This post was originally published on here
Steve Whitaker
Features Writer
@stevewhitaker1.bsky.social
P.ublished 14th February 2026
family
A cursory glance along the shelves of bookshops and libraries of any town will reveal a discomfiting, or perhaps encouraging, reminder that books for children are available in overwhelming numbers. Almost too well served by the market, the genre is glutted to the point of saturation with ‘product’, and it is heartening, in the context of surfeit, to find a gem glittering in the tide.
Conceived and written by Sally Brown and beautifully illustrated by Susan Wood, Siri Nosbig and the Noisy Campers is a gleeful, and effortlessly upbeat, narrative of carefree Illyrian fantasy intruded upon by the ‘laughter and screeches’ of the eponymous invaders. A relentless rhythmical take on how Siri Nosbig (whose name is an inversion of the author’s mother’s) and her own granny, Nettles, dispel the invasion, and resolve the island’s midge infestation at one stroke, the book’s denouement restores harmony in stinging counterpoint.
Calculated to appeal to young children, the book’s delicious rhymes will draw the nascent reader in, in a stimulating and jolly romp across Siri’s island, her home in a cave adorned with makeshift and rudimentary furnishings, and in the omnipresent company of local wildlife, persuasively drawn by Susan Wood. Striking a neat balance between entertainment (the book is a hoot) and education (Siri and Nettles’ homespun self-containment is an ecologist’s dream), Siri Nosebag will inveigle its benign way into the youthful imagination with consummate ease.
Each page is bursting with animation – Susan Wood’s skill at perspective and natural overlap bridges the story’s transitions with real vigour; her lively use of colour, concentrated observation and multiplicity of fine detail, breathes life into Brown’s verse, investing the journey with a species of ramshackle cohesion, as if odd-coloured wellies and the company of owls were the key to contented seclusion.
Siri Nosbig and the Noisy Campers by Sally Brown and Illustrated by Susan Wood (2025) is available to buy from:
Read Bookshop in Holmfirth, the Children’s Bookshop in Lindley, the Oxfam Bookshop in Holmfirth, the Acorn & Pip in Slaithwaite, and from Sally Brown, email –
[email protected] Tel: 07950 870864.
