Help! We Need a Story

By Author / Illustrator

James Harris, Mariajo Ilustrajo

Genre

Picture Books

Age range(s)

Publisher

Little Tiger Press

ISBN

9781801045780

Format

Hardback

Published

14-03-2024

Synopsis

A wonderful book about storytelling and the art of creativity with an inspiring rhyming text from James Harris (The Unbelievable Biscuit Factory) and beautiful, characterful illustrations from Mariajo Ilustrajo (Flooded).

It's a dull day in the jungle and Artie the macaque's friends are bored, bored, BORED!
But with paper, pens and ink, a splash of inspiration, and a pinch of imagination,
Artie creates something magical . . . a book! Filled with hordes of zombie hens, a fire-breathing dragon and robot sharks (yikes!), Artie's newly-created book busts the friends' boredom, and the next day they can't wait to do it all over again.

With a clever book-inside-a-book concept, Help! We Need a Story illustrates the power of imagination and will help to nurture kids' creative sides. Just like The Dot by Peter H. Reynolds, Beautiful Oops! by Barney Salzberg and What Do You Do With an Idea? by Kobi Yamada and Mae Besom, this is the perfect tale for book lovers and any child who enjoys creating their own stories.

Here's author James Harris to introduce Help! We Need a Story, with a short reading from the book:

Download Extract

Reviews

June is bored! Bored! Bored! Bored! In fact, all the animals in the jungle are bored! The bear is bored of trees, the tamarins are bored of swinging, even the lions and capybaras are bored. Fed up with all the complaining, Artie tells them it is time for something new.

Whilst they have all been standing around whinging and moaning, Artie has been busy drawing. Artie holds up a book, 'The story of our morning'. Not quite convincing, as the title is quite.. boring. Even so, the animals peer at the book and spot themselves in the pictures. But hang on.. No one saw a dragon here this morning. Was the jungle as boring as the animals thought, or has their imagination taken them on an exciting adventure?

Help! We Need a Story is a fantastic story with equally brilliant illustrations. I shared this book in a whole school assembly with children from reception to year 6 and they loved it! Every child was hanging off the edge of each page and there were brilliant, imaginative ideas given for what was coming next.

A great resource for developing comprehension and also for expression! We really enjoyed the story!

Picture book / Reviewed by Maria Faithorn, teacher