21/10/201524/06/2018 by jo

The Insatiable, Inflatable Candylion.

I’ve been a huge Super Furry Animals fan for many years now. Lead singer Gruff Rhys has also released several solo albums, including his second, ‘Candylion’. This album is the inspiration and music for a new play in Cardiff this Christmas – The Insatiable, Inflatable Candylion.

The Insatiable, Inflatable Candylion has words and music by Gruff Rhys – and is at Cardiff’s SWALEC Stadium this Christmas. Here’s the press release :

A festive treat from the creative minds behind the genre-bending Praxis Makes Perfect: this December, Super Furry Animals frontman Gruff Rhys, writer Tim Price and director Wils Wilson will team up to create National Theatre Wales’ The Insatiable, Inflatable Candylion, a playful theatre gig inspired by Gruff’s 2007 seminal album Candylion and featuring an array of colourful characters and sing-along live music.

Gruff Rhys The Insatiable Inflatable Candylion

This Christmas, take a trip to Pixel Valley, a magical world filled with positive vibes, colourful, mixed up characters and badminton.

Come on an adventure with Polar Pear, Sledgehog, Cheffyl and the larger than life insatiable, inflatable Candylion… what will become of life in the valley when negative vibes take over the town?

Gruff Rhys joins an ensemble of actor/musicians including Sweet Baboo, Remy Beasley, Lisa Jên Brown, Matthew Bulgo, Dyfan Dwyfor, Natasha Lewis, Dyfrig Morris, Kliph Scurlock and Emma Daman Thomas.

The Insatiable Inflatable Candylion

They will perform a mixture of new songs written by Gruff and old favourites from the Candylion album, in an immersive production that blurs the line between a theatre show and live music gig.

Expect a mix of new songs and old favourites in a theatre gig for all ages.

Dates: 16 December 2015 – 2 January 2016
Venue: SWALEC Stadium, Cardiff, CF11 9XR

Performance Schedule

16.12.2015	: 7pm
17.12.2015	: 7pm
18.12.2015	: 9pm
19.12.2015	: 2pm & 7pm
21.12.2015	: 2pm & 7pm
22.12.2015	: 2pm (Audio Description)
23.12.2015	: 2pm & 7pm
24.12.2015	: 2pm
26.12.2015	: 5pm
28.12.2015	: 2pm
29.12.2015	: 2pm \| 7pm
30.12.2015	: 2pm (Relaxed Performance)
31.12.2015	: 2pm
01.01.2016	: 9pm
02.01.2016	: 2pm & 7pm

Box Office: http://www.nationaltheatrewales.org/insatiable-inflatable-candylion
By phone: 029 2037 1689

Ticket Prices:

£17.50 / £15 conc
Children (ages 4–16): £12.50
Family Ticket (four people, to include at least one child): £50
Groups of 10+: £15 per person, organiser goes free
Schools (teacher goes free for every 10 pupils): £8.50
(£1 booking fee per ticket applies when booking via telephone)

Recommended for ages 4+

and just in case you really aren’t aware of the wonderful ‘Candylion’ album, you can stream it via YouTube

20/10/201520/10/2015 by jo

Pamela Butchart Joins Blue Peter Book Awards 2016 Panel

A school teacher, Pamela Butchart who won last year’s Blue Peter Best Story Award will join a brilliant panel of judges for the Blue Peter Book Awards 2016.

Pamela Butchart, who teaches philosophy at secondary school, and last year won Blue Peter Best Story with her book ‘The Spy Who Loved School Dinners’ (H’s favourite from the shortlisted books), will join television and radio presenter Angellica Bell, National Literacy Trust’s programme manager Jim Sells and Blue Peter editor Ewan Vinnicombe.

The enormously popular Blue Peter Book Awards, which are managed by the reading charity Book Trust, celebrate the best authors, the most creative illustrators and the greatest reads for children.

Former winner Pamela Butchart, who spent much of her wedding day last year at a book signing, said: ‘I’m thrilled to have been asked to judge this year’s Blue Peter Book Awards. It really is an awesome honour – thank you. It was a dream come true to win the award in 2015 (I rarely take my badge off!) I can’t wait to help find this year’s winning books.
‘As a teacher, author and lover of children’s books I’ll be on the lookout for fantastic books that encourage reading for pleasure.’

Blue Peter editor, Ewan Vinnicombe said: ‘This year we’ve got a fantastic panel to judge our Book Awards and I’m looking forward to seeing which titles they shortlist, in what looks like an impressive year for children’s literature.’

