The Worst Princess, by Anna Kemp & Sara Ogilvie

“Once upon a time, in a tower near you,” begins The Worst Princess. “Lived a lonely princess - the Princess Sue. ‘One day,’ she sighed, ‘my prince will come, but I wish he’d move his royal bum.’ ”

How could anyone fail not to be moved such a plea? It’s brilliant.

Princess Sue knows exactly how she’s supposed to behave - she’s read all the books on how to be a princess, after all. And then, at last, a prince turns up and frees her from her tower. “Whopee!” she cries, thinking of all the fun she can finally start having. But this prince is not a modern man; he has other ideas. Instead of setting her free, he takes her to his own castle where she finds herself pretty much back in the same position: confined to a tower. Princess Sue, however, is having none of this; recruiting the local dragon to her cause, she escapes, running off to do all the things princes traditionally get to do and princesses don’t.

This is a beautifully straight forward story that combines the ideas of fulfilling your potential, being true to yourself, standing up for your rights, and - at it’s core - female emancipation. I find it amazing that all of these ideas are conveyed to me in a short story that basically tells of a princess breaking free of the chains of expectation and turning those expectations on their head. Its a very subtle yet powerful message for young children, wrapped up in the guise of a princess story. To be able to put this idea across so succinctly and enjoyably shows truly masterful storytelling by Anna Kemp. It’s genius because little girls who like princesses will enjoy the story simply because it has a princess in it - and yet, little girls who don’t like princess should enjoy it too, because she’s not very good at being a typical princess!

Princess Sue’s tale is told all in rhyme, and is very funny. She’s certainly a personality that any prince would have difficulty in taming, and the expressions that Sara Ogilvie gives her in the pictures are priceless. The pictures have lots of extra little things in them too - a preening peacock where the prince tells Sue “You wear dresses, are we clear?”, a crocodile hiding under the castle moat, and Princess Sue wears yellow converse boots instead of glittery sandals. The fact that the prince is a complete nitwit is made obvious from the beginning too, as he describes his journey to Sue’s tower. “I fought, I won,” is accompanied by a picture of him pointing his sword at a cowering frog; “I shocked, I awed,” is accompanied by a picture of him giving a cute little bunny a dirty look. So it’s not a massive surprise when the dragon vanquishes him so easily.

Princess Sue is a strong, confident girl set to take the world by storm. She isn't going to take no for an answer. A darn good role model if ever there was one. Not that there’s anything wrong with wearing dresses and sparkly shoes, but it’s good to have a choice.

Where Is Fred? by Edward Hardy & Ali Pye

This is pretty cool. I’ve read better picture books, but I’ve also read much worse ones. It's quite fun and it made me laugh. It’s a tad silly, but in an innocent and innocuous way.

Fred is a very white, very fluffy caterpillar. He’s very good at playing hide and seek, particularly if he hides on white fluffy things, like sheep and cotton wool. Unfortunately, when Fred is having a snack on a nice, green, shiney leaf he’s not so well disguised, and one day, whilst doing just this very thing, he is spotted by Gerald the crow, giving Fred quite a fright. In an attempt to evade Gerald and becoming Gerald’s lunch, Fred must draw on all his powers of hide and seek. He manages to hide quite successfully in lots of places that aren’t necessarily as white and fluffy as he is, causing Gerald to become really quite frustrated...

Where is Fred? is a very humourous little story, that elicited several sniggers from me during reading. The author, Edward Hardy, has come up with some fairly ingenious places for Fred to hide, and Ali Pye brings these to life with some lovely illustrations. I think my favourite hiding place was a little girl’s “lovely fluffy white headband,” though I imagine lots of children are likely to be most amused when Fred disguises himself as an elderly gentleman’s moustache. The book’s layout is well constructed too: Gerald speaks in a wiggly, squawky font, and whenever he spots a “lovely fluffy white” something, those three words are printed in a different font again, highlighting their reference to Fred. There is repetition, but each with ever so slight a change, simultaneously preventing each page from becoming annoyingly repetitive and introducing new words.

