04/09/201327/01/2014 by jo

The Ultimate Tickety Toc Sticker and Activity Collection

The Ultimate Tickety Toc Sticker and Activity Collection is a new book from Igloo Books. It features Tommy and Tallulah and their friends from Nick Jr’s popular show.

The Ultimate Tickety Toc Sticker and Activity Collection book has over 150 stickers as well as puzzles, games and activities within it, and is perfect for preschoolers.

Within the book there are various activities made from card that you can can pop out from the pages and assemble. We tried the birthday card and gift box. Here’s the result :

I really like Ultimate Tickety Toc Sticker and Activity Collection. I found that the activities are kept simple and with Tickety Toc being as popular as it is it’s something which will have a lot of appeal to kids – it’s the kind of book I could leave H to and she wouldn’t get frustrated by it and want me to help her (for certain activities).

The book has a Join The Dots puzzle which H really enjoys doing, as well as a maze. There’s plenty of colouring in and putting stickers in the right space, as well as general decorating of things.

There are some games in the book as well which makes things fun. Once you’ve assembled the card activities you can rip out the pages which makes things easier. Considering how competitive H is this appeals, she enjoys playing games and having something she’s made at the end as a prize is quite appealing.

You can buy The Ultimate Tickety Toc Sticker and Activity Collection at Amazon, currently at a bargain £3 (but out of stock) – if your child is a fan this would be something they’d love – and there’s enough activities in there you wouldn’t run out either – head over here. They’re also available from Asda.

We were sent a copy of the book for review, all opinions are our own. This post also contains an affiliate link.

31/08/201327/01/2014 by jo

Richard Scarry’s Best Word Book Ever

Richard Scarry’s Best Word Book Ever is a fabulous book I remember from my childhood.

Richard Scarry’s Best Word Book Ever is celebrating its 50th Anniversary. I remember this book so well, I think we had it in hardback and I’d spend days looking over the pictures and naming them until eventually I got too old for it.

HarperCollins have just brought out an anniversary edition (priced at a very reasonable £6.99 rrp) which brings back the memories, which keeps them going for future generations. I’d love to think H will read this until she too decides she’s too old for it which gets passed on to any future children of hers – I believe this kind of thing is known as a timeless classic?

The book has pictures, and is based around Busytown, everything has a name and is labelled, and as your child starts to learn to read this kind of thing is going to be really helpful with learning.

Looking through the pages I don’t remember a huge amount, until I got to the one about painting and drawing with colours and they flooded back. The two paint colours are mixed together to make another colour and to me it looks identical to the way I knew it 40 or so years ago. (gulp)

Richard Scarry comes from America but I didn’t spot any words which felt like this was a US edition. I did spot there were no eggplants or zucchini’s, so maybe they were avoided in the first place?

Richard Scarry’s Best Word Book Ever has pictures on each page and within that you’re asked lots of questions which is perfect for H at the moment. She loves to go through the contents of a page and examine everything so I feel this is a book she’s the perfect age for. She also starts school in a matter of days and I think it will help her a lot with word recognition. There are also lots of counting challenges as well.

If you remember Richard Scarry’s Best Word Book Ever from when you grew up, you’ll probably want to consider it for your child as well.

My best memories are the ones I can pass on to H which don’t feel out of date – this is one of them. I love it.

We were sent a copy of this book for review, all opinions are my own nostalgic ones and honest. This post contains an affiliate link.

30/08/201327/01/2014 by jo

The Day The Crayons Quit

The Day The Crayons Quit is out now, and appeals to my sense of humour.

The Day The Crayons Quit is by Drew Daywelt with pictures by Oliver Jeffers – straight away we knew we were probably on to a winner.

In a nutshell, the crayons have (mostly) had enough. So they send a letter to Duncan, their owner. Beige is fed up of playing second fiddle to brown, blue is tired, and pink is feeling neglected. Green is a bit worried about yellow and orange as they’re not talking to each other, whereas peach has a terribly embarrassing problem.

I found the book possibly a little advanced for H which isn’t a bad thing – she’ll grow into it, and she got why each crayon had an issue, but didn’t really ‘get’ why – that will come. I love the book and found it funny, and Oliver Jeffers illustrations give it a great character too.

Drew Daywalt, the author is an award-winning writer and director of film and tv, and of course Oliver Jeffers has written many books which we love.

Now I’m wondering what the chances are this will end up on stage – I give it a couple of years…

You can get ‘The Day The Crayons Quit’ at Amazon for £9.09 at Amazon currently – I’d highly recommend!

We were sent the book for the purpose of review, all opinions are our own. The Amazon link is an affiliate link.

13/08/201323/06/2015 by jo

Dick Bruna Books Reprinted at The Tate Bookstore

There are some Dick Bruna books being reprinted and made available at the Tate Bookstore right now. We placed an order and they arrived today – you can never have too many Dick Bruna books in your collection!

