Gretel the Wonder Mammoth: A story about overcoming anxiety

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Each story bag is linked to a particular topic or gallery, e.g. habitat loss, Ancient Egypt, plastic pollution or managing emotions. Somebody Swallowed Stanley- A story bag for understanding plastic pollution - use in the Living Planet gallery. You are welcome to book a story bag regardless of the age group they are aimed at. How do we book a story bag for our school or group? Please book your story bag in advance as we only have one of each. The Cats We Meet Along The Way, Nadia Mikail's debut novel, tells the story of Aisha and her quirky family who, with the world due to end imminently, embark on an eventful road trip across Malaysia to find her estranged sister June. Inspired by the author's experience of worrying about her family during the pandemic, Nadia Mikail tells a gentle, affecting, and hopeful debut about what is most important when time is running out.

Gretel the Mammoth – who has been hibernating inside an iceberg for quite some time – is the last mammoth left on earth, and everyone who she meets loves her. She’s kind, understanding and strong and has plenty of new friends but the world that Gretel wakes up to is rather different to the one she remembers, and although she tries her hardest to fit in, Gretel starts to feel sad. Rather than telling her new friends in case it makes them sad too, she pretends that all is well. Eventually she takes the brave step of telling her friends how she really feels and they rally round to help her. Listening carefully to all she has to say, they find ways to help her so that soon she is beginning to ask questions about this place she finds herself in and discovers there are interesting things to do there. She reinvents her real self and is interested, enthusiastic, and cheerful ‘all at the same time’. Hillyard also adds a great deal of emotion to the scenes where Gretel is feeling increasingly isolated and alone and overwhelmed through her clever illustrative techniques- the use of snow is especially good. I am NOT a Prince by Rachael Davis (author), Beatrix Hatcher (illustrator) (Hachette Children's Group) This utterly delightful picture book by Kim Hillyard, author of the empowering and sweet Mabel and the Mountain, is all about finding the confidence to be ourselves in what sometimes seems like a scary world; sometimes, we can feel that we don’t fit in, and that everyone else is different to us. Gretel’s anxiety is aided by her friends being there for her and reassuring her that she has a place in the world, despite being one of a kind, and Gretel herself is a very cute and appealing (and rather Moomin-like) animal character that children will love.

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Rather than bother her new friends, Gretel goes off to be on her own, but she soon finds that makes her feel worse. How can she get the hang of living in this new world, where she feels she doesn’t belong? Fortunately, her friends are there to help Gretel find herself – and stroke her woolly feet to make her feel better. The Illustrated Books category went to Gretel the Wonder Mammoth by Kim Hillyard, a pitch-perfect story encouraging children to embrace their feelings as they follow the story of Gretel, the last woolly mammoth on earth, who gets a little overwhelmed and lonely after returning to the world from a very long sleep in the ice. Marcy and the Riddle of the Sphinx- Aimed at Y1-6 - A story bag for Ancient Egypt - use in or near the Ancient Egypt gallery. David Almond introduces his new picture book, A Way to the Stars, a story about perseverance and finding a way to make dreams come true. A great option if story time is an important part of your routine at school, that you want to replicate during your museum visit. Also a great opportunity to promote a love for reading beyond the classroom.

This positive, encouraging picture book teaches young readers that perhaps the bravest act a person (or mammoth!) can do is ask for help. We recommend around 30 minutes for a story bag, but the exact length of time will vary across different groups. In this story of hope and endurance, we follow a scientist and her team during their search for the elusive 'Giant Arctic Jellyfish'.Where can we use the story bags? We recommend using them in the gallery, or galleries, that link to the topic. M.T. Khan's Nura and the Immortal Palace won the Younger Readers' category and Kim Hillyard's Gretel the Wonder Mammoth took the category for Illustrated Books Nadia Mikail says: "I was really missing my family when I started writing this book, and constantly worrying about them during the pandemic, so I wrote it as sort of a worst-case scenario situation, like what would happen if the apocalypse was about to happen, and I was away from my loved ones. In the midst of trying to kind of work out those anxieties through writing, I realised the only thing we can do is care for the people we love every day and hope for a better future for them even when things seem hopeless."