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The Night Dragon - cover image and web link
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On top of a very high mountain in a land far away, lived a dragon…

Maud, the dragon was very colourful and lived with four other dragons who were scary, ferocious and brave. Every night they flew in the sky and turned the sky black.

Maud was not that kind of dragon, in fact she was a non-flying, rainbow-coloured, friendly dragon. Her one friend was Mouse.

This is a beautiful story of courage, friendship, and overcoming your fears.

The Night Dragon, Maude and mouse - image and web link
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Maud and mouse conquer the flying in the sky together and the sky becomes full of colours of the rainbow just as the sun goes down.

When you next see a beautiful sunset, remember Maude! From the very first page you join this  dragon on the edge of her world.

Naomi Howarth is from Scotland and first worked in the film industry, going on recently to work with illustrations in children’s books, using lithographs and water colours. Naomi’s books tell timeless and meaningful tales that engage young readers to think about the inspiring wonder of the natural world. In 2014 Naomi won a prize on  the inaugural Picture Hooks mentoring programme and was mentored by Catherine Rayner.

The Night Dragon on edge of mountain

Lincoln Children’s Books, an imprint of The Quarto Group, are the publishers and The Night Dragon, to be published on 2nd August 2018, joins their list of high quality children’s books.

 

Sue Martin


Dolphinbooksellers.co.uk is part of SmithMartin LLP

A retail resource for the best children's books, entry point into our children's and community library procurement and supply service. Offering a miscellany of news and featured authors for all our readers, whatever their age.


 

Starry Skies - cover image and web link
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Starry Skies is a great introduction to space, astronomy and earth science.

There is a strong sense of darkness in the black pages with yellow and white dots for the constellations and writing, great for trying to spot the stars in our dark skies.

A double page holds a complete constellation and includes, Pegasus, Hercules and Leo. Every night, the sky is filled with stars that tell a thousand tales. Brave warriors, regal queens, fierce beasts.

The character on the pages are walking at night and stargazing making sense of the universe above us.

Samantha Chagollan is an award-winning author and editor of children’s books. She grew up in Southern California with a passion for telling and writing stories. After gaining a degree in literature she worked in publishing and is now a freelance author.

Nila Aye is a firm favourite of the London illustration scene and there is an influence of a retro design in her characters and style.

Walter Foster JR are the publishers and are part of the QuartoKids group.

Sue Martin

 


Dolphinbooksellers.co.uk is part of SmithMartin LLP

A retail resource for the best children's books, entry point into our children's and community library procurement and supply service. Offering a miscellany of news and featured authors for all our readers, whatever their age.


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In this fifth book in the internationally best-selling and well-loved,Great Big Book  series, Mary Hoffman and Ros Asquith celebrate friendship in a funny and honest way. It is a great way to start a conversation with children about what makes a good friend.

The presentation and layout of the book are instantly appealing, with questions and answers and ways that children often think about friendships. It goes further too, and has some great sentences on other sorts of friends, not just people, the bear on the bed or someone who asks you to a party. Maybe even..." A cat's best friend is a laundry basket." and "Being there when needed".

    Lots of opportunities for conversations, curiosity and reflection. It makes a great book for schools and also for home. The Great Big Book series is sold in over 21 languages across the globe and has already had some amazing reviews. Read Booktrust's interview with Mary Hoffman.

Mary Hoffman is an internationally acclaimed author of over 100 books for children, with famous titles such as Amazing Grace, which together with its sequel has sold over 1.5 million copies.

Ros Asquith is a world-famous illustrator and cartoonist, plus a writer and poet as well as being a Guardian cartoonist for 25 years. She is also currently poet in residence at UCLH. Her books for young people total over 90 titles and translated into over 21 languages!

Frances Lincoln Children's Books are part of The Quarto Group, delivering quality books across the world.

We thoroughly recommend The Great Big Book of Friends for children from age 5 upwards and there ar many times that adults too can dip in and find something helpful about being good friends.

Sue Martin


Dolphinbooksellers.co.uk is part of SmithMartin LLP

A retail resource for the best children's books, entry point into our children's and community library procurement and supply service. Offering a miscellany of news and featured authors for all our readers, whatever their age.


