Toppsta - Childrens Books – Reviews

This bright and sturdy board book is a wonderful festive read for young children. It’s an interactive book with push, pull and slide tabs to engage them throughout the story.
The tale itself is pretty simple; it involves our busy elves preparing for Christmas.
The illustrations are wonderful: they are bright and attractive and jam-packed with details and characters and objects to spot and count. As well as reading the story, there are a lot of ways to use the book from counting to vocabulary or using the pictures as prompts to encourage the children to tell their own story.

This is a fun festive tale, starring Trixie the little witch who loves Christmas and wants everyone to share the magic of the season with her.
Both my children love this book; the opening page when we start to talk about Halloween prior to switching to Christmas really caught their attention and sparked their interest.
The language is simple and easy for children to understand. The inclusion of some fab twists on the “Jingle Bell” rhyme and some onomatopoeic sound effects means it’s great fun to read aloud. Both kids loved to join in with the singing.
The illustrations are gorgeous; they’ve very detailed and prompted a lot of further examination during and after the story! The book itself is great quality and I’m sure will stand up to the test of time.
Trixie is a great character: she’s determined to succeed with her plan - despite the Head Elf’s best efforts to discourage her. The story highlights how to naughty list isn’t always quite right and not to judge by first impressions or stereotypes but by people’s actions. It’s a delightful tale packed with more poignant lessons.
This is a heart-warming and lively Christmas adventure story we will definitely be revisiting again and again.

This is by far one of my children’s favourites. All the “hat” books by Jon Klassen are pure genius but this undoubtedly captures their imagination.
The subtle, slightly dark humour in this book of bad behaviour and consequences is brilliant.
The illustrations are stunning and seamlessly add the humour to the story; whatever the little fish says, the illustrations of the big fish contradicts.
This story has them in giggles from beginning to end.
The first time we read it, it elicited several big gasps (especially from my daughter). There is a double age spread of just sea weed followed by only the big fish emerging from them. This alone produces a thousand guesses as to what could of happened!
The language is simple and easy for young children to follow but the beauty of the story is in the contradictions and very young children might need a little guidance initially to pick up on this.
The story itself is jam-packed full of things to talk about - from honesty to stealing.
I can’t praise this story enough: it’s essential for every book shelf.

This is another fab installment from the Amazing Machines series. This time we’re taken to the skies to learn about aeroplanes. We see inside an airport; climb on board; take off and land. The animals in place of people really tickle my children!
The simple rhyming text is lovely; it’s great for reading outloud and the language is perfect for young children to understand.
It’s a fairly short read so their attention rarely wanders!
The illustrations are great; they are bright and cheerful and both children engage well with them. They often want to examine them independently afterwards.

Another lovely read from the “Amazing Machines” series. This time we’re focussing on trains, from different types to joining the animal passengers on a little journey before they disembark.
The text is simple but the rhymes mean it’s lovely to read aloud. It’s a quite a short read so great as an extra book to squeeze in at bedtime.
The illustrations are bright and help the children engage with the book. Having animals instead of people really seems to amuse them!
The back page where “train bits” are described is great. The book as a whole is a lovely introduction to non-fiction reading.