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?

*[Desert Island Disks is a long running radio programme in the UK, where the guest is invited to choose the eight records they would take with them to a desert island. At the end of the programme the guest has to choose the single record s/he would save if the tide were to wash them all away. The guest on the current episode is Julia Donaldson (the author of The Gruffalo) - so if you get a chance do listen to the show - it will be available online for 7 days following its transmission. Michael Rosen himself appeared on Desert Island Disks in 2006 and his choice of records can be seen here.]

Rosen has written so many brilliant poems it is hard to choose just one, but today we selected Gymnastics, which is in his collection Quick, Let’s Get Out of Here (perfectly illustrated by Quentin Blake). Here’s a snippet for you:

When my mum and dad went out
we moved the chair to the end of the settee
and then we used to take it in turns
to do dive-bombs
off the chair
on to the settee.

Standby
wheeeeeeee
kerflump.
Great.

Jump down on to the floor
back on to the chair
standby for dive-bomb
wheeeeee
kerflump
wow did you see that one?

Like so many of Rosen’s poems this is great fun to read and listen to because it captures a small moment from childhood that we can all relate to. The illicit bouncing on the sofa, the potential for disaster. The strong narrative of the poem and the use of so many onomatopoeic words encourages the reader to say the poem out loud, indeed to virtually act it out. Or not so virtually as the case may be…

…yes, this funny poem did indeed inspire our own gymnastics session at home. We set up a little assault course throughout the house and got bouncing, jumping and climbing. Here’s what it entailed:

1. 10 bounces on M’s bed.

2. Jumping from pillow to pillow to avoid touching the floor until you reached Mum and Dad’s room. Then climb along the loft ladder onto their bed!

3. Then roly-polies (roly-polys?) on J’s bed.

4. Slide down the stairs at break-neck speed on your duvets.

5. Put the hula hoop over your head and do a wiggle.

6. Crawl through the tunnel to the kitchen.

7. Climb over the sofa and along the chairs.

8. Into the final strait – along the ladder and into the tent!

We went round and round the assault course several times; indeed I think the girls would have been up for much more, but after an hour I needed a cup of tea!

When all the “gymnastics equipment” had been tidied up M draw a series of pictures to show Dad what “crazy monkey stuff” we’d been up to (can you recognise the stages?!):

The blurb on the backcover of Quick, Let’s Get Out of Here says “Michael Rosen knows all about YOU. He has written, and Quentin Blake has illustrated, a witty book of poems about the things that you do, that you say, that you know, that you think. Look inside and see if he’s spotted your deepest secrets.” And in the best possible way this is all true – M (and I and my husband) love the truth Rosen captures about childhood. His poems are full of life, humour, and wondeful observation. Please read some as soon as you can!

Quick, Let’s Get Out of Here: I would urge you to get hold of the audiobook as Michael Rosen reads his poems with energy and aplomb – you and your kids won’t regret it. If you can go and see him live, even better! You’ll come home feeling full of rhythm and life.

Whilst bouncing along we’ve been listening to a couple of Michael Rosen’s Desert Island Disks – Cockney Translation by Smiley Culture and Black, Brown, and White by Bill Broonzy. And I’ve added the album Hello, Michael Rosen by Paul Austin Kelly to my Christmas wish list – for a review click here.

As for future gymnastics sessions we’d like to try to:

Note 1: This Michael Rosen shouldn’t be confused with Michael J. Rosen, an American author, who has also written poetry for children – we’ll have to return to him another day!