We love all the Dick Bruna books, he’s been one of my favourite authors since I was a little girl and is now one of H’s. She also has a far better Dick Bruna collection than I ever had.

If you head online to the Tate Bookshop you’ll find some editions of the books which haven’t been available in a long time – there’s a book ‘The Apple’ which was the first Dick Bruna book, originally produced in 1959, translated in 1995 and pretty much unavailable since then.

The Tate is doing a 3 for 2 deal so I picked up two other books we didn’t have – ‘The School’ and ‘On My Scooter’.

They’re all such gorgeous books, if you know the Miffy books it’s more of the same – from a time when things felt much more innocent and simple. I’m loving ‘The School’ for the rhymes about a day at school and what they do (and the teacher telling them to ‘listen to what I say!’). ‘On My Scooter’ has a child getting some veg for Pete the Donkey – this only dates back to 2010, but is a 2013 reprint. ‘The School’ is 1964. You can tell which books are older based on the font used as their title.

‘The Apple’ is a short story about an apple that wishes it had legs. The rooster shows concern, and ends up taking the apple for a fly around instead, which cheers up the apple immensely.

For me, these books are likely to be some of the first ones H will read properly as she’s taught at school. She knows a few words now and I love the simplicity of these books with the gorgeous illustrations. If you like Miffy books, head over to the Tate online too. Suitable for all ages, we love Dick Bruna books – from H at almost four to me at 43!

05/07/201327/01/2014 by jo

We Love Books – Goodnight Little One by Margaret Wise Brown

We’ve reviewed a Margaret Wise Brown book (‘Runaway Bunny’) a while back which H loves, so having the opportunity to review this book was one I jumped at.

‘Goodnight Little One’ was published for the first time by Parragon in 2012 and is a lovely calm book, perfect for night time reading. Lots of simple lovely rhymes with each animal in the story, the last line of each verse ‘little (animal) close your eyes’ until you get to the little child at the end.

It has a lovely slow pace to it and is already one of H’s new favourite books. If you’re looking for a beautifully illustrated book which will appeal to 3-6 year olds, then this is one to consider.

We received a copy of this book as part of the Parragon Book Buddy blogger book review club that has recently been launched. All opinions are our own and honest.

04/07/201327/01/2014 by jo

We Love Books – Things You Never Knew About Dinosaurs by Giles Paley-Phillips

H is entering a fabulously non-girly phase in her life, with a love of monsters and dinosaurs, so this book is perfect for us right now.

It’s funny, it has silly rhymes and makes us all laugh – ‘Did you know that dinosaurs, are still around today? They didn’t die off long ago, they never went away’ then goes into everything that dinosaurs actually do these days.

The illustrations are fun and there’s a lot to talk about on each picture. Did you know dinosaurs like to rollerskate, doing the Highland fling, starring in movies, and sailing the seven seas?

It’s a fun book, and one that has been receiving a nightly read since BritMums – it is released properly in the UK in August 2013, so keep an eye out on Parragon Books!

We received a copy of this book as part of the Parragon Book Buddy blogger book review club that has recently been launched. All opinions are our own and honest.

25/06/201327/01/2014 by Shaun

Mick Jagger by Philip Norman – We Love Books

Mick Jagger by Philip Norman was recently published by HarperCollins.

Shaun here, having stolen Jo’s book to read on the condition I review it here. I’m going to sprinkle in a few Rolling Stones song titles (see if you can spot them)…. so start me up!

The author has one a good job of covering the formative Mick Jagger years, and the 60’s/70s era Stones – this period makes up most of the book. It’s interesting to learn that Mick comes from such mundane surroundings as Dartford and later went to the London School of Economics (although he didn’t graduate – he chose to see how far the Rolling Stones would take him), and how he met Keith Richards on a train platform one morning, as he happened to be carrying around some blues records and Keith spotted them. We can also see how the Rolling Stones started off with Brian Jones as the leader and driving force, then Mick taking the mantle later on as Brian succumbed to drug and health problems.

Mick Jagger by Philip Norman generally portrays Mick as a fairly ruthless unsympathetic character – he doesn’t treat the (many!) women in his life well, and also had a child with singer Marsha Hunt and strenuously denied it was his though it was eventually revealed he was wrong. I had no sympathy (for the devil) (Sorry!).

On the other hand it was clear he was the driving force behind the Rolling Stones – they wouldn’t have got as far or done as well had it not been for him. He is also given a lot of credit for staying on stage in very difficult circumstances during the Altamont concert in 1969.

It doesn’t go into any detail whatsoever about creating music or recording the albums, and just tends to say something like (to paraphrase) “and then they went in to record ‘Exile on Main Street’ in the south of France” without any depth – so look elsewhere if you’re looking for any great insights into the recording process or music writing process.

