When I first saw that Pandora by Victoria Turnbull was coming out, on April 4th, I had no idea what it was about, I simply loved the cover art and knew it was immediately being added to our library hold list. When it arrived, it was clear as we opened the cover we were the first people to check this book out and have the privilege of reading it.
Pandora is a little fox, who lives in a world of discarded and broken things all alone. She has made herself a handsome home (which my petites thought was quite fun and now they call their rooms handsome) she uses her time repairing and restoring items that she can mend and fix. However, she is lonely and no one ever comes to visit her.
One day something falls from the sky, it is a tiny blue bird with a broken wing. Pandora doesn’t know how to fix its wing, but does her best to take care of it and over time the bird regains its strength and begins to fly small distances. Always returning with small gifts from its journeys, until one day, the bird doesn’t come back. Pandora is alone, again.
As the days pass, slowly something lovely and beautiful starts to grow until one morning Pandora wakes to the sound of her bird friend and the stunning changes that have happened to her once broken and discarded world.
When we finished reading this story, my seven-year old picked up the book and held it to her chest and sighed and said oh mommy, I love this story so much. How much is it? Can we buy this book so I can always read it? This is a story that is so much more than a story, it is about loving what you have, appreciating what you have, finding the goodness in what others may discard, taking care of others, being aware of feelings and what it means to have joy. This is an absolutely perfect story for petites. We have read it every single day since we have checked it out from the library. It is quite clear that this is a new Petite Stag Favorite.
This is Victoria Turnbull’s third book, she is an author from the UK who has incredible talent – her words are so carefully chosen and her illustrations evoke such incredible feeling. We cannot wait to see what she comes up with next. To see more of her other two books and Pandora check out her website.
Julia Donaldson and Axel Scheffler have created an absolutely lovely tale, so much more than a Halloween story, this is a book about inclusion, celebrating differences, working together, kindness and standing up to bullies. So you can see why we read it all the time, it is a fabulous story. Have I mentioned what a fantastic read aloud it is? It’s so much fun! The book is geared for preschool to second graders. This book has fantastic rhyming sentences (which is why it’s such a great read aloud) as well as suspense, which is a really fun introduction for petites about what a “Page Turner” means.
Miss Moon, is a completely whimsical story filled with incredibly thoughtful advice that is beneficial for not only canines (ours approves) as well as petites and even adults. We are given a brief introduction to Miss Wilhelmina Moon on the first page where we learn that she set off with her French bulldog, petunia and her monkey, Mitford to become a governess to sixty-seven dogs. During her time as a dog governess she imparted her wisdom and sage advice to these pooches and in this collection you the reader will learn her 20 ‘most important lessons for lessons for raising happy, healthy, well-mannered pooches – and people”.
The premise of this book is a little girl named Sam, she has just gotten her first pet and it’s a hamster, but it doesn’t really do anything exciting and to be honest is rather boring. After Sam reads a book about Mythological Creatures (who doesnt love a book about a petite reading a book?), she decided that there are some more exciting pets, lets talk about some of these pets! Unicorns, hippogriff, sasquatch, of course a gryphon…but then she considers some of the other magical creatures that might make a perfect pet; manticore, basilisk, kelpies, sprites, mermaids and more!
The Petite Stag 