My friends on Facebook know we (Ok, yes me too) love this book in our house. We picked it up about two months ago and it's on high rotation. In fact, I had to buy one EACH for the girls, and that hasn't happened since Mem Fox 'Where is the green sheep?'. This book by Craig Smith and gorgeous illustrations from Katz Crowley is a winner - fun, well paced and a CD to go with it too. The girls go absolutely silly over it.
When we were invited by Scholastic to go see Craig perform it was quite funny as part of Get Reading 2010. We were already going - so for once I'm a step ahead of the game...! Eloise had to go to school but Olivia and Laura were beside themselves and made sure their 'Little Wonky Donkeys' came along too to Surry Hills Library last week.
I asked Craig how long he had been in children's literature and was surprised to learn he's a newcomer to the scene, having previously worked in adult musical entertainment. In 2003 he started making up songs mostly to amuse his own son and his talent took up from there. You will be seeing a lot more of Craig's books I can guarantee you - I bought his CD of all his kid's songs at the performance and I believe many of them are on the drawing board to become books with CD's.
One of those books has just arrived at bookstores - Wilbee the bumblebee tells the gorgeous story of a bumblebee Wilbee who catches his wooly jumper on a rose-thorn and ends up naked! We're definitely grabbing this!
Now to Wonky donkey. This is so catchy. Honestly. It won't feel like a chore to read it at night and I think the Dad's in particular will love it. Our girls had theirs signed, and will cherish them forever!
'I was walking down the street and I saw a donkey...hee haw!'
'He was a spunky, hanky panky, cranky, stinky dinky, lanky, honkey tonkey, winky, wonky donkey,spunky,hanky panky,cranky,stinky dinky,lanky,honkey tonkey, winky wonky donkey'
So Scholastic are giving away 5 sets of The Wonky Donkey!
Each pack valued at $29.95 contains:
- Wonkey Donkey book
- Wonkey Donkey CD
- Wonkey Donkey toy!
What do you have to do?
Comment here and tell me which is your child's current favourite book!
- You can enter once daily
- Extra entry for tweeting I want to win a Wonky Donkey book set for my kid/s over at Frills in the Hills (@FrillyHills ) http://bit.ly/dliUE9
- Another entry for copying and pasting your comment here on the Frills in the Hills Facebook Wall
Entries close midnight 26th September
Entrants must have an Australian postal address
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45 lovely comments:
C's favourite books is any from the "That's not my... " series with the dinosaur one being the current favourite that must be taken to bed and cuddled. :)
B's favourite is anything from the Fancy Nancy series, although Fancy Nancy sees stars is the current book that gets the highest number of requests.
Bethanie: "My favourite books are anything with fairies" which is interesting as Olivia, Fancy Nancy, Wombat Stew, The Magic Hat and 10 Little Fingers don't seem to leave her bed.
Spencer: "Thomas books, ones with James, Percy and Henry." But The Big Hungry Bear gets a good workout here.
Marshall: Where is the Green Sheep, Time for Bed, and a Mickey Mouse book with a guitar you sing along to.
I have to add i like reading books that i can change voices in and sing and act it out. This is great timing as the twins are starting to say jokes, and "What do you call a donkey with 3 legs? A wonkey." is their most practiced one at the moment!
What a fabulous book - my Grandchildren would love this one....I keep an assortment of books for when they come to visit (which is very often). Currently the girls love anything to do with Barbie or fairies and the two boys love Thomas and Cars....they all love the Dr. Seuss books which, in a way, are a little similar in style to Wonky Donkey...
I just watched the Wonkey Donkey video and can't get the tune out of my head....
'He was a spunky, hanky panky, cranky, stinky dinky, lanky, honkey tonkey, winky, wonky donkey...da da da da da da dada......
We have to read every.single.night without fail Iggle Piggle Where's Your Blanket? This has been on rotation for six months. He picks 2 books every night, the first one is always different bit Iggle Piggle is always last. He loves the lift a flap bits and knows it all by heart lol. We don't even need the book anymore lol.
Makayla's favourite book at the moment is Sleeping Beauty. It's an oldy but a goodie! She is really into fairytales at the moment, so I am reliving my childhood through her!
