Non Fiction

Ladybird Tuesday: The Weather

February 9, 2020 by penny Leave a Comment

After a weekend in which the country has been well and truly battered by Storm Ciara, it seems the perfect time to dust off my copy of The Weather for Ladybird Tuesday.

When I first featured this title back on Being Mrs C it seems that we had also just come out of a week of bad weather. Then again the weather is something us Brits love to talk about. There’s no wonder then that Ladybird included this title in their Nature Series, Series 536.

This book very much focuses on the British Weather and it really does teach you everything you need to know about the weather and meteorology in general. As well as talking about why the British Isles have the weather they do, it goes on to explain high and low pressures and why the winds blow.

In addition to a table detailing the different levels in the Beaufort Scale there is also a nice visual version which is perfect for children who may have some difficulties putting all the descriptions into something they can understand.

Many of the explanations about why weather events happen take me clearly back to my science and geography lessons at school. I can certainly see this book being useful with the kids. When they were much smaller their Dad had a weather station at home and they enjoyed knowing how much rain had fallen in the night and things like that. I may well have to get one so that their little sister can experience the same once she’s a bit older.

I find that so many of these Ladybird books take me back to my childhood when I read them, even if I didn’t have that particular book when I was a child. When I reached the page about thunder and lightening I was instantly taken back to one evening sat in my parents living room when we had a huge thunderstorm which really scared me. At the time I had a book out of the local library which I think was called The Weather Witch – despite my best efforts I just can’t find this at all online. In this book I seem to recall that the witch was responsible for the weather which meant that I was asking my Dad to get her to stop as I didn’t like the thunderstorm. My Dad’s efforts to explain to me that he couldn’t stop the weather fell on deaf ears somewhat and I remember going through the same arguments with Little Miss C who seemed obsessed with the idea that “Mummy can stop the wind”!

As well as explaining the weather simply (yet without dumbing it down) the book also explains how the wind, temperature, sunshine and precipitation are measured. Having been originally published in 1962 the book obviously doesn’t cover all the up to date tools and techniques that they now use in the Met Office.

Whilst weather stations like the above are still used I’m pretty sure that popping out in a tie and pullover with a pipe in your mouth isn’t the way it’s currently done.

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.

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.

Plant, Sow, Make & Grow Mud-tastic activities for budding gardeners – Esther Coombs

April 10, 2019 by penny Leave a Comment

I’m not green fingered in the slightest, but I so wish I was! Walking round the garden centre yesterday I saw so many gorgeous things for the garden, but to be honest I don’t have a clue where to start with our garden. We’ve lived in the house a year now, and apart from cutting a few very obvious things back we’ve done little more than cut the grass in our back garden. I’m really hoping that under the pretence of teaching the kids what to do in the garden Plant, Sow, Make & Grow can help me improve my gardening skills, and get the back garden under control.

Described as a book of “mud-tactic activities for budding gardeners” Esther Coombs has brilliantly written a book that is not only nice and fun to read, but also teaches you a huge amount.

Split up into the four seasons the book contains gardening projects along side crafty outdoor projects to keep kids entertained. This is a gardening book that doesn’t require you to have a whole shed full of tools and an endless supply of seeds before you start, but instead shows you what you can actually do with very little. At the start it sets out the gardening supplies you do need – simple things like a trowel, hand fork, watering can and compost – but also other things like bubble wrap, lolly sticks and netting made from charity shop net curtains!

Plant, Sow, Make & Grow starts in spring, with a lovely little project to make little seed pots from old toilet roll tubes. It’s the perfect way to help children start to get their hands dirty, do a spot of recycling and also learn how to sow seeds. The book then moves on to talk about what can be sown when in the year, and talks you through all the different types of fruit and vegetables that you can grow in your back garden.

I love the way that Plant, Sow, Make & Grow brings together so many more things that just gardening. As well as crafty projects for the garden, that involve recycling lots of things from around the house, I also love the way that the whole book has a thrifty and eco focus to it. It shows you how to make a watering can from an old plastic milk bottle, and bird feeders from the heads of your sunflowers.

Because of the way the book is split into seasons it come back to some of the activities that you did earlier in the year, and shows you what to do next. So for example, you plant your strawberries in the spring, are shown how to cover them in the summer, and then harvest them later on in the summer. It even goes as far as telling you what to do with harvest gluts that you might be lucky enough to have.

The book doesn’t only look after plants though. Included are instructions on making a bug hotel and a page telling you about the sorts of wildlife that you want to encourage to come to your garden to help with your plants.

I’m incredibly impressed with Plant, Sow, Make & Grow and in particular the almost cyclic nature of the activities in the book. I can see us going back to it throughout the year, and each year, to be reminded about what we are supposed to be doing in the garden. If this Easter holiday rain ever stops it will be a great way to get the kids to help us make a proper start to our back garden and help create it into the sort of productive eco garden I have always wanted. And hopefully we can do it all on a budget!

