March Focus Title

Wild Book day by Karl Newson

An exhilarating adventure from renowned picture book author, Karl Newson, that sparks a lifelong love for books. Characters from different stories collide to celebrate our rich tapestry of children's literature. As pages wildly come to life, this ‘riotous read’ not only entertains but also shows the magic of storytelling and the importance of keeping the joy of reading alive. With every turn of the page, it's a celebration of the limitless worlds within books, encouraging young minds to become active participants in their everyday reading adventures.

*Description and image taken from waterstones.com - no copyright intended*

For March, I chose a book that I'd had delivered at work and was described as perfect for World Book Day at the beginning of the month. It is genuinely a beautiful book that celebrates everything about a child's love of books and I couldn't resist!

I started the month off with a basket with a few bits in that show up in the book as the stories start escaping. 

On our first read through Bear pointed out some of the items that I'd left in the basket and just kept on pointing... There is so much happening on every page that every time we have read it we've spotted something new, which has just made it more fun to read and reread all month long.

Half way through the month I put out the house and left a few things inside and then we reread the book and Bear collected more things that appeared in the illustrations and we discussed some of the stories that we could see.

Following the theme of stories, I pulled out the story prompt dice and the cards from our most recent Adventure Gang box and Bear and I practiced telling each other stories. His imagination is fantastic and the dice give him extra ideas to prompt a storyline and he just tends to keep going! 

Using things that we have read or ideas from movies that he has seen also boosts his ideas and I can usually work out where he has plucked something from because he doesn't yet change all that much, but he does string random pieces toegther from different places which often makes for an entertaining story.

Of course, we ended the month by writing a book review and I have encouraged a "summary" this time instead of the entire retelling that he did of Wolf & Bear in February. 

Bear gave Wild Book Day five stars and after a little frustration at trying not to just retell me the story, he gave me a lovely little recap about the stories getting out of their books and he cut the cover image out and stuck it down all by himself. 

He's coming on so much each month that I'm afraid that if I blink too many times I might miss a stage!

Our April focus title could be nothing other than Waterstones' Childrens' Book Prize winner for the picture book catagory... The Search for the Great Arctic Jellyfish by Chloe Savage. Pages filled with the wonder of nature and science as a scientist quests to find the jellyfish and beautifully illustrated, it was a worthy winner!

Have you read Wild Book Day by Karl Newson? I'd love to hear your thoughts... 

Mama Bear x