penny

We Are Family – Claire Freedman & Judi Abott

September 20, 2018 by penny Leave a Comment

We Are Family

Families come in all different shapes and sizes and as many of you will know, my family has changed shape considerably over the last couple of years. No matter what size or shape your family is though, the simple message of “We Are Family” is what trumps everything and that’s what comes across in this delightful book from Claire Freedman and Judi Abbot.

Focussing on the bond between siblings it talks about all the fun things that brothers and sisters do together and how they stick up for one another. They may be some fallings out, but they always make up fast as underneath everything they are best friends.

Little Miss C and Master C certainly have their ups and downs, but I know that deep down they do love each other and that becomes clear when you look at how they look out for each other and how they’ve stuck together through the ups and downs of the last year. Earlier this week Master C had a session with a speech and language therapist and one thing that melted me in the de-brief afterwards was when she said she spoke to him about friends and his understanding of friendship. She said that he talked happily about his friends from school, but particularly said that he wanted more friends like his sister. I still well up thinking about that.

Bringing We Are Family into our home comes at a perfect time really as the pair of them will be welcoming a new half-brother or sister in the next couple of months. I know that it will mean changes to the family dynamic once again, but I’m hoping that reading this together will help them both see that it is an extension of their family rather than anything else.

We Are Family really is perfectly pitched for children who may not have had a brother or sister before and are wanting to understand how much fun siblings can be. It’s beautifully written and Judi Abbot’s accompanying illustrations are gorgeous.

We’ve recently shared a Claire Freedman book before, when we reviewed How To Nab A Rabbit, but this is a totally different style of book. That to me shows her versatility as a children’s writer, but also how having a range of books to read with your children is so important. Picture books can be shared not just for enjoyment, but also as a way of helping children understand different things happening in their lives.

We Are Family was published by Simon & Schuster on 12 July 2018. Paperback ISBN 978-1-4711-1716-9 Priced at £6.99. It can be bought online via Amazon here.

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

Romeo Explores The Garden – Alain Gree

September 19, 2018 by penny Leave a Comment

Over the years I have totally fallen in love with Alain Gree’s beautiful illustrations. I’ve found gorgeous stationery with them on and also various factual books and the Romeo the dog series. Romeo was first created in France back in the 1960s, but he’s now also having adventures in English and is as delightful as ever. Romeo Explores the Garden is the latest title in the series.

Aimed at 1 to 3 year olds, this board book follows Romeo as he explores the garden and looks at all the things there are to see and find. Each double page spread ends with a question, with the answer being revealed on the next page.

It’s one of those books that is educational in that it teaches children about the garden throughout the year, but at the same time it is also a perfect book to share with a little one.

Reading with children is so important, and I’ve always found that it’s a lovely bonding experience. Some of my fondest memories of Little Miss C and Master C when they were small is sitting sharing a book with them before bed. Books like this are perfect as the vintage-style illustrations have plenty to look at together and talk about. The questions help lead you from one page to another, but there are plenty of other things to talk about too, as well as things to spot and lots for little talkers to ask questions about.

I’m starting to build up a little library of books for the new baby when he or she arrives. Both kids are already desperate to share stories with their brother or sister and I’m really hoping that penny of books like this one will make the cut. Adorable, cute, and educational. What’s not to love?

Romeo Explores The Garden is published by Button Books in September 2018. Hardback priced at £4.99. Available to buy online here.

Disclaimer: We were sent a copy of Romeo Explores The Garden for the purposes of this review. All opinions remain my own. This post contains affiliate links.

Saying Thank You with Create Your Own Happy

September 16, 2018 by penny Leave a Comment

Thank You.

Two words that can mean so much, yet two words that so many people don’t use properly.

When was the last time that someone said thank you to you? I don’t just mean for holding a door open or handing them something, but thank you for something bigger.

I’m a stickler for manners, especially with my kids, and make sure that they always say please and thank you for things. The bit that has taken a little more work is getting them to say proper thank yous for bigger things.

When was I last thanked?

I can tell you exactly the last time I was thanked. Mainly because it means so much to me. I’m a school governor and each year our head teacher makes a point of saying thank you to all her governors. Not only does she say it at our last meeting of the academic year, but she also makes a point of writing each of us a personalised little note saying thank you for a specific thing that we’ve done over the year. She manages to pick up on something that I may consider small, but that when I stop and think about it has had an impact on her or the school.

I love her little thank you cards. They make me feel so valued as a governor and also as a person. And I know talking to other governors that they feel the same.

