Friday 11 September 2020

The Leaf Thief by Alice Hemming and Nicola Slater

 

Link to publisher

Published by: Scholastic, September 2020

👍👍👍👍👍

Everyone who knows our family is aware of how much we love the change in season from Summer to Autumn. Hot chocolates, marshmallows, golden, crunchy walks and cosy stories are all on the agenda and this new seasonal release has to be one of our favourite picture books this year. 

Someone is stealing Squirrel's leaves! As he wakes up every morning to find more and more missing, his anger gets the better of him. Who is the culprit? Is it mouse? Woodpecker? Bird? Or is it someone or something rather more expected for the time of year? 

There's nothing not to like about this story. Squirrel makes for a great and amusing main character, brimming with personality. Bird's calm but waning patience provides the perfect antidote to Squirrel's panic and the glinting, copper-leaf cover and illustrations by Nicola Slater are visually stunning. 

With a lot of recent releases being in rhyme, it felt refreshing to read a book in that is not only written in prose but is mainly dialogue. Don't get me wrong, we LOVE rhyme in our family, particularly my autistic daughter who prefers memorising a text over the struggle of reading. However, it reminded us how great it is to have a balance and so much character is delivered through this dialogue that it is, without doubt, a book you will want to read again and again. My daughter certainly does!

This is a cleverly written autumnal story- perfect for teachers, toddlers and even tweens. It is as definitely as popular here with the adults of the house as with the kids. This is crying out to be read with cosy covers, a log fire and a creamy drink. Happy Autumn everyone!

1 comment:

  1. "Hot chocolates, marshmallows, golden, crunchy walks and cosy stories" - YES! As you probably guessed, I am a big autumn lover myself. Thanks for such a positive review.

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