Friday 4 April 2014

Zoe and Beans by Chloe and Mick Inkpen (book review)

Wow i cannot believe how long it has taken me to finally sit down and write this (didn't help I have clearly saved the original photos I took in a very well filed folder on my laptop and now can't find them).

Right back at the beginning of March my boys were lucky enough to win 2 signed copies of Zoe and Beans books from Macmillan Children's twitter competition.



It could be that Mick Inkpen is an Essex lad (my birth county) or that he just writes fantastic books with beautiful illustrations but our house is full of his titles and when I was teaching I used every opportunity to share them with my class.... and now my own children.

Some of the top titles we love are:

  • The Great Pet Sale
  • Jasper's Beanstalk
  • The Blue Balloon
  • Kippers Beach Ball (and virtually every other Kipper story)


So to win a couple of the new titles in the Zoe and Beans series was a treat and it is no surprise Chloe Inkpen should team up with her award winning author father for these new titles.

We have recently got rid of all our board books as the boys deemed them too babyish, but it is a hard job getting them to part with the new ones.  Noah loves the colours and telling a story in his own 2-year old fashion whist Ben (5) likes to sit and read him the easy text.


Zoe is a little girl and Beans is her pet dog.



In Hello Ladybird! Zoe finds a ladybird and then it vanishes.... but where has it gone?  Noah loved finding the ladybird on the page and telling me before I read the simple text.


In We're Not Scared Zoe, Beans and their new friend Oscar and his little sister Evie explore picking up snails, jumping in the deep water, and even playing with a spider. They're not scared of anything! But what about the dark . . . ?
   It's a great book for discussion with younger children about what they are scared of.

There is lots of fun stuff on the Zoe and Beans webpage http://www.zoeandbeans.com/funstuff.html including a lovely Teddy Bear Biscuit recipe, some colouring pictures, door plates and dominoes so even after reading the story the fun never stops.

You can also follow their adventures on Facebook





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