Wilberfoss Primary School

The Dancing Bear

By Michael Murpurgo, illustrated by Christian Birmingham

Review by Harry, Year 5.

The Dancing Bear is a very, very sad book, probably the saddest book I’ve ever read. But it’s also amazing!

In The Dancing Bear there is a very mischievous little girl called Roxanne who goes up into the mountains and finds a little bear cub, who she calls Bruno. The cub is nearly dead when she finds him, and she brings him back to her village, looks after him and makes him well again.

After this, Roxanne and Bruno are best friends, and love each other so much. Roxanne’s grandfather agrees to keep Bruno after the headmaster of a small school suggests they put Bruno’s picture on her grandfather’s honey and call it “Bruno’s honey” to make it sell better.

The  problem is is that a film crew come to the village and need a dancing bear…

I liked the book because it is not just about the little bear cub, it is about its whole life to dancing with a film crew to advertising honey. My favourite bit is where Roxanne and Bruno start to dance together ….. because the picture is so cute but not just cute it is like real partnership between Bruno and Roxanne.

The Dancing Bear is amazing, and once you’ve read it you’ll want to read it again and again and you’d still cry!

Puppy Love – A Litter Of Puppy Stories

By Christophe Loupy & Eve Tharlet

Review by Isabel (Year 5)

Puppy Love has three lovely stories; Hugs & Kisses, Dont Worry Wags, and Wiggles.

They’re all all about little Wags the puppy.

In “Hugs and Kisses” Wags went to the ducks, horses, pigs, rabbits and butterflies and he gets kisses from all of them!

In “Don’t Worry Wags”, Wags the puppy was worried about getting into the truck to go to the farmer’s market. His mum and dad said that it would be fine, but he still worried.

The market had loads of people in it and he got lost in town. He saw some goats and woofed but they couldn’t help him find his family. He was really, really sad and worried. After a long time Wags found them again.

In Wiggles Wags watched the cows being milked and eggs being collected in the chicken coop and also poked his nose in the bee hive on the farm.

I like it because you can choose your book and the first one is sweet and cute. The second one tells you that you can over come your worries. The last one is realy nice and he follows the farmer around the farm. You can choose your book as well.

My favourite character is Wags….. isn’t he lovely?

Baggage

By The Etherington Brothers

DFC Library

Review by Mia (Year 6)

Baggage is all about Randall, who has to return the oldest piece of luggage in the lost property warehouse where he works to its owner, or he’s going to get fired:

To give you an idea of how silly Randall is… the case he decides to pick is the one right at the bottom of a huge pile.

And the whole pile comes crashing down on top of him, they all fly out the huge doors and take Randall with them.

Once he gets the case he starts looking at it for clues for who it belongs to, which starts us off on a really funny, really silly, but very good adventure.

The case is covered in stickers that act as clues – first Randall looks in a sweet shop because of the sticker of some really old bubblegum. The old lady who runs the shop (Ruby) knows the next name on the case, and Randall is off again. Randall runs into one of his friends and they end up crawling through some pipes (lots of pipes!). They look for a post box with the name Bennington on it. then a few seconds later Randall’s friend (Lucky) found it.

There are lots of funny things in the book that Randall finds including:

A floating ice-cream shop in the shape of a duck, Kong the collector, with his guard dog (the beast), cable car chases, a stinky rubbish dump, the Onionskins football stadium, meatball costumes, and much, much more…..

Randall and all of his friends go through lots of crazy adventures and get into a bit of trouble all just to get the bag back to its owner before mid night so Randall doesnt get fired!

I liked this book because I found it funny. My favourite bit was when he was in the sweet shop and the old lady was making rude things out of liquorice!

I would recommend Baggage to all readers because I really enjoyed it and I think that anyone else would like it as well!

Super Animal Adventure Squad

By James Turner

DFC Library

Review by Lewis (Year 4)

Super Animal Adventure Squad is a brilliant comic about 5 super animals who stop evil villians like Dr. Nefarious and his giant mutant ant, and Captain Green Beard and his pirate crew.

The Super Animal Adventure Squad is: Agent Rex, Agent K, Agent Irwin, Agent Bearbot, and Agent Beesley.

Rex the chameleon is my favourite character because he said lots of funny things and he was very silly. And Irwin was funny as well when he stamped on the ants.

My favourite part was when the unicorn on the television woke Agent K up. It was my favourite part because agent K screams. Another really funny part is at the start of “The Case Of The Baboon Bandit” where one of Captain Green Beard’s crew the night guard over the head and all he can say is …. “Ouch“!

It was a good book, with a great, funny beginning, hilarious middle and super silly end! I think that if you like humour and funny things you will love Super Animal Adventure Squad!

