Book review: Frank and Teddy make friends

My heart sank when this book arrived from the nice people at Random House. Yet another saccharine tale of how two cuddly toys learn the basics of friendship, I thought.

How wrong could I be? Yes, the title (Frank and Teddy make friends), although descriptive, isn't inspiring. But this is a wonderfully illustrated book, with non-nauseating text.

Professor Frank Mouse is a marvellous inventor - creating bicycles out of pencils and string, a fabulous set of wings, and in a moment of Dr Frankenstein-ness, Teddy. Teddy attempts to help him in his work...but makes a complete mess, and gets sent outside in disgrace. But when Professor Mouse sees Teddy helping others, and them in turn helping him, he realises the value of friendship and working together.

The language is simple and effective (M, who's five, and starting to read for herself was able to read some of it), and the story is set off beautifully by Louise Yates' lovely illustrations. We particularly liked Professor Mouse's experiments, diagrams and doodles set out as if on graph paper, complete with some simple sums.

The verdict: go and buy or borrow from the library. You'll enjoy it. On the strength of this one, we're going on a mission to the library this week to track down one of Louise's previous books, Dog Loves Books, which also looks excellent.

Games, games and more games

The nice people at Random House sent me another book to review this week. It's not a kid's story book this time - but a compendium of games, aimed at all the family.

365 Everyday Games and Pastimes is written by two brothers, Martin and Simon Toseland. It really does contain 365 games - everything from seasonal specials for Christmas or Halloween to games for long journeys or children's party favourites. The games had to be practical, easy to learn and need a minimum of equipment to be included - so the most complicated thing you require seems to be a cricket bat.

The instructions for each game are pretty clear, though for some of the more complicated ones it would have been useful to have more diagrams. There's some line-drawn illustrations scattered throughout the book, but more would certainly help, and might lift the design, which is on the dull side. In fact, that would be one of my major criticisms of the book - that the retro theme on the cover isn't really followed through in the design and layout of the inside - which is surprising, given the recent success of retro books like The Dangerous Book for Boys.

There's a reasonable index, and the book is well-written - but not exactly compelling reading. A little bit of humour would probably have gone a long way, and maybe enticed people to read on further than they would otherwise have done when searching for a particular game or category. It's very definitely a book for adults too, which is a shame - I think a lot of 10-year-olds would be put off by the dryness of the text.

But, having said all that, it does have an excellent collection of games. We'll certainly use some of the card ones (we can never remember the rules to anything), and give some of the car ones a go.

Cats, dogs and mice

The lovely people at Random House sent us Three by the Sea last week. It's the latest picture book by Mini Grey, one of our favourite children's authors. I can recite Biscuit Bear word for word, but never tire of reading it as the illustrations are so funny. (And any book that ends in a cake shop will always have pride of place on our bookshelves).


So we had high hopes for Three by the Sea. And we were right. It's another fabulous book, illustrated in the inimitable Mini Grey style (check out the brilliant book titles in Mouse's kitchen - it's her attention to detail that I love). What I also love is that the story is as good as the illustrations - so often you find that you're reading absolute drivel, even though the pictures are beautiful (Angelina Ballerina, take a bow...).

Anyway, back to the plot: three friends (a cat, a dog and a mouse) live in a house by the sea - until a mysterious stranger (a travelling salesman) shows up. He offers each of them a special free gift...but it turns their world upside-down. It's a tale of friendship, loyalty and making compromises - but without any of the schmalz that can often accompany themes like that. In fact, it's laugh-out-loud funny, both for adults and kids. M read it with me, laughed like a drain, and immediately demanded it again. And again. I can see I'll soon be able to recite this one too...

UPDATE: There's a lovely set of pictures on The Guardian website, with Mini Grey explaining how she creates her images: www.guardian.co.uk/books/gallery/2010/oct/01/mini-grey-gallery

Books, books and more books: food for kids

I got sent a cookbook from the nice people at Little Dish the other day. I have to confess, I'd not heard about them before, probably because (a) M has long since left the days of toddlerdom behind at the grand old age of almost 5 and (b) I've never really gone down the route of ready meals, either for children or grown ups (although fruit purees have been a good lunchbox standby for a long time).

But I'm very glad they did send me the book - the Little Dish Favourites Cookbook - because it's one of the best children's cookbooks I've read for a while. It's that rare beast - a cookbook that has

• recipes aimed at kids, which the whole family will enjoy

• recipes that kids can help to make, that aren't just fairy cakes or chocolate cornflakes

The book doesn't have huge numbers of recipes - there's just over 60 - but the ones it does have are simple and easy to understand. Most importantly of all, they're the sort of easy, comforting food that it's a pleasure to make at the end of a long day of chasing about. There's some nice purees and things for early eaters, although if you want an enormous range of combinations you really need the guru herself, Annabel Karmel.

But then there's a whole section on family food - and here's where it scores really highly with me. I'm passionate about the whole family eating together (we do this every day with M - although I realise that we have it fairly easy just dealing with one child, rather than two or more). There's everything from staple Italian favourites like lasagne or meatballs, to some good vegetarian ideas like green pie. I like the way that each recipe tells you how many children/adults/family members it serves - and a lot of the recipes are easy enough that you can really get kids involved in cooking them.

The design's good - although I suspect that some people will find the lack of pictures of the food disconcerting (it doesn't bother me, but then I cook a lot, and have a fair idea of what things should look like at each stage). I do like the fact that it's a very user-friendly book - as well as a decent index, there's a great recipe planner at the back, which divides dishes up into:

• simple, straightforward, slight degree of complexity
• make ahead
• freezes well
• child participation
• meal matchers (recipes that go well together)

All in all, it's a great book - and would make a good gift.

