Photo Book Review: Blurb Books Part 1

I was sent a £30 credit from Blurb Books to create a photo book for Christmas. We like giving photos on this house.

You can create your book online or download the software to your computer. I always find it easier to download the software as you can save what you have done so far.

I was anticipating a long night but it actually took less time than they normally do. The photos download really quickly and it’s really easy to move them around and choose where you want them to go.

You can choose from several page layouts and add text if you wish. It took me about an hour to do a 20 page book.

Ordering was painless and the book was just under £30 with P&P

You can upload photos from your PC, Facebook, instagram and picasa.

I can’t wait to see the finished book which you will see in part 2!

Psst you can save up to 20% until 13th December

Enter the code WINTER2012 at checkout by 13 December* and save:

15% off no minimum order

20% off orders over £50

* Contains affiliate links 

Children's Book Review - Sainsbury’s Pre School Books - My First Box of Books

Sainsbury’s Pre School Books - My First Box of Books

Price:  £3.50

Available from:  Sainsbury’s  

Initial Reaction: Nice collection of books.

Pros:

• Bright
• Hard wearing
• Good Selection
• Teaches colours, shapes an numbers
• Comes in a handy box

Cons:

• None

Value for money? Good

Overall Reaction:  Great collection of first books. Nice and bright. BG enjoyed going through them and disusing them now she’s a bit older. 

Great gift idea

By Carol 

Children's Book Review - My Terrific Tractor Book

My Terrific Tractor Book

Price:  £7.99

Available from:  Sainsbury’s  

Initial Reaction: Oh dear it makes a noise!

Pros:

• Packed full of information
• Good pictures
• Has a button which makes a tractor sound
• Sturdy

Cons:

• None

Value for money? Average

Overall Reaction:  This is one of BG’s favourite books; her Granddad is a farmer so she is obsessed with tractors. It has loads of information and is set out really well.  

Great book for tractor fans 

By Carol

Children's Book Review - The Coffee Table Book for Children - Volume 2

The Coffee Table Book for Children - Volume 2

With this book we're trying to encourage children to have fun being imaginative and thoughtful and silly and slightly surreal. We've hand picked some fantastic high quality photographs from Sarah's huge library and we've added some facts, some conversation starters and some straight forward "what do you imagine?" questions. We love the idea of children being empowered by learning through effortless enjoyment.

Price:  £22

Available from: 2littleboys.co.uk

Initial Reaction:  looks gorgeous. Lovely large hard back book.

Pros:

• Amazing Photos
• Engages Children
• Great questions

Cons:

• A little expensive

Value for money?  It expensive

Overall Reaction:  I think this a great book for children, it’s packed full of pictures and questions. It’s a great book for sitting down with your children going through. It also looks great on your coffee table. BG enjoyed the pictures and would ask questions but at 2 ½ hasn’t got the real benefit from it yet and is still heavy handed so it will go up for now until she’s a little older.

Ideal book for a raining day. 

By Carol

Children's Book Review - I Am a Parrot by Simon Mayor and Hilary James

I Am a Parrot

Children will delight in following the story of a parrot who just loves to say things twice! Humorous text and illustrations are complemented by the entertaining accompanying song that children will love to sing along with!

Price:  £4.49

Available from:  Top That Publishing

Suitable from:  3+

Initial Reaction:  Great it comes with a CD!

Pros:

• It’s very funny
• Comes with a CD so you can sing along
• Illustrations are good
• Kept BG entertained

 Cons:

• The song can get a little annoying

Value for money?  Yes

Overall Reaction:  BG insisted the CD be played over and over again which a little annoying but at least it engaged her. She really liked this book. It is very funny and entertaining. 

By Carol

Children's Book Review - Hullabaloo by Gordon Volke

Hullabaloo


From a donkey called Drew, to hopping bunnies with grass to chew, this rowdy group of animals at the zoo are making a hullabaloo! Children will delight in this enchanting storybook, with humorous text and lively illustrations. Each spread describes each of the animals and adds another, resulting in chaos that is bound to amuse new and emerging readers and ensuring that this title is guaranteed to be picked up time and time again.

