Zoe and Beans books are a lovely series of books for young children by Father and daughter duo, Chloe and Mick Inkpen. We recently received Look at Me! to review from the publisher Macmillan books.
This is a medium sized board book all about dressing up and pretending. It has a simple story showing Zoe and Oscar trying out all sorts of different costumes and ideas when deciding “What shall I be?”
The illustrations are really appealing and cute as always with Zoe and Beans. For those who are familiar with the characters, the style of the illustrations would be instantly recognisable. They have a lovely soft pencil-crayonish look but are still bold and bright enough to grab a young child’s interest.
The book goes through bumble bee, pirate, doctor, and robot before Zoe and Oscar settle on pretending to be each other. Each page is very simple with only one or two sentences and the language is kept simple which is great for young children or toddlers who are still developing their language skills. It also includes fun sound effect type words like bzzzzz, and beep beep which are good for grabbing younger listeners attention and to give variation to the tone of voice when reading.
It’s a handy book for my 23 month old as I find long story books don’t always keep his attention as he is still under two and can’t sit still so long, he would get half way through and he is off! So a shorter book like this is perfect for his attention level, and with it being a board book with sturdy pages I am happy for him to take this and ‘read’ it by himself or take it off to look at the pictures as I know it can not get ripped.
My 5 year old was able to read the text of this book himself as it is so nice and simple, which is great because he was able to read it to his younger brothers which givess a sense of achievement for him. It is lovely to see siblings all sitting together and the oldest reading to the younger ones, that’s always such a sweet and proud moment for me as a Mum 😀
There are other Zoe and Beans books available if you want to build up a collection! As well as board books there are some longer story books for age around 3+. We have a copy of Zoe and Beans Christmas List which is signed by the author so quite special!
My friend Pippa from Red Rose Mummy is currently running a competition to win this book and another from Zoe and Beans “How Many Pets?” so why not pop over there too in case you get lucky! 😀
Anna Marikar, mum of four and seasoned blogger, has spent over a decade sharing her parenting journey and passion for kid-friendly crafts and free printables.
Her easy-to-follow craft ideas and practical parenting advice have transformed In The Playroom into a cherished resource for parents.
Love these books 🙂
This sounds like the sort of book my 3 year old son would love.
I love this book too!
Thanks for the great review I think I’m going to get my little boy this 🙂
Great review, thank you for this
My grandson loves these books 🙂