All the kids need to do is read all each book in the category (categories) of their choice and then vote, by ranking the books in order of preference. I’m getting the kids at my girls’ school voting and here’s how we’re running our sessions.

Every Friday afternoon I have a 1 hour slot with groups of 5-7 year olds where we read and craft and do whatever I can think of to showcase reading for pleasure, reading for joy. I’m currently using this slot to read all four shortlisted books in the Younger Children category ie picture book category. The shortlisted books in this category are:

You can buy all four books at discounted prices on the Red House website, here.

All these picture books are quite short picture books and so I’ve found it works just fine reading them all in one go with the 30 kids in my group. Normally after the third book I get them to stand up and have a jiggle, but otherwise they sit entranced.

After having read all four books, I hand out the voting slips. I’m using the one below created by Library Mice, which she’s kindly agreed to let me share with you (click here to download the pdf file):

I explain they need to ring one number next to each book, with the numbers corresponding to their preferences ie their favourite book gets 1 ringed, their least favourite book gets 4 ringed. You don’t have to use this voting form – please feel free to create your own one if you’d like to.

Once the forms are filled in the kids get to post their votes in our ballot box:

As the kids post their votes I check that they’ve filled out the voting form appropriately ie each number is ringed once. If a voting form is incomplete (which happens with perhaps 10 % of the forms) I ask the children to get some help from the teaching assistant I have in my session.

Having voted, we move on to a crafty project related to the books we’ve read (I deliberately don’t do the craft project before voting for fear that it might influence the vote!)

The crafty project I’ve been doing with kids at school is creating our own Peely Wally chicks.

I give each child a plastic egg (Baker Ross sells them here if you want to order some in the UK)…

…which they decorate with coloured circular stickers, the sort you can get in most stationary stores (Rymans sells them here if you want to order some in the UK).

Then each kid gets a Peely Wally chick to colour, and complete by sticking two eyes and a beak on (I use these sticker eyes, but you could use googly eyes, and for beaks the kids use little triangles of card and pritt stick). I created a Peely Wally chick outline, and Peely Wally creator, Kali Stileman, has graciously allowed me to closely follow her design and share it with you – click here to download an A4 sheet with lots of Peely Wally chicks on! I stuck the chicks on thin card and cut them out before giving them to the kids, but you could print straight on to card if you like.

The kids were delighted with their chicks – boys and girls, 5 year olds and 7 year olds all loved making and then playing with their chicks!

I can’t wait to read them Kali Stileman’s forthcoming book all about Peely Wally’s chick, Polly Wally

Please feel free to use this as a model for the kids in your classes, families, extra curricula groups, local bookshops or libraries. Of course you don’t have to do any sort of craft, or you could come up with your own craft idea. I’ve other project suggestions for Peely Wally here, and for Scruffy Bear here.

If you do decide to run a voting session (even if with just one child) please let me know how it goes! I’d love to hear from others giving kids the vote!

This is the task facing Kali Stileman in her new book Big Book of My World and she has, very practically, used the Early Years Foundation Stage Curriculum (ie the statutory framework in the UK that sets the standards for the learning, development and care of children from birth to five) to guide her in her selection of what to include.

So you’ll find counting, shapes, colours, sounds, opposites and feelings, amongst other things explored in this bright, cheery, modern-looking book. Kali Stileman’s illustrations zing off the page with collage style pictures created in saturated, vibrant colours. If her style has nods to Eric Carle, she also acknowledges another (UK) childhood favourite – the yellow duck from the Usborne books illustrated by Stephen Cartwright – with at least one owl to find on every page.

J, 3, has really fallen for this book. The pictures make her giggle and she loves the interaction that comes from me sitting with her and counting, or helping her find different shapes and match colours, or from talking about the weather and the seasons. Given her enjoyment I have to wholeheartedly recommend this book if you work with the youngest of children, or are looking for a picture book that is fun but “educational” (I use quotes as I think we learn from all books we read, it’s just that this book is overt in its educational aims). I certainly know some parents who will really appreciate this very structured approach to so many of the basics that toddlers need to come to grips with.

