Shopping and Money

This reprint of a classic, first published in 1980, would make a brilliant addition to a library for children in Preschool or Key Stage One.

Steven is sent to the grocers with a shopping list. On his journey, he passes many notable local landmarks, before arriving and filling his basket with the things his mother needs. His journey home, however, is not so straightforward! He encounters one unexpected animal after another, all of whom want to steal items from his basket. Can he outwit them and arrive home with his shopping intact?

Burningham’s retro, quirky illustrations are the real attraction of this book, as they tell the story so clearly. Reminiscent of Judith Kerr’s drawings in ‘The Tiger who Came to Tea’, they stand out clearly against a largely white background, but are full of funny details. Even non-readers, having heard the story once, would be able to recreate the narrative from the pictures. Particularly fun are the illustrations, after each animal encounter, of the contents of Steven’s basket, so that children can work out for themselves what has gone missing at each stage of the story. These really lend themselves to counting aloud in a read-aloud environment, so that children can participate in the story as it is read to them. The story could also work really well as a jumping off point for creative writing, where children could be encouraged to write a similar story but with different shopping and obstacles to overcome.

Altogether, it’s a lovely book with loads of mileage for teaching opportunities – definitely worthy of a place in the classroom!

This is a fabulously funny, endearing book about Nanette who is entrusted, for the first time ever, to go out to a bakery shop and buy a warm wonderful smelling baguette for her mother. First shopping trips are a big responsibility, but Nanette quickly discovers that things can easily go awry.

Willems sets himself an increasingly hilarious task of finding new words to rhyme with ‘Nanette’ and ‘baguette’. As the story goes on, it becomes something that young readers really find funny as they realise how much fun he is having with the rhymes and how ridiculous they become.

The book is a visual delight as well. Willems constructed a French village scene by making 3D models out of cardboard boxes then imposed his cartoon style characters on top of the photographs digitally. This creates a wonderfully unique homemade effect that could easily inspire readers to create their own stories and scenes. As you’d expect from the author of the ‘Pigeon’ books and ‘Elephant and Piggie’, the story doesn’t exactly go as you’d expect and there are several funny twists to the tale that readers will enjoy.

My younger primary classes are particularly obsessed with his peculiar brand of humour and we have a huge amount of fun sharing them together.

The High Street by Alice Melvin is a beautifully crafted lift-the-flap picture book that captures the essence of a quintessential British high street through its engaging rhymes and intricate illustrations. The story follows young Sally as she ventures down the high street with a list of ten unique items she needs to purchase. Each item on her list, from a Persian rug to a stripy jug, leads her to a different shop.

This book is great to introduce themes such as community, shopping, and money management but is also a great tool to support language development. The rhyming verses are catchy to aid developing phonemic awareness in young readers. Alongside this, the interactive flaps add an element of surprise as readers lift to peek inside each shop, revealing delightful surprises and charming details that encourage children to make predictions and enhance their inference skills. The illustrations are rich in detail and whimsy, capturing the charm of a bustling high street, providing ample opportunities for vocabulary building and discussions about everyday life.

Each page is a treasure trove of visual delights that can keep children engaged as they explore the shops alongside Sally. The High Street is an excellent resource for various educational activities and also lends itself to creative arts activities, such as designing a high street or crafting items from Sally’s list.

The High Street is a perfect blend of engaging storytelling and charming illustrations. It’s a must-have for any primary classroom, offering endless possibilities for interactive and educational fun.

This classic story for toddlers and very young children is absolutely pitch perfect for EYFS classrooms.

Mama is focused on shopping for rice, oil, chilli peppers and flip flops. Meanwhile, her curious Baby, strapped to her back, is busy entertaining the stallholders and making his own collection of tasty treats. The story subtly introduces simple subtraction as Baby nibbles his way through bananas, oranges, sweetcorn and coconut. Early readers and listeners can busy themselves counting up and taking away one each time he charms a new stallholder.

Threading everything together is a beautifully told narrative. Rhythmic and repetitive sentences and carefully judged word choices (Baby ‘grins’ and ‘beams’ as well as laughs and claps) encourage joining in and would adapt well to role play and writing.

Meanwhile, Angela Brookbank’s colourful and vibrant illustrations add yet another dimension, capturing the cheerful buzz of a bustling West African market, the warmth of a loving mother and the mischief of a lively baby.It’s lovely to be able to recommend a story that develops language and numeracy and all the while is great fun to share. Don’t pass this one up!