Making others happy by thanking them

It’s this feeling of making someone else happy by saying thank you is what Becky and Penny pick up on in their AMAZING book Create Your Own Happy. Part two of the book is about making others happy, and one of the first sections in there is about saying thank you.

In the words of William Arthur Ward:

Feeling gratitude and not expressing it is like wrapping a present and not giving it.

Tree of Gratitude

In the book children are asked to create a tree of gratitude. It’s a simple thing. Children are asked to find two people to thank. One a family member or a friend, and one someone else like a teacher.

When children thank them they should not only say thank you, but also to say why they are thankful. To think about how it makes them feel when they say thank you. They can then add their names to leaves on a tree of gratitude. Giving them a reminder of all the people that they are grateful for. Just looking at your tree can then make you see how many people have done nice things for you so that you’ve wanted to thank them. Which in turn makes you happy.

Research has shown that people who “regularly show gratitude are definitely a lot happier, healthier and have more friends than those who don’t”.Well, if that isn’t a good reason to say thank you to people then I don’t know what is!

Thank you as a two way thing

Little Miss C sat down to do her tree of gratitude and was actually quite secretive about who she wanted to say thank you to. She came and thanked me for being her mum, and picked out some specific things that I had done for her over the previous week that she wanted to thank me for. I feel incredibly touched, especially as I hadn’t realised just how much some of those things meant to her.

We then had a lovely chat about how it makes people feel to be appreciated and thanked. I thanked her for various things that she does for me around the house too. I think it opened her eyes a little bit to the two way feelings that it creates.

My thanks

The last week of my life has been a whirlwind, but there are some people that I definitely want to say thank you to, and working through this section of CYO Happy has made me more determined than ever to do so properly.

My main thanks here though has to go to Penny and Becky – authors of Create Your Own Happy. Ever since they first told me about their book being published I have been so eager to get my hands on a copy for Little Miss C. She’s had a tough 18 months and can’t always see how amazing she is. I knew though that with the right guidance I could help address that, and it’s exactly what the book has done for her.

Ever since she first sat down with it and started reading and working through the exercises she’d told me how it has helped her with understanding how to be happy. Even just reading the introduction had her in fits of laughter and telling me how the people who had written it “got her”. It seems a picture of a sad pair of pants swung it!

So, thank you Becky and Penny for writing such an amazing book and for helping Little Miss C to be happy again. Thank you, thank you, thank you.

For now though I’m off to go and say a few more thank yous, and then I’ll be back with a full review of the book!

Disclaimer: We were sent a review copy of Create Your Own Happy for the purposes of taking part in the blog hop. As a result of how amazing it is I then ordered my own copy so that LMC could work though one and I could use the other for myself. A third copy will be making its way into our home at Christmas as a gift for my step-daughter. I’m keen to spread the happiness! This post also contains affiliate links.

Thank You blocks photo by Courtney Hedger on Unsplash

Lunch on a Pirate Ship – Caryl Hart and Kristina Stephenson

September 14, 2018 by penny Leave a Comment

I’m pretty sure I’m not the only parent out there with a fussy eater. Even if you’re blessed with a child who is prepared to try most things put in front of them, all children still go through phases of refusing to eat something they’ve been given. Even if they ate the same thing happily the day before. That’s what makes Lunch on a Pirate Ship ring so true.

Jack is so busy playing with his toys in the garden that he doesn’t hear his mum calling him in for lunch. By the time he makes it to the kitchen his chips were cold and his baked beans had gone hard. He understandably doesn’t want to eat that, so instead turns his imagination to what it might be like to eat with his pirate friends.

Here begins his food adventures on the high seas. But he soon learns that life as a pirate isn’t necessarily all that great when it comes to food. Pickled crabs and rotten fish aren’t everyone’s first choice at mealtime, so imagine Jack’s delight when he finds cupcakes, jelly and ice cream. But life’s not as simple as it first looks and Jack and the pirates soon realise that they’ve been lured there by a troll who is planning to eat them all for his lunch!

Jack and the pirates return home, realising that mum’s cooking is actually pretty good after all!

Lunch on a Pirate Ship has some lovely, fun illustrations from Kristina Stephenson which go alongside the fast-paced rhyming text by Caryl Hart. It’s a brilliant book to read aloud, either at bed time or to a group of children. It’s also perfect for kicking off discussions with children about food and the different things that they like (or hate) to have served up for lunch or tea.

Lunch on a Pirate Ship was published by Simon & Schuster on 5 July 2018. Paperback ISBN 978-0-85707-942-8 Priced at £6.99. It can be bought online via Amazon here.

