Our weekend post was fabulous. As well as several Christmas cards, we had books. Boo was beside herself! This is our review of the first one..
The Story Machine by Tom McLaughlin
Elliott is a boy who likes to find things and, one day, he stumbles across a machine. At first, he can’t work out what the machine is for – it doesn’t beep or buzz like all his other machines and it doesn’t have an ON/OFF button. Then, quite by accident, Elliott makes the machine work. The machine makes letters! Elliott thinks it must be a story machine but, sadly, Elliott isn’t very good at letters and words. How can he make magical stories without them? But, wait, some of the letters look like pictures. Elliott is good at pictures and, as he discovers, pictures make stories.
This is such a lovely story, and the illustrations are just beautiful. When Elliott stumbles across his strange machine, it was funny to reflect that children now really wouldn’t understand what a typewriter is – a strange old piece of metal without beeps and buzzes! Watching Elliott make his story machine discoveries, and then realise his own talents, was an enjoyable journey, and I adored every page of it.
So that’s me, what about Boo’s opinion?! Well, she’s asked me read it to her daily since it arrived at the weekend, and she does have a wide choice of books to choose from, so I’d say it’s a hit! She tells me she likes that it ‘has funny words in it’ and ‘loves the pictures of the story machine and the paintings’. Every page has pictures for us to explore together and talk about, so each read sparks a new conversation and wonder into our imaginations.
Thanks to Bloomsbury Publishing for sending us a copy of this book to review. It’s out to buy 2nd January 2014.
