Children's Books

AD: Bright Sparks Flash Cards

July 4, 2020 by penny Leave a Comment

At 19 months old, Tube Stop Baby is just starting to find her voice. Words are coming thick and fast, with a new one added most days. She’s obviously started with ones that are important to her – milk and cake have featured early – but she’s really increasing her vocabulary with the names of things that she sees around her at home. She’s loving books and enjoying pointing things out in the pictures that she recognises. This recognition and increase in vocabulary means it’s the perfect time to review two sets of Flash Cards from Bright Sparks with her.

With gorgeous, stylised illustrations by Polish Illustrator and designer Dominika Lipniewska, the Alphabet and Three-Letter Words flash cards are targeted at children aged 3+. Whilst my daughter’s not yet in that age range there’s still loads you can do with them with younger children. She might not be ready to read yet, but she can most certainly recognise the pictures.

Three-Letter Words Flash Cards

The Three-Letter Words set of flash cards is very much as the title suggests; flash cards of various three letter words. A picture on one side and the word written on the other side of the card. They cover some of the standard three letter words that you might expect a child to start with, cat and dog for instance, but there are also other three-letter words in there that she’s already starting to learn.

One of my favourites has to be the word “hug”. We’re a family of huggers as it is and it’s an utter delight that she’s already learnt the word, and is pretty good at dishing out hugs.

A photograph showing the illustration fro the Hug Flash Card

Alphabet Flash Cards

In the Alphabet flash cards there are two different styles of card. Half of them simply have a capital letter on one side, and the lower case equivalent on the other. The other half of the cards have a picture on one side and on the reverse are the upper and lower case initial letters of the word depicted above the word itself. For now Tube Stop Baby just points at the letters, but also loves shouting out the names of the objects she recognises.

A small girl smiling as she holds up a flash card where we can see the word "tie" on the back of the card. The shape of her mouth suggests that she is speaking

There’s something about going through flash cards with a small child that is a totally different experience to reading a book with them. That may sound obvious, but I’m not sure quite how a toddler understands that difference and reacts somewhat differently when they’re put in front of her. She happily spends ages on her own working her way through the box and saying the words she recognises over to herself. If we, or her older sister, sits down with her she’ll proudly point at the pictures and shout out the words she knows. She regularly goes and gets the box off the table and asks us to open it for her.

A small girl wearing a pink top looking at a flash card with a picture of a car on it

Language is so important for young children, and there is such value in reading to them as much as possible. Having been stuck at home so much during lockdown I’ve been trying to make up for some of the stimulation that she would have normally had as part of busy family life. This has certainly been one way of doing so, and it’s lovely to have an alternative to the books we’ve been repeatedly going through for months now!

A small girl with blond curly hair and a sea green top sat on a leather sofa working her way through a pile of flash cards

The Bright Sparks Alphabet and Three-Letter Words Flash Cards are published by Button Books and are available to buy online here, with an RRP of £7.99 each: *Alphabet Flash Cards, *Three-Letter Words Flash Cards.

Disclaimer: We were sent The Bright Sparks Alphabet and Three-Letter Words Flash Cards by Button Books for the purposes of this review. All opinions remain my own. This post contains affiliate links that are marked with a *. If you buy a product via these links I receive a small commission, but it does not alter the price you pay. Many thanks for any purchases you make. It is greatly appreciated.

Coming to England – Floella Benjamin

June 27, 2020 by penny Leave a Comment

I’ve been meaning to write about Coming to England for ages, but the BBC showing again a film adaptation of it recently (currently still available on iPlayer here – but not for ever!) has prompted me into action.

The cover of Coming to England by Floella Benjamin

When I first spotted Coming to England on the shelves in a local bookshop I was initially drawn in because I’m such a huge fam of Floella Benjamin. As a child of the 80s she was one of the main faces of Children’s television, and ever since then she’s just been one of those constant people. A voice of comfort and common sense.

