Today’s books is perfect for anyone, adult or child, dreaming of a day on the beach. Traction Man and the Beach Odyssey, the latest book (published today!) from Mini Grey, follows the adventures of superhero Traction Man and his fearless, loyal sidekick, Scrubbing Brush.

Traction Man, the favourite toy of a young boy, is taken on holiday to the seaside where a series of perilous adventures befall him; he is swept out to sea, then washed up in a dank cave, found by another child on the beach, and nearly lost in a tremendous earthquake when the sandcastle he is inhabiting is enthusiastically attacked by a dog.

This story will thrill any child who brings their toys to life and creates adventures, journeys and real-life personas for them. Like the two earlier Traction Man stories (Traction Man is Here and Traction Man Meets Turbodog), this too is pacey, creating just the right amount of manageable anxiety that dissolves in wonderful relief with the resolution of the story. It’s packed with humour and provides parents with plenty of perfect opportunities for silly voices and even singing theme music from thrillers should they really get into the swing of it (I like to read it to my kids with a Sean Connery-esque accent!)

Image reproduced with permission. Inside spread of Traction Man and the Beach Odyssey. Click for large scale image.

Appropriately enough, some of the illustrations recall Marvel comics. They’re eyecatching and reward repeated readings for all the added details tucked away in them. If you’re looking for a superhero story that’s got all the action, excitement and adventure you could possibly want, but without any violence or malevolence, the Traction Man stories are for you. Particularly loved by the boys I’ve been reading to in the year 1 classes at M’s school, the girls too have been asking each week for another Traction Man story.

Those who already love Traction Man will not be disappointed with this new story (let’s hope there are more in the future!), whilst those who are new to the delights of this superhero and his sidekick will be able to adore this book in its own right, before (I’m confident) wanting to track down the two earlier stories.

Now, where we live is just about the furthest you can get from the seaside in the UK, so a trip to the beach isn’t straightforward. But if we can’t go to the beach, what we can do is bring the beach to us! On recent sunny afternoon we began by rockpooling…

We stopped for an icecream….

We enjoyed jumping in the waves…

And of course we made sandcastles which were visited by Traction Man and Scrubbing Brush

Our day at the seaside ended with us eating chips out of newspaper!

The only thing I missed was the sound of the seagulls

Some great seaside music for kids includes:

Some fun activities which could work well alongside Traction Man and the Beach Odyssey include:

What’s your favourite thing about going to the beach? Do your kids have a favourite beach time book?

Thanks go to Random House, the publishers of this brilliant book, for supplying me with a review copy. This review, however, reflects my own and honest opinion.

Photo: Laszlo-photo

With J’s current fish obsession we’re on the look out for books about fish at the moment. One Smart Fish by Chris Wormell was a chance find when we were visiting the Natural History Museum a few weeks back – it’s not a book I had previously heard of – but it’s now definitely one of J’s favourites so far this year.

One Smart Fish tells the story of a crucial evolutionary step – how many millions of years ago some fish left the sea and began life on land. It’s a big topic but through the use of stunning illustrations and perfectly pitched text, liberally sprinkled with humour, Wormell has written the ideal book for introducing the idea of evolution to young children.

Many pages are densely packed with a range of fish of all shapes, sizes, colours and texture, whilst the penultimate double page spread has a hugely detailed expanse of creatures surging out across the land showing the evolution from fish to – eventually – human beings. Like the earlier pictures of fish we can’t help pouring over the illustrations and playing “I spy” – just like we do when reading some other much enjoyed books of ours – Anno’s Journey or The History Puzzle.

One Smart Fish doesn’t attempt to deal with the science or evidence for evolution but it does introduce the concept of evolution exceptionally well. Both M and J find it funny yet brilliant that they are evolved from fish – this idea has really caught their imagination and M in particular has wanted to find out more. That Wormell’s book has so engaged my two kids and got them asking lots of questions is a testament to its brilliance.

Inspired by the range of beautiful and colourful fish in Wormell’s book we set about creating our own ocean full of fish. First I cut out lots of fish shapes from clear plastic containers I’ve been saving (strawberry punnets, for example). The girls used permanent markers (sharpies) to colour in and decorate the fish.

Next they had a lot of fun cleaning out an old fish tank that had been languishing amongst my pots at the back of the garden.

To make the fish appear to be swimming in the tank we attached two threads to each fish. One thread had a bead or a button attached at one end – the girls had an absolutely wonderful time investigating which of their beads and buttons would sink – an activity we have done again since as they enjoyed it so much. The other thread was attached to a small strip of bubble wrap to give the impression of bubbles coming out of the fishes mouths when they were in the water.

The fish tank was filled with water and then we added some sand – this made the water look a little dirty, but the idea was to make it seem more like the ocean than a sterile fish tank.

A few shells and some other marine life (ocotopi and sea horses) were added to complete our land beneath the waves.

We all had a great deal of fun creating this seascape – if you are inspired to do something similar, we’d love to hear about it

One Smart Fish: *** (3 stars)

Some fishy music to create by:

For more songs with an evolutionary theme you could take a look at Songs about Darwin and Evolution from Cells in Culture or Evolution Songs: Celebrating Charles Darwin’s 200th Birthday from Gigwise.