Price:  £5.39

Available from:  Top That Publishing

Suitable from: 3 to 5 yrs

Initial Reaction:  Great illustrations

Pros:

• Really funny
• It rhymes which I love.
• Kept BG’s attention
• Great Illustrations

Cons:

• None

Value for money? Average

Overall Reaction:  BG really enjoys this book; it’s funny and keeps her attention. She asked to read it quite often.  Big thumbs up from us

It is also available as a PDF download 

By Carol

Book Review - Love You Mum by Gillian Campbell‏

It's taken me some time to read this self help/grow yourself book on being a better mum - not because I am a perfect mum but because I wasn't worried about not being a perfect mum! However, now I've read it I am pleased that I did. 


Subliminally there are definitely things that I feel anxious and guilty about and this book tells you in no uncertain terms that that's ok and then gives you different methods of working out that everything is actually going well. The book is structured around the concept that there are no definitive answers to being a mum (hurrah) but that there are steps you can take to analyse your own emotional signals and work out why sometimes life feels amazing as a mum and sometimes it doesn't. 


At 262 pages, it isn't a quick read but the overwhelming feeling I had when I finished it was optimism, relief that all the things I worry about needlessly are not unique to me and that actually, my way of parenting works and my little girl is happy, confident and loved. 


As I said at the beginning - I wasn't too worried about not being a good mum. Now having read the book I'm even more confident in that role which is a positive and I am now able to spot those little triggers that start me questioning myself, before they become all out disasters.

By Sarah

Love You Mum is available on Amazon for £9.49

Parent panel Review - Collins Big Cat Book Collection

Product: Collins Big Cat Reading Collection, over 300 titles.

Price: £3 - £5 per book

Available from:  www.collinsbigcat.com, The Book People, Amazon, Tesco Direct, etc

Suitable from: Ages 3-11yrs.

Initial Reaction:  Good quality books, well written with excellent photographs and illustrations

Pros: Great range of books covering a wide range of genres and 
subject areas.  It’s brilliant to have my girls so enthusiastic about 
non-fiction books.  The quality of the fiction books made it very 
easy to coax them away from their usual princess and fairy stories 
and they thoroughly enjoyed reading these books.

Cons: You’ll probably have the children nagging you to buy more of the Collection. 

Value for money? I’d look out for them on offer, well worth the cost even at full price.

Overall Reaction: I would wholeheartedly recommend any and all of the books in the Collin 
Big Cat Series.  My 10 year old was studying Walter Tull and took one of the books to school.  
Her teacher was really impressed with it and asked her to bring in the rest of the books we 
had received to review and showed all of the teachers in Key Stage 2 at their INSET staff 
meeting.  All agreed it was a great selection and the school are now keen to get some as I 
would not relinquish mine.

by Michelle

Parent Panel Review - The Babysense Secret by Megan Faure

Product: The Babysense Secret – Megan Faure                                                                

Price:     £12.99                                                  

Available from: Dorling Kindersley, Amazon, Waterstones, WHSmith,    

Suitable from: Covers  “from the womb” up to 12 months    

About: The Babysense Secret is the best-selling method of baby care developed by Megan Faure, occupational therapist and childcare expert. Based on sound neuro-science, it is an accessible baby-centric routine that is also kind to parents, and approaches a baby’s care from a unique sensory perspective

                                       

Initial Reaction: My initial reaction from the front cover of the book was that it was about sleeping.

Pros:Babysense teaches you to read your baby’s signals and body language. The book is split into sections for every stage of your baby’s development. It also covers how Mother’s feel and how having a baby affects you.  Each page is divided into boxes with different headings, which makes it easy to pick out certain things, rather than reading that entire page.

Cons: Some of the routines are quite structured.

                                                                                                         

Value for money I think this book is excellent value for money as it covers such a wide variety of your baby’s development.                               

Overall Reaction  I love reading and especially love baby books, so I was delighted to be given the chance to review this book.  It’s full of really good advice and also has lots of pictures of cute babies (a bonus).

Even though I’ve already had 2 children, they are much older than my baby and the advice has changed drastically since then, so this book helped a lot.

I’m currently on the 6-9 months section and was very interested in the sleep advice. I discovered that Brandon had become dependent on me for soothing himself to sleep. The book gives advice on how to teach your baby to self-soothe. We had started following the advice given in the book, but unfortunately he started teething and we seem to have gone back to square one.  