I love the Wonky Donkey, my literacy tutor at uni introduced me to it 3 weeks ago and I thought it was a beauty! Such a fun book and I could see the kids adoring it!
With Miss G it's 'Baby say's peekaboo' and Miss A it's Snow White.
We had the Wonky Donkey book at story time last week. It was such a huge hit the adults gave a round of applause at the end!
My lil mans current fav book is PING birdson@roadrunner.com
Tweeted http://twitter.com/birdson777/statuses/24976184540 birdson@roadrunner.com
My kids - both older (10 and 7) love the book Snuggle Puppy (a little love song) by Sandra Boynton. We got the book when J was potty training, the 2 of us would sit in the bathroom reading it and singing along while he tried to pee. 5 years later I have 3 copies floating around and have read/sung that song to pretty much every child potty trained here (I take care of children for a living) it's still our fav book!
I've had to replace a copy now and then from overuse - it's been 5 good years with Snuggle Puppy.
M
ps- I know I can't enter the contest (as I'm in Canada) but I really love that book! It makes me smile.
Hannah LOVES Where the Wild Things Are right now...possibly because she is a right little Wild Thing herself LOL!
Monet and Paisley both love Charlie and Lola books by Lauren Child. At orientation day Paisley read the Wonky Donky book and was in fits of laughter telling me about it. I would have thought he was a seasoned childrens writer, very impressive...
On high rotation is the "Teeny Tiny Woman". My little 2 year old daughter loves chiming in, with her best monster voice "Gib be back by bone" followed by hollering "Taaake iiiit" at the end. Needless to say, I try to discourage reading this one at bedtime as it's hardly wind-down material!
Ruby's fave at the moment is Fancy Nancy Bonjoir, Butterfly. Wonkey Donkey looks great!
Luca's current fave is a book called Dirty Bertie, its a fun read!
I have heard of Wonkey Donkey and have been thinking of getting it too!
My 5 year old son is loving Gus Goes to School (he starts next year), and my 2.5 year old son loves Mr Tickle.
My 5yo son just loves The Lorax by Dr. Seuss. It has the usual great rhyming text that Dr. Seuss books are famous for but the story line is amazing, teaching the kids of the damage that is done to the environment from businesses wanting to get bigger and bigger.
My 5 year old loves Charlie and Lola so anything with them in it. My 1 year loves pictures, especially of animals and people so any picture book with them in it.
Kahlani can't possibly choose one favourite: Angelina Ballerina, Sleeping Beauty, Cinderella, Snow White and any other totally girly book gets a mention!
Dawson's favourite books are the DK Peekaboo books; Peekaboo Baby and Peekaboo Bedtime.
However he has about 20-30 books at his level in the book shelf and barely a day goes by that he doesn't want to read all of them (at least once!) The ones on the highest rotation are generally pop-up or lift the flap books; with or without words.
my 2 yr old likes any wiggles book or winnie the pooh
We love The Gruffalo and anything by Axel Scheffler and Julia Donaldson is always a favourite in our house. I love reading them too, lots of rhymes and rhythms.
Josharoo loves this batman book that mum and dad picked up OS that has the buttons you have to press thoughout the story for sound effects. the story sounds wrong without them!
Jayden loves the scooby doo phonics box sets from scholastic - we have 2 sets of 12 and have to read.them.all!!!!
me...i like the gruffalo!
The Very Hungry Catterpillar is number one in these parts :)
-tennille
Zoe's favourite book, at the moment, is Pinocchio. We're teaching her about telling the truth and she loves the story - we are yet to see the movie, though I'm sure thats only going to add to it.
Ryder's current favourite is "We're going on a bear hunt" and he loves to read/sing along. Something his Granny read to him when she visited, and he can't get enough of it.
I saw the wonky donkey at Zoe's school today, they are reading it in the kindy class so we'd love a copy!
'The Tiger who came to Tea'
While a book about a beer drinking tiger probably won't win any awards for being politically correct, it's my daughter's favourite (and mine too!)
James' fav book is anything by "In the Night Garden". He loves ALL ABOARD THE NINKY NONK as I love to put him on my lap and bounce him up and down as we go through the book.
He loves touch books so he also loves "THATS NOT MY PLACE" as it has all the textures on each of the pages, and because he LOVES PLANES!
