Very pleased to be back with one of our favourite heroines this Halloween: Molly Thompson, the tenacious, curious and brave historian. I loved last year’s The Ghouls of Howlfair and this latest story is even better. Just the right amount of spooky to give you all the chills without inciting nightmares, this is a cracking,…
My 7-year-old son increasingly declines a traditional bedtime story, but still enjoys 1-on-1 time before bed. I try and keep books involved in the process, though, so we often dive into non fiction as he loves finding out new facts and then talking about them. A lot of time recently has been spent researching gemstones…
While we are obviously not seeing that many flying around now, bees fascinate my children and so this fabulous hardback book is often in use. It’s BIG – a whopping 28 by 37 cms – which makes the bold, distinctive and quirky illustrations really stand out (unfortunately its size makes it difficult for me to…
A year ago, my son came home from school complaining that he was having to base his creative writing stories on Cinderella: “Why do I have to write about a girl who’s rescued by a prince? Why can’t she rescue herself?”. I thought this was quite interesting, because here was my (then) 6-year-old son making…
Our Half Term holiday starts today, which will look very different this year due to the various lockdown restrictions. My kids are off for a fortnight and so today is all about amassing bookish and crafty activities to keep them amused (and with the vain hope of keeping screen time down). I bought this set…
As you might expect, this book, which is aimed at readers around 7 – 9, has caused much hilarity in the house from the minute it arrived last week – who knew that there were enough interesting facts on farts to fill 15 chapters?! And that’s the great and clever thing about it: the kids…
Books can change minds and change worlds… I’ve been doing a bit of blog housekeeping over the last couple of days, and I suddenly realised that for some very strange reason, I hadn’t blogged about this outstanding book series by Anna James. I thus decided to rectify the matter immediately, because who doesn’t want to…
Regular visitors to the blog will know that I love Lisa Thompson’s stories – no one quite does magical realism the way she does. And this new book is no exception. Tabby is not having the best of times. Everything is changing around her: her ailing grandad has come to stay and the house has…
I saw this lovely, lovely book on Instagram recently and I’m so glad that I got hold of a copy. It’s the perfect book for connecting with children: reinforcing what you love about them and how much you care, building their self-esteem, encouraging them to reach for their dreams and reminding them to love, respect…