Disclaimer: We were sent a copy of Lunch on a Pirate Ship for the purposes of this review. All opinions remain my own. This post contains affiliate links.

Visitor’s London – a vintage alphabetical guide by London Transport

September 2, 2018 by penny Leave a Comment

There haven’t been anywhere near enough vintage books on here recently so let me try and rectify that situation with one of my recent car boot sale finds – Visitor’s London.

Whenever I go to a car boot sale or charity shop there are certain things that I am always looking out for. Ladybird Books is one such category, but not at all the only one. B and I have numbers collecting habits so we’re just as likely to be seeking out vintage toys and games or transport related bits and pieces. The further away from London you get the less you see with the familiar London. Transport (or TfL) roundel on it, but there is still treasure to be found and Visitor’s London is one such gem.

It was the roundel under the title on the front cover that first drew my attention to Visitor’s London, and then I spotted the slightly jazzy roundel used as the background on the rest of the book.

Written by Harold F. Hutchison Visitor’s London describes itself as “an alphabetic reference book for the visitor to London who wishes to also see something of London’s countryside”. Published by London Transport it seems that the first edition of this came out in 1954, with the 13th edition that I have found being published in 1967. In fact, it seems that a new edition was brought out in every year except 1961.

The book itself is split into two sections: London and London’s Country.

The first being an alphabetic list of places in London and the second being tourist attractions further afield.

Possibly the most exciting part for me is the How to Get There booklet that is inside the back cover – again in perfect condition.

Dated clearly on the cover as 1967 (and priced at 1/-) this little booklet contains the addresses, opening hours, prices of admission and routes for all the destinations featured in the main book. At the back is a fold out colour version of Beck’s Underground map showing the network as it was at the time.

The Victoria line, Hammersmith and City line and Jubilee line obviously didn’t exist back in 1967. Although you can see the second branch of the Bakerloo line, which went on to become the northern section of the Jubilee line and also the Baker Street to Hammersmith section of the Metropolitan line. Also marked as a branch of the Northern line is the section from Moorgate to Finsbury Park, that is now sometimes known as the Northern City Line and no longer part of Transport for London’s infrastructure.

The book as a whole is a gorgeous slice of London Transport history. There is reference to an earlier edition of such a book on the London Transport Museum website where there is a catalogue entry for a poster called Visitor’s London and the text there talks about an alphabetical guide which I am guessing is an earlier version of the same book.

It might have been the only bit of London Underground treasure that I found at this particular car boot, but bearing in mind that it, and a pile of six vintage cook books cost me only £3 I’m pretty damn pleased with my find!

Tom’s Magnificent Machines – Linda Sarah & Ben Mantle

September 1, 2018 by penny Leave a Comment

As soon as I opened the package containing Tom’s Magnificent Machines I just knew that Master C would be excited by it. He loves making things and has such a brilliant imagination and combined with that a fantastic understanding of how things work.

I’m going to start with a warning though. Tom’s Magnificent Machines is one of those pictures books that you read and suddenly find yourself with a lump in your throat and something in your eye. It’s beautifully poignant.

Tom lives with his Dad and together they have a pretty special life – sharing a love of making things. Especially things that move. They started simple, but soon moved on to bigger and better inventions which almost took over their house. A house that was full of giggles. Lots and lots of giggles.

But then Tom’s Dad lost his job and everything changed. Gone was the funny, smiling dad that he was used to. The machines that they had made together started to gather dust. When he thought that things couldn’t get any worse Tom’s Dad told him that they could no longer afford to live in their home and they were going to have to move house. Tom was heartbroken.

He knew that he had to do something. Had to come up with a plan to change things. Luckily after lots and lots of thinking he came up with an idea. Something that would make the most of all the inventions that Tom and his Dad had made and hopefully allow them to stay in their home. He just needed to convince his Dad that his plan was worth trying.

Tom’s Magnificent Machines works so perfectly on two totally different levels. Simplistically there’s the amazing inventions that Tom and his Dad have come up with – and Master C absolutely loved these and the way that they are illustrated by Ben Mantle. On a second level there is the partnership between father and son. The two-way love and support between them. It’s simply beautiful. Even if it did have me reaching for the tissues.

Tom’s Magnificent Machines was published by Simon & Schuster on 23 August 2018 Paperback ISBN 978-1-4711-2246-0 Priced at £6.99. Available to buy online here.

Disclaimer: We were sent a copy of Tom’s Magnificent Machines for the purposes of this review. All opinions remain my own. This post contains affiliate links.