in primary schools?
yes
Curriculum links (if relevant)
Curriculum links (if relevant)
Any other comments
Any other comments