Baby book club: Room on the Broom by Julia Donaldson, illustrated by Axel Scheffler

Welcome to another baby book club! Today, Marian and Tilly will discuss the not so spooky modern classic Room on the Broom by Julia Donaldson, illustrated by Axel Scheffler.

Marian: Hi Tilly! I’m so glad you recommended this book. Mommy checked it out ages ago when I was only just beginning to walk and talk (can you imagine!) and I didn’t like it and wouldn’t let her read past the first page. Now that I’m a big girl of 21 months I love it. I really appreciate the rhythm of the story. It’s fun to listen to: “Over the fields and the forests they flew. The dog wagged his tail and the stormy wind blew.” How about you? Do you like the rhythm?

Tilly: I do! I love the rhythm. Julia Donaldson has written heaps of books and Mummy used to read them to me all the time. She’s started bringing them out again recently. I think she’s getting bored of my board books.

Marian: Do you have a favorite animal from the book? Mine’s the cat, though I like the dog and frog too. I can “meow” in so many different ways: soft meows, loud meows, raspy meows, long meows, short meows. Mommy’s been helping me perfect my pitch since we don’t have a cat. The bird is really green; I’ve never seen a bird like that and I don’t believe it exists. So I decided to ignore it. Mommy says I might dress up as a cat for Halloween, but she can’t make up her mind. Do you know what you’ll dress up as yet? What do you think about that bird?

Tilly: The bird is fine. I like birds! There are lots of birds around here. I also like the frog. I like the noise they make. Ribbit! Dogs are the best animals, though. By far. My favourite part of the book wasn’t really the animals, though. It was the rain. That’s my favourite bit to point out. I like the rain.

Marian: There’s something I need to talk about. The frog.  Frog’s ribbit. They don’t croak. I have this on good authority. Not only does Mommy say “ribbit” when we’re playing puppets with my two froggie puppets, but this past weekend Mommy and Daddy took me to see a puppet show called “The Frog Prince” and there was a frog in it and it said ribbit. What do you think? Croak or ribbit?

Tilly: OBVIOUSLY they ribbit. But! I did learn something interesting in music class this year: in other languages, animals can make different noises. Frogs don’t ribbit in every language, so many in some other languages they croak. I think that is allowed.

Marian: Okay, confession. I might be a witch. Whenever I wear a hat, it falls off. Without fail! I don’t have ginger hair, but I don’t have much hair at all so who knows, it may be ginger. I can also cackle like a witch, and sometimes Mommy calls my sticks wands. I’ve decided, I’m a witch. Do you want to be a witch with me?

Tilly: Okay! Mummy says she’ll send me to Hogwarts but Daddy won’t let me go because he thinks it’s dangerous. I haven’t decided who’s right yet. I think maybe Mummy.

Marian:  Were you scared at all with this book? I wasn’t. Even when the dragon showed up and Mommy went “ROAR!” I just roared right back!

Tilly: Nah, it wasn’t scary! It was a fun book! I like listening to it.

Marian: Thanks for reading with me, Tilly!