Library Books: Oscar the Hungry Unicorn Eats Easter Ellie's Dragon Animal Pants

Another Trip To The Library Our fourth visit to the library was quite frenetic. My granddaughter has learnt the routine of returning last week's books before borrowing some more, and knows where to look for her next books. She had me read seven books to her before dashing off to her granddad to have another book read to her, leaving me free to find a couple of books to bring home. I browsed Animal Pants thinking that we'd already borrowed it, but then realised that it is another book in the 'Pants' series, so put that aside to check out later. My husband appeared with two possiblities, leaving his charge free to strip the book cases of books she supposedly wanted us to read to her. We returned the books to the shelves and packed her up with this week's selection for two year olds and headed home. It was much later, after they'd been read to her at bed time, that the choice of books was questioned. I've read them through now, and although I think they are good books, I probably would not have borrowed Ellie's Dragon.

Oscar the Hungry Unicorn Eats Easter Written by Lou Carter & Nikki Dyson ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ Published by Orchard Books4 Mar. 2021 Genre Children's Books Pages 32 ISBN-10 1408359391 ISBN-13 978-1408359396 ASIN B088LS3693 For children aged 3 - 5 years

The blurb: It's Easter and the Easter Bunny has put together the most incredible, absolutely fantastic egg hunt. Everyone is excited, but uh-oh... Oscar the Unicorn is hungry! Oscar has eaten the eggs, the baskets, the signs - in fact, he's eaten everything! The Easter Bunny is too tired to hide more eggs, so Oola and rest of the fairytale crew step in to help. But just as the great chocolate egg hunt is about to get underway, some silly pirates accidentally misplace the map to the hidden Easter treats. Can Oscar's keen sense of smell - and his unstoppable hunger - save Easter before it's too late?

My thoughts:

This went down a treat with my grandaughter. She loved the pictures, and talked about her own Easter egg hunt.

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Ellie's Dragon Written by Bob Graham ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ Published by Walker Books 9 July 2020 Genre Children's Books Pages 40 ISBN-10 1406387622 ISBN-13 978-1406387629 For children aged 3 - 7 years

The blurb: When Ellie is very little, she finds a newborn dragon fresh from the egg on a supermarket shelf, and calls him Scratch. He is quite the sweetest thing she has ever seen! From that day on, Ellie and Scratch do everything together. Ellie's mum and her teacher can’t see her fiery friend, but all her friends can – and, over the years, Ellie's dragon grows to be big, house-trained, and very affectionate. And Ellie is growing, too... A moving story about the wonders of imagination and the nature of growing up from one of Australia’s most revered bookmakers.

My thoughts:

Ellie's Dragon is a really lovely story about a child and her imaginary dragon friend. My granddaughter did indeed enjoy the story, but I worried that she would be upset that the dragon began to disappear and finally went away when Ellie no longer needed him. She wasn't. I was far more emotional about it than she was. I don't have imaginary friends at my age, and was thinking in terms of losing loved ones... they begin to fade and then they are gone.

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Animal Pants Written by Giles Andreae & Nick Sharratt ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ Published by Puffin (18 April 2019) Genre Early Reader Rhymes Pages 32 ISBN-10 0141378344 ISBN-13 978-0141378343 ASIN B07L5R6M4R For children aged 2 - 5 years

The blurb: Baa pants, moo pants, COCK-A-DOODLE-DO pants . . . Have you ever wondered what kind of pants honey bees wear? What about iguanas? Or even piranhas? Find out in this joyous explosion of colour and silliness that will have readers of all ages laughing together - a hilarious rhyming read, from the author of Giraffes Can't Dance and the illustrator of You Choose.

My thoughts:

Animal Pants is every bit as funny as Pants which my granddaughter and I enjoyed recently. It's filled with colourful, action pictures that, as well as being amusing, provide an opportunity to increase her vocabulary.

Animal Pants is about pants worn by animals. In this rhyming story the reader meets lots of animals, including some less well known animals - gibbon, bison, iguana, piranha - thus affording a second opportunity to add new words to their vocabulary. They also hear some more rhyming words. At not quite two and a half, my granddaughter is making her own rhyming word pairs, on the back of this book series.

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