Books, books and more books!

The lovely people over at Random House sent me a couple of children's books to review this week, which was very kind of them. Both are picture books, so me and the girl settled down at bedtime to have a read.


First up was Little Croc's Purse by Lizzie Finlay. Sadly, this one was a huge disappointment.

Little Croc finds a purse filled with money, and has to decide whether to do the right thing and hand it in at the police station, or spend spend spend on lemonades and some rather natty new cowboy boots. Not surprisingly, he does indeed give the purse to the police crocs, the owner is traced in a mysterious manner, and Little Croc is rewarded for his honesty.

The pictures are great (the design of the purse really stands out), and there's some lovely in-jokes for the grown-ups (the cafe is called Croc Monsieurs, for example) but the story is awful and preachy. I know, I know, we should be teaching children that honesty is the best policy - but can we at least have some decent dialogue/plot?

Having said all that, M loved it, and wanted it read again. It's one of those annoying books that children like but make you want to scream. I'd recommend borrowing it from the library, and then getting someone else to read it to them.


Our second book was Box of Tricks by Katie Cleminson. And it *was* completely magic - one of those breathtakingly simple books that you could look at for hours.

Eva is given a box of tricks for her birthday, and becomes a magician (complete with rather fantastic cape). She conjures up a pet (Monty the polar bear - who is rather larger than she thought), rabbits out of hats, and a fabulous party complete with cakes and magicians. Eventually, when everyone's worn out, she clicks her fingers and they all disappear. Or do they?

We both loved the beautiful ink illustrations. And fell about laughing at the bit where Monty appears, and where the rabbits are playing cards and pulling more rabbits out of hats. It's completely charming - especially the dancing rabbits.

And what else is so nice, is that it's a book about a girl who isn't sparkly and pink and faffing about with fairies. The colours in this book are gorgeous, strong reds and blues - and Eva's a pretty strong, imaginative character. It's great - thoroughly recommended. We can't wait for her next one.

Now we're back to George's Marvellous Medicine (you can't beat a good bit of Roald Dahl), except that I'm not allowed to read it because "Daddy does the voices better". That's my dreams of reading Book at Bedtime dashed, then.

In the pile by the side of my bed...

...are several books which I got for Christmas, or have acquired by nefarious means. As you might have guessed, they are mostly food-related.

• Delia Smith's Frugal Food. This is something of a first - I've never owned a Delia cookbook until now. It's not bad (the egg and bacon pie is rather spiffing), and it's hilarious to see what we were cooking in the 1970s.
• Nigel Slater's Tender. It's Nige. Say no more - it's brilliant, and I can't wait for volume 2.
• Rachel Allen's Bake. Good pictures, nice recipes - her soda bread one was excellent. I'm desperate to try making pretzeln - I've not had a good pretzel since working in southern Germany in 1995.
• The Great Allotment Cookbook. Duff index, great recipes. It will come into its own during The Great Courgette and Gooseberry Glut.
• The Allotment Gardener's Handbook. Had you forgotten I had an allotment? Never fear - the endless photos of tiny runner beans will reappear later this year.
• Claire Tomalin's biography of Samuel Pepys. This is completely marvellous - Claire Tomalin is my heroine. She makes what could be dull history fascinating, and most importantly readable. Mr Pepys was something of a lad, which also helps.
• Isabel Allende's Ines of my Soul. Picked it up in my local library, and it's pretty good. It's quite nice to have a novel on the go, as well as all the other lot.

Whether I finish all of these by the end of the decade or not, remains to be seen. Actually, I'll have to - I've got my eye on the next instalment of the Michael Palin diaries that I gave to my dad for Christmas.

And more books

Actually, on the subject of books, I've come across the BookMooch site, and am going to give it a go. The idea is you list the books you want to give away (and are prepared to post), and then each time you send someone a book, you earn a point (which you can then spend on a book from someone else).

So far I've mostly listed cookery stuff on my wishlist. I'm finding it harder and harder to get through novels - my problem is I speed read so much stuff for work, that it's really difficult to concentrate on the text as I just want to get to the next bit of the action. Fine for kids books (did you know I did a mean abbreviated version of The Tale of Mrs Tiggywinkle? God, that Beatrix Potter doesn't half go on sometimes...) but not so good for Salman Rushdie.

I'm quite looking forward to a week away shortly, where I'll actually be able to practice reading in an orderly fashion again. In the meantime, it's back to perusing Moro by Sam and Sam Clark.

Books, books and more books - or how to set up a publishing company

Simply inspirational.

(and she makes me want to head straight for the library)

Back for good...

Well, until September at least. Sorry about the interruption: France stopped play.

And here are the scores on the doors:

Weather 7 (two really sunny days, rest of the time a bit cloudy)
Cheese 10 (naturellement)
Wine 10 (natch)
Pool maintenance 6 (cleaning the filters is an evil job)

And all of it beats sitting at home in the frozen (and dripping wet) north.

Books read (used to be far, far more in a two-week stretch, but these days I seem to get interrupted by demands to play with sandpits, trainsets and stickers far more than I used to..):

Stardust by Neil Gaiman (good, but Susannah Clarke does it better)
Zorro by Isabel Allende (wasn't expecting this to be such a page turner)
The Good German by Joseph Kanon (not seen the film, but not sure Gorgeous George would make a good Jake Geismar. Can imagine Cate Blanchett as Lena, the girl he goes back for, though.)

Right, now you're all thoroughly up to date I'm off to deal with the most ridiculous pile of junk emails.