With the responses across the world to the killing of George Floyd, her story of coming to England as a child of the Windrush generation takes on additional significance in educating all of us.

Floella’s story

Floella was born in Trinidad and started her childhood there with her brothers and sisters and parents. that happy settled childhood was not to continue though. Her father soon started talking about going to England. A country she had learnt so much about at school. A country that so many West Indians were encouraged to move to to help rebuild the country after the Second World War.

Initially Floella’s father travelled over on his own, and then after nearly a year her mother went to join him. They did not have the money to take all six children with her, so four of the children stayed behind in Trinidad whilst the youngest two joined their mother on the voyage.

True to their promise Floella and her sister and two brothers were eventually brought over from Trinidad, but not after an uncomfortable period living with “relatives” who basically treated them as servants.

The two-week sea journey from the Caribbean to England was an experience in itself, but once they reached England the country, and their living condition were not as they expected. Nor were the attitudes of neighbours and other school children.

What is so clear in Coming to England, is Floella Benjamin’s amazing ability to talk to children. What she describes in heart-wrenching in parts, but she so expertly demonstrates what it was like to experience everything firsthand, as a child. The book somehow manages to combine being an important historical account, with also being an enjoyable read for a child.

Educational value of Coming to England

My (then) nine year old daughter read the book first and it enabled us to have some wonderful conversations about all the emotions that Floella would have experienced as a child, and how the reactions of other children made her feel. Having also read The Boy at the Back of the Class recently, it gave us a wonderful opportunity to compare the two books and the attitudes of some of the children in them, as well as that of the adults. To talk about where things had changed, and where things sadly hadn’t.

I hadn’t previously been aware of the film version of the book, but someone on Insta Stories happened to mention it last week and we all sat down to watch it together after school one day this week. It’s an excellent adaptation of the book, narrated by Floella herself, and for children who might not be ready for the book it’s an excellent way of getting the story over and initiating conversations about race with them.

Where to buy or watch Coming to England

Coming to England is available to buy online on Amazon *here or, if you prefer to shop independently via Hive here. If you are buying from Hive, I strongly recommend you sign up to *TopCashBack first as you can nearly always find cashback on there fore Hive.co.uk – at the time of writing a whopping 13.2% on books!

Coming to England the film version is currently on BBC iPlayer here.

Disclaimer: All links in this article marked * are affiliate or referral links. If you purchase something through them then I receive a small amount of commission, whilst it costs you no more than if you had arrived at the site on your own.

The Boy at the Back of the Class – Onjali Q. Raúf

June 20, 2020 by penny Leave a Comment

In recent weeks many of us are reading as a way of educating ourselves in response to horrific events in America and the high profile response often Black Lives Matter campaign to those events. As a family we’re doing that and I plan to share the books that we’re using to make sure that everyone see the world as a diverse place and understands as much history as possible. Both old and modern. The first of these books for us is The Boy at the Back of the Class by Onjali Q. Raúf.

Photograph of the front cover of the book The Boy at the Back of the Class by Onjali Q Rauf

We started reading The Boy at the Back of the Class just before school finished in March and the original plan was that each evening then nine year old Little Miss C and I would read a chapter together and talk about what happened in it.

But then home schooling started and by the time we got to bedtime we were normally all so exhausted that we just wanted to fall into bed. As we got into more of a rhythm though we started to make an effort to carve out a bit of time during the school day to read together, and I’m so glad we did.

The Boy at the Back of the Class

Published in 2018, The Boy at the Back of the Class is the story of what happens when Ahmet joins a new class at school and takes a seat at the back of the class. Ahmet is nine years old and initially a mystery to the other children in his class. His break times are spent in isolation and he has a member of staff sat with him at the back of the class helping him with his lessons.