Overall I think this is a lovely book.  It’s full of advice for all stages of your baby’s development and covers far more than sleep, which I originally thought it was about. It “guides parents in understanding their baby’s language, allowing them to identify and interpret signs of stress in their child”

A definite must-have for new Mother’s and not so new Mother’s like me.

By Sarah 

                                                                

Parent Panel Review - Signing Hands; Baby Signing Basics by Lizzie Betts

Product: Signing Hands; Baby Signing Basics by Lizzie Betts

Price: £10.99

Available from:  Little Learners

Suitable from: 6 months up

Initial Reaction: I’d tried baby signing with my first son but we didn’t get very far. I tried to introduce the sign for ‘milk’, but if my baby wanted milk he had his own ‘signs’, like crying, trying to squash his face into my boobs and, um, drinking milk when offered. Perhaps I was too impatient and didn’t persevere long enough. But my second baby is now at just the right stage to get started with signing: he’s recently started clapping and waving, as well as some of the other indications described in the book.

The tone of this book is warm and encouraging, with lots of testimonials from parents who’ve signed successfully with their children. It advises starting with just a few signs appropriate to your family. I’m starting with nappy change (currently a source of stress for us as baby just wants to crawl away – perhaps communicating what’s going to happen will help prevent this?), bath (his favourite thing) and home. I’ll take it slowly, adding more signs in a couple of weeks once I’ve got into the habit of signing.

Pros: 

• The diagrams for signs are combined with descriptions, making them easy to understand. The introductory pages are quite brief, but very informative and encouraging. As well as advice on how to tell your baby is ready, there are tips on how to get the best out of signing.

• There are song ideas at the end of each section, pairing the signs with traditional tunes that every parent of young children should know, which helps to reinforce the signs.

• One of the things I really love about Baby Signing Basics is the illustration. The pictures accompanying each of the 35+ signs are crafted from textured paper, fabric and other materials (think Lauren Child of Charlie and Lola fame), but remain clear and bold enough to appeal to babies and toddlers. They really are beautiful and a big part of the appeal of this book.

Cons: 

• There are signs for ‘eat’ and ‘drink’, but I’d have liked to see some more specific signs for different types of food. A couple more toys (there is ‘teddy bear’ but nothing else) and activities such as book, blocks, or even the dreaded television would be helpful. However, the book does give details of other reading or websites that you can refer to for more signs.

• I know from sitting on the board of my local SureStart centre that there is conflicting research on baby signing, with some academics and practitioners arguing that it delays speech, whereas others have evidence that it hastens speech. There is agreement that it’s crucial to say the word at the same time you sign it – which is mentioned in the book, but I felt that it could have been repeated and emphasised more.

Value for money? I think that £10.99 is quite expensive for this short book, especially paperback. However, it is produced independently by people who are really passionate about the subject, and generally I’m happy to pay a bit more to support new, smaller ventures like this.

Overall Reaction: I’m still a little sceptical about baby signing. I think that babies and parents naturally discover the ways to make themselves understood to each other, and I’m not sure whether signing is an ‘artificial layer’ that gets in the way of what comes naturally. But this beautiful and enthusiastic book has inspired me to give it another go. I’ll report back with our progress. 

By Kirsty 

Parent Panel Review - Cub’s First Winter by Rebecca Elliott – eBook for iPad

Product: Cub’s First Winter by Rebecca Elliott – eBook for iPad

Price: £1.79

Available from: Top That Publishing

Suitable from: Ages 3 to 5

Initial Reaction: We reviewed the eBook version of Cub’s First Winter on the iPad. My son is two and a half and loves reading books. He’s also quite savvy with the iPad and is able to swipe and play simple games himself, so I was interested to see whether he’d like the combination of the two. He was keen to sit down with Daddy and read the ‘book’ and the idea grabbed his attention.

Pros: 

Rebecca Elliott’s illustrations are gorgeous. The images are fresh and vibrant, with the bold brush strokes bringing the characters and woodland scenery to life. The open, expressive faces of the foxes will really appeal to children and their warm colours contrast with the wintry weather, emphasising the warmth and love between them.

