Children's Books

My Top Five Books for One Year Olds

January 23, 2020 by penny Leave a Comment

Disclaimer: This book contains affiliate links marked with a *. For a full disclaimer please see the bottom of this post.

I’ve always loved books and it’s a love that I hope to have passed on to all three children. Whilst nine year old Little Miss C is a complete book worm and devours pretty much any story you give her, seven year old Master C is more of a non-fiction reader. He loves books of facts and those that explain how things work. He’s also got quite a thing for audio books with Roald Dahl and David Walliams on regular rotation in his bedroom. But what about the youngest bookworm in the family? One year old Tube Stop Baby.

It’s hard to pin down at exactly what age children start to enjoy books, but at 14 months old now I know that TSB is definitely doing just that. We keep a collection of board books in the living room in a box that she can easily get to and we often find her going through all the books in the box, turning the pages and chattering away to herself about what she sees in them. There’s a second shelf of books upstairs that we sit and read with her as part of her bedtime routine.

Even at such a young age it’s clear that she has favourites. Books that she keeps going back to and ones that she brings over to us to have read to her. It’s beautiful to see and something that I hope continues.

I remember favourite books with LMC, but I never made an effort to keep a record of what she favoured when. This time around I’m determined to change that. So here are mine and TSB’s top five books for one year olds.

The Very Hungry Caterpillar – Eric Carl

Probably the most well known title on the list, there can’t be a parent alive who isn’t familiar with the story of the little egg laid on a leaf that went on to be a *Very Hungry Caterpillar. With beautiful artwork, lots of opportunity for children to count along with you, complete with holes in the page to help little children use their fingers for counting.

As well as teaching little ones about the lifecycle of a caterpillar the book also contains lots of familiar looking food that little ones will recognise. TSB is always particularly excited to see the watermelon come up on the list of food that the caterpillar tucks into on Saturday.

There are so many reasons this book is a 50 year old classic and rightly so.

Rabbit’s Nap – Julia Donaldson & Axel Scheffler

I’m not sure how *Rabbit’s Nap first came into our possession but I’m glad it did. A beautiful tale of a rabbit who is desperate to have a nap, but various other noisy animals make it rather difficult for him to do so. With a flap on each double page there is plenty for little fingers to discover as you read the story. I just need to convince TSB to be a bit less enthusiastic about the flaps – ours are held together with rather a lot of sellotape now.

The rhyming text gives the story a lovely rhythm when you read it aloud, making it perfect for a pre-bed story. The fact that it ends with rabbit actually getting her nap (sorry for the spoiler!) makes it ideal for leading on to encouraging your little one into bed themselves.

Goodnight Moon – Margaret Wise Brown

“In the great green room there is a telephone, and a red balloon, and a cow jumping over the moon…”

With words that form in your mouth as wonderfully as these who wouldn’t want to read this aloud?

The artwork in *Goodnight Moon is different to most of TSB’s other books, with pages alternating between black and white and a colour illustrations, between views the whole room and close ups. It’s stylised, but with loads of detail that grabs children’s attention.

That combination of artwork and delicious words and rhyming is what makes me love reading it so much. After all, who can’t help but smile when they read “a bowl full of mush, and a quiet old lady whispering hush”?

Peepo! – Janet and Allan Ahlberg

As you may have gathered from my collection of Ladybird books, I love books set in the 40s and 50s and part of me wishes I had been alive then. *Peepo! fits into that category perfectly.

Again, rhyming text makes it wonderful to read aloud, but to me it’s the illustrations in this book that I love most. There is so much detail on every single page and lots that is referred to in the text meaning that you can point lots out as you read it. I just wish I could jump into the pictures and take a proper look around.

Each double page spread includes a cut out that you can peep through and the way that the text uses the word peepo in the rhyme means that you can then encourage your little one to peep through the hole to the picture on the next page.

That’s Not My…

*That’s not my… books are known and hated by parents across the country, but there’s no doubt that children love them. Their formulaic text makes them somewhat dull to read, but each page has a different texture on it for your children to discover and at this age discovering new things like this is incredibly exciting. TSB can spend ages with a pile of these books, touching the pages whilst making sounds of wonder. That makes it worth putting up with the words!

