I do not like books anymore by Daisy Hirst

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Walker Books, 2018. ISBN 9781406369137
(Age: 4+) Recommended. Themes: Books and reading. Learning to read. Cooperation. Natalie and Alphonse love to read together. Dad reads them picture books, Mum reads them scary stories, Grandma tells them stories about the terrible shrew. And they love all of them, and often make them up, retelling stories that they know.
Natalie is impatient to learn to read and to read a story all by herself, even able to read it to Alphonse. But given a book to read, she finds it unintelligible, and in desperation, throws it away. The writing is a lot of squiggles, looking a lot like birds' feet, with nothing in it that she recognises. Miss Bimble tells her that it will take practice, and Mum and Dad tell her to be patient. She sticks at it all week until she can read her cat book, but when Alphonse offers her another book to read to him, she finds it a lot like before, lots of squiggles. She gives up saying that her toy elephant needs to be cared for. Alphonse asks her to tell him a story and in so doing, encourages her to illustrate it and getting Dad to write the words, she finds that she can retell it after all.
A charming story of trying different methods to help children learn to read, the story will resonate with children who are in that stage where writing is a bit of a jumble. But perseverance and help from others leads to the children learning to read.
Fran Knight

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