Spider Sandwiches – Claire Freedman and Sue Hendra

There are some big benefits to blogging and one has to be the lovely parcel of children's books for us to review that arrived from Bloomsbury Children's Books last week. Four books which were all very different, but all equally lovely, and each deserves its own separate review here on the blog.

I've decided to start with Spider Sandwiches which has to be the most fantastically bonkers book of the lot! 

Illustrated by Sue Hendra, who also was responsible for Doug the bug that went Boing which we reviewed here last week, the artwork in Spider Sandwiches is wonderfully gruesome, and the words which go with them really did make Little Miss C and me physically shudder with disgust as we read it. 

Max the monster has a rather strange appetite for food. Mealtimes basically contain as many disgusting ingredients as possible – from slug milkshakes to toenail scrambled eggs and lice rice – even just thinking about them again now has be shuddering once more. The rhyming text runs through Max's meals in such a way that it's impossible not to laugh out loud when you hear the crazy combinations of horrible things that he eats.

As well us providing us with a funny read, Spider Sandwiches was also excellent to teach LMC some new vocabulary. We've not had a cause to discuss lice, mould or cockroaches before, but she certainly knows what they all are now!

Any child who loves either monsters or yucky, disgusting things will absolutely love this book and it would also be a perfect read for Halloween too.