And some more fish activities that might work well alongside this book:

Having read One Smart Fish – the text of which is simple enough for J, at 2, to enjoy and easily follow, I then read the more complex How Whales Walked Into the Sea by Faith McNulty, Ted Rand, and Ted Lewin with M. If you can get hold of it I would urge you do do so as I cannot imagine a better follow-up read to One Smart Fish – it deals with the evolutionary step taken by one branch of mammals that returned to the sea, eventually resulting in whales. I first came across this book thanks to a review over at In need of Chocolate, where you can find a great series of posts about books for kids on evolution and prehistory. If you wanted a book for adults that would go really well with One Smart Fish and How Whales Walked Into the Sea, At the water’s edge by Carl Zimmer comes highly recommended by my wonderful husband!

Now what about you? Do you have any favourite picture books about fish? Or about evolution?

Audiobooks play a hugely important role in our home – a day without one is certainly unusual. As well as providing the sheer pleasure of listening to a good story, they also allow us to introduce more Dutch into the home – an additional input alongside their (wonderful) Dad. All in all we love audiobooks and have so many that it made choosing my first one to review an enjoyable but interesting challenge.

Photo: Playful Librarian

After much deliberation I decided to review one of our very favourite audiobooks of all time – recordings of Katie Morag and the Two Grandmothers and Katie Morag Delivers the Mail, both by Mairi Hedderwick (published 1986, Whigmaleene Story Cassettes, Collins Audio). This audiobook does everything I think an audiobook can and should do – it is a perfect example of what this format can bring to a great story, which is why I wanted to review it. But, and it’s a big “but”, it doesn’t seem to be available anywhere to buy, nor have I been able to find any copies in worldcat.org (a portal to many library catalogues around the world).

I don’t like to review stories which you then can’t get hold of yourself – but this is such a fantastic recording that I nevertheless had to go with it. It definitely deserves to go on your search list, just in case you strike lucky in a library or second hand book sale. So if you’ll forgive me for tempting you with the (possibly) unobtainable here’s why all of us at Playing by the book think this is an exceptional audiobook.

Photo: Professor P

The Katie Morag books by Mairi Hedderwick are all set on a remote (fictional) Scottish island called Struay. The stories are about family, friends, and life in a small, isolated community, and although we’ve thoroughly enjoyed every Katie Morag story we’ve ever read, it’s the illustrations which really steal the show. I cannot think of a more perfect rendition of life on a Scottish island (and we’ve been to quite a few, even honeymooning on one) – Mairi Hedderwick captures the wild beauty, the customs, the necessary adaptations to island life, the geography, the weather and even the clothing all so precisely you quickly become transported to Struay when you start looking at her illustrations.

With illustrations playing such an important role in the Katie Morag books I was curious to see how an audiobook could possibly do the printed books justice. And yet, and yet, this recording does transport you to Scottish island life, in a magical and unforgettable manner. Rather than simply copying the printed book, the audio book makes the most of the format by using a great deal of music and wonderful sound effects to create a special atmosphere that literally sings Scotland to you – there are several folksongs (including the The Mingulay Boat Song and Katie Beardie, as well as some toe tapping accordion music) and lots of birdsong (oystercatchers, curlews and gulls in particular) and the sound of wind and waves breaking on the shore. It’s an aural treat.

Photo: Jack Spellingbacon

The narrator of the stories (unnamed on my library copy) has a rich voice with a delicious Scottish accent – could it be otherwise? He sounds like he could be a fisherman, with a big beard and woolly jumper smelling of seaspray. The cassette recording opens with him setting the scene – a little bit of background information about Katie and the island of Struay, before he goes on to read the two stories, following the original text closely. The narrator’s opening works exceptionally well in introducing listeners to the location and preparing them for the stories ahead – he draws us in and settles us comfortably down so that we’re ready to really listen to and enjoy the two stories. And once the stories are over the narrator wraps up the recording talking to us about what else Katie might have gotten up to after the stories were finished – perhaps a ceilidh with some singing and dancing. It feels like we as listeners are being gently roused from our dreams and brought back to reality.

This is an audiobook of the highest order – the narrator has a gorgeous voice that matches the story to a T, the original stories have been respected, fantastic use has been made of music and sound effects, and with the narrative framing something extra has been added – something which you won’t find in the printed books. Whoever was responsible for creating this recording deserves a huge thank you and congratulations for being so creative yet faithful in their adaptation.

Photo: emaspounder

Whilst we listened most recently to this recording of Katie Morag and the Two Grandmothers and Katie Morag Delivers the Mail we played with our indoor, rainyday sandpits (an idea I originally found at Beelieve). These are two baking trays with a few cupfuls of sand that I keep on a high shelf to be whipped down when I need something in a hurry for the girls to play with. Sometimes we add dinosaurs and stones to the sand, other times we have marbles, or shells. Today we made some special rollers to make shell prints in the sand.

Equipment

1. We rolled out some polymer clay to a thickness of about 5mm. We used enough polymer clay to ensure we could wrap it round the entire circumference of the metal tube (in our case this was 2 packs).

2. We wrapped the clay around the tube and then pressed shells into the clay.

3. We removed the shells and baked the clay as per the instructions on the packet.

4. We let the clay cool and then used our new “shell rolling pin” to make beautiful prints in our sand.

Whilst playing with sand, when we’ve not been listening to Katie Morag, we’ve been enjoying:

Other sand and island activities we want to try include:

I’m looking forward to checking out the other audiobook reviews over at Stacked – I hope you will too. I’ve started a page with some audiobook resources if you’re on the look out for some for your family. If you’ve any tips or recommendations it would be great to hear from you. What are your favourite audiobooks – ones you listened to as a child yourself, or ones that are currently popular in your home?