Tag: Julia Donaldson

Bedtime Stories: Julia Donaldson

I’ve been meaning to write another post about the stories I’ve been reading with my oldest daughter, and decided to focus on some of the wonderful stories by Julia Donaldson we’ve enjoyed together.

The Gruffalo and The Gruffalo’s Child

The Gruffalo is a modern classic picture book about a little mouse who out wits all the creatures in a forest that want to eat him, including the fearsome Gruffalo. A wonderful story about how being small doesn’t mean being helpless which is an important message for children.

I’ve written about The Gruffalo’s Child before as it was one of the first stories my oldest daughter showed an interest in and one that she still requests from time to time. In the sequel, the Gruffalo’s daughter ventures into the deep, dark wood to see if she can find the big bad mouse her father warned her about, and once again the cunning little mouse has to outsmart a bigger creature.

Room on the Broom

Another old favourite that my oldest daughter knows off by heart and we take turns to read/recite a line from start to end. Room on the Broom is the story of a witch who is always losing her belongings but who makes friends with all the creatures that help her find them again. I love the themes of kindness, helping each other and teamwork in this story.

The Snail and The Whale

This is another lovely story about a little Sea Snail that wants to travel the world and has the chance to do so on the tail of a humpback Whale. A recurring theme in this and The Gruffalo is that being small doesn’t mean being helpless, and it’s the determined and clever, little snail that ends up saving the whale’s life.

Zog and Zog and The Flying Doctors

A dragon called Zog is learning all the skills he needs to know at dragon school and is repeatedly helped by a girl who turns out to a Princess. In a clever reversal to the usual fairytale, Princess Pearl aspires to be a Doctor instead, which is a really inspiring message for girls in particular.

In the sequel, Zog and the Flying Doctors travel around helping different creatures who all have the chance to return the favour and help Princess Pearl later on. Of all the stories we have by Julia Donaldson, I think these two are my favourites with themes of perseverance, friendship and kindness.

Stickman

Stickman goes out one morning and then finds himself lost and far from home as different people and animals mistake him for a stick and use him for everything from playing fetch with a dog to building a nest. Stickman is a heartwarming story about never giving up no matter how hopeless things seem, but I tend to save this one for Christmas as Santa Claus shows up at the end.

The Princess and The Wizard

Finally, I wanted to mention The Princess and The Wizard as it was one of the first books my oldest daughter chose (no doubt drawn to it by the pink cover with a Princess) after she got her own library card and we’ve borrowed it a few times since. It’s a story about a Princess who is kidnapped by an evil wizard on her 7th birthday and the seven attempts she makes to escape by changing her colour and changing her shape. Another encouraging story about how determination and cleverness can overcome a more powerful enemy.

Have a lovely week. X

Raising a Bookworm

We’re a bookish family and one of the parts of parenthood I’ve looked forward to most is sharing my love of stories with my daughter. I’ve been collecting books for her since birth and have given her the lowest shelf on our bookcase within her reach, but it’s only in the last few months that she’s shown a real interest in stories.

In Scotland, the Scottish Book Trust distributes free books at intervals from birth to five years old to encourage a love of reading and promote literacy. A few of my daughter’s earliest favourites were books she received from the health visitor, including a simple rhyming bed time story called One Sleepy Night and a peekaboo lift the flap book, there was also a rhyming book to help children learn to count in the most recent Bookbug bag by Julia Donaldson called One Mole Digging a Hole that my daughter really likes too.

Although I’ve read to my daughter since birth, once she became mobile she lost interest in books so I picked up a few more interactive sensory books for her from the “That’s Not My” range and a couple of Nosy Crow lift the flap books too to try to keep her interest.

As she’s gotten older, her language skills have developed and her attention span has increased we’ve been able to introduce more narrative stories. One of her earliest favourites that she demanded over and over again was Corduroy by Don Freeman, which tells the story of a bear in a department store who gets overlooked by customers because he’s missing a button on his dungarees and sets out on an adventure to find a button once the shop closes. It’s a really lovely story and one that has aged well since it was first published in 1968.

Another popular classic in our household is The Very Hungry Caterpillar (which also happens to have been one of my husband’s favourite childhood stories) which describes the life cycle of a caterpillar hatching from an egg, eating a lot of food and eventually transforming into a butterfly. My daughter practically knows this one off by heart and enjoys pointing out all the foods that the caterpillar eats.

Between Halloween and Christmas last year, my daughter discovered the wonderful rhyming stories of Julia Donaldson and has been demanding “Broom!” (Room on the Broom) and Gruffalo’s Child regularly. For those unfamiliar with these stories, Room on the Broom is about a witch who keeps losing her belongings which are returned to her by various helpful animals she meets on her journey, who all ask to travel on her broom with her and eventually team up to rescue her when a dragon threatens to eat her. It’s a fun story about helping each other and team work. While The Gruffalo’s Child is the sequel to The Gruffalo, in which the Gruffalo’s daughter sets out on a quest to find the big, bad mouse that scared her father in the original story.

I’m looking forward to seeing how my daughter’s reading tastes change and develop as she grows, and have enjoyed this chance to look back at some of the books that we’ve read together over the last couple of years. Have a lovely week. X