Dear Fairy Godmother...

Deep in the enchanted forest, the fairy tale creatures all have problems. Luckily they can call on the ultimate agony aunt – Dear Fairy Godmother!



A sequel to Dear Mother Goose, this is a hilarious collection of fairy stories with a difference. All the best-loved fairy-tale characters are here and they all have a different problem, from the pesky girl who keeps eating little bear's porridge, to Pinocchio's mendacious habits, to the wolf who just won't leave Little Red Riding Hood alone. Along with their letters asking for advice comes the scene with the problem – then lift the flap and see Fairy Godmother's ingenious solutions to their predicaments! Wittily illustrated by Nick Sharratt, with a very funny text from Michael Rosen, this is a novelty book full of unexpected solutions – and a party at the end!

The Observer on Dear Fairy Godmother; 'When you can capture a child’s imagination from the first page, you know you’re on to something and this original idea based on classic fairy-tales does just that…Great fun'!



Nick Sharratt is the illustrator in residence at Edinburgh Festival this month and wants to get everybody involved in creating a giant Book Festival frieze. If you happen to be in Edinburgh why not drop in to take part and add your own ideas to this giant picture. Drop-in events are limited to 15 people at any one time. As part of the Illustrator in Residence Nick will also be running a full program of events, storytelling's and workshops throughout the month and you can learn more here! 



As a final treat, below is a fantastic video for you to enjoy from author Michael Rosen, former children's laureate, all about chocolate cake - what isn't there to love about that!

I'm the Best

I'm the Best

Can Dog's friends teach him to be less of a show-off? Find out in this brilliantly original picture book from Lucy Cousins, creator of Maisy.



Dog loves his friends. He thinks they’re brilliant. But he also thinks that he’s the best, and he just won’t stop telling them! So what happens when his friends decide to teach him a lesson, by showing him all the things they are best at?



Lucy on creating I’m The Best:



“I really enjoyed working on I’m the Best because it was with inks rather than paints, so it felt new. The line is a pencil drawn line rather than a brush stroke. So I'm starting to feel that I like experimenting to find something different and a little bit fresh. With I'm the Best, I wanted it to be very, very bold, almost like my sketchbooks. Often when I'm doing my sketches for ideas they have a real vitality to them, and when I've redone that page seven times and had a go at a few coloured paintings it's quite hard to keep that freshness."

Yummy

Lucy is also the author of another Picture Book Picnic title, Yummy: My Favourite Nursery Stories. In Yummy Lucy retells her favourite nursery stories in spare bold language and brilliant vibrant pictures. She gives their famous characters new life and imbues their great adventures with her own very modern magic. These stories are treasures of the imagination. They were first told long ago and they will be told again and again, far into the future. They never fail to stir and excite. Retold in this book: Little Red Riding Hood, The Three Billy Goats Gruff, The Enormous Turnip, Henny Penny, Goldilocks and The Three Bears, The Little Red Hen, The Three Little Pigs and The Musicians of Bremen.



Maisy the mouse is perhaps Lucy’s best known character and we have a gorgeous video with Lucy talking about how she brings Maisy to life - there's a lot of drawing too, we hope you enjoy it.

Competition Winners

Its winner time for both our Picture Book Picnic party and Picture Book Picnic trailer competitions! It was great to see so many people reading and engaging with the posts, lots of new and exciting posts to follow so keep your eyes peeled.



Drum roll...... and the winners are - Zac for his wonderful comments about our trailer and Damyanti who clearly loves I Kissed the Baby by Mary Murphy as much as we do! Congratulations! Get in contact with your postal addresses and we will send your Picture Book Picnic goody bags out to you.