Sunday 14 November 2010

The Beasties by Jenny Nimmo and Gwen Millward (Children's, Picture book, 10/10E)

October 2010, Egmont 
32 pages, Paperback
Review copy 

Themes: Story telling, night time routine, new beds, humour 

Summary from Egmont
On a starry, starry night Daisy hears a growl that makes her heart go pit-a-pat. It sounds like a story...
Every night a new tale drifts up to Daisy - tales of robbers, shipwrecks and lost princesses. Until one night everything goes very quiet. Daisy very slowly looks under the bed to find... Three storytelling beasties!

Nayuleska's thoughts
Being alone at night, when the world is dark is often a scary experience. Children in particular don't like it. Changes to anyone's life is hard to adjust to. I guessed from the boxes in her room that Daisy has just moved house. Her bed feels different. Her room looks different from how it used to. No wonder she's having a hard time getting to sleep. She naturally freaks out when she hears an unusual noise, then is delighted when it is a trio of creatures telling stories.

These stories help her drift off to sleep each night. One night they aren't there, which makes Daisy frightened. How will she sleep without a story to relax her? The solution - she tells a story to herself. I mention what happens at the end because I think this is plus side of the book. It demonstrates that some parts of life are scary, but there can be ways to lessen the fear. And, after someone helps the reader, they are able to do things by themselves, and still get a similar feeling of satisfaction from me when they achieve the end result.

The illustrations are beautifully drawn, in fairy tale pastels which are bright yet gentle enough for a wind down read before bed.  I'd like these beasties under my bed! 

Suggested read
Try Knight Time by Jane Clarke and Jane Massey (Children's, Picture book, 10E/10E

2 comments:

Unknown said...

Lovely review. I thought this was a good one to inspire beautiful dreams and not be afraid in bed. I did think that some of the text wasn't well placed though.

Nayuleska said...

I'm now going to go back and look at the placement! Didn't think about that when I read it at 5am....