About 7/8 of the book brings the reader up to the mid-seventies, with the last eighth of the book covering then until now – it’s very abbreviated to say the least – obviously the sixties and seventies are going to be more interesting than later on, but I found it a little disappointing how quickly the last 30 years was covered. You can’t always get what you want, I guess…

Overall the book does succeed in describing the events, people and comings and goings in Sir Mick Jagger’s life – although you are left with a feeling that he is a somewhat aloof figure, not particularly interested in reliving and going through his past life. It’s a long book and took a while to read – it’s a comprehensive read and I did find it enjoyable.

Wild Horses wouldn’t have prevented me from finishing this book (sorry again!)

We received this book for the purpose of review, all opinions are our own.

11/05/201328/01/2014 by jo

We Love Books – The Hueys in It Wasn’t Me by Oliver Jeffers

There isn’t an Oliver Jeffers book we don’t like, and his newest ‘The Hueys in It Wasn’t Me’ arrived and filled us full of happy as we loved ‘The New Jumper’ the previous book.

We met The Hueys for the first time last year – Gillespie wore a jumper and was different – and this year we’re coming across some arguments. What I love the most about this is how the arguments are illustrated – it made me smile.

See?

Genius.

Anyway, the book is wonderfully simple and gets a good message across – The Hueys end up forgetting what they’re actually arguing about and in the end are distracted…

I did end up having a little giggle. The book has already been read several times and at a time when H does love to argue and does indeed forget why, this feels like the perfect addition.

The Hueys in It Wasn’t Me is out now, published by HarperCollins Children’s Books

13/04/201329/01/2014 by jo

We Love Books – Jack’s Amazing Shadow by Tom Percival

I love this book; we’re heading into the territory where H and her friends have funny, silly arguments which mean the world to them and trouble their little heads for days afterwards. Recently she had an argument with her best friend (over a Ninky Nonk) and he declared she would Never Ever be his Best Friend Ever Again. She was heartbroken for days, until he told me that of course H was his best friend (which I relayed back to her and it cheered her up again). So yes, this book covers this sort of event.

Jack and his amazing magical shadow are the best of friends, but he starts to get annoyed at his shadow when it misbehaves and they fall out. Jack tries to escape his shadow but the two just cannot be parted until Jack shouts at him and his shadow fades away.

At first Jack is happy, but then realises just how much he misses it, more than he ever thought he would – and the story I’m pleased to say has a happy ending. Targeted at 3-6 year olds, we found it funny – it’s a good book for reading and talking about everything else that’s happening on each page – and there’s plenty going on. It’s also a fabulous book about friendship.

I’d highly recommend – a lovely book – and there’s one other utterly brilliant bit – the inside covers have all the various silhouettes you can make with your hands – how good is that?

Jack’s Amazing Shadow by Tom Percival is released on the 18th April 2013, and is published by Pavilion Children’s Books, with a RRP of £5.99.

Tom Percival has an excellent website here

We received a copy of this book for the purpose of review – all opinions are our own.

12/04/201301/01/2019 by jo

We Love Books – Especially Clever Ones…

We were really lucky to be chosen as one of two parent bloggers (check Sarah’s review over here) to review a new kind of book coming from the very lovely people at Autumn Publishing.

A Clever Book has been described as a 3D manipulative story adventure, and the first of its kind.

With my child-of-the-eighties head on, it reminds me a lot of some of the offshoot Rubik’s puzzles that came after the cube – there was one really great one, a pyramid which would kind of fold in on itself, and you could keep repeating the same fold, and eventually after a few turns you’d be back at the start. Back then I could spend hours just twisting it around and I really enjoyed it. Bring it forward to now, and what you have is a house shaped puzzle-book which does exactly as the Rubik’s puzzle – you fold each section and keep doing it, until eventually you’re back at the start.

BUT! There’s more to it than that.

Each section of the house features a Hello Kitty character and a simple piece of text about what they’re doing. Right now this is perfect for H – she’s three and a half and starting to identify some words and be able to work them out (as well as developing a Hello Kitty obsession). We’re still reading to her but I know once school starts in September that it will change and she’ll be much more proficient – and this kind of book is ideal – simple text but plenty going on. The puzzle element really appeals to me, and didn’t take H too long to work out – see this video, taken when the book first arrived. (bear in mind, our video isn’t the most engaging, but is a look into the first time a child sees the book, so will give you an idea!)

All Clever Books are published with the educational tagline ‘Clever Play, Simple Learning’ – and I can’t think of a more apt description. It’s targeted at children aged 3-6 years and as well as the Hello Kitty book, there’s a Fisher-Price title. They have a RRP of £4.99 and are published by Autumn Books and are available from July 2013. Highly recommended!

Check out Autumn Books on Facebook and Twitter and see their fabulous range of books!

Mum Friendly

the things we do, the things we like

Category / We Love Books