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In our loft office on the edge of Cambridge, UK, I always look forward to receiving new books to review from Allen and Unwin of Australia. Two brilliant new picture books arrived in mid September, just right for starting our school year in the UK.

Our Little Inventor by Sher Rill Ng is about Nell, who wants to save the planet from extinction. She has a new invention that she is sure will save the world. But no one believes her.

"We don't have time to look at a child's toy," she is told at an important meeting in the city. But eventually, when no one can breathe anymore she is able to clean the air.

Beautiful story written and illustrated by Sher Rill Ng, who is based in Melbourne. Her illustrations are beautifully atmospheric and hew website if full of her images and stories, amazing!

Ivanhoe Sweet Left Home at Six by Jane Godwin and A.Yi is the adventure of Ivanhoe who decided that he needed to see the world and set off with a sandwich, a kite and how map of the world. The illustrations are full of a sense of a future and Ivanhoe eventually sees that once he has finished hos sandwich, crossed the river and found the edge of the sea that maybe it is time to go home!

A great book for reading aloud and for children to follow their own dreams of adventure.

Recommend Our Little Inventor and Ivanhoe Swift Left Home at Six  for ages 3- 7, children at home and in nursery and schools, libraries too!

Sue Martin


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