Alfie and the Big Boys

Description

A story especially for children starting school - starring the inimitable Alfie! Alfie's Nursery School is right next door to the Big School. Alfie wishes that he could be friends with the most popular big boy, Ian Barger, but Ian never takes any notice of the little kids. One morning, Mum takes Alfie to a Plant Pot Sale. Alfie hasn't been there long when he spots Ian Barger screaming and yelling, "I want my mummy!". Ian grabs Alfie's hand and holds onto him very tightly until his mum returns. Alfie realizes that big boys don't always act so big after all!

Shirley was born in West Kirby, near Liverpool, and studied fashion and dress design at Liverpool Art School, before continuing her studies at the Ruskin School of Drawing and Fine Art in Oxford. She then embarked on a career as a freelance illustrator in London, where she still lives today. She illustrated other writers' work, including Noel Streatfeild, Alison Uttley, Ian Seraillier, Margaret Mahy and notably Dorothy Edwards's My Naughty Little Sister series. Shirley began to write and draw her own picture books when her children were young. Her first book - Lucy and Tom's Day - was published in 1960, and she followed it with, among others, Dogger and the Alfie series. Shirley Hughes has won the Other Award, the Eleanor Farjeon Award, and the Kate Greenaway Medal for Illustration twice, for Dogger in 1977 and for Ella's Big Chance in 2003. In 2007 Dogger was voted the public's favourite Greenaway winner of all time. Shirley received an OBE in 1999 for services to Children's Literature, and a CBE in 2017. She is the first recipient of Booktrust's Lifetime Achievement Award.

There is something quintessentially comforting about Shirley Hughes' books * Sunday Telegraph * No-one tells a plain tale better than Shirley Hughes and her telling here is brilliantly complemented, as ever, by her stunning illustrations which are the product of a deeply compassionate and carefully sharp eye * The School Librarian * Hughes invites young readers into a world they will recognise and love, and shows that toughness is not everything * The Sunday Times * Shirley Hughes' beautifully observed - and exquisitely illustrated - books are a national treasure. In this latest Alfie adventure, our boy hero discovers that even big boys cry * Independent * This is one of those books that reaffirm - if reaffirmation is needed - the importance of picture books -- Chris Stephenson * Carousel *