Luckily for Ahmet though, children are inquisitive and want to know all about him, and to be his friend. They soon discover that Ahmet is a refugee, who has travelled to London from Syria. A journey that he started with his parents and his younger sister. But now he is alone and living with a foster mum who waits at the school gate for him every day in her red headscarf.

As the children learn more about Ahmet the more they want to help him. The four of them come up with “The Greatest Idea in the World”, and then “The Emergency Plan”, to make sure Ahmet’s plight is understood by the highest powers in the country and to ask for their help.

What we thought

In a way it seems wrong to describe The Boy at the Back of the Class as a wonderful book. It’s is wonderfully written and a perfect way of teaching children about the refugee crisis and what they can do to help. It’s just awful that the situation exists in the first place.

I can see the The Boy at the Back of the Class is a book that all children should read. Much like Anne Frank’s diary. It is written in such an accessible way that my nine (just turned ten) year old loved reading it with me, but also admits that she learnt so much from it about a situation that she hadn’t fully understood from the news reports she’d seen. It certainly initiated so many valuable conversations between us.

The other thing that I loved about The Boy at the Back of the Class was the fact that you’re left guessing until quite late in the book as to whether the main viewpoint is coming from a boy or a girl. The whole point is that it does’t matter in terms of the story, but I think it’s a very clever way of helping children imagine themselves in the book.

I’d also go as far as suggesting that it’s a book all adults should read too. Especially if you’re feeling like you want to learn more about refugee children that come to the UK, or want to help your children understand more.

At the back of the book there are also some useful pages containing facts about refugees, the difference between refuges and immigrants or migrants, and also plenty of prompts to encourage children think more about what they have read and to help them try to put themselves in Ahmet’s shoes.

Where to buy The Boy at the Back of the Class

The Boy at the Back of the Class by Anjali Q. Raúf is available to buy online *here and whilst it has an RRP of £6.99 for the paperback version, at the time of writing it is available for the reduced price of £3.99.

Disclaimer: We bought our copy of The Boy at the Back of the Class. The link above marked with a * will take you to Amazon, and if you buy the book from them I will receive a small commission, but it will cost you no more than if you’d gone their on your own. Thank you for any purchases made. It is very much appreciated.

Ladybird Tuesday – Comic and Curious Verse

May 12, 2020 by penny Leave a Comment

I seem to have strangely fallen in love with poetry during lockdown. I’m not talking about the highbrow stuff that doesn’t rhyme in any way. Instead I’m into the rhyming, slightly silly stuff that will leave a smile on your face. The sort of poem that may be slightly nonsense in content, but amuses people. Basically the type of poem that loads of wonderful primary school teachers are recording themselves reading and then uploading online as a way for them to stay in touch with their school classes.

I’m responsible for uploading a load of these to YouTube for the school where I’m a governor and it’s lovely seeing grown ups read stories and poems to kids. Kind of like a CBeebies bedtime story, but when you know the presenters really well. It’s made me think about the poems I loved as a child and the ones that used to make me laugh. Maybe that’s why I’ve been drawn to Comic and Curious Verse for this week’s Ladybird Tuesday.

Published in 1983 as part of the Poetry series 831 I’m pretty sure I had a copy of Comic and Curious Verse as a child. It just seems so comfortingly familiar. The verses inside come from a variety of sources and include names like Spike Milligan, Edward Lear, Roger McGough (who I was lucky enough to have visit my primary school when I was a child), Michael Rosen and Ted Hughes.

The verses themselves are all somewhat bizarre in different ways. Some well known to us adults, but I imagine that as a kid hearing any of them for the first time could really make you laugh. Some really are proper laugh out loud funny and others just plain odd; yet in a good way. All are illustrated in the bright and colourful style that so many Ladybird books had in the late 70s and early 80s. Certainly when you look at them today they appear very much of their time in a lovely retro way.