ABC Mindful Me - cover image and web purchase link
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Mindfulness starts at the very beginning. ABC Mindful Me helps to find peace and happiness using rhymes and wonderful illustrations.

Happiness is a great attribute to have and helps concentration, emotions and dealing with some of life's problems.

'Joy is all around you! Find it in the little things and feel the happiness it brings!'

There is also a section at the end of the book which explains mindfulness and awareness of our world, helping us all to be compassionate and to have a positive attitude. Try the emotion rocks and paint faces showing how you feel, or create a nature collage and use sticks and cones to paint in shapes and patterns.

     Christiane Engel is and award-winning author and illustrator, her two previous titles in this series are ABC Love and ABC Yoga, both of which are really successful.

QuartoKids, the publishers have included ABC MIndfulness in their new titles in March 2018 and we are sure it will be highly successful.

Sue Martin


Dolphinbooksellers.co.uk is part of SmithMartin LLP

A retail resource for the best children's books, entry point into our children's and community library procurement and supply service. Offering a miscellany of news and featured authors for all our readers, whatever their age.


Search and Find, the Aphabet of Alphabets
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This is a myriad of alphabets! 1 book, 26 alphabets and 676 incredible things to find. Take and exhilarating  ride through 26 fully illustrated alphabets,each one with an A to Z of things to spot and search for.

A great book for observations, a great book for facts and knowledge seekers, and a great book for just spending time looking at thousands of amazing illustrations.

The book is written and created by Mike Jolley and Amanda Wood with illustrations from Allan Sanders. A great team in the production of  this alphabet extravaganza. One of my favourite pages is F for Forest, where we have jackdaws, logs and bears and also dragons and knights.

  It is another beautifully presented book from the Wide Eyed Editions, part of the Quarto group.

A great book for a present, or for schools and libraries and for sharing at home.

Sue Martin


Dolphinbooksellers.co.uk is part of SmithMartin LLP

A retail resource for the best children's books, entry point into our children's and community library procurement and supply service. Offering a miscellany of news and featured authors for all our readers, whatever their age.


15 things not to do with a puppy
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This is a great read to share with young children and anyone who has ever had a puppy, or thinking about it. Young children will love the illustrations and the sense of trying hard to tame a puppy in difficult circumstances.

What shouldn’t you do with a puppy? Well, don’t take him to the library that is a seriously bad idea! Don’t try and take him for a walk when he is asleep, because he won’t budge an inch! Definitely don’t let him have the remote control, because you’re going to have some seriously amazing programmes and a very soggy remote!

   Margaret Mc Allister has written this hilarious follow-up to 15 Things Not do with Your Granny, it is a very warm and great book to read and teaches just how to love and share time and fun with a puppy.

Holly Sterling is a new illustrator in children’s books, but already her style is well received. Previous books, like Everybody Feels in 2016, and Hiccups, her first book that she has written and illustrated are great successes.

Frances Lincoln Children’s Books are part of the Quarto Group and publish really excellent titles.

Sue Martin

Dolphin BookBlog


Dolphinbooksellers.co.uk is part of SmithMartin LLP

A retail resource for the best children's books, entry point into our children's and community library procurement and supply service. Offering a miscellany of news and featured authors for all our readers, whatever their age.


We Travel so Far cover image
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Small stories of incredibly giant journeys. However far you have travelled these stories will surpass your longest journey.

The whales, birds, butterflies, turtles, fish and eels of all shapes and sizes make the most amazing journeys imaginable.

We Travel So Far is a book which will capture your imagination and set you off on a journey to find out more.

I was intrigued by; the Caribbean Spiny Lobsters which travel at the bottom of the sea in a long line, and the Arctic Terns which journey from North Pole to the South Pole. I have often watched them as they fly close to the water on the North Norfolk beaches.

There are so many journeys and so many different ways of travelling across the globe. Laura and Chris have made the pages intriguing, with a combined use of text and beautiful colour coordinated illustrations. From Whooping Cranes, as the ghostly white fliers, to the African elephants, the giants of the savannah, each page gives an insight into a world full of movement and travel.

At the end of the book, there is a page on migration data and also a page on people as travellers. We travel for adventure, to find food, to find freedom and much more, but we all travel.