Disclaimer: This post contains affiliate links that are marked with *. If you click through on any of these links and buy anything then it will cost you no more than normal, but I will receive a small commission. Normally only just enough to buy about a quarter of a cup of coffee, but appreciated all the same. Thank you.

Dancing the Charleston – Jacqueline Wilson

January 17, 2020 by penny Leave a Comment

One of my aims for 2020 is to read more. I miss curling up with a book in bed – somewhat impossible when you have a 14 month old sharing the room with you half the time – but there’s nothing stopping me from sitting elsewhere to read. That may sound a tad radical, but totally possible if I Really want to end this book drought. In addition to just treading more, I also want to actually finish some of the books that I’ve started over the last couple of years. To my knowledge I’ve only managed to finish two recently, but more on them another time. Let’s kick off with what is actually a children’s book – Dancing the Charleston.

Dancing the Charleston Jacqueline Wilson cover

Nine year old Little Miss C has been a huge Jacqueline Wilson fan ever since she started reading her books. She was lucky enough to get to meet her at the Foundling Museum in London and she still talks about that day so much. We were also fortunate enough to be able to take mum mum with us on that visit – an extra [pair of hands is always useful! – and she too was blown away by Jacqueline Wilson when she spoke to the gathered children and adults.

A while back I recall mum telling me and LMC about a newspaper interview she’d read with Jacqueline about how she sometimes finds it hard writing about modern-day childhood, as she can feel a bit out of touch with it. Instead she was turning her hand to writing some books set in history. That’s exactly the case with Dancing the Charleston, as the title may suggest.

Mona lives with her aunt on the edge of the Somerset Estate, with her aunt holding the position of dressmaker to Lady Somerset. For years the closest Mona has got to life inside the big house has been through her aunty being friends with one of the maids who used to visit and bring stories about the comings and goings.

All that starts to change when Lady Somerset falls ill and Mona is taken to see her shortly before her death. Understandably the child is confused as to why, yet Lady Somerset’s death is the start of a change in Mona’s life. With one of her sons, Mr Benjamin, taking over the house a new lease of life is brought to it, in proper 1920 style. Parties and a more bohemian lifestyle are just the start of the changes that Mona sees and Mr Benjamin seems intent on including this dress-makers daughter in this new life. But why?

I started reading Dancing the Charleston simply because LMC had got it out of the local library and on the way home we stopped at a playground and whilst the older two were playing and the youngest one sleeping in her pram I wanted something other than my phone to occupy me. I was instantly hooked, although I had to admit that this is actually the first Jacqueline Wilson book that I’ve read all the way through.

I was enthralled by the story and the various twists and turns that it took along the way. One in particular had me let out an audible gulp of surprise when I got to it! What I really liked though was how she had managed to set a story in a time that many children may not know much about and help the reader see it all through a child’s eyes.

At school this term LMC is taking part in a “reading through history” challenge where children are encouraged to read books set at different points in history. Dancing the Charleston fit the brief perfectly as her first book to tick off the list.

The other thing that I loved about reading Dancing the Charleston is that LMC and I could sit and talk about it together – especially as she started getting to all the reveals within the story. We read together often, but have been poor at seeing a book all the way through from start to finish. This is something else we’re trying to change, but it was lovely to have both read the same book in quick succession and to be able to talk about it. It’s a beautiful bonding thing that I’ve realised we’ve lost since we used to have more traditional bedtime stories together.

Our next book that we’re reading together is LMC’s choice, and happens to be another Jacqueline Wilson book – We Are The Beaker Girls. After that we’re going to move on to my choice – a book that several people have recommended to me: The Boy at the Back of the Class. I’ll let you know how we get on with them both.

Where to buy the books mentioned in this post

Disclaimer: Any links marked with a * in this section are affiliate links on Amazon. If you buy through them it will not cost you any more, but I will receive a small (not enough enough for a cup of tea normally) commission for sending you there way. Thank you if you do buy anything as a result of reading this post. It is appreciated.

Dancing the Charleston is currently only *available in Hardback, but will be published in paperback on 20 February 2020 and is *available to pre-order now.

We Are The Beaker Girls is also *only in hardback now and whilst you can *pre-order the paperback, it won’t be published until 11 June 2020.

The Boy at the Back of the Class is written by Onjali Rauf and is *available in paperback here.

