Review - Ollie The Octopus by William Banks

A fabulously entertaining and different childrens' book and what a great idea!

This is a childrens' story but not just a childrens' story.  It's also an opportunity for the children to grab their crayons and colouring pencils and join in the fun with Ollie the Octopus by colouring in the story!

You get to meet Ollie, his Mom and the Shark and the book can be whatever colour your child wants it to be.  I think this is a fabulous idea because we all read books differently and if you gave 50 people a book with a main character, and asked everyone to write down what they think the main character looked like, each one of those 50 people would probably come up with something different.  This way Ollie's life and home can be different and can everything your child wants it to be.

In this book Ollie gets into trouble with a shark and you get to find out what the outcome is.   Just the story itself is fun, the fact that you get to colour it in, makes it a double whammy for us. 

Having an Ollie of my own, who is five years old in October, made this book so pleasurable for us to read.  He loves to read books about characters with his name, and this time it's even spelt the same.  We have got some Olly Bear books, but the spelling is slightly different so this one was extra special for us and especially because the author William Banks wrote a wonderfully personal note for my Ollie at the beginning.  When my Ollie knew he could get to colour the book in, as well as read it, he said he thought it was "awesome!"

Ollie (the one that isn't an octopus!) said that this weekend, he wants to sit down with this book and colour all of it in.  Sounds good to me, think he'll be occupied in that case so I might even be able to put my feet up and do some reading of my own! Woohoo!

William Banks was 11 years old when he originally wrote and illustrated Ollie the Octopus for his friends and his classmates.   He grew up in Texas and knew that one day he would become a successful author.  He was a grand-child to a printer and painter and son of a musician and radiologist, he combined the arts and riches and he drew comics and designed books and sold them to his classmates.

He now tweets, socializes on Facebook, edits and publishes books with Safkhet Publishing, and teaches law at Anglia Ruskin University in Cambridge, England.

You can like Ollie The Octopus on Facebook

You can follow William Banks on Twitter

You can buy this book via Amazon UK

Discover Safkhet Publishing by checking out website http://www.safkhetpublishing.com