Children’s Hour: I’m Not Cute (revisited)

Children’s Hour is a feature here at Lucybird’s Book Blog every Thursday where I’m looking at children’s picture books. As I work in a nursery I get plenty of opportunities to look at picture books, and to see what the kids think of them so it really makes sense to use those experiences.

I’d love to hear everybody’s experiences of the books I review too, and feel free to post me a link to your own reviews, I’d love to make this a bit interactive.

The image (if you were wondering) is taken from Shirley’s Hughes’ Alfie and Annie-Rose books which I loved as a child.

Back when Children’s Hour was just a baby the kids really loved a book called I’m Not Cute. It was only the second Children’s Hour book featured on this blog, and I am the only remaining member of toddler room staff from that time. It was so loved that now it is just a distant memory, because the kids loved it to death.

But when I got back from jury service I saw that we had a new copy.

I’m Not Cute is the story of Baby Owl. All the other animals are calling Baby Owl cute, but he’s not cute, he is a hunting machine! He gets very frustrated with the other animals.

It was a pretty much instant hit with the kids. We read Puffin Peter first and I was concerned that they wouldn’t concentrate for a second story (the kids will often ask to read a second story but tend to loose interest if you read it to them) but they actually became more engaged not less.

They love watching Baby Owl’s tantrums, and staff ‘shouting’ like a toddler is always popular. They were quick to be able to join in, and showed lots of pride in being able to name the different animals.

The squirrel still doesn’t like a squirrel though!

Buy it:

Boardbook (£4.99)