Toppsta - Childrens Books – Reviews

We absolutely love these interactive books by Usbourne. A good mixture of facts presented through double page spread of themes, and loved the binocular feature, where certain flaps were zoomed in to show greater detailing. I loved the details of how to mummify a dead body, the kids not so much!

This is one of our son's all time favourite books. The full page illustrations, rhyme, and the characters truly make him smile. He has read it so many times, and is even using it for a school project at the moment. 

We are huge Julia Donaldson fans in this house but this one just felt to miss the normal satisfaction mark. The children found the various days and escape attempts a little flat and repetitive, without the usual use of beautiful rhyme. There were elements of repetition to the story's format, but not with the usual flow. 

The hardback edition of this book gave it a lovely feel for a book that would last for many years to come. I loved how the story worked on an emotional level of adjusting to a new life situation, and how taking action and creating change can bring about new opportunities. The children seemed to enjoy this book, but I wish I had not chosen it for a bedtime read as they wanted to try and find all of the people and items mentioned in the text, which took ages! The illustrations were refreshingly different. The text itself was a little hard to follow at times, not just for the dark colour and background, but because some parts rhymed, yet other sentences didn't. The book still holds absolute value though.

My children appeared to enjoy the repetitive pattern of the story, and liked finding Lulu the monkey in the vast illustrations. The book touched a numerous emotions; anger, worry, joy, which is great to convey to children. We shared this book several times on the first night, and my son also read it himself at bedtime, so safe to say they loved it.