On my way by Sophie Masson

Illus. by Simon Howe. Scholastic, 2019. ISBN: 9781742994093.
(Age: 4+) Themes: Fairies, Observation, Humour, Families. This gently rhythmic tale has a mother and daughter in the garden. The girl is telling her mother what she has seen today. On the way to school she saw an amazing array of things: a snake baking a cake and a frog walking a dog. But interjects Mum, these are not as unusual as the things I saw, and the daughter then tells Mum of the more unusual things she noticed: a witch jumping a ditch and a troll juggling a bowl. Mum is still a little underwhelmed with the people her daughter met along the way, and children will love reading of the creatures she saw. But when she tells Mum that she saw a girl on a bike and a boy on a trike, all in a hurry Mum grabs her child and they scoot indoors and close the door.
Readers will laugh out loud as they see why Mum and her daughter must get away so quickly. This twist at the end turns the telling upside down, and all readers will want the story read again, or turn to the first page to read for themselves, to see how the twist is revealed through the story.
They will find the story has two layers, one in which they could be part of the tale, but another telling the story of a fairy family. Sumptuous digital illustrations will see readers looking more closely at what is included on each page, encouraging the eyes to range over the pages as they read, while the text encourages prediction and reading along with the adult as the story is read out loud.
Fran Knight