I don't get as much time as I'd like to review children's books nowadays, but today I am very happy to bring you 4 self-published illustrated story books for younger children. Full of pictures and ideal to read together, or for beginner readers to practise reading alone...

I'm sent a lot of books for review, and I'm ridiculously behind with Young Fiction because, as you may have seen, the Coronavirus is taking up my time. I took a break today and had a look at 3 recent releases which are ideal for reading together, or for children aged around 6+ to read alone. 

The 3 fully illustrated picture story books are all self-published and sent to me by Matador for review - and they are all really good, with bold illustrations, modern style and lots to talk about... 

There's No Place Like... Written by Greta Mitchell and Illustrated by Alice Haskell.

This is a lovely little tale about a big robot which space-loving youngsters might recognise. The Curiosity Rover is sent on a mission to Mars. He is lonely out there and although he is busy doing science, he really wants to find the Opportunity Rover, so that he has a friend.

I try and promote self-published books when I can. and here are 3 children's books for younger readers which I've been sent to look at by Matador Publishing.

Joey, Wyatt And Kamryn and Fat Cat And The Chocolate Sandwich are all suitable for reading together and for newer independent readers to practise reading with support.



Joey is a plane who lives in a hangar on the island of Guernsey with two other planes, Dash and Dornie. He is an old plane and news comes he's no longer able to fly and is going to be decommissioned. For Joey this means a move to a children's play barn, where he is strung from the roof.

Mat Waugh has sent me his latest children's book for review, and it's a big, bold picture book suitable for reading together with younger children. Daddies And Baddies is the story of 5 daddies, 5 baddies and one crazy day....


I reviewed Cheeky Charlie for Matt a few years ago, and that was more of a children's storybook, so teaming up with an illustrator to release a picture book is very different. Graham Evans' style is very modern and cartoon-like, with the people always the focus of the image, even in a street scene.

The Word-Keeper is "A Book For Children About The Power of Words" and it is also a fabulous read, I really enjoyed it. Suitable for young readers aged around 8-12+, it contains very clever and varied uses of language, and shows us exactly what sort of disaster might happen if we lost control of our words.


The main character is 11 year old Florence, who showed great proficiency for language from a very young age, with her first word being 'hyperbole'. She lives in a world which is very much like ours, with a few oddities and exceptions.

When the school holidays arrive, Florence travels to visit her Grandfather, who lives in a very strange town named Inkwell. The town is populated by artists and creators, and has a secret history which includes a ferocious battle between good and evil - as all of the best stories do.

Sproutword could be described as a mix of Scrabble and Chess. It's a game that just about anyone can join in with, without having to learn complicated rules or spend any time on set up, and it's also entirely plastic-free and more beautiful than you'd expect any tile game to be. We've been sent a copy for review...

Suitable for 2-4 players, aged around around 10+ for a real competition. Younger players aged around 6+ will be able to join in with a less competitive, slower-paced game. I played with one of my grown up sons, and my 2 boys aged 9 and 11.


Sproutword was created by two blokes, Ian and Dan, who developed it in their lunch breaks using scrappy bits of paper. When making the game real, they've used sustainable wood and zero plastic, and local crafters in Devon and Dorset, making Sproutword almost certainly the most eco-friendly game I've ever reviewed.

We were sent Hannah The Spanner And The Trip To The Moon for review and the publishers are offering one of my readers a copy for themselves in my Christmas Present Giveaways. A big, bold children's book set in a world where just about anything seems possible, it's a great tale for independent readers or for reading together...

....and it's definitely not the sort of thing that normally happens on a Thursday.


Hannah is an ordinary schoolgirl living in a town like yours, but she can't help having adventures. What starts out as a normal morning at school becomes very interesting when her class go on a trip to visit local inventor, Professor Groves.

ZunTold Publishing’s next release is the third instalment in the hilarious Gangster School series by Kate Wiseman, Gruffles And The Killer Sheep, and we've been sent a copy to review as part of the Book Tour to promote release on 2nd September.

Recommended for children aged 6-13, although this book is third in a series, it also works as a standalone story. Characters are introduced gradually and the setting becomes obvious and understandable within the first couple of pages.


Gruffles is the stinky pet dog belonging to Charlie Partridge, a pupil at Blaggard's School For Tomorrow's Tyrants. His best friend is fellow pupil Milly Dillane and neither of them particularly want to beome master criminals. Fortunately they get plenty of chances to hone their skills protecting their school and it's pupils...

The Clock People: Clockwork Chronicles is Mark Roland Langdale's 5th book. A children's fantasy story written in a very distinctive style, which makes you feel that you are being told the story by an elderly and eccentric narrator.


The book centres on The Clock People. They aren't entirely sure who they are, but stories and legends tell of giants living in a wider world beyond their imagining, and small people who live inside clocks.

Legend Of The Lost is Ian P Buckingham's debut children's book and it's a fantasy adventure story which is suitable for confident young readers aged around 9+ to teen. Set in a crossover world which is part Cornwall, part enchanted forest and part seashore, it pulls together all kinds of mystical folk in a way makes them seem highly likely to actually exist.

The book focusses on two families. One family live in local woodland and the others are staying at their holiday cottage. The holidaymakers discover a beautiful Moonstone and once it's no longer hidden they are thrown into a world of magic and mystery, with a more than a little mild peril.


The writing style is clear and easy enough for a 9 year old, but the first 1/3 of the book introduces a lot of new characters and darts to and fro between them, so to follow the events as they unfold, you need to be a fairly confident reader. Once the two families are established, as well as the friends and cohort they team up with, the real story flows well and has an increasing pace as everything, or everyone, begins to come closer together.

