300 Picture Book Challenge #6

It’s been an exciting week for us, as we passed the first big milestone of 100 books read as part of the 300 Picture Books Challenge. We’ve now got through 108 different books in total and 12 new titles in the last seven days, all borrowed from our wonderful local library.

There were two new Hairy Maclary books, although Little Miss easily still loves the original the most, and another fab Giles Andreae title, author of one of last week’s favourites, Giraffes Can’t Dance. This week’s book, Rumble in the Jungle, is another great rhyming animal tale with especially bright and beautiful illustrations.

Little Croc’s Purse had a great moral to it, with Little Croc reaping the rewards after being honest, and Matilda’s Cat went down well as Matilda is also the name of one of Little Miss’s cousins.

Our two favourites this week, though, have been What the Ladybird Heard by Julia Donaldson, who’s fast becoming one of my all-time favourite children’s writers, and Hide and Seek Penguins.

The former features fab rhyming text, lots of animal noises and a glittery ladybird to find on most pages. The latter has flaps to lift and touchy-feely bits and Little Miss especially loved looking at this one on her own as well as with me.

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.

300 Picture Book Challenge #5

It’s been a quieter week in terms of new books, with last week’s batch from the library remaining firm favourites that we’ve read on repeat, especially Owl Babies, Bear Hunt and, most popular of all, Hairy Maclary.

We’ve added seven new titles to the list. Four of those were Dora the Explorer books that Little Miss was given as a present. These are quite good for getting your child talking and interacting with the stories, although I wasn’t that impressed that the trip to the dentist one included Dora having a filling – surely we should be teaching kids to take good care of their teeth in the first place!

By far the best new book we’ve read this week was Giraffes Can’t Dance by Giles Andreae (who I found out tonight is also the creator of Purple Ronnie!). It’s a fantastic, rhyming jungle story that’s great for reading out loud, beautifully illustrated and has a lovely touching message that gives me a lump in my throat! Gerald the gangly giraffe dreads the annual Jungle Dance because, well, everybody knows giraffes can’t dance… or can they? The moral of the story is that we are all different and just need to find ‘the right music’ to show off our unique talents.

With seven new books read this week, our running total so far is now 96 books… so hopefully by next week we’ll have reached our first 100. I’m amazed at how many we’ve got through already. We’ve always read a lot but taking part in the 300 Picture Book Challenge is definitely helping to boost the variety, which can only be a good thing.

You can follow our daily reading progress here on Pinterest.

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.