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All Around Me: A First Book of Childhood
Colours, shapes and sizes, sounds, opposites and numbers – there are so many things for Olly and Kate to learn about on their first adventures. From counting in the park with Grandpa to crossing and stopping at the road with Mum, or even the sound of Dad vacuuming, this beautifully illustrated collection is a gentle introduction to childhood experiences and celebrates the joy of everyday family life.
- GenresChildrens
64 pages, Hardcover
Published November 7, 2019
About the author
Shirley Hughes
390 books213 followersShirley Hughes is the illustrator of more than two hundred children’s books and has won many prestigious awards, including the Kate Greenaway Medal twice. She is the author-illustrator of DON'T WANT TO GO! and OLLY AND ME 1 2 3. She died at her home in London on the 25th of February, 2022.
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Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews
December 3, 2019
Book Reviewed on www.whisperingstories.com
Author Shirley Hughes has written a book about all the real things that children first experience such as rain, standing, colours, a whole variety of different things. She has put them into a story featuring siblings Katie and baby Olly to create a book that children can enjoy, recognise, and learn from.
All Around Me is split into five different chapters – Opposites, Counting, Colours, Shapes and Sizes and Sounds. The words are kept to a minimal and describe each item which will help a child that is learning to read. It is also written in a rhyme which makes the words flow and easier to work out.
At the beginning of each chapter, there is a short activity for children to complete. Throughout there are colourful illustrations that have a traditional feel to them. Each item has it’s own illustration which perfectly captures what is happening.
The book also teaches young children about life, such as it’s rude to push, when to stop at a crossing, it’s unkind to tease, and plenty more things that they need to learn.
It is so lovely to see a book featuring siblings that obviously love one another and show them just going through life, from fun times to family times and also bedtime. This is an adorable book that would be perfect for a child just starting to learn to read.
Author Shirley Hughes has written a book about all the real things that children first experience such as rain, standing, colours, a whole variety of different things. She has put them into a story featuring siblings Katie and baby Olly to create a book that children can enjoy, recognise, and learn from.
All Around Me is split into five different chapters – Opposites, Counting, Colours, Shapes and Sizes and Sounds. The words are kept to a minimal and describe each item which will help a child that is learning to read. It is also written in a rhyme which makes the words flow and easier to work out.
At the beginning of each chapter, there is a short activity for children to complete. Throughout there are colourful illustrations that have a traditional feel to them. Each item has it’s own illustration which perfectly captures what is happening.
The book also teaches young children about life, such as it’s rude to push, when to stop at a crossing, it’s unkind to tease, and plenty more things that they need to learn.
It is so lovely to see a book featuring siblings that obviously love one another and show them just going through life, from fun times to family times and also bedtime. This is an adorable book that would be perfect for a child just starting to learn to read.
May 13, 2022
Love the illustrations.
“Hats can be many sizes,
So can feet;”
“Hats can be many sizes,
So can feet;”
December 23, 2019
This is a lovely picture book all about the different things children experience and gives them plenty of opportunities to learn while having fun. ‘All Around Me: A First Book of Childhood’ is about A4 in size and currently in hardback it has a removable dust jacket that hides some lovely and different artwork underneath (which I always love about hardback books with dust jackets!). Inside the book is filled with thick glossy pages of colourful illustrations and some text.
The book is arranged into different sections: opposites, counting, colours, all shapes and sizes, sounds. Each section begins with a little activity for children to try, such as finding the opposite images on the page before the main ‘story’ in which we follow Katie and her family as we see the opposites in their day (bathwater hot, seawater cold, etc.); count upwards to ten all the things Katie sees when she’s on a day out with her Grandpa; talk about the different shades and colours of everyday things you can see; look at the different shapes different objects have; and finally, a short section mentioning the sounds lots of different things make.
Each of these sections is like its own seperate book and indeed at the start of the book it does state that this was first published as different books so if you are a fan of Shirley Hughes work and own most of her books then it’s likely you’ve seen these before, but for someone like me who hasn’t read a lot of her older books, this really is a great book to get.