Captain Underpants and the Big Bad Battle of the Bionic Booger Boy

By Dav Pilkey

Review by Harry (Year 5)

I think the whole Captain Underpants series is amazing. It’s a mixture of comics and writing – I like the books because I really like comics and I really like writing and this is a great mixture of both!

George and Harold try to get away from the Bionic Booger monster. George and Harold are the kids that created the amazing Captain Underpants.The Bionic Booger monster is a mixture of a person a robot and a bogey… I know it sounds disgusting!

My favourite character is Captain Underpants.

It was amazing! Amazing! AM-A-ZING!!!!

And to give you just a little taste of how amazing… here’s the super not-so-secret origin of Captain Underpants!)

Charlie And The Chocolate Factory

By Roald Dahl

Review by Victoria (Year 4)

I thought this was a really, really good book that stars a boy called Charlie Bucket who has four very old grandparents.

Charlie Bucket’s family is really, really poor. And they live near to a huge chocolate factory owned by a man called Mr Willy Wonka.

Mr Willy Wonka had four golden tickets in the factory and no-one could find them for ages and ages, then one day Charlie got one for his birthday.

Charlie Bucket is my best character, and I thought the book was very exiting when Charlie goes around the chocolate factory with his grandpa Joe.

There were even little factory helpers called Oompaloompas.

They look like this when drawn by Quentin Blake:

Dumpling

By Dick King-Smith, illustrated by Jo Davies

Review by Harry (Year 5)

This is all about a lovely little dog called Dumpling. And all she wants is to be longer – because she’s a dachshund! That’s a sausage dog. Her owner describes her best in the book as:

“But dachshunds are supposed to have long bodies, you know. And you haven’t. You’re just a little dumpling.”

That’s Dumpling – the short brown dachshund. She finds a witch’s cat and asks if she can become the “longest dachshund ever!“. Oh dear.

She gets longer and longer and longer and longer. Will she ever stop growing? What will she do?

I’ve read a lot of books by Dick King-Smith and I think this is his best, and definitely his funniest! I like it because it’s funny watching Dumpling get longer and longer. It’s a very good book for younger readers but just as much fun for older readers.

Little Animal Ark: The Lucky Lamb

By Lucy Daniels

Review by Amy (Year 5)

The Lucky Lamb is all about a little lamb named Wooly and two children named Mandy and Liam.

When Wooly’s mum isn’t feeling well little Wooly has to be put in the farmhouse until she gets better.

I like the book because on the cover the lamb is lovely, Wooly is a perfect name for a lamb and he’s my favourite character

Born To Run

By Michael Morpurgo

Review by Katie (Year 3)

Born to Run is the most extraordinary book I have ever read. It is about running (and I hate running) but that doesn’t mean I hate this book.

Patrick finds a sack of puppies in the canal, and rescues them by diving in! His dad says he can’t keep them and they get sent to the RSPCA home.

When Patrick gets home he throws himself on the bed and dreams of the puppy he liked best…. and he wakes up to find the puppy licking his face!

His parents explain that they where going to move to a bigger house and that they had agreed he could keep him so long Patrick looked after him.

He calls the puppy “Best Mate”.

My favourite chapter was “Be fast Bright Eyes, be fast”. This particular chapter is my favourite because it is also the most worrying. In this chapter Best Mate gets kidnapped by a very cruel breeder who races greyhounds.

The breeder has a step-daughter called Becky who adores all the dogs.She names him “Bright Eyes”. Becky loves Bright Eyes as her own dog.

Then Becky finds out what happens to all the dogs whose time racing is over. The thing that happens is too dreadful to bear with and she is afraid that it will someday happen to Bright Eyes. So, she runs away with Bright Eyes………

Read this extraordinary book to find out more!

All through the time Iwas reading this book, my heart was thumping fast.

The story is sad, happy and worrying all the way through.

When I was reading it late at night I always felt I was actually in the book, and it was happening right beside me.

I absolutely love this story I am writing about.

The Daisy Books

By Kes Gray, illustrated by Garry Parsons and Nick Sharratt

Review by Hannah (Year 5)

I love the Daisy books because they are so funny and make me laugh all day!

I have been reading 3 books so far.

“DAISY and the TROUBLE with KITTENS” is my favrioute. It’s all about these kittens that live in the bin and they’re very hungry so Daisy steals her mum’s boyfriend Derek’s sardines and and gives it to the kittens.

I also like “DAISY and the TROUBLE with ZOOS”. It’s all about Daisy’s birthday when Daisy and her best friend Gabby go to the zoo and have a picnic with lemonade and cheese sandwiches.

Daisy goes inside the snake tent where it’s very dark and she gets to feed the penguins.

Daisy takes a penguin home with her under her jacket but mom goes mad when she finds out and they go back to the zoo where they talk to the zookeeper and Daisy gives it to the zookeeper but she cries but calms down a bit and they all go home.

The last one is DAISY and the TROUBLE with GIANTS and that’s ALL about Giants!