This is a great book to read aloud to an Early Years or Key Stage 1 class. It follows a simple pattern that follows a little girl through an Indian market, looking for a present for her Amma (mother). The bright and vibrant illustrations by Mariona Cabassa are a feast for the eyes and provide lots of opportunity to talk about the details of the market stalls, the range of people, animals in the illustration backgrounds. Each page features a different market stall which has its own distinctive colourful illustration and is accompanied by helpful repeated words – ‘shoo-shoo’ or ‘yum-yum’ or ‘sniff-sniff’. This enables children to join in and perhaps act out each page. The language used to describe each item in the market provides a springboard for children’s own language development and writing. This book could inspire art work as well as providing discussion points about markets children have visited, markets around the world (with a helpful guide at the back of the book) as well as an opportunity to find out more about Indian markets specifically.

Supermarket Zoo is a charming and humorous picture book which is perfect for EYFS and Year One classrooms.

The story centres around a little boy called Albie, who has to go supermarket shopping with his mum. This trip, to his surprise, is to a very special sort of supermarket where he can buy animals of all sorts of shapes and sizes. It is such a unique premise for a story and one which can link to a wide range of EYFS topics and interests. The routine of supermarket shopping is highly relatable to young children and there are lots of scenes which can spark discussion as part of ‘Personal, Social and Emotional Development’ activities; for example, Why does Albie dislike shopping so much at the start of the story? To support ‘Knowledge and Understanding of the World’, the animals and their real habitats and diets can be explored and there are so many ‘Mathematical Development’ opportunities; from counting the animals on mum’s list to weighing and measuring the different animals that Albie puts in the trolley.

Of course, the humour in the book links to the silliness of a supermarket zoo. The funny smell and enormous trolley sets the scene perfectly for lots of weird and wonderful encounters within. Albie’s interactions with his mum mirror familiar interactions between parents and children in this situation and it is never explained whether his trip really happened or it was all in his imagination, which is fantastic point for discussion afterwards.

The book also uses some really effective vocabulary choices to emphasise the size of the animals that are being put into Albie’s trolley. This makes it a superb choice to support the development and extension of language models within the EYFS class.

The illustrations are delightful and have enough detail to be able to compare with real life versions of the animals (with one spectacular exception!). It’s a lovely story and would make a great addition to any shopping or animal topic as well as being a super book to share with a class of younger children for story time.

In every Reception or Infant class, you’ll find fans of Supertato and his hilarious crew of vegetable friends (not forgetting his nemesis, Evil Pea).

Written by husband and wife team Sue Hendra and Paul Linnet, the books are enjoyed by readers who like a high dose of action and hilarious characters who mean business.

This is a tremendously popular story that has now been developed into a series of books and a TV show. It tells the funny tale of Supertato, the unlikely superhero who is on a mission to protect the other vegetables from the Evil Pea. A laugh-out-loud story that children want to hear again and again.

A young girl visits the local food bank with her mother. An emptied penny-jar at home indicates that today is a no-money day and despite the mother’s hard work and measured frugality, the duo must make a trip to the food bank in order to stock their bare kitchen cupboards.

Mum is ashamed but politely makes the best of the situation. The girl, on the other hand, sees no stigma in the experience and enjoys meeting the kind food bank workers and eating their biscuits. Could she have her favourite cereal this time?, she asks, only to be scolded by her humiliated mother. This child is a wonderful example of finding joy in life as it is; the food bank visit is a normal experience for her and she will easily see the good in it. Under the loving wing of her mother she finds other simple pleasures too, like borrowing library books, trying on clothes in the charity shops and having fun dreaming out loud of what life might offer her one day.

It’s a beautiful and poignantly-told story that deserves a place in every classroom, providing a much-needed insight for many children into life on the breadline, while offering others a rare reflection of a familiar situation and a reassuring message that they are not alone. This is a book that is suitable to use across the whole primary age range and one that will be sure to encourage empathy and discussion around a very important topic.

The Smile Shop, by Satoshi Kitamura, is a wonderful book which will appeal to both young child and adult reader as they follow the boy around a bustling market, trying to decide how to spend his pocket money, before the eventual pay-off that kindness and connection are more important than cash.

 The boy’s internal monologue will be instantly familiar to children as he queries and wonders at the world around him, and worries what to do after his pennies are lost (“How would you feel? What will he do?).

Beyond the beautifully concise wording and enticing storyline, The Smile Shop is filled with detailed but deceptively simple images. The busy market, diverse characters, and expressive faces remind me of Quentin Blake in his ability to convey emotion and character with a few simple lines (the grumpy nun at the grocers stall a particular favourite). Muted colours rule throughout, including a switch to monochrome when the money is lost, with just the boy standing out in his bright red scarf and blue jumper, the centre of his own world, as children are.

Taken as a whole, this simple story with a big message will be a wonderful addition to any EYFS or KS1 bookshelf.