Great book! Well written by Laura Knowles and illustrated by Chris Madden, published by Words and Pictures part of the Quarto Knows group.

 

Sue Martin


Dolphinbooksellers.co.uk is part of SmithMartin LLP

A retail resource for the best children's books, entry point into our children's and community library procurement and supply service. Offering a miscellany of news and featured authors for all our readers, whatever their age.


Dragons Father and Son cover image and web link
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Admiration or Fear? Which is the best thing for a dragon? This is a heart warming tale about a dragon trying to be fierce, his father wants him to burn down the whole village!

But the young dragon finds another way to make his father proud of him. And it doesn't involve any kind of burning!

A debut book, published Sept 21st 2017, from an exciting new author based in Paris. A tale about fathers and sons and also about dragons. Drake, the young dragon sets off to the village in search of a house to burn, but it just doesn't work out. No one is afraid of him and he does some good along the way.

 

Delightful illustrations...

It is a hardback book, beautifully presented with engaging illustrations and a story that is just right to read aloud in a class, or to share at home. The last place Drake visits is an old wooden shack, just right for breathing fire upon. But instead the fisherman comes along and Drake lights a fire to cook the fish.

And the rest of the story is for reading...

Alexandre Lacroix is the author, he has written several books for adults and is the editor of Philosophie Magazine.

Ronan Badel lives and works in Brittany where he writes and illustrates childrens books for most of the time.

A great book from Words and Pictures.

Sue Martin


Dolphinbooksellers.co.uk is part of SmithMartin LLP

A retail resource for the best children's books, entry point into our children's and community library procurement and supply service. Offering a miscellany of news and featured authors for all our readers, whatever their age.


Look Fo Ladybird in Plant city
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Ladybird has gone missing! Daisy is so worried, as Ladybird heads for Plant City and may be lost forever!

Basil the detective, and Daisy, search and search through this amazing Technicolor array of places and creatures.

This is a Technicolor 'search and find' book, like no other. The artwork is amazing and very detailed, so finding the ladybird on each page takes some searching. But she is there, just keep looking.

The scenes are full of energy and packed with things to look at, children will have great fun finding all sorts of things as well as the ladybird; like the aphid juice bar or a root pizza in the restaurant.

 

This is the first in a series of books from Katherine Manolessou, published by Frances Lincoln and is definitely one to watch out for and to buy. The format is in hard back and a really good size for opening out on the carpet and sharing together in the search for ladybird.

Katherine is an up and coming illustrator who has worked with Ted Baker, The Guardian and Random House and is also an Associate Lecturer at Camberwell College of Arts. Her previous book with Frances Lincoln is Tveg: The Story of a Carrot Crunching Dinosaur.

Thoroughly recommend  Look For Ladybird in Plant City, we are sure you will have huge amounts of fun.

Sue Martin


Dolphinbooksellers.co.uk is part of SmithMartin LLP

A retail resource for the best children's books, entry point into our children's and community library procurement and supply service. Offering a miscellany of news and featured authors for all our readers, whatever their age.


Tug of War cover image and web link
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When Elephant and Hippo are nasty to Tortoise, he shows them that while he may not be big, he certainly is brainy!

A funny and heart warming story from a well-known myth from West Africa with beautiful illustrations and meaningful text.

Tortoise is out to find a friend in the jungle but is called names by the two biggest creatures around, the elephant and the hippopotamus. With the help of bird, tortoise decides to let them know that he is worth having as a friend,even if he is not extra-large and grey.

A tug of war follows and elephant and hippo fall over backwards in a very inelegant position, as the rope eventually snaps. They discover that it would be good to have tortoise as a friend.

Tug of War
Great illustrations!

A second book from Naomi Howarth, whose debut novel, The Crow's Tale was shortlisted for the 2015 Waterstone's Children's Book Prize. Naomi has huge talent in illustration and a background of working in art in costume and film, leading to a stunning career in children's illustrations and writing.

 

Published by Frances Lincoln Children's Books, we know that you will love this hard back book at home, in the library and at nursery and school.

Sue Martin


Dolphinbooksellers.co.uk is part of SmithMartin LLP

A retail resource for the best children's books, entry point into our children's and community library procurement and supply service. Offering a miscellany of news and featured authors for all our readers, whatever their age.