The Blue Peter Awards 2016 will celebrate children’s books published in the last year in two categories: Best Story and Best Book with Facts. There will be three shortlisted books for each award chosen by the panel of judges and announced on Blue Peter on 3 December 2015.

At least 200 children from ten schools across the UK will then read the shortlisted books and vote for their favourites in each category. The two winning books will be announced on the Blue Peter programme scheduled for World Book Day on 3 March 2016.

The judges for this year’s awards are:

• Angellica Bell – TV presenter, mum and blogger
• Ewan Vinnicombe – (non-voting chair) Editor, Blue Peter
• Jim Sells – National Literacy Trust Programme Manager
• Pamela Butchart – winner of the Blue Peter Story Book 2015

The Blue Peter Book Awards have been celebrating children’s literature since 2000. The reading charity Book Trust has managed the Blue Peter Book Awards since 2008. The 2015 winners were Pamela Butchart who won Best Story with ‘The Spy Who Loved School Dinners’, illustrations by Thomas Flintham; and Andy Seed, a former primary teacher and deputy head for 17 years, who won Best Book with Facts with ‘The Silly Book of Side-Splitting Stuff’, illustrated by Scott Garrett.

Keep up-to-date with the Awards at www.booktrust.org.uk/bluepeter and on Twitter by following @Booktrust and #BPBA

14/10/2015 by jo

Star Wars Reads Day 2015

Have you heard of Star Wars Reads Day? It’s to encourage children to read, and of course, it involves Star Wars. We were invited to take part this year, and so organised a treat for H and her Star Wars loving pals after school!

Star Wars Reads Day happens once a year, with events happening all over. Our local library had an event in the lead up to the big day too. We were sent a selection of books from Disney to celebrate it ourselves – and celebrate we did! Attending were the Star Wars Kid, Clone Trooper Commander Cody, Darth Maul and of course Darth Vader (pictured above, l-r). The afternoon started with a spot of lightsaber practice.

What do you need for a good Star Wars Reads Day? Well we were sent a fine selection of books – which almost didn’t get out of my workplace in one piece. There are some fantastic books for learning – as one workmate said “I wish maths had been like this in my day” – they’re all published by Scholastic Press and are available from Amazon and all good bookstores. As well as this we were sent some activity packs, door hangers, bookmarks, badges and cards to collect (looks like H has a new hobby to spend her pocket money on!)

I liked the Writing Skills book – H is doing really well with her reading, and I felt this would help enhance her writing – and it’s only £5.99 at Amazon too.

Star Wars Reads Day has a fab workbook – as all too soon budding Jedi’s (and Sith’s) need a bit of a rest after playing with their lightsabers. You can download it here – and our kids got working through them, doing a spot of colouring in Yoda. See, it may be a reads day, but you’re still reading the instructions to find out what to do. There’s a maze, wordsearch, colouring – plenty to do!

No Star Wars fan’s special Star Wars Reads Day is complete without the chance to build a TIE fighter – and that involved team work, each child working on an individual part, before us adults stepped in to help at the very end. Pretty impressive too!

A photo posted by Jo Brooks (@mumfriendlyjo) on Oct 10, 2015 at 4:35am PDT

Luckily we were sent this excellent Star Wars Starfighter Workshop book – you can build a TIE Fighter and an X-Wing, and there are plenty of activities inside. All the kids wanted to make the model, and it was a good bit of teamwork putting it together. As well as Star Wars, there’s Star Wars Rebels – and we were sent a jigsaw puzzle which Darth Vader got on with straight away! In fact, we all popped by to help her, they were nice big pieces, suitable for age 3 and up, with enough going on that it wasn’t too tricky. You can’t beat working on expression with a joke book – and the Star Wars Joke Book doesn’t disappoint. My favourite one – How does a Jedi make a call? On his Yodafone (I may have told this several times). H enjoys joke books and bagged this one straight away – to then tell us them all in a day, pretty much! She’s telling Commander Cody a few in this picture. However, Commander Cody is way too busy checking out everything he needs to know about Star Wars. He knows a LOT. Now he knows even more, thanks to Star Wars: Absolutely Everything You Need to Know. This book would make a fantastic present for a big Star Wars fan – especially with Christmas coming! Commander Cody loves reading! There was just enough time for Commander Cody and Darth Maul to take on the Star Wars kid – think she needs to work on her lightsaber technique… Finally, to end a hectic day, the Star Wars kid decided she really needed to swot up on the Star Wars story – luckily there was Star Wars In 100 Scenes which she settled down to read.

