300 Picture Book Challenge #7

We’ve spent much of this week re-reading last week’s new books, so only five fresh titles to report on. By far the favourite has been the classic fairy tale Goldilocks and the Three Bears, a story I also loved as a child. Little Miss especially likes it when we do funny voices for Daddy Bear, Mummy Bear and Baby Bear – although since I’ve now caught her latest cough, this is proving increasingly difficult!

Out of interest, I just decided to Google the origins of Goldilocks and the Three Bears and apparently the first printed versions of it date all the way back to the 1830s and spoken folklore versions even further than that. In the earliest incarnations the ‘intruder’ character of Goldilocks was actually an old women with a completely different name! The story evolved over the years until by 1904 the nosy little girl was named Goldilocks and had settled into the version we still know and love today.

For it’s beautiful and bold illustrations, with shiny silver bits and sparkle, Sometimes by Emma Dodd was also a highlight for me this week – and Little Miss was keen too, although I suspect  the elephants were the deciding factor for her. The author and illustrator grew up in a family of artists and studied at famous London art college Central Saint Martin’s. You can tell, the book is pretty much a work of art.

So that’s us for this week. Our running total is now 113. But before you go, if you missed my post on supporting Book Aid International this forthcoming World Book Day please do have a read. This special charity sends more than 500,000 books a year to communities in Africa where reading cannot be taken for granted. More than half of these are for children. There are lots of fun ways you can support them, so please do take a look.

You can follow our daily reading progress on Pinterest and I’d love to hear what you’ve been reading this week.

Find out more and join in with the 300 Picture Book Challenge over on the Child Led Chaos blog.