Charlie Green And The Knights Of The Round Table is the third book in the Charlie Green series by children's author and real life pilot Martyn Blunden, and it was sent to us for review by Matador Children's Press.

With 336 pages this is a thick book and although the language is suitable for independent readers aged around 8+, you will probably need to be a couple of years older to follow the storylines. Truth meets fiction meets myth and then rewrites everything as we discover the 'true' story of what happened to King Arthur and Guinevere...


Charlie is your average 11 year old, he's friendly, kind-hearted and loves his family. He's also the sort of boy who can't resist anything interesting and at the beginning of Charlie Green and the Knights of the Round Table we find him on a school trip, capturing the attention of museum employee Mr Bernard Pugh.

This February Carlton Books release a new range of Paperscapes nature books which have press-out pieces to create a 'parade'. They offered to send one for review and my 10 year old chose The Amazing World Of Animals by Moira Butterfield...


This is a book which can be enjoyed by a really wide age group. The text is suitable for independent readers aged around 7+, but it is presented in short text boxes and there are also a list of facts for each animal, so even younger readers can pick out salient points. The facts are fascinating and I've learned loads. The writing isn't condescending at all, so a 12 year old or older will also enjoy this book.

The Atlas Obscura Explorer's Guide for the World's Most Adventurous Kid was released this month by Workman Publishing. Produced by the team behind the incredibly popular Times Best Seller Atlas Obscura, their children's Explorer's Guide edition is a really beautiful book which showcases 100 of the most exciting and unusual places on our Earth. Be an explorer at home and discover the world's treasures...


The authors, Dylan Thuras and Rosemary Mosco, highlight lesser known and hidden places which children are unlikely to have heard of or read about previously. My 10 year old is a voracious fact-collector, but he has found a host of new places, customs and incidents described here - it really is very carefully researched and very different.


The illustrations by Joy Ang are bright and colourful, clearly depicting the description alongside and bringing a realism to the accounts. It's an unusual move not to have photographs, but it works and in many cases is more beautiful than the real thing, bringing a certain calm to the Self-Mummifying Monks of Japan and the Everlasting Lightning Storm in Venezuela.

I know you are thinking 'A Minecraft novel?' and maybe think it's just been churned out because it'll sell on the back of that, but you'd be wrong. This official Mojang book by Tracey Baptiste is a great story which is really well written and offers adventure and real life in a mix which really pulls the reader in. We want to have a happy ending and right from the start we doubt that will be possible...


The Crash refers not a computer programme, but a real car crash, which renders our main character in a full body cast immobile in hospital. Bianca has a broken body and is desperate to know what happened to Lonnie, who was driving at the time. No-one will tell her and she begins to suspect she knows why.

The Totally Wild Fact-Packed, Fold-Out Animal Atlas by Jen Green is exactly what you'd hope. A big book with large scale colour pages full of all of the different animals you can encounter wherever you are on the globe.


Inside there are global maps and many larger scale maps for great chunks of the world, plus absolutely loads of information for each. Photographs and text support illustrations and although this is a fact book, the language used is modern and relaxed, so it doesn't feel like an educational book. Obviously it still has plenty to teach almost anyone...

Mainstream books can be great, but they can also simply be popular because they have a lot of money for advertising. It's easy to miss real gems amongst the mountains of titles available, and so whenever I have chance I like to review books from smaller publishers and self-published books. Here are 3 shorter books for children from Matador Press.


My boys and I snuggled up and looked at them, because even at 8 and 9, sometimes it's nice to read a book together...

One of the latest releases from Matador Children's Books is Flat Squirrel by established author Fiona Faith Ross. The Flat Squirrel of the title is called Duggan, and he's a flying squirrel. Duggan and the other animals all face the usual struggle for survival, especially concerning finding food.


Duggan lives nearby a busy road, and lost his Mum there in a tragic accident which he remembers all too well. He needs to cross in search of more food though, and once over, he spends time with a new bunch of animals who are tentative friends, prepared to share what they have, but always a little wary of the others.

Although the characters are animals, this isn't 'babyish' and I imagine it in a similar animated style to 'Over The Hedge' or another modern movie. The storyline is modern and even though I haven't ever seen a Flying Squirrel in real life, I can picture the scenes easily in my mind. This is in no small part due to the excellent illustrations by Fraser May. Black and white line drawings, they are very well done and remind us that we are talking about real animals, especially when they are in human environments.

The Girl In The Abbey is the story of 10 year old Violet, sent away from everything she knows to live with strangers in a strange land and help work for her keep. There are no other children where she is sent, and she is left with nothing to do but explore... Then she meets Sarah...


Violet is a refugee in the second world war, which is an unusual time period for a modern book, but it all feels very natural and nothing about the history or setting seems out of place, despite the fact that the author is very young (clearly neither of us were there ourselves). I even learned a couple of new WW2 facts (and I will never cook with paraffin).

A Hedgehog Story: Hedgehog Queen by David Hills is a new release from The Book Guild Publishing. Recommended for age 3-11, reading together or independent readers, this is a smaller book and a shorter read. A tale of friendship and being helpful to others, with maybe more than a tadge of imagination...


The story follows Hamish The Hedgehog, who wakes from hibernation and explores his world. As he walks around the garden he leaves a glittery trail behind him. A young boy names Alistair cannot sleep, he spots Hamish through his bedroom window and goes outside to meet him. They both benefit from the company, so play together and become friends.