Upside Down Stories

The label says 'Read Aloud' but I think that any child mature enough to understand the stories would find them quite possible 'read alones'. Each story is only two or three pages long and written in a very childlike style ('Once upon a time there was a horse who had very short legs. His name was Dick.') and with a natural, speech-like structure. They are, however, unusual stories, to say the least. The apple tree which didn't know how to grow apples but grew squirrels because it asked a squirrel's advice and babies because it asked a lady's advice; the time that the sun played hide-and-seek with the dark and caused the dark to hide in the cupboard under the stairs; the time that 'Please', 'Sorry, and 'Thank you' went on holiday ... these are really nonsense stories. Children need to be old enough for the sort of logical illogicality of, say, Alice in Wonderland to really appreciate them. I tired them with bright top infants and they fell about with laughing and then fought to read them themselves. A palpable hit!