TERENCE THE TOILET TRAVELS THE WORLD :: a toilet with a yearning for enlightenment :)

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TERENCE THE TOILET TRAVELS THE WORLD :: a toilet with a yearning for enlightenment :)

Ages 4 to grown-up
I mentioned to my adult children that I was going to do a top 5 on ‘poo’ books, and Terence the Toilet was the first book they each thought of!

When you’re a ‘bog-standard’ toilet, chances are there are magazines left in the bathroom with you – magazines that show ‘exotic bathrooms in exotic places all over the world’. And that can leave you feeling restless and unsatisfied. 

That’s what happened to Terence – and I wouldn’t be surprised to hear that most of us have felt that way too after leafing through the magazines left in the bathroom.

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VESUVIUS POOVIUS :: toilets matter! (world toilet day is November 19)

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VESUVIUS POOVIUS :: toilets matter! (world toilet day is November 19)

Ages 4 to 12 years
Vesuvius is a problem solver – and Rome has a big problem. A poo problem. 

No one knows what to do with all the poo. It’s so bad that ‘Some people even dropped it into other people’s pockets when they weren’t looking.”  (Now if that line doesn’t bring at least a grimacy smirk to your face I don’t know what will.)

Because poo is such a problem, it’s also a “forbiddenus wordus’, which leads to a whole slew of hilarious euphemisms like ‘huge daffodil’ and ‘cola cube’. Aside from all the usual uses for a poo book, this one does a great job of teaching how and when and why to use a euphamism.

Vesuvius – clever if marginalised chap that he is – figures out the solution:  tunnels and rain. 

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My Two Blankets: the transforming power of friendship

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My Two Blankets: the transforming power of friendship

My Two Blankets is a charming story about a young girl who ‘came to this country to be safe’ and the way she was able to reclaim a safe, happy and loved childhood. Positive, enlightening, it engages on many, many fronts.

ages early childhood to teen

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a life that reminds us how beautiful the world is and how valuable we all are

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a life that reminds us how beautiful the world is and how valuable we all are

ages 4 years to grownups
A charming and incredibly pretty book about a woman who commits as a child to go to faraway places, live beside the sea and do something to make the world more beautiful. It's loved and used a lot by teachers, with good reason. It does a lot of work! 

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sometimes we fall into a hole, but home is always at the end of our travels

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sometimes we fall into a hole, but home is always at the end of our travels

ages 2 to 8 years
Alison Lester has a gift for writing words that bounce – there’s a rhythm to her words that's easy for the reader to catch and hold onto. The Journey Home isn't a rhyming book, but it does read in a lyrical sort of way. There’s a repeated refrain of ‘come inside and stay’ making this a good early reader.

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Jambo Means Hello: a joyous book about Africa and the lives that are lived there

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Jambo Means Hello: a joyous book about Africa and the lives that are lived there

ages 4 to 10 years

Set in Africa. Essentially an alphabet book, Jambo Means Hello assigns a Swahili word to each letter of the English alphabet. And along with the words goes a short paragraph explaining something about culture, traditions and everyday life in Africa.

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The Terrible Wild Grey Hairy Thing: an amusing warning about being too easily alarmed

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The Terrible Wild Grey Hairy Thing: an amusing warning about being too easily alarmed

ages 2 to 8 years
This is a rollicking book—so much fun to read and so much fun to look at. The story is an adapted Danish folktale and the fabulous illustrations reflect that. It’s the story of Goodie, a plump and obviously happy woman, who is making sausages to store up for her family—she makes hundreds of them and has to hang them from every nook and cranny. Inevitably, funny happens!

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