And Fred? Well, he does ultimately avoid capture, outwitting Gerald in the most preposterously ingenious manner. A lighthearted and enjoyable story.

Can You See Sassoon? by Sam Usher

Can You See Sassoon is like a Where’s Wally for little ones. I really enjoyed looking through it and trying to find Sassoon on each brightly coloured and incredibly busy page.

Sassoon is a funny-looking snake-like creature with red, yellow and blue stripes. But Sassoon likes to hide, and so what follows is a succession of different scenes from a picnic to a pile of presents, a washing line, a bookshelf, boats bobbing on the sea, and even outer space.

Although the pictures are very different from Martin Handford’s famous Where’s Wally - the items that fill the pages are larger and there is a significant lack of people - Sam Usher’s approach is similar to Handford’s in that each page is populated with a number items similar in colour and design to Sassoon that draw the eye, so that you have to eliminate Sassoon looky-likeys before you can be sure you’ve found the real one. What this also means is that there are tonnes of other things to look at in each illustration, so that every page becomes a veritable treasure trove for a child to stare at, and a parent to question them on. Can you find the robot? What do you think is wrapped up inside this box? Which animal is surfing?

I had particular trouble with the boating lake, which took several minutes of concentrated staring before I found Sassoon! The images are backed up with a little rhyming ditty, linking up the progress of Sassoon’s journey: “Where is he now? In outer space! He’s joined a whizzy rocket-race.” And there’s a surprise bonus on the final page, which finishes the book off really succinctly: a garden jungle in which all of Sassoon’s friends are hiding, complete with a pop-up page to pull out. Lovely. Lots of fun and great for building observational skills.

Goose Goes to the Zoo, by Laura Wall

Goose Goes to the Zoo features classic Miffy-like illustrations that are simple, bold and bright. And its a cute little story about friendship to boot.

Goose is Sophie’s best friend, they like to do everything together. But Sophie is very aware that Goose is different to her, that there are things Goose likes which she doesn’t like, and things Goose can do which she cannot. Similarly, there are things she can do that Goose can’t - like go to school - and Sophie worries that when she’s at school Goose gets lonely. Generously, she decides maybe Goose could do with another friend, so off they trip to the zoo to see who they can find. They meet several different animals, but none of them are quite right. And then... they find some geese! Who are just like Goose and can do all the same things he can! Sophie is so happy that Goose has found some more friends, but she is sad too because now Goose has other friends to play with. Maybe he won’t want to play with her anymore? But Goose is just the right type of friend - just because he has new friends doesn’t mean he has forgotten Sophie.

Laura Wall’s plain illustrations and short sentences, despite being very basic, somehow manage to convey a whole depth of meaning. Even though they're essentially 'just' line drawings, both Goose and Sophie are wonderfully expressive and amusing. I particularly love the page where the geese appear: its so simple, but it really makes me smile - a page full of different geese saying “honk! honk honk!” In addition, the story is pure and true; it doesn’t try to do too much, instead getting the balance just right, and reminds me of the divine Gossie and Friends series by Olivier Dunrea, which I just love.

So, thumbs up to Goose Goes to the Zoo.

The Journey Home, by Frann Preston-Gannon

I really loved Frann Preston-Gannon's big, bold illustrations in The Journey Home, but I really, really disliked the story, and thought it was completely inappropriate for a picture book.

“This beautifully illustrated story has a powerful message of conservation,” it says on the back. In actuality, the idea of conservation is not mentioned or conveyed at all, as the storyline is more one of destruction and devastation than one of mending things.

Polar Bear’s ice is melting. He cannot stay and so he decides to swim off in search of a new home. Luckily, he soon finds a little boat. The little boat takes him to a big city belching out fumes, where he rescues a panda; a deforested jungle, where he rescues an orangutan; and a plain, where he rescues an elephant being hunted for ivory. A big storm hits and they are tossed around in the waves and carried away. Eventually the little boat wash up on a little island, and they are greeted by a dodo, who tells the stranded animals that they’ll be able to go home - but only “when the trees grow back and when the ice returns and when the cities stop getting bigger and when the hunting stops.”