A photo posted by Jo Brooks (@mumfriendlyjo) on Oct 10, 2015 at 11:16am PDT

We were sent a selection of books, trading cards, activities, and many other Star Wars things for the purpose of having a Star Wars Reads Day. All product images are affiliate links. All clothes the Jedi/Sith/Kid’s own.

06/10/2015 by jo

Apple Pigs by Ruth Gary Orbach

For our latest book review, we were sent Apple Pigs by Ruth Gary Orbach, published in September 2015 by Pavilion Books.

Apple Pigs which is written and illustrated by Ruth Gary Orbach was originally published in 1978, and has a long-overdue reissue by the National Trust via Pavilion Books.

The story of Apple Pigs is a timeless classic, a beautifully illustrated tale of an apple tree which grows too many apples. A little girl finds a withered apple tree surrounded by rubbish. In order to help the tree grow and to not be chopped up for firewood she clears the rubbish around it. When spring arrives the tree bursts into blossom and produces many apples.

In fact, it produces MANY apples. Too many apples, more than the family needs. They cook and hide the apples but they keep growing – so they have an annual apple feast! Almost everyone I know with apple trees seem to be giving us bags of apples which is wonderful, so I can relate to this, having had some delicious apple crumble recently!

The back of the book also has a guide ‘How to Make Apple Pigs’ – with nice easy to follow instructions – and is something we’ll be having a go at. The National Trust website has some activities too over here.

Did you know that October 21st is the 25th anniversary of Apple Day? It was first initiated by the UK charity Common Ground and is celebrated with Apple Day and weekend events all over the country. Our local National Trust place (Morden Hall Park) had an apple day this weekend with local varieties to try.

Apple Pigs is a much-loved book – and a classic story told in rhyme. It is based on a true story – Ruth Orbach’s editor listened to the tale over dinner, and said it must be written down – and here it is! Warning – make sure you have plenty of apples at home while reading, as you may well end up dashing into the kitchen afterwards, finding yourself suddenly inspired by the mention of some of the apple-based desserts!

Apple Pigs is available now, with a RRP of £9.99, available from Amazon and all good bookstores.

We were sent the book for the purpose of review, all opinions are our own. Post contains affiliate link.

25/09/201523/09/2015 by jo

Back to School with Bic

H is well into Year 2 at school now, it’s like she had no worries at all about moving up a year, moving into her last year of Infants School. School work is getting a bit harder now and things are becoming more serious. When you do your serious work, you need some serious pens to do it – and luckily for us we were sent a fine selection of Bic pens to try out!

Bic pens need no introduction – no doubt you’ll have come across them with their blue, black or red biros, and some other pens, so we were happy to try out some other pens from the range. I stole some to use at work, as more often than not I need to colour code things to keep on top of them. We received a pack of four colours (green, pink, blue, purple) in the Bic Cristale Fun range which look like the regular biro’s, but are in these colours. I’ve found them great to write with, and while they are ball point pens, they’re a little bit thicker so I’ve liked the amount of ink on the paper – I don’t like my ball point pens too thin!

H’s biggest pet hate with school is Home Learning. Understandable really, as nobody enjoys homework. So to get her own special Bic Mechanical Pencil which even looks like it’s designed for her made her want to do her work that little bit faster. (phew!) I was pleased with that. The pencil is a bit shorter than you’d expect, but a good size for little hands, with a good grip on it. There’s also a handy guideline on the pencil to help the fingers be positioned correctly – and it’s suitable for left or right handers too. You get plenty of refills included with the pencil too.

We received some felt tips for colouring in. I really like the Bic Kids Mini Colour and Create pens – you use the pens marked with a 1 to colour in, but can change the colour of the pens by using the number 2 pen – and they work! It made colouring in quite fun, not that colouring in isn’t already fun, but you see what I mean? Look at this. We had a scribble around with the pens to see how they worked. These are definitely H’s favourite of the lot, and ones she keeps going back to. We’re just hoping for some home learning now that will involve colouring in using different colours! There’s an extra added bonus in that the ink can be cleaned from clothes. Now if only Bic could design a whiteboard marker pen that would do that I’m sure there’d be many happy mums out there!

Finally, we were sent some Bic Tropicolour pencils, a set of twelve. They come in bright colours, with a fine pencil tip, ideal for general colouring in. The pencils are made from resin rather than wood and are very easy to sharpen. The colours are good too – I stole them while we were on holiday to do some of my colouring in!

We were sent a selection of Big pens and pencils for the purpose of review. All opinions are our own.

