Lost and Found by Oliver Jeffers

Once there was a boy and one day he found a penguin at his door...

So begins Lost and Found: the story of an unlikely friendship between a young boy and a penguin. When the penguin turns up, the young boy assumes he is lost and tries to help the penguin find his home - with surprising and heart warming results.

Lost and Found is quite long for a picture book - I remember when Maximilian first chose it for us to read (when he was around 13 months of age) that I was surprised that he sat through the whole book. The story is told in narrative format with no rhyming text. A young child with a short attention span might not make it through the whole story initially, but there is lots of detail in the illustrations to help sustain their interest.

On the flip side, Lost and Found is definitely a picture book with lasting value - even primary school readers would find much of interest in the illustrations and parents could have some fascinating discussion with their older child about the story elements. It would also be a nice addition to a beginner readers collection - so often early reader books don't really have much of a story so Lost and Found would be a nice story to help children who are learning to read independently.

Maximilian was lucky enough to receive this gorgeous book as a gift from a dear friend. Lost and Found was the first Oliver Jeffers' book to make it into our picture book collection (although I do have a copy of The Heart and the Bottle that is in my own book collection that I bought some years ago - an amazing book about grief. Right up there with A Monster Calls by Patrick Ness.)

As I said in my post about Stuck, I love everything Oliver Jeffers creates and he is one of my favourite children's authors. He manages to create stories that are funny, interesting and completely engaging as well as books that are absolutely delightful and beautiful to look at. Jeffers is an amazingly talented artist - most of the artwork in his picture books could easily be framed and hung on the wall, and the illustrations in Lost and Found really are unique and beautiful. Jeffers' website has prints of images from his books for sale - I'm coveting this one of the cover of Lost and Found amongst others!

We have the board book edition of Lost and Found, but it is available in paperback as well. If you are buying this book as a gift, I'd definitely recommend the board book for any child aged 3 and under - it will be much more hard-wearing for those little hands that won't be able to resist turning pages and examining the illustrations. For an older child, the paperback version is a great choice as the illustrations look even better bigger!!

Lost and Found has won multiple awards and has also been made into an award winning short film, which I can't wait to watch! 

I highly recommend this book as an addition to any picture book collection, and it is a real keeper - so perfect as a gift for any child. Best suited for children aged 2 and up.

Dr Seuss's Seusscase by Dr Seuss

It's been a real Dr Seuss week in our house and this is largely due to the fantastic Dr Seuss Seusscase!

The Seusscase is a fantastic collection of ten Dr Seuss stories. It has all the popular hits: Green Eggs and Ham, The Cat in the Hat, Oh, the Places You'll Go!, The Lorax, Fox in Socks and One Fish, Two Fish, Red Fish, Blue Fish; plus a whole lot more less well known Seuss titles (well less known to me anyway!) like I Wish that I had Duck Feet, Dr Seuss's ABC, etc.....

And the best part is all the books are packed together into a fantastic little suitcase (or Seusscase!) There is nothing cuter than Maximilian grabbing his little Seusscase and coming up to me saying "book, book!"

Maximilian received this great compendium of Dr Seuss books as a gift for his first Christmas, but it is only very recently that he has started to sit through and enjoy books by Dr Seuss. I hadn't remembered just how long many of the stories are but now, at 20 months, Maximilian quite happily sits through over 40 pages of Dr Seuss, which is pretty impressive I think.

The back of the books in the Seusscase are also colour coded: blue for sharing with your child, green for children just beginning to read on their own and yellow for fluent readers to enjoy. Dr Seuss books are full of rhyme and repetition to help early readers recognise the words and are also full of crazy nonsense words which are just plain fun to read aloud!

Maximilian loves to open his Seusscase and choose a book for us to read together. His first favourite was Oh! The Places You'll Go! - which I'm sorry to say I didn't know very well before but now adore. Green Eggs and Ham is also a huge hit and, this weeks favourite read by a long way, Fox in Socks - although I, like Mr Knox, have trouble reading the tongue twisters aloud! He has also just started to enjoy One Fish, Two Fish, Red Fish, Blue Fish, which was a childhood favourite of mine.

If you're looking for a book gift for a child, you could do far worse than a Dr Seuss book and you probably can't do better than a whole box of them!! We love our Seusscase!

Green Eggs and Ham by Dr Seuss

The story of Sam's quest to get a grouch to eat green eggs and ham is a well deserved classic of children's literature and has always been one of my favourite Dr Seuss books.

This is such a funny book. Who doesn't love the interplay between Sam and the grouch?! The way the grouch gets more and more exasperated and the way that Sam's suggestions get more and more outrageous is nothing short of hilarious!

The fantastic rhyming, rhythmic repetitive text in Green Eggs and Ham makes this a terrific story for kids learning to read independently.

This is also a perfect book for parents to read aloud to their child. Unlike some Dr Seuss books, this one is easy to read, with simple plain language and no real tongue twisters!

I've used Green Eggs and Ham as a library storytime book lots of times and the kids always love it. It is especially good for reading out loud with a partner as you can have so much fun as either the increasingly grumpy grouch or the wheedling pleading Sam.

I've also been surprised when rereading Dr Seuss just how many themes and morals are contained within these simple stories - the moral in Green Eggs and Ham being try new things even if you think you don't like them as you may just be surprised! And what a great book for parents to quote to their child during those wonderful dinner time discussions about eating one vegetable or another - try it and you might like it :-)

It wasn't until I started reading Dr Seuss with Maximilian that I realised just how long the books actually are. We tried One Fish, Two Fish, Red Fish, Blue Fish a few times but he hasn't taken to it at all yet (although it is my childhood fave). Green Eggs and Ham though was a hit from the first reading and we now read it every other day! In fact, Sam is the second book character that Maximilian now recognizes and knows by name - the first was Max from Where the Wild Things Are.

At 20 months, Maximilian doesn't truly understand the humour in this book. It is lovely though how he earnestly shakes his head and says "No" along with the grouches refusal to eat the green eggs and ham and how he claps at the end when he tries and likes them! And the rhythmic text keeps him totally riveted through the whole book.

Green Eggs and Ham would be a great addition to a food themed storytime session - team it with I will not ever never eat a tomato by Lauren Child, and you are guaranteed to have lots of fun!!