Children's first books

I think there are two kinds of children's book. The big glossy numbers that usually relate to a TV show, and are not very well written, and then there are the wonderful stories that children listen to with all their attention. The Helen Oxenbury books about Tom and Pippo are like that, and the pictures are beautifully drawn. I bought Tom and Pippo and the Bicycle when one of my grand daughters was about two, and she was enthralled by it at the time.

My own children loved the books written and illustrated by Shirley Hughes, especially 'Alfie gets in first' and 'Dogger'. Our copy of Dogger is so well read that the spine has disappeared, and the pages are falling out, but we can't possibly throw it away. My younger son used to anxiously hold his breath when we got to the part where the toy dog gets lost at the school fete and ends up for sale on the toy stall. Even though we had read the story a gazillion times, there was still that dreadful wait until Dogger was put back in the arms of his rightful owner.

My own favourite as a very small child was The Poky Little Puppy that was the first story in a compendium of lots of Little Golden Books that come from America. Dad would always say, 'Pick another one. We've had the Poky Little Puppy lots of times.' but when you are aged 3 or 4 you know what you like and you stick with it. Just so as you know, the Pokey Little Puppy dug holes under the fence and he had to go to bed without any strawberry shortcake. It was a tough life for that puppy.

Comments

Violeta by Isabel Allende

Published: 2022, Bloomsbury Genre: Fiction Themes: South America, family relationships, business My rating (out of 5): ❤❤❤❤ If I ever tell my life story, I will take a leaf out of Violeta's book and make sure you understand that everybody loved me, and despite all sorts of questionable behaviour on my part, I leave the world as a winner. This is the story of a hundred year life. Violeta is approaching the end, but before she goes she is determined to write out her life story for someone she loves dearly. You don't get to know who that special someone is for most of the book, but that just serves to give the narrative a little twist. I didn't much like the character of Violeta but I understand that people who don't go round upsetting the apple cart don't make for very interesting stories. With such a great time span to play with, Isabel Allende had plenty of scope for changing Violeta's circumstances and adding in references to world events to keep the reader...

Holding by Graham Norton

Published: October 2016, Hodder and Stoughton Genre: fiction Themes: Ireland, crime, secrets, relationships, family My rating (out of 5): ❤❤❤ I went into the library looking for a book by Graham Norton as I keep seeing positive comments about his books on Twitter, and I felt I might be missing something. Holding seems to be his first book, and the library copy has a Radio 2 Book Club sticker on it, and I think it's fair to say that it's a perfect book for that reading group. It's a chatty style of writing that I could imagine would be how Graham would recount a tale if he was in conversation with someone, and there are sufficient strong elements to the plot-line to keep it interesting to the end. When I first started reading I thought it was going to be a bit thin on plot, as much of the story involved character descriptions, and I was starting to wonder how it was going to pull together. Then the dramatic events began to unfold and, once I could see how everyon...

The Wolf Den by Elodie Harper

Publisher: Head of Zeus, 2021 Genre: Fiction Themes: Ancient Pompeii, slaves, brothel My rating (out of 5): ❤❤❤❤ If, like me, you spent most of your history lessons looking out the window and didn't really absorb very much about the ancient Roman Empire, nil desperandum, as you will still manage perfectly well with this book. Set in first century Pompeii, the story follows the life of Amara, a young Greek woman who has been shipped to Pompeii as a slave and then bought by the owner of The Wolf Den brothel. As the daughter of a doctor, she was bought up in relatively comfortable circumstances, but a series of terrible events turned her life upside down and she is now trapped in an endless cycle of fear and degradation with almost no hope of escape. Amara is one of a group of slaves working in the Wolf Den, and they do what they can to protect one another from serious harm, but Amara knows that if she wants anything better for herself, she must make the brothel ow...

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