Note 2: Michael Rosen is on the judging panel of the Roald Dahl Funny Prize, which I mentioned in my post about Tickle the Duck. The 2009 winners of the Roald Dahl Funny prize were announced last week and they are:

This week’s Poetry Friday host is The Drift Record – do head on over there to find some links to other new discoveries (not just for children), and if you’ve time to leave me a comment, I’d love to know which authors would make it on to your short list of 8 should you be cast away on a desert island…

Jessica and Tom have a lovely big blue sofa which is just perfect for bouncing on, but when they’re not using it as a trampoline they transform it into all manner of backdrops for their adventures. Sometimes the sofa is a big blue hot-air balloon, other times a submarine or an elephant which Jessy and Tom ride on through the jungle. Unfortunately the sofa has seen better days and one morning disaster strikes:

While Tom was trying to beat his own World Record for non-stop bouncing, there was a hug thud and the whole room shook. Our big blue sofa isn’t bouncy anymore.

Tom and Jessy are forlorn. Seemingly nothing can replace their much loved sofa, but – without giving the game away -  in the end all comes good and the duo do get a new platfrom on which to practise (albeit when no-one is looking) for the Sofa Olympics.

The book has been a huge hit here (I’ve already ordered our own copy) because it is so humourous for kid and adult alike, and because it perfectly captures several oft-repeated moments of family life – the parents “requests” for the kids to stop bouncing, the negotiations which take place to stave off bedtime, and the discovery of all sorts of treasures down the back of the sofa, to name but a few. The illustrations are bold and cheerful, reminding me a little of Lauren Child‘s style mixing drawing and collage. An added bonus, especially for my 1 year old, is that the sofa’s blue pattern is printed on raised soft fabric, perfect for running your finger over. This printing technique is put to use particularly well in the illustration showing the dusty expanse left behind once the old sofa is taken away.

Having read Our Big Blue Sofa for the umpteenth time M decided to turn our sofa into an “Egypt Princess Tent”, and the following day into an ark. To aid the architect I supplied several bulldog and butterfly clips (stronger than clothes pegs), the least dirty bamboo canes from the garden and – most successfully – a circular laundry ring from Poundland. By hanging this off a hook we have in the ceiling for Christmas and birthday decorations it provided the perfect way to hold up bits of sari material and net curtain we’ve collected from various charity shops for our dressing up stash.

Other bits and pieces we have found useful for building dens of one sort or another inside include:

• the drying rack – not very stable on its own, but good for a wall with support like chairs at either end.

• extra larges sheets or table clothes – we’ve found TKMaxx  a good place to pick these up cheaply.

• sample curtains (often given away or bought for next to nothing) from furnishing stores (ask for the remnants bin).  What’s nice about these curtains is that they are often very decorative and make the den rather swankier than just using plain sheets, but they are heavy and the kids can find them frustrating to clip up (this is why I like sari material and net curtains as the kids can hang them up and move them around easily by themselves).

• A blow-up camping mattress adds luxury to an under-the-table den.

• Self adhesive hooks – available in DIY stores

When we had tidied away the ark we steeled our nerves and investigated what lay down the back of our sofa to see how it compared to the lists in Our Big Blue Sofa. If you’re house-proud you should perhaps look away now…

We turned our finds into a museum, complete with artifact labels. I loved how M chose to group things together (the straw went with the cutlery – “they’re cafe stuff, mum”, whilst the bird stickers went under “Office suplies” – definitely my sort of office!) My favourite find was a packet of tomato seeds, and I honestly don’t know how so many teaspoons found their way underneath the cushions. Hmm. So having laid the soul of my sofa bare, are you willing to see what delights your sofa holds?!

All in all this new find of a book as provided us with plenty of hours of fun, both reading and playing. The only downside to Our Big Blue Sofa is that M now feels fully legitimised in jumping on our sofa: “But Mum!! I’m Jessy and I’m practising for the World Championships!”. To this I just have to smile and admit sometimes I too wouldn’t mind doing just the same.

Our Big Blue Sofa:  

The motivational soundtrack to M and I’s olympic training sessions included Jump by Van Halen and Jump with you Baby by BB King.  As a result of reading Our Big Blue Sofa I’m determined to finally get around to making some big bean-bag seats for the girls – then they’ll also have their own little sofas to get comfy in when reading their favourite books