Review: The Magical Underwater Activity Book – Mia Underwood

December 18, 2019 by penny Leave a Comment

Review: We were sent a copy of The Magical Underwater Activity Book for the purposes of this review. See full disclosure statement at the end of this article.

My ability to find time to actually read books seems to have taken a bit of a hit in the run up to Christmas. As usual at this time of year, there is so much to do that I’m not quite sure what to turn my attention to next. Trying to keep my head above water in the festive rush means that there are times when I need to occupy the kids, and rather than just using technology to help I’ve found that deploying an activity book at the right moment can be the solution.

The Magical Underwater Activity Book is probably one of the most beautifully illustrated activity books I’ve seen. As I said when we reviewed Mia Underwood’s first book (The Secret Woodland Activity Book), her Scandi-Style of artwork is just gorgeous.

This time around she is taking children on a magical underwater adventure where they get to meet a variety of real life and fictitious aquatic characters.

The book provides children with a huge range of activities. Everything from pictures to colour in to learning more code. From learning about map grid references to a template to make a deep-sea submarine. There’s also an opportunity for them to really get creative by using a “roll a story” grid to come up with characters and a plot for their own underwater story.

What I also really liked about this particular book is that it doesn’t just focus on the good side of things. There is a nice dose of realism by taking about the environmental impact of humans on marine ecosystems, and in particular the effect of plastic rubbish and micro-plastics. By making children understand this whilst they learn about marine life will surely help them to be conscious consumers of plastic and to think carefully about how they dispose of it.

It’s so refreshing to see an activity book that is not only fun and educational, but also one that carries such an important environmental message too.

The Magical Underwater Activity Book was published by Button Books in November 2019. RRP £9.99 and for ages 4 – 8 years. It is available to buy online *here.

Disclaimer: We were sent a copy of The Magical Underwater Activity Book for the purposes of this review. All opinions remain my own. This post contains affiliate links marked with a * symbol. If you buy something having clicked through from this link I receive a small commission (often not even enough to buy a cup of coffee), but it costs you no more. Thank you.

Review: Roman Adventure Activity Book – Illustrated by Jen Alliston

November 29, 2019 by penny Leave a Comment

Review: We were sent a copy of the Roman Adventure Activity Book for the purposes of this review. See full disclosure statement at the end of this article.

I know I’ve said it several times before here on Penny Reads, but I’m still a huge fan of kids’ activity books. Especially ones that fit in with things that they have been learning at school. That way you manage to combine fun and entertainment with a spot of learning – and the kids often don’t even realise.

My eldest two go to school I’m St Albans, a city full of Roman history, so sending us a copy of the Roman Adventure Activity Book to review is rather perfect as it’s something that all children here seem to cover at school in quite a lot of detail. The city has its own Roman Museum in the Verulamium Museum and there are various other bits of Roman history dotted around the city too. Even when I take them home from school we travel along Watling Street north – another nod towards the area’s Roman roots.

The Roman Adventure Activity Book is absolutely packed with different activities for children to complete. There’s really something to suit all children’s interests with everything from pages to colour through to explanations of Roman numerals and some basic sums using them. There are mazes, word searches, dot to dots and also instructions for some craft activities like making your own laurel wreath and making a mosaic using tissue paper. All of them tie-in in some way with the topic of Romans and Roman life.

On a practical note, this book has been printed so that the pages have a lovely matt feel to them. This means that you can use coloured pencils, wax crayons or felt tip pens in it easily. There are also four pages of stickers and some of the activities in the book tell you to choose the correct stickers to answer something, or ask you to use stickers to complete a picture.

The book is described as suitable for ages 4 – 8, but I would caveat that slightly and say that children who can read independently will gain most from it. Younger children can obviously work through it with a grown up to help them. A couple of the activities in it do tell children to get a grown up to help them. Whilst a few of the activities may be a bit simple for her, my nine year old still enjoyed sitting down and completing some of it on her own.

The Roman Adventure Activity Book was published by Button Books in November 2019. ISBN: 978-1-78708-042-3 Priced at £6.99 It is available to buy online here*.

Disclaimer: We were sent a copy of the Roman Adventure Activity Book for the purposes of this review. All opinions remain my own. This post contains affiliate links marked with a * symbol. If you buy something having clicked through from this link I receive a small commission (often not even enough to buy a cup of coffee), but it costs you no more. Thank you.

