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Mandy & Mitch and the Big Brave Boots

Mandy & Mitch and the Big Brave Boots is the debut picture book from Little Boot Books.  It has been written by Alison Hanson and illustrated by Samantha Theobald-Roe. The team at Little Boot Books hope to create a series of stories for little readers that tackle big ideas and their first book explores the feelings of worry and anxiety. Here's the blurb...
Mitch loves Mandy Mondays, but not even his best friend can stop the worry in his tummy from bubbling out of control. As Mitch's worry bubbles grow stronger, Mandy knows that she must help her friend to pop those worries once and for all...but how?
Mandy and Mitch invite readers everywhere into the complex world of early emotional development. Exploring feelings of worry and anxiety, this book's visceral imagery provides a resource for storytelling, conversation and play. So dive in, boots first!
The story uses worry bubbles to explain to little ones how we all worry from time to time and there are useful discussion prompts available on the Little Boot Books website. At the beginning of the story Mitch is left by his mummy at his friend's house. Mitch becomes anxious and the worry bubbles start to build up inside him. I shared this book with Mini Reviewer, Theo, who is 3. He immediately understood how Mitch might feel if his mummy left him and we went on to talk about how he feels when he is worried.

The story then shows how Mitch's friend, Mandy is feeling. She is clearly fed up as Mitch won't play with her. Mandy's daddy advises her that she should try and put herself in Mitch's shoes, which confuses Mandy. We discussed the meaning of this saying and talked about how Mandy could help Mitch before we continued with the story.

As Mandy is unable to fit into Mitch's shoes, she puts on her Brave Boots (her wellies) and tries all sorts of things to burst Mitch's worry bubbles. Eventually Mandy realises that Mitch needs to share his worries with her. We talked about what it means to share a worry and why this can help. Together, Mandy and Mitch are able to pop and blow the rest of bubbles away and they go on to play for the rest of the day.

We enjoyed sharing this book together. I particularly liked the use of worry bubbles to explain  and visually show how anxiety can bubble up and become out of control. The book made a good conversation starter and I found the discussion prompts on the Little Boot Books website helpful. As a Welly fan, Theo loved the idea of popping bubbles in his own Big Brave Boots so maybe this is something we should try!
Credit: Little Boot Books
Mandy & Mitch and the Big Brave Boots is available now from Amazon: £5.99 (paperback) £2.99 (kindle) £0.99 (audio book). Affiliate link below.

Until next time... HAPPY READING!
Kate & the Mini Reviewers xx


*Disclaimer: We received a copy of this book for the purpose of review. All opinions are as always our own. This post contains an affiliate link you can find out more about what this means here.

92 comments:

  1. I would love to win this book for my brother, am in constant search for quality read for and this looks very interesting

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  2. I love the concept of this book as worrying is such a hard thing to explain to little ones! Thank you for sharing with #ReadWithMe

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  3. My favourite is Guess How Much I Love You

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  4. According to my mam, it was The Little Red Hen!

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  5. Charlie and the chocolate factory

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  6. The faraway tree by Enid Blyton 🐐

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  7. I loved the Topsy and Tim books

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  8. This would be great to read with my little boy

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  9. Charlie & the Chocolate Factory

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  10. How to Catch a Star by Oliver Jeffers

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  11. The Very Hungry Caterpillar.

    Rachel Craig

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  12. THE LION, THE WITCH AND THE WARDROBE

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  13. What a great way to visualise worries and anxiety for little ones #readwithme

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  14. famous five go off in a caravan

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  15. The Lion, The Witch & The Wardrobe

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  16. caroline stokes3 July 2017 at 14:29

    My all time favourite was the Narnia chronicles

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  17. Used to love Heidi and Black Beauty

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  18. The Adventures of the Little Wooden Horse

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  19. What a brilliant idea for a book. I would like to think this would help my child approach me with thoughts of 'worry bubbles' as it can be hard for children to understand their feelings. Talking is so important and this would be a great tool to utilise.

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  20. Any Beatrix Potter,love Peter the rabbit

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  21. Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets

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  22. Charlie & the Chocolate Factory x

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  23. Matilda by Roald Dahl (@PeanutHog)

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  24. princess and the pea

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  25. Loved the Paddington Bear books

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  26. I liked Heidi when I was little

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  27. I loved Danny the champion of the world

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  28. as a child i liked factual books, i still enjoy reading and so do my children. my sons favourite at the moment is narnia xx

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  29. Charlie and the chocolate factory

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  30. The three little pigs, I read it to grandchildren now

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  31. Stig of the dump !

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  32. My naughty little sister

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  33. Puck's Peculiar Pet Shop
    @jaizduck

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  34. I loved every single book in The Famous Five series.

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  35. My favourite book is George's Marvelous Medicine.

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  36. the wind in the willows

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  37. The Naugtiest Schoolgirl - Enid Blyton

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  38. the famous five Enid Blyton part of my childhood xx Lovely giveaway xxx fingers crossed !!!!!! Sprinkling the pixie unicorn dust xxxxx

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  39. I love Kurri Kurri the Kookaburra

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  40. love perter rabbit books x

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  41. How to train your dragon :)

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  42. I used to like reading funny bones

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  43. I used to like reading funny bones. :)

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  44. Snow White & Rose Red which was a school prize :-)

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  45. I've always loved Charlie & the chocolate factory

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  46. Anything by Enid Blyton, but the Famous Five books are great.

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  47. I had a book of fairytales that my Nan used to read to me and that was my favourite as a young child!

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  48. My favourite was Goodnight Mister Tom

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  49. My favourite was Goodnight Mister Tom

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  50. The Little Ghost by Otfried Preussler

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  51. I loved the lion, the witch and the wardrobe

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  52. I loved The Tale of Georgie Grub

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  53. The Folk of the Faraway Tree by Enid Blyton. I love how magical it is x

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  54. I loved The Magical Faraway Tree by Enid Blyton.

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  55. Busy Busy World by Richard Scarry

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  56. I' loved Matilda as a child the story was just full of magic for me

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  57. The Faraway Tree by Enid Blyton (and also the Wishing Chair books)

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