My immediate reaction is that - aside from being really depressing - these are ideas that are too large for toddlers to comprehend. I think children of this age are too young to have such significant issues discussed with them. Toddlerdom is a period of early learning and play and investigation, not a period where they should be told about the woes of world. Of course children should be introduced to environmental issues, just as they should be introduced to science and history and politics, but to do so in a picture book is completely inappropriate. Picture books such as The Journey Home can barely begin to properly convey the real problems of the environment. Simply skirting the edge of the issue, as this book does, is not going to educate anyone. This is not a conservation message; it merely highlights a couple of issues whilst failing to mention any human responsibilities, or the human options to prevent or reduce the issues.

And sending the animals to live with a dodo? Are the animals supposed to be dead? Extinct? Will such young readers understand the concept of an extinct creature and what the dodo represents? While I suppose the book could be used to introduce environmental concepts to older children, for those children it will still be too vague and essentially meaningless because it fails to cover the topics in a serious and realistic manner.

Rabbityness, by Jo Empson

The use of colour in Jo Empson’s Rabbityness is really interesting. It is a book that, after my first reading, left me thinking that is was full of colour - colour and prancing rabbits. With a second reading, though, I see that the pages of colour are cleverly tempered with a series of very washed out images, designed to reflect sadness and emptiness. The contrast between these two elements of the book are quite key to the story.

Rabbityness starts off by introducing me to Rabbit, a little black rabbit who likes doing all the normal sort of rabbity things. The images are plain and simple: a black rabbit and green grass on a white background. But Rabbit also likes to do unrabbity things, and here the page explodes into colour: bright splodges of blue and pink, orange and green on one page as Rabbit paints; musical notes and little birds dance across the next page as Rabbit blows a multicoloured didgeridoo; a forest of little black rabbits dancing among brightly coloured trees as Rabbit fills the wood with infectious colour and music.

And then... Rabbit is gone. Boom. After all the colour, there is just a white page with a handful of leaves drifting across it. Rabbit’s disappearance leaves the woods devoid of colour, grey and washed out. “All that Rabbit had left was a hole... a deep dark hole.” Clearly this all represents sadness at the loss of Rabbit and the idea that the world may never be bright again. The other rabbits venture into Rabbit’s hole, presumably to look for him. And inside they find all the things that Rabbit had used to make colour and music. Soon they start experimenting with the paints and instruments themselves and quickly discover that they rather like doing unrabbity things just as much as Rabbit did. And doing unrabbity things reminds them of Rabbit, which makes them happy again. The end.

I can see where Empson has tried to go with this book, but it all happens very quickly and slightly surreally. Rabbit’s disappearance is incredibly sudden, with no warning at all; the first time I read this it was quite a shock. I understand that, in reality, the death of a loved one can be very sudden like this, especially from a child’s perspective. But I’m not sure that suddenly throwing it out like that in a book is going to be particularly helpful to an already grieving child: some warning would be nice, and is more likely to help a grieving child. I also understand that the second part of the story is trying to say that things can be ok again after someone has gone, but in Rabbityness they get ok again very very quickly, without any period of mourning, and I don’t think this is particularly realistic. It’s almost like saying to the reader, ok, they’ve gone, but they left some good stuff behind, and you can think about them, and that should be enough to make to you happy. But we all know that that is not quite how things really work.

Empson has produced an interesting book that is bright and cheerful and full of joy to begin with, but takes a sinister turn part way through, and it doesn’t quite get back on track again afterwards. While her intentions are true, I’m not convinced they are successful.

Churchill's Tale of Tails, by Anca Sandu

In Churchill's Tale of Tails, Churchill is quite a cute little piggy with a typical curly pig’s tail. But one day, when he gets up in the morning, his tail has gone missing. After searching high and low in his own little house, he starts calling his friends to see if they have any ideas about where it might be. This is when Zebra steps in: he has a spare tail that Churchill can try. The zebra tail is fun but doesn’t feel quite right. It does, however, give Churchill an idea: perhaps he should try some other, different tails to see how they feel?

