Billie B Brown 11-20 – Billie B Brown, Collection 2

Sally Rippin's Billie B Brown, Collection 2 is a bundle of short, funny stories for 5 year olds about a girl who's bold and bouncy and sometimes a teensy bit bossy.

What happens

Every story starts the same way. First we hear what Billie has today. Two colourful slings and three pink bandaids, perhaps, or twenty-seven icy-pole sticks. Then comes the big question. What does the B in Billie B Brown stand for? And the answer changes every time. Broken. Busy. Bouncy. Buddy. Bored.

These are little problems that feel ENORMOUS when you're five. Billie breaks her arm falling off the fence, then tells the whole playground she was rescuing her baby brother from a crocodile. Her best friend Jack, who lives next door, is not impressed.

Baby Noah chews up her school project the night before it's due. She catches chickenpox during a week at Grandma's, so Grandma turns the lounge into a zoo. And a new girl from Japan copies everything Billie does, which drives her MAD until she finds out why.

Billie gets cross. She fibs, she sulks and she stomps upstairs. Then she works out how to make it right, usually with a super-dooper idea.

It's perfect for reading together. The stories stop now and then to ask your child what they think Billie will do next, or whether they can guess what she's up to. Little listeners love being asked (and love being right even more).

Any child who's ever been jealous of a baby brother, fallen out with a best friend, or been scared of the deep end at the swimming pool will see themselves in here. The sentences are short and simple, so it could make a nice early solo read later on too.

What to read next

Once they've whizzed through these, the first collection is waiting. Billie B Brown, Collection 1 opens with the day some boys tell Billie that girls can't play soccer.