Plant, Sow, Make & Grow by Esther Coombs was published in March 2019 by Button Books and has an RRP of £12.99. It is aimed at aged 4 to 11, but with parental guidance support I think you can adapt many of the activities for younger children too. As an adult I can also see it as a brilliant way of learning a bit about gardening alongside my children. Plant, Sow, Make & Grow is available to buy online here and at the time of writing it is priced at £8.56.

Disclaimer: We were sent a copy of Plant, Sow, Make & Grow for the purposes of this review. All opinions remain my own. This post contains affiliate links.

Forest Craft – Richard Irvine

February 5, 2019 by penny Leave a Comment

A review of Forest Craft by Richard Irvine

I am a huge, huge fan in getting children outdoors. I firmly believe that it is possible to learn so much outside. Both in terms of academic learning, but also wider learning about nature and being at one with it. My children’s school already has outdoor learning as a key part of their curriculum and I know so many other schools are doing similar. I’ve also heard amazing things about local forest schools that cater for pre-school aged children. Bonn and I are keen that Tube Stop Baby is as much at home outdoors in the countryside where we live as she is travelling around the tube system in London.

On Instagram I follow several people who home educate and I love seeing what they get up to outdoors, especially in the woods. I was therefore intrigued to be sent a copy of Forest Craft to review by GMC. Over the years I’ve seen plenty of online articles about activities to do with children in the woods, but Forest Craft is a bit more specific than that. The book’s subtitle is “A Child’s Guide to Whittling in the Woodland” and it contains 20 whittling projects for children along with huge amounts of really useful background information for people who are new to working with wood.

The book explains the hand tools that you need to complete the projects, along with a guide on which wood to use, and about how the landowners permissions should always be found before taking any wood, even from dead trees. Before getting to the projects it also details all the different techniques that you use for the projects, with some useful photographs illustrating them well.

Knowing how impatient children can be to get started with a project I would thoroughly recommend that an adult reads the book and familiarises themselves with the tools and techniques before letting children lose on choosing a project. This is particularly key if you don’t have any prior experience at woodwork. One of the things that I think this book would be good to teach though is patience. Whittling projects are not something that can be knocked up quickly, especially when you’re inexperiences. It’s very much a labour of love and the projects take time, care and attention to get the finished result you want.

I really like the variety of the projects in Forest Craft. There is something that will appeal to all children. From the Harry Potter-esque Magic elder wand through to the Fairytale fungi there are also spud and dart guns to make as well as music instruments. Even if you didn’t let young children loose on the projects themselves there is plenty that an adult could have a go at whittling for their children.

The other good thing about Forest Craft is the presentation of the book. The instructions are clear and accompanies by step by step photographs. Additionally the book contains gorgeous photographs of children in the woods and some delightful illustrations. The combined effect is a book that not only contains loads of valuable information, but looks good too.

As a book just on whittling I did have initial concerns that Forest Craft may be a bit too narrow in its focus, but the finished result quashes my concerns. This book has so much inspiration and instruction in it that I think it the perfect addition to the bookcase of any family that enjoys an outdoor life.

Forest Craft A Child’s Guide to Whittling in the Woodland by Richard Irvine. GMC Publications. Published February 2019 in paperback. RRP £16.99 Available to buy online here.

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

Discover our Solar System – Colin Stuart

January 30, 2019 by penny Leave a Comment

Master C has an obsession with factual books. He just wants to know how everything works and he absorbs facts like a sponge. Once he’s into a certain subject he can spend weeks telling everyone everything he knows about the topic. Recently he’s been covering space and a recent space themed birthday party that he was attending meant that it was the perfect time to review Discover our Solar System.

Discover our Solar System perfectly manages to combine a book packed full of factual information with something that is written so that children want to read it and enjoy to do so.

This isn’t just a book that covers the planets. There is so much more content covering everything from the Big Bang through to the International Space Station. There is a timeline showing the Space Race and also pages showing different space rockets and the basics of how they work. Each planet has its own page, including a large illustration, and there is a separate double page spread on the dwarf planets, including Pluto.

All the factual text is accompanied by excellent illustrations which are incredibly detailed as the black background on each page makes them incredibly attention catching too.

At school I have noticed that children are taught about different types of book and when they cover factual non-fiction books there are certain things that they always look out for, like a contents page and a glossary. Master C and I were therefore very pleased to see that Discover our Solar System includes both. The glossary being brilliant for any child who is reading the book on their own and possibly wanting to make sure that they are fully understanding everything that they are reading.

Master C used the book to help him find a picture of Saturn so that he could then draw a version on it on the card for the friend that was having a space themed birthday party. If that’s not a brilliant ay of introducing a child to factual books like this then I don’t know what is.

Discover our Solar System is a brilliant book for anyone interested in space or astronomy and Little Miss C enjoyed reading it alongside doing her astronomy badge at Cubs recently. I’m hoping Master C finds it just as useful when he comes to do his badge at Beavers.

Discover our Solar System by Colin Stuart and illustrated by Charlie Brandon-King was published in October 2018 by Button Books. RRP £12.99 it is aimed at children aged 7+. It is available to buy online here.

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