“He tried little tails, spotty tails, snappy tails, and tails that made him feel big.”

What with all this important tail-trying-on, and the different ways they make him feel, Churchill is so wrapped up in his own thoughts that he starts to ignore his friends. But then, after a bit of a nighttime scare, he finally finds his own tail again.

“Finding his old tail made Churchill feel like his old self again.” And feeling like his old self again helps him to remember all of his friends.

Anca Sandu’s pictures did make me smile, especially when Churchill tries on the peacock’s tail. The animals are sweet and the things they’re shown doing are quite quirky and fun. But the story didn’t really convince me.

Firstly, I’m not too sure about the idea that animals can take off their tails; I wouldn’t want my child to get the impression that this is what happens in real life; it’s a tad misleading. Secondly, the way that Churchill tries on all sorts of different animals’ tails is almost like he is trying on lots of different personalities to see which one fits him best. Granted, in the end he does realise that his own tail is best (well, most of the time), but rather than focussing on this aspect of the story, Sandu turns it around and makes it about Churchill ignoring his friends. This is a bit of an about-turn: three quarters of the book is spent talking about different tails, showing the different animals they come from and the different they make Churchill feel, and then suddenly Churchill is talking about being a bad pig and ignoring his friends. I’m not saying that this secondary idea isn’t important, but I do think it would have been better if Sandu had written two separate stories: one that is more concisely about the importance of your friends, and one that is more concisely about being true to oneself. Instead, she has tried to blend the two together, meaning that neither aspect truly succeeds.

Lollipop and Grandpa Go Swimming, by Penelope Harper & Cate James

Lollipop and Grandpa Go Swimming starts off in a general sort of way. It’s real and normal: Lollipop has a new swimsuit, inflatable armbands, and “the biggest towel Mum could find,” but she’s a bit nervous about getting in the pool: its big and full of children splashing and whooping, and Lollipop doesn’t know how to swim. Grandpa, though, knows how to take care of things. He takes Lollipop into the little pool first so that she can get used to things.

Then. Then they graduate to the big pool. And this is where the book descends into fantasy. Boom. The first thing that happens when Lollipop and Grandpa get into the big pool is an encounter with a giant octopus. The octopus is swiftly followed by a big blue whale, and then the discovery of sunken treasure, from which they are chased off by a bunch of nasty pirates. While to an adult this is clearly part of a game that Lollipop and Grandpa are playing, it is basically never explained as such, and no normal swimming or getting used to the big pool takes place around the fantasy. If I was a little tot being read this story, I would not want to go anywhere near the big pool afterwards. Most small children, it must be remembered, do not distinguish between what I know as real and not-real, and because here it is not specified what is and isn’t real, who’s to say there aren’t really giant octopi, whales, and mean pirates hiding under the still waters of a swimming pool?

I like the sketch style of the drawings in Lollipop and Grandpa Go Swimming, and the layout is fairly standard; I even like the intentions behind the story, but overall it did not ring true for me, and I was disappointed with the assumptions the writer makes. The only redeeming factor is found in the final pages, when Lollipop asks to stay for a few more minutes, indicating that despite the traumas she was actually having fun.

Ruby Redfort: Look Into My Eyes, by Lauren Child

Ruby Redfort is a super sleuth and master code-breaker. She sees things the rest of us don’t and makes it her mission to watch and be aware. She has filled six hundred and twenty two yellow notebooks with her observations - because you never know what might be important - and lives by a set of self-created rules, such as ‘say nothing’ {rule 4}, ‘people often miss the downright obvious’ {rule 18}, and ‘panic will freeze your brain’ {rule 19}.

At the beginning of Look Into My Eyes, Ruby is entangled in a series of both mysterious and mundane events:

• Returning from a holiday abroad, her parents’ baggage has gone missing,
• The bank of Twinford, the town in which Ruby resides, is due to receive a large delivery of gold bullion,
• Ruby’s mother is wildly excited about an upcoming exhibition at the Twinford Museum of a precious Jadeite Buddha,
• The Redfort house is not only robbed but completely stripped, even the fridge and its contents,
• The Redfort housekeeper Mrs. Digby disappears after an argument with Conseula, the tomato-obsessed nutritionist,
• And Hitch, a strangely competent butler-come-house-manager with a dodgy shoulder arrives.