22/09/201521/09/2015 by jo

Maggi Li – Big City Sticker Book

We are big fans of Okido Magazine, and their Art Director Maggie Li – and we were sent the Big City Sticker Book, an accompaniment book to her previous Big City Explorer book which H enjoys reading.

Big City Sticker Book is a wonderful book packed full of stickers. Anyone familiar with Maggie Li’s Big City Explorer will recognise the cities on display. It is often said that one of the best ways to keep a small person amused when you’re travelling is to get them a sticker book – so why not go one better and get one which may even feature the place you’re visiting?

As with Big City Explorer, the Big City Sticker Book has a page for each city, with stickers towards the end of the book. There are over 350 stickers, and within each page you can learn about cities of the world.

There’s also a little 4×4 Sudoko puzzle with stickers on each page – something which I know appeals to H as she recently got into doing the puzzles herself. The stickers can all be found at the back of the book – and once you’ve completed a page you can award yourself a penguin sticker to go inside the front and back covers, which is your passport.

We’ve recently been to Amsterdam, and several of the places we saw feature on the Amsterdam pages – H enjoyed identifying the buildings and placing the stickers on the correct space. I liked that it captures the buildings there perfectly – quite often I was amazed how they managed to fit it all together (some of those buildings are seriously wonky)!

Big City Sticker Book by Maggie Li has a RRP of £9.99 and is available now!

We were sent Big City Sticker Book for the purpose of review, all opinions are our own.

16/09/2015 by jo

The Isle of the Lost – A Descendants Novel

We’re Parragon Book Buddies, and received The Isle of the Lost – A Descendants Novel by Melissa de la Cruz for our book this month.

The Isle of the Lost is a prequel to the Disney Channel film ‘Descendants’ – where all of the evil villains from Disney movies are banished from the Kingdom of Auradon to the Isle of the Lost. Now, by villains, we’re talking Maleficent (which I think the ‘Maleficent’ film itself would disagree she’s a villain, but hey!), Cruella de Vil, the Evil Queen and more.

Mal, Evie, Jay, and Carlos are their descendants, the children of the Isle’s characters who are now coming of age. They’ve been stripped of their magical powers and now live in total isolation, forgotten by the world.

To escape from The Isle of the Lost the children must find a Dragon’s Eye, hidden in the Forbidden Fortress – but only the cleverest, nastiest villain can find it.

Lots of Disney characters make an appearance in the book, and while H started to read it, I felt the content may be a little bit grown up for her, so we’re holding off for a little bit longer (she has only just turned six). Goodreads says its approximate age guide is around age 9-12 – so while the size of the book isn’t an issue, the content might be – so I’ll be having a read first!

The start of the book was enjoyable for her, and she did read a few chapters, but again, because of her age I’m going to be checking it carefully first.

With The Isle of the Lost being a prequel, it sets up the film well – anyone who is a fan of the movie will enjoy this, and I liked all the Disney cross references too.

The Isle of the Lost is available in all good bookstores now, including Amazon (click the image below to get there – affiliate link)

We were sent this book for the purpose of review. All opinions are our own.

04/09/201504/09/2015 by jo

Carol Vorderman Workbooks

I’m always on the lookout for books which will help H at school. While her literacy and numeracy skills are way above her age, I wanted to make sure we had books on hand for her to practice when she felt like it. We were offered the chance to review some Carol Vorderman Workbooks from DK, so I put H to the test.

Carol Vorderman Workbooks from DK cover literacy and numeracy. We were sent three books to try from the range, ’10 Minutes a Day Spelling Fun’, ’10 Minutes a Day Maths’ and ‘Made Easy Spelling, Punctuation and Grammar’.

I’ve decided to break down what each of the Carol Vorderman Workbooks has inside. English Made Easy aims to boost skills by taking the timed challenges and is written and compiled by experts – award-winning editor Linda Ruggieri and Consultant, Claire White. There are over 60 pages of puzzles to work through, and each ten minute section is across two pages.

Maths Made Easy helps develop strong maths habits – its Consultant is primary school head teacher Sean McArdle who has written maths textbooks and workbooks. Again, it’s two pages per ten minute challenge and covers a wide range of numeracy puzzles with over 60 pages.

The two ’10 Minutes’ books come with a timer attached to the cover. You can pause the timer if you need to, and at ten minutes it beeps to let you know your time is up.

Spelling, Punctuation & Grammar Made Easy comes without a timer – and of the three books H preferred this one. Each challenge is still across two pages, but you get a gold star to stick when they’re completed, which possibly says more about the way she responds to this kind of work! It is fully linked to the new National Curriculum, and helps support classroom learning. I found H works through this one the quickest of the three Carol Vorderman Workbooks.