If I had to find fault with the book, I would reveal more about my approach to learning and teaching with my own children at home than anything really wrong with Big Book of My World; what others will really enjoy and value in it (i.e. its instructive tone) is precisely what didn’t cause me to fall in love with it (and I do like to fall in love with my books). It’s probably not a book I would have bought myself (my review copy was provided by the publisher) but I do think lots of parents will appreciate it. It’s certainly a book that should be enjoyed in many a playgroup, nursery and kindergarten where it will support an engaging, clearly structured approached to learning.

We took our cue from Kali Stileman’s style and leitmotif, her owls, to create our own owl collage. I precut some owl body and wing shapes then let the girls loose with glue, pens and googly eyes.

A cheery, charming addition to our gallery of artwork, don’t you think?

M enjoyed the craft as much as J enjoyed the book

Whilst we made our owl collage we listened to:

Other activities which would work well alongside reading Big Book of My World include:

So yes, what would you include in your book about the world?

Disclosure: I received my copy of Big Book of My World from the publisher. This has not influenced my review.

Photo: bortescristian

Peely Wally is a very happy bird. She has just laid an egg and is proud and thrilled. But in her excitement at the impending arrival of her baby, she bounces so hard on her twig that the egg rolls off and away. The poor egg tumbles down here, over there, only just avoids being eaten and eventually, with the help of all the neighbouring animals, survives the adventure and is returned to a much relieved Mum.

But then the most exciting thing of all happens… the egg cracks, and… well I’m sure you can guess what happens, but it’s nevertheless lovely, heartwarming and fun to reveal.

This simple tale is great fun for the younger crowd. There’s just the right amount of adventure, a suggestion of disaster, a reassuring rescue, and a great deal of love and care. But it’s the vibrant illustrations which will really get the kids coming back for more. Created in collage style, inevitably (and successfully) reminiscent of Eric Carle, they zing with colour and texture.

What’s more, I suspect that many kids won’t just listen to the story, they will actually play with this book: A dotted line across every page indicates the path of the egg and my kids love tracing this with their finger while the slopes and loop-the-loops encourage me to read the text in an even more sing-song fashion than normal.

Although I’d wholeheartedly recommend this book to any young family I bumped into in the bookshop, two tiny question marks hang over the book for me. First, the eponymous title. Personally, I like it – it suggests something fun and unusual. But I do wonder if some might be turned off by it (and perhaps the editors have thought this too – the book is being released outside of the UK under the title “Roly-Poly Egg”). It puts me in mind of another book I enjoy reading with the girls, but which I’ve heard hasn’t been very successful because of its title – The Terrible, Greedy Fossifoo by Charles Fuge.

Second, as this book will be a hit with the youngest of readers, and contains a wonderful lift-the-flaps page at the denouement of the story, it really deserved to be published on much more robust paper or even as a board book. The flaps, such as they are, will soon be torn, for they are thin and flimsy. This is such a shame for instead of letting my kids excitedly unveil what’s behind the flaps, I’m nervous about pages being ripped and this somewhat diminishes the story’s final impact.

However, put aside these two tiny gripes and what you have here is the perfect nonreligious book for Easter, an ideal gift for Mums-to-be and a peppy pick-me-up tonic to banish the winter blues. A treat for the preschool crowd, and a book that’s received a big thumbs up from both my girls. Do look out for it next week when it hits the shelves around the world!

Having read the book we wanted to make our own Peely Wallys to brighten up our day. At first I thought about painting them and using collage, just like Kali Stileman, but in the end we went for a 3D version, creating a small flock to inhabit our apple tree. Here’s how we did it.

First we go a pair of long pipecleaners (chenille stems) and several strips of tissue paper.

Next we scrunched up the tissue paper around the pipecleaners.

Googly eyes and a beak made from a folded diamond of card were added with a dab of glue…

… then the birds started to flock to the apple tree, and by winding the pipecleaners around the branches they happily perched where they landed.

Our Peely Wally flock has added a lovely splash of optimistic colour to the garden, and makes me smile every time I look out of the kitchen window whilst I’m washing up!

Peely Wally: ** (two out of three stars). Not a groundbreakingly original book, in story or style, but told with enough panache and boldness as to warrant seeking out.

Whilst making our Peely Wallys we listened to

Instead of making our own family of Peely Wallys, other activities we could have gotten up to alongside reading this book include:

The eggs and birds also reminded me of two past posts here on Playing by the book – our Magic Flute inspired birds and making cascarones. Good memories

Peely Wally provided us with a very welcome splash of colour. What’s bringing a little bit of colour into your lives at the moment?