Which of these are going to turn out to be important, and which ones are mere happenstance? Is it all just coincidence, or are they somehow connected?

On top of all this, Ruby and her code breaking observationist skills are recruited by Spectrum, a secret government agency, who needs her to solve a mystery they believe will lead them to the Fool’s Gold Gang, who are planning to rob the bank on the eve of its gold deposit. Will Ruby be able to put all of the pieces together in time?

Look Into My Eyes is a truly quirky offering from Lauren Child, the famed author of Clarice Bean and Charlie and Lola, perhaps the quirkiest twist being that in the Clarice Bean series, the Ruby Redfort stories are Clarice’s favourite books. The language is brilliant and original, full of slightly outdated usage such as ‘bozo’, ‘pulling your leg’, ‘buster’, ‘geez’, and ‘darn it!’ This, along with various other little clues that I’m sure I read, but now can’t quite put my finger on, make me think of an early 1970s setting - for some reason, I can’t help but picture Ruby’s house as being decorated with loud 1970s decor.

The story is highly adventurous, not to mention chock-full of codes and secret messages for the wily reader to figure out, and Ruby is constantly kept on her toes trying to (a) outwit the adults with whom she is surrounded, and (b) convince said adults of the importance of her discoveries. As I was reading, I couldn’t help but wonder firstly whether there were codes embedded in the text that I should be weaseling out, and secondly, whether her parents truly are as oblivious as they seem. Is it all a ruse, or a part of the greater mystery?

With hidden underground buildings, communication by toast, following people and being followed, secret messages posted via the ‘wanted’ ads, Bond-worthy gadgets, kidnap, and criminals with names such as Nine Lives and Baby Face Marshall, this is a book that can’t fail to capture the imagination. Ruby herself is full of vitality, wit and cunning, and her sidekick Clancy Crew is a stalwart friend with a gut instinct that is not to be ignored. Pages of fun.

Paper Dolls, by Julia Donaldson and Rebecca Cobb

Paper Dolls stars a little girl with tiger slippers, stars on her ceiling, and a butterfly hairslide which she keeps losing. On the second page, her and her mum make a string of five paper dolls, and so the rest of the story follows their adventures. They get chased by a dinosaur,  stalked by a tiger, and pursued by a crocodile. “You can’t catch us. Oh no no no!” they sing. “We’re holding hands and we won’t let go,” and they escape off to the next stage in their adventure.

Rebecca Cobb’s illustrations are simple and endearing, quite nostalgic, the little girl wearing a green stripey dress, green tights and a cosy red cardigan. What I like best, though, is the way the illustrations are organised. First, the dinosaur is introduced, accompanied by a picture of the girl sitting on her bed, paper dolls in one hand, dinosaur in the other. Turn the page, though, and suddenly the dinosaur is real, chasing the string of dolls, who have come alive and are running and jumping. Turn the page again, and they’re back to toys, until... boom, the tiger is chasing the dolls across a farmyard. I like this blending of reality and imagination as the story progresses.

The story is sweet, though it didn’t blow me away. I wasn’t too keen on the names given to the paper dolls, and the ending is rather unusual. It exudes happiness and contentment though, and when the paper dolls come to a sticky ending, Julia Donaldson gives it a slightly over-sentimental, happy twist. Again, the illustrations are the best part of this, the page filled with lots of different things to look for and pick out: can you find the mice, the bus, the stars, the goldfish? It’s a nice sentiment, though one that adults are more likely to 'get' than children, I think. Firstly: you can overcome anything if you hold hands like the paper dolls do, and stick together. Secondly: your memory is a treasure trove that can help keep hold of things that have been lost.

The little girl’s tiger slippers are the coolest thing ever, and I quite fancy a butterfly hairclip too - which can be followed through the pages like a mini treasure hunt.