I found the puzzles were the kinds of things she has been getting for Home Learning each week, so it was familiar territory – plus her punctuation, spelling and grammar is pretty good anyway.

The Carol Vorderman workbooks from DK are a great reinforcement for subjects learnt at school, and support KS1 (and KS2 for the older titles) and are designed to help your child practice schoolwork in a fun way.

Personally, I think all three Carol Vorderman Workbooks are good additions to her learning – and it was interesting to see how seriously she took the timed books, yet how relaxed she was about the other. To find out more about 10 Minutes A Day Spelling Fun and 10 Minutes A Day Vocabulary and further education titles by Carol Vorderman, visit dk.com. You can follow DK Books on Twitter at @dkbooks

We were sent the three Carol Vorderman Workbooks for the purpose of review, all opinions are our own.

29/07/2015 by jo

The Amazing Human Body Detectives by Maggi Li

The Amazing Human Body Detectives is a new book by Maggi Li, the Art Director of the fabulous Okido magazine. We reviewed some of Maggie’s books before, as well as being Okido subscribers, so were delighted to be sent a copy to review.

The Amazing Human Body Detectives is the latest Maggi Li book from Pavilion, and is targeted at children aged 5-8, encouraging them to learn more about the human body.

In H’s case, this has become essential bedtime reading, and she’s telling me facts she has picked up from the book, which says to me she’s enjoying learning from – which is half the battle.

I know that as H is going into Year 2, they’ll be doing a lot more learning about the body, and labelling parts – this book couldn’t have come at a better time. Like Maggie Li’s last book, there is a detachable part on the cover which helps enhance the book, with additional facts. This time it’s a magnifying glass, and you’re able to remove it from the cover (keep the sticky tape to fasten it back, it doesn’t tear the cover). Each page is dedicated to an area of the body, and is packed full of facts.

My particular favourite was the section on bogies. I made H sit and read it, and then asked her lots of questions about what bogies consist of. Once I knew she was listening properly, I asked whether she’ll still be picking her nose… not any more, apparently!

H really enjoyed getting the magnifying glass out and reading the facts. I love the illustrations – we’ve been subscribers to Okido for nearly two years now, and I love their clear, simple illustrations – these books follow the same pattern, and have the same feel. Your child is going to learn by reading this book, and it’s fun (which is what learning should be about). We love it!

The Amazing Human Body Detectives by Maggi Li is available now, and has a RRP of £9.99.

We were sent The Amazing Human Body Detectives by Maggi Li for the purpose of review, all opinions are our own.

26/07/201501/01/2019 by jo

Inside Out – Movie Review

We bought tickets today for Inside Out, the new Disney-Pixar film which was released in the UK this Friday just gone.

Inside Out is about the emotions inside 11 year old Riley’s head – Joy, Sadness, Fear, Disgust and Anger who live in Headquarters. Riley’s parents move from their happy home in Minnesota to San Francisco. Where she once thought positive things, the more negative emotions take over – and when sadness keeps touching happy memories, Joy becomes concerned, which leads to both Joy and Sadness being sucked out of Headquarters and into Riley’s long-term memories.

They need to make their way back to Headquarters, but it isn’t straightforward. In the meantime, Fear, Anger and Disgust control Riley which doesn’t go so well either.

Are there any scary bits?

While this is graded U there are parts which could be classed as mild peril – a giant clown appears (worth mentioning as some kids have a fear of clowns), but overall it isn’t scary. If you have a fear of broccoli, however…

Are there any sad bits?

Yes! I sat there with tears streaming down my face, though for H she seemed more accepting of it. It’s along the lines of a character who sacrifices themself.

Are there any funny bits?

Loads. Plenty for adults too – and for fans of The U.S. Office you’ve got Phyllis voicing Sadness (so perfect), Mindy Kaling (Kelly) voicing Disgust, and Rashida Jones makes an appearance as the Cool Girl’s emotions. It works on both levels so well, heartwarming, funny and sad.

It goes without saying there’ll be merch opportunities everywhere for these characters, which are in the Disney Store right now. The end leaves it open for Inside Out 2, though nothing has been confirmed (to be fair, it has only just come out and it sounds like Pixar aren’t in a hurry). I recommend going to see it – some younger kids may need parts explaining to them, but overall we found it easy to follow, H was laughing out loud so many times, and I had a good old weep at least three or four times (I’m a softy).

Watch one of the trailers here

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