I love the different sections and how fun they all are. Almost every section rhymes making it more fun to read and easy to remember and learn the different things that you see. I also love how the things mentioned are things that children are used to seeing in their everyday lives, such as their cat and dog, or the sound of a vacuum cleaner. In the counting section children can enjoy counting along in each image (as well as reading that there are x amount of this thing), as all the different things appear clearly visible in each image and I just love the detail of all the illustrations.
The pictures really make this book so fun, I love how everyone looks and I’ve really grown to enjoy Shirley Hughes’ illustration style. Every image can be looked at again and again and I love how there is that detail that makes you enjoy looking at each picture. Seeing things like the diferent children playing together or the way the babies look in their prams with one asleep while others are moving, I just love the way real-life things can be looked at with such interest from a child’s perspective.
I think I’ve preferred this book to a lot of other Shirley Hughes books I’ve read, as a lot of it also rhymes making it that much more fun. I think children will really enjoy looking at this book and there’s a lot of opportunities for them to interact with the different images on each page (like counting along) and the additional fun little exercises at the start of each section. If you’re new to Shirley Hughes or if you want to have some of her previous books in a sort of compilation (I’m not sure how much of this, if anything, is new) then I’d definitely recommend this book. It just feels so fun and I can imagine really enjoying looking at this myself back when I was a child!
-Thanks to Walker Books for a free copy for review.
The book is arranged into different sections: opposites, counting, colours, all shapes and sizes, sounds. Each section begins with a little activity for children to try, such as finding the opposite images on the page before the main ‘story’ in which we follow Katie and her family as we see the opposites in their day (bathwater hot, seawater cold, etc.); count upwards to ten all the things Katie sees when she’s on a day out with her Grandpa; talk about the different shades and colours of everyday things you can see; look at the different shapes different objects have; and finally, a short section mentioning the sounds lots of different things make.
Each of these sections is like its own seperate book and indeed at the start of the book it does state that this was first published as different books so if you are a fan of Shirley Hughes work and own most of her books then it’s likely you’ve seen these before, but for someone like me who hasn’t read a lot of her older books, this really is a great book to get.
I love the different sections and how fun they all are. Almost every section rhymes making it more fun to read and easy to remember and learn the different things that you see. I also love how the things mentioned are things that children are used to seeing in their everyday lives, such as their cat and dog, or the sound of a vacuum cleaner. In the counting section children can enjoy counting along in each image (as well as reading that there are x amount of this thing), as all the different things appear clearly visible in each image and I just love the detail of all the illustrations.
The pictures really make this book so fun, I love how everyone looks and I’ve really grown to enjoy Shirley Hughes’ illustration style. Every image can be looked at again and again and I love how there is that detail that makes you enjoy looking at each picture. Seeing things like the diferent children playing together or the way the babies look in their prams with one asleep while others are moving, I just love the way real-life things can be looked at with such interest from a child’s perspective.
I think I’ve preferred this book to a lot of other Shirley Hughes books I’ve read, as a lot of it also rhymes making it that much more fun. I think children will really enjoy looking at this book and there’s a lot of opportunities for them to interact with the different images on each page (like counting along) and the additional fun little exercises at the start of each section. If you’re new to Shirley Hughes or if you want to have some of her previous books in a sort of compilation (I’m not sure how much of this, if anything, is new) then I’d definitely recommend this book. It just feels so fun and I can imagine really enjoying looking at this myself back when I was a child!
-Thanks to Walker Books for a free copy for review.
September 5, 2026
Absolutely lovely illustrations! I could FEEL each season of the year in my bones as I turned the pages upon each brilliantly, lovely illustration. This book was a treat of nostalogia for my childhood. I will read it over again and again.
December 11, 2024
Beautiful illustrations, beautiful basic writing easy enough for my 2 year old to understand and love.
Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews