Excellent Books for 3 year olds!

Well as you know it was Isla's birthday recently and I took this opportunity to stock her up with a few new books, so I thought I'd give a couple a mention here as we're really enjoying reading something new at bedtime. Incidentally Noah is already showing a love of books too and is enjoying some of Isla's old ones!

The first book I bought for Isla was Good Little Wolf by Nadia Shireen. I love reading this one as the story has a fab twist at the end and also I love the illustrations. Rolf is a Good Little Wolf and he doesn't fit to the stereotype of 'big bad wolf'. On meeting a real Big Bad Wolf he tries to conform but he can't and it's a bit of an error.... I never tire of reading this at bedtime and I love that you have to interpret it yourself - there is no doubt what has happened on the last page of the story but it's not spelt out and so Isla is not quite sure where Mrs Boggins and Rolf have gone.

We had a few Oliver Jeffers books already (Stuck and Lost and Found) and so I took the opportunity to also buy How to Catch a Star. I love Lost and Found and I love this one just as much. I think Isla likes this one a bit more as she finds Lost and Found a bit sad. Her favourite bit is when the boy goes to lots of lengths to catch a star and on explaining to a seagull the seagull doesn't want to help at all. I like the way that the boy's matter of a fact approach to catching a star is described - the way his imaginative attempts at capturing it are made to sound so possible.

Another new book was Peppa Meets the Queen. I know that this isn't exactly going to make the children's classics list but Isla is a MASSIVE Peppa Fan so I couldn't very well not buy her a Peppa book and as we missed the special Jubilee episode I thought this would be a great consolation and it is! The story is very simple Miss Rabbit wins an award for being the most hardworking person in the country which of course she is. This means that Miss Rabbit and all the children get to go and collect the award from The Queen. It's a really fun book who would have thought that the Queen likes jumping up and down in muddy puddles?

The final new book was a gift from one of Isla's friends, The Tickle Book is her absolute favourite at the moment, she gets two books at bedtime these days and this one has been one of the two for 3 weeks now! It's a pop up book, with lots a flaps to lift and things to pull to reveal the Ticklemonster. The illustrations are by Axel Scheffler of The Gruffalo fame - so it is fun to look at - there are loads of things going on in the scenes on each page, so we talk about what's going on. The only thing I would say is that it does need supervision when reading as the moving parts in it can get ripped with boisterous use!

We really do recommend all these books. What books go down well in your household at bedtime? I'd love to know, it's always good to find out some corking good reads!