Room on the Broom

Product Information

The unlikely group of a cat, dog, bird and frog form a great alliance as the continue to help the witch and continue their travels together.

But after a while, the wind starts playing havoc and every now and then, some thing or the other goes flying off the broom, which causes them to make many pit stops! But at every stop they make a new friend, who wants to tag along, and the witch obliges, much to the chagrin of her cat! Room on the Broom has a delightful rhyme that almost sounds like song, or music - any picture book that rhymes like this is a pleasure to read out loud. The story just flows so well, it's fun to read, and pleasurable to the ear. Doesn't stop a kid from interrupting, though!Axel was born in Hamburg, Germany. At school he was good at art, but didn't think of a career in illustration until he won a cuddly purple cow in a drawing competition. He moved to England in 1982 to study illustration at the Bath Academy of Art, and then set up home in London. Why did the witch let the animals on her broom? Would you have made room on the broom for the animals? I bought this for my 2-and-a-half year son, and this soon became one of his favourites. The rhyming, repetition and illustrations keep his attention throughout the story. My son found a broom in the garden shortly after and was acting out the story using it! Great book for capturing the imagination. The witch is grateful to the animals for saving her life. Think of things that you are grateful for. How could you say ‘thank you’ for these? A really good read-aloud story, with great rhythm, rhyme and repetitive elements. My son is 16 months old, and Room on the Broom is currently his second favourite book - he goes and gets it himself from his book shelf most days, which is really cute.

Noisy books aside, this is the best. He likes to point at the witch and the cat and the dog and the bird and the frog. He likes to mimic the dramatic, booming, Brian Blessed-esque voice I used for the ' down came the broom' line, around which each verse hinges. How is the witch in this story different from the other witches you’ve seen? Would you want to be friends with her? Before Malcolm and I had our three sons we used to go busking together and I would write special songs for each country; the best one was in Italian about pasta. The dog, cat, frog, and bird all contributed to the statue to scare off the dragon. Would it have mattered if the frog had refused to help? I grew up in a tall Victorian London house with my parents, grandmother, aunt, uncle, younger sister Mary and cat Geoffrey (who was really a prince in disguise. Mary and I would argue about which of us would marry him).

My real breakthrough was THE GRUFFALO, again illustrated by Axel. We work separately - he’s in London and I’m in Glasgow - but he sends me letters with lovely funny pictures on the envelopes. It's a perfect tale of helping strangers as a kind witch invite various new friends onto her broom after having lost her hat, plait and and wand in a storm. Julia Donaldson’s wonderful children’s book, told in rhyme, is a story of friendship, sharing, and kindness that would be great to read aloud with young children! In addition, several parts had me laughing out loud. Axel Scheffler’s illustrations greatly enhance the story too!