Be Your Best Self – Life Skills for Unstoppable Kids

October 12, 2019 by penny Leave a Comment

Be Your Best Self is a message that is being shouted loudly and proudly by both children and adults everywhere. But how exactly do you do it? How do you be your best self on a day to day basis. That’s exactly what Danielle Brown and Nathan Kai aim to do with their book – Be Your Best Self.

Danielle Brown is a double Paralympic Gold medallist and five time archery world champion. Nathan Kai is (or was at the time of writing) a seven year old member of MENSA, a public motivational speaker and an elite athlete, as well as having a CV longer than most people three times his age. Together that have written this book to help children find an answer to the question “How can I be my best self?”

The day my review copy of Be Your Best Self arrived it was left on the kitchen table along with a bunch of other paperwork that had arrived in the post that morning. When she came in from school that day, nine year Little Miss C instantly spotted it and picked it up saying “ooooh this looks interesting”. I’ve not been able to get the book off her since!

From the small bit of the book that I was allowed to read before she took it off to her room I could see that it set out a really nice, easy to follow framework for how children should dream big and then find the steps they need to take to turn those dreams into a reality.

LMC is firmly set on a dream of being an author, but just a day after reading this book she launched into a conversation with me about how she can turn that dream into a reality and how she has written in her notebook the steps she needs to take to make it happen. How reading as much as she can now and studying hard in English lessons at school is her first step.

She also spoke about how the book’s sections on staying focussed and managing distractions had already helped her to concentrate in some of her school lessons, and how in one case her teacher even awarded her a house point for ignoring some boys who were trying to distract her during an English class. If that’s not the book in action then I really don’t know what is!

She also spoke about how useful it was to read the bits in the book written by Nathan. To hear things said by someone closer to her own age than an adult is.

I think one thing that really helped LMC relate so well to the book was the way that it spoke in a language that she was already very familiar with from school, about fixed mindsets and growth mindsets. She tells me that they have whole school assemblies on the power of growth mindsets and it’s almost as if the book has just validated for her so much of what her teachers have been telling her at school.

The fact that she’s so absorbed in the book and has taken it with her to her Dad’s house for the weekend so that she can “read it and learn from it before school on Monday” speaks volumes. Thank you Danielle and Nathan for helping my daughter be her best self!

Be Your Best Self is available to buy online here. RRP £12.99 Published by Button Books in October 2019. ISBN 9781787080386

Disclaimer: We were sent a copy of Be Your Best Self for the purposes of this review. All opinions remain my own. This post contains affiliate links.

Hedy Lamarr’s Double Life

July 28, 2019 by penny Leave a Comment

I probably ought to hang my head in shame right now. The truth is that I have heard about Hedy Lamarr before now, but if you’d put me on the spot and asked exactly what she was famous for I would have stumbled a bit.

Hedy Lamarr lived two very different lives. The first was very much in the public eye as she was a glamorous movie star and moved from her native Austria to Hollywood after being spotted performing the lead role in a play.

Her second life was a secret to all but her closest friends. She was also an inventor. Not just any old inventor either. She was responsible for the invention of frequency hopping. As someone who studied electronic engineering at university, frequency hopping is something that I got to grips with as an undergraduate, but many people will be totally unaware of its significance as a means of securing American torpedo guidance systems during the second world war.

Frequency hopping was not just a military technique though. Spread-spectrum broadcasting, as it is now known, is still in use today in many devices that communicate, whether that be via mobile phone networks or wi-fi networks.

Laurie Wallmark and Katy Wu’s book about Hedy Lamar and her double life not only tells children all about her achievements both on the screen and in her inventing work, but also goes into detail about what frequency hopping actually is, and the problem it was invented to solve.

This is the first time I’ve seen a book that not only tells readers about the life of the person in questions, but also explains their scientific achievements in detail. It’s brilliant to see that technical explanation there and written very clearly so that it can easily be understood, rather than someone just deciding that the subject is too complicated for children and glossing over it. It’s therefore no surprise to find that the author also teaches computer science.

Hedy Lamarr’s Double Life is written by Laurie Wallmark and illustrated by Katy Wu. It was published by Sterling im April 2019 and has an RRP of £12.99. It is available to buy online here.

Disclaimer: We were sent a copy of Hedy Lamarr’s Double Life for the purposes of this review. All opinions remain my own. This post contains affiliate links.