What books like Comic and Curious Verse do remind me of though is just how good it is to read poetry, and stories, aloud to children. To let them hear words. To let them hear the rhyming and rhythm. To let them hear the person reading it laughing with them. To see how reading something out loud can be a performance, even if there is only one person in the audience. I know children are often read to in class, but I guess as parents we don’t really see that. Instead we’re just more used to the cosy bedtime stories that we share with our kids. If anything, lockdown has taught me not to restrict reading aloud to the kids just to bedtime.

Ladybird Tuesday is a regular feature here on Penny Reads, where I delve into my Ladybird book collection and choose a title to share with my readers. The weekly series originally started on my old blog, Being Mrs C, and this post originally appeared on there. I’m now in the process of moving all those posts over to Penny Reads and also adding titles that I have acquired since then. A list is currently being compiled here of all the titles I have in my collection.

AD: Review – Happy Confident Me Journal

April 30, 2020 by penny Leave a Comment

We were sent a copy of the Happy Confident Me Journal for the purposes of this review. Full disclosure statement at the end of this post.

As lockdown here in the UK continues, looking after our children’s mental health is so important. Our kids have been uprooted from the routine that they have been used to since starting school and that can be really quite confusing for them. No matter how well they might understand what is going on, getting to grips with it all emotionally is so much harder. Especially as they are all missing their friends so much. That’s where I’m hoping the Happy Confident Me Journal will help my daughter in particular.

Happy Confident Me Journal - picture of front cover

Nine year old Little Miss C has always been a bit of a worrier, but she’s the type of child that will seem fine on the outside for ages and then suddenly everything will come tumbling out in a hot, teary mess. What I’ve learnt to do is try to get her to release how she is feeling on a more regular basis and this is how I hope using the Happy Confident Me Journal is helping her.

LMC tries to sit and write her journal each night before bed and she’s admitted to me that it’s great put everything down on paper then, as it helps her to sleep better.

Happy Confident Me Journal - example of a daily page in the journal

The journal is arranged so that each day children are asked to think about the different emotions that they have felt that day. It’s a brilliant way of making children see that emotions can change daily, and that while you might feel sad at one point in the day, you might also feel happy at another point.

They can focus on happy things like what they are grateful for that day, what has made them smile, what has made them proud, and who has been kind towards them. There are also weekly activities, and plenty of space to doodle and get their creative juices flowing.

Happy Confident Me Journal - example of a weekly activity in the journal

One thing that my daughter particularly liked was the inspirational quotes that are included daily. And when she didn’t know the person that the quote was attributed to she simply asked her Alexa to tell her all about them. A perfect combination of modern technology and learning right there!

The other brilliant thing about the Happy Confident Me Journal is that as a parent you can often use it to help initiate conversations about emotions and feelings with your child. Some days my daughter is happy to share what she has written with me. On other days she’s not. Both of these are perfectly acceptable, and even if she doesn’t show me what she’s written on a particular day talking to her about why can often help her to understand how she is feeling even more.

Happy Confident Me Journal - part of a completed daily page in the journal

As a parent right now it is challenging in a whole new way to anything we’ve ever been used to before. Not only are we responsible for our children’s education differently, but also, we are the only adult that they have any interaction with. We need to make sure that we don’t miss things that might be obvious to a fresh pair of eyes. A child slowly slipping down into an anxious, possibly depressed, state is something we all want to avoid, but there’s a risk we might miss as we are so caught up in a lockdown juggling act. For me, the activities in the Happy Confident Me Journal help to give us a regular temperature check as to how my daughter is doing emotionally through this. It’s not to be used instead of taking time to be with them and talk to them, but more as a tool to open up some of those conversations about both bad and good feelings.

The Happy Confident Me Journal can be *bought online here.

Disclaimer: We were sent a copy of the Happy Confident Me Journal for the purposes of this review. All opinions remain my own. This post contains affiliate links marked *. If you click through and buy anything from these links I will earn a small commission, but it will cost you no more than if you had gone to the site direct. Many thanks for anything that you do choose to buy.

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.