Diary of a Wimpy Kid by Jeff Kinney

This is the book that started the "dairy of a ..." phenomenon and is the first in the wimpy kid series. It stars Greg Heffley as the wimpy kid as he writes his diary, or journal, complete with cartoon images throughout, over a whole school year.

I read it with my 7-year-old daughter over a few bedtimes and she really liked it. You could tell because she was picking it up between readings and reading it herself. And at the end she said she wanted more. I would say that the book is probably aimed for someone a little older as it has bits about wanting the girls to like him but most of it was good for her.

The story is really funny in places and I was laughing as I read it to her. It has a theme of friendship. It is written in American English (soccer, Phys Ed, third period etc.) but is fine for an English audience. If it were consistently really funny then I would have rated it 5 stars instead of 4.

Publication date: 3 July 2008

Amazon UK link: Diary of a Wimpy Kid

Asterix and the Big Fight by Goscinny and Uderzo

This is the seventh Asterix adventure and possibly one of the best. 

There is one village in Gaul that holds out against Roman rule. The Romans hatch a plan. "There's one custom that might come in very useful... it's called THE BIG FIGHT!" The big fight happens when the chief of one village wants to take over another village. He challenges the chief of that village to a big fight, like a boxing match, and the winner takes charge of the other's village. The Romans line up "collaborator and as colossal as the Colosseum" Cassius Ceramix of the village Linoleum for the job.

But because of the magic potion, brewed by druid Getafix, chief Vitalstatistix is invincible, so Cassius Ceramix refuses. The Romans then take out the druid, inadvertently as he gets knocked out by a menhir and loses his memory. Therefore the big fight goes ahead.

Of course it is down to Asterix to get things right again and there is a lot of fun and jokes along the way, as well as the normal clever puns and wordplay. All-in-all another great Asterix story.

Amazon UK link: Asterix and the Big Fight

Publication date: 1964

The Witches by Roald Dahl and Quentin Blake

My wife remembers this book from her childhood as being her favourite book so she bought it for our 7-year-old daughter and we read it over several nights. My daughter also liked it and said it was "really fun".

The story starts with the unnamed boy narrator (at the beginning where the main characters are introduced he is simply called "boy") being told about witches by his grandmama. But "this is not a fairy-tale" she is telling. "This is about REAL WITCHES" and "real witches hate children." They disguise themselves as women and make children disappear. 

The grandmother is funny because she is so un-grandma-like as she puffs away on her black cigar.

After that bout of story-telling the book sees the boy come into contact with real witches. Not just one witch though as he gets stuck in a room with about 200 of them. He has to hide but witches can smell children out, and do just that. This is where the real witching begins and the dastardly things they do comes to the fore.

All-in-all a classic Roald Dahl tale with the scary enemy potentially being anywhere, hence a child's imagination running wild.

Original publication date: October 1st 1983

Amazon UK link: The Witches

My Cat Likes to Hide in Boxes by Eve Sutton and Lynley Dodd

"My cat likes to hide in boxes" is one of my 3-year-old’s favourite books. My daughter knows the words too thanks to the rhyming in the book. She can look at the pictures to remind her of the appropriate part of the story and pretend to read it on her own after we finish.

The story sees many cats from lots of different countries doing amazing things and these are juxtaposed each time with the narrator's cat who only likes to hide in boxes. Each cat is illustrated in colour on a full page to accompany the text on the opposite page.

A great book with nice colourful, big pictures ideal for young listeners and pretend readers.

Publication date: 27 April 1978

Amazon UK link: My Cat Likes to Hide in Boxes

The Inheritance by Tilly Bagshawe

I read "Do Not Disturb" by Tilly Bagshawe and liked it so thought I'd read this book of hers too.

Anyone who has read Tilly Bagshawe before will know the formula. There will be an arrogant, driven, womanising man as the male lead in the red corner, and a successful and beautiful female lead in the blue corner. There will be friction between them. In this book the friction is over a house - The Furlings, "the most beautiful estate in Sussex, if not the whole of England," in the picturesque village of Fittlescombe.

The Furlings estate was under Flint-Hamilton ownership for three centuries and Tatiana "Tati" Flint-Hamilton, an only child, believes it is her birthright. But her father disinherits her after some scandalous behaviour in her teenage/young adult years. So the house goes to some distant cousins, "a family of rich Australians" - the Cranleys, of which the father, Brett, is the arrogant womaniser character.

Tati makes it her aim to get her house back but the court case goes against her so what can she do now? Meanwhile Brett Cranley has secretly fallen in love with Tati and, with just one card to play to keep her in his life, he makes sure that Furlings stays in his possession.

Overall the story has a lot of interweaving storylines, mainly involving the residents of the village, Fittlescombe, and lots of love triangles as you'd expect. I didn't think it was as good as "Do Not Disturb" because the friction between the two leads was not played out as effectively, and neither was I completely satisfied with the ending, but in its own right "The Inheritance" is a good read nonetheless.

Publication date: 19 June 2014

Amazon UK link: The Inheritance

Macbeth: A Shakespeare Story by Andrew Matthews and Tony Ross

My 7-year-old read this to me over four/five evenings. This is a kids' version of the famous Shakespeare play Macbeth. It explains some of the complicated concepts of the original story in simple ways. This works well. For example the way Macduff is explained to not be born of woman is put across in a way that is easy to understand for children. The book does seem to miss some famous phrases from the original play though like "Hubble, bubble, toil and trouble."

The story contains a lot of bloodthirstiness which could be inappropriate for children, and these were my initial thoughts as we read through it. My worries were allayed though by a 2-page section at the back of the book that explains why the evil in Macbeth took place, and what was driving the killing spree of Macbeth.

The other bit at the back of the book is called "Shakespeare and the Globe Theatre". This brings alive the time of Shakespeare and his plays, and talks about Elizabethan society and how the audiences behaved. For example "audiences at the Globe were smelly".

As well as the text there are illustrations. Throughout there are plenty of black and white illustrations which help with the picturing of the text.

Overall this book is a good idea as it brings Shakespeare to a younger audience, but may be a bit bloodthirsty for some so one of the other books in the series may be more to your preference. The books can also be bought as a complete set if you wanted.

Publication date: 30 October 2003

Amazon UK link: Macbeth: A Shakespeare Story