The Girl Who Noticed Everything

Published January 2023

Published by Walker Books
ISBN 9781529509489

Stella is a great detective. She can’t help noticing everything around her – clouds shaped like horses, wheelie bins with faces, a lonely glove on a fence, people that look like their dogs and even a man with a furry hat that looks like a cat on his head. Stella tells Dad about everything she’s seen but Dad is worried that she’s going to hurt people’s feelings.

But when Stella spots a sad lady in the park she knows that speaking up is just the right thing to do.

Order the book:

  • "This is a lovely book to share with a class or to have as part of the class library. There can’t be many of us that can’t have experienced the detective qualities of young children, especially when we wanted to get somewhere quickly! I loved the gentle relationship between Stella and her Dad and the illustrations really helped to build the context of the story and give lots of opportunities for the readers themselves to notice things."

    – Just Imagine

  • "Jane Porter’s wonderfully empowering story is a must to share with young children at home and in nursery or school. Maisie Paradise Shearring’s brightly coloured scenes, expand the telling with a wealth of detail, not spoken of – small animals, birds, flowers, patterns, textures, and more. Having read the story in its entirety first, I’d like to think an adult and young child would spend ages looking at and discussing each spread."

    – Red Reading Hub

  • "The Girl Who Noticed Everything addresses relevant (and potentially quite challenging) issues by drawing its audience in and delighting rather than instructing them. Its focus on the visual and imaginative joys of connecting and observing are particularly welcome, and embedded within the story and images are prompts for learning and discussion. Jane Porter’s cheerful text has a natural, real-world feel, and Maisie Paradise Shearring’s characters also burst with life. Plenty of location-specific spreads anchor the action in familiar settings (a rumpled sitting room, an urban street, a sandpit…) but good use is made of white backgrounds to focus attention on Stella’s internal world."

    – Books for Keeps

View all of Maisie’s books here.