Emilys fav book would be "Sleeping Beauty" and we have two different versions of it. She knows exactly what is happening next but still seems suprised. She loves it so much that we went and saw "Sleeping Beauty- The Ballet" last weekend. Was magical seeing the story come to life through dance.
Morty Loves 'What can Pinky Hear' by Lucy Cousins, and he's just started getting into the Hairy Maclary books.
Bella loves 'I want a friend' by Tony Cousins, it's all about making friends when The Little Princess starts school. It's fantastic.
We all love The Snail and the Whale by Julia Donaldson and Axel Sheffler
I got most confused, we've been reading a Wonky Donkey book lately, but it's not this Wonky Donkey book. it's a Korky Paul illustrated number, and we all really, really loves us some Korky Paul in this house
http://www.korkypaul.com/picwonk.html
Our favourite book at the moment is The Story of the Snow Children by Sibylle von Olfers, which was written in 1905. The pictures and story are simply beautiful. However, now that spring has sprung we might have to move on from winter stories!
Katie
knygh[at]hotmail[dot]com
Briannas fav book at the moment is hands hands fingers thumb ( a dr suess book) it used to be my favorite as a child too so its really special reading it to her.
Montanas fav at the moment is just a tiny book about kittens. Its only 4 pages but she bring it to me to read all the time :)
Felix is my nephew and we love reading books together. His favourite is 'Dig, Dig, Digging!'
Yesterday's favourites:
Ms A - Green Eggs and Ham
Ms G - Belle's Purple shape book
We're big readers here - we love the library and have two bookshelves full of kids book but for my boys nothing will beat their favourite books.
My 4 year old just loves David Roberts books: Dirty Berty and Poo is that you Berty
And my 2 Year old just loves I spy books: A runaway robot and where's seymore
My 2yr old loves our latest find from the library, 'This is the Mud' by Kathryn Apel: 'this is the cow who was chewing her cud, she went for a drink and got stuck in the mud...' Just the thing for a messy boy!
We also love Mem Fox's 'Where's the Green Sheep' and all of my old Richard Scarry books.
He does like donkeys, so fingers crossed!
Tweeted for an extra entry: http://twitter.com/vampSaam
Stella loves Moo Boo Lalala and The Green Sheep, she kisses the near sheep just like Amy used to!
Abigail's favourite book is Fox in Socks by Dr Seuss.
An oldie but a goodie.
I try to rotate the books we read so I don't go nuts so favourites come and go. My 2yo twins currently like the Magic Hat by Mem Fox, pretty much anything by Pamela Allen (Mr McGee, Belinda, Potato People etc) and Annie to the Rescue by Deborah Niland. Tilly loves the "Tilly" series by Polly Dunbar (for obvious reasons).
My little man's favourite book at the moment is I went Walking. He loves to do all of the animal noises along the way!
Big Rain Coming by Katrina Germein has been a hit in our house this week. It is an Aboriginal story about waiting for the wet when the weather is hot and dry. The pictures are lovely Aboriginal paintings. The other favourite this week is "Can anyone hear me?" by Jessica Meserve about a quiet boy named Jack who struggles to be heard in his noisy family. My boys (esp my Jack) love this story and really love when I read the words LOUD or soft depending on the characters involved.
Lesley Needham
Today's entry lol.
We read Mr Noisy last night, both boys were lying in bed and Olly our six month old was just captivated and was staring at daddy when he was reading, he absolutely loves books :)
Both have been quite taken with Drac and the Gremlin this week.
Definitely "The Tiger Who Came to Tea"
Its somewhat un-PC but I love the SAHM's creative way of avoiding the wrath of Daddy because there is no dinner on the table when he comes home from work ;)
My not quite 3 yo daughter loves it because she loves Tigers and has memorised the words, so thinks she is "reading" it. Bless.
My 2 year old, Amber, loves 'We're Going on a Bear Hunt' and even walks around reciting it, imagining bears wherever we go! It's a fun book to read too, although we could do with a change after the 1000th time!
When the wind changed by Ruth Park is also a favourite at our house. Its a great book to read on those silly, crazy days when all the kids want to do is be silly and crazy.
My little one (20 months) loves the books "I love Ollie" By Ann Walker, as he loves hearing his own name!!
My older one (4 years) loves "Pirate Pete" which is a create your own story book.
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