Mum and Cub (whose gender isn’t identified, meaning that boys and girls can both easily identify with him/her) walk through the forest and home through the snow, tiring themselves out before snuggling up to bed. The peaceful ending makes the book ideal as a bedtime story.

Cons: 

The eBook format we were send didn’t show off the book to it’s full potential. As far as I can work out, you can only view one page at a time, which meant that the double-page spreads didn’t really work: instead of a large picture across two pages, we saw two separate pictures, some with no words, which meant that my son just wanted to skip past them.

As Mum and Cub walk through the forest, Cub asks lots of questions about the natural things happening around them. Mum’s answers are playful and fun:

“Why are all the trees undressed?”

“So that we can have fun in the leaves!” answered Mum.

I can see that many parents would find this approach endearing. But, if I’m totally honest, it really grates for me. Personally, I’m all for age-appropriate, but accurate explanations. But then, this is coming from the woman who told her toddler this week that meatballs are made from “pigs bodies, squashed into little balls”. I like my children’s literature with a hint of darkness and oddity (think Anthony Browne, Alexis Deacon or even Dr Seuss). Cub’s First Winter is cute, comforting and straightforward: not quite to my taste, but something that will appeal to a lot of parents and children.

Value for money?

Less than £2 isn’t too expensive for a beautifully illustrated eBook. 

However, when there are plenty of interactive apps available for the same price, or even free, I’m not sure that an eBook for kids represents the best value for money.

Overall Reaction: My son enjoyed reading this eBook. However, I feel that it lost something from the presentation: the pleasure of having a book to hold and pages to turn was missing, and there weren’t the interactive elements that you’d get in an iPad app to make up for it. We (understandably, I feel!) don’t let our two-year-old play with the iPad unsupervised, so he didn’t have the sense of ownership that he’d get with a ‘real’ book and although he liked it, he didn’t ask to read it again.

I wouldn't buy this as an eBook for the iPad as I think there are more engaging ways for toddlers to use them; if we want to read a book then I’d prefer the traditional sort.

Aside from the electronic presentation, I liked the book in itself. As I said, it’s not a story that I’d personally choose, but I appreciate that lots of readers would find it appealing and I’d consider buying it for someone else’s children as I think the hard copy book would go down very well as a gift. 

By Kirsty 

Parent Panel Review - Baby Names 2011 by Eleanor Turner

Product: Baby Names 2011 by Eleanor Turner (White Ladder)    

Price:  from £5.38

Available from: Amazon and Waterstones.  

Initial Reaction: A good introduction and starts by detailing points to consider when thinking of names for your baby, this section is very helpful and amusing if not a little worrying in how many things you may need to consider.

Pros:

• Helpful hints in introduction 
• Some good lists of names

Cons:

• Majority of names are unusual or  too modern
• Lack of detail in the meaning of names

Value for money: Average

Overall Reaction:This book starts by detailing points to consider when thinking of names for your baby, this section is very helpful and at points amusing. It also gives a valuable insight to how many things you may need to think about, as to not burden your child with a name that may cause bullying, embarrassment or amusement to others later on in life.

However I found that the majority of the lists of names are unusual, and although some of the lists are interesting most are a little farfetched for me and provided little inspiration

The description of the names is short but a name you may like may turn out to have a meaning that may totally put you off and vice versa. 

Not my favourite names book, but still worth considering as a gift for a mother to be.

By Howard

Review – Maclaren Techno XT Footmuff

In September I reviewed the Maclaren Techno XT, now that the weather is getting much colder they sent me a footmuff to review. I was sent the Techno XT Footmuff, though universal ones are available.

It was pretty straight forward to attach to the buggy; I did find having to undo the straps a pain and the main clip took a bit of wriggling to get through.

It’s really warm and soft in side; BG likes to snuggle in there. It’s perfect for us as BG won’t wear gloves and with the footmuff she puts her hands under it to keep warm. We didn’t have a footmuff last winter and BG kept kicking her blankets off it drove me mad, this year she can’t do that. If she gets too hot she can tell me now so it’s a win, win situation.

It has two zips so it’s easy to get her in and out of and its machine washable which is a huge bonus.

The only negative I have is that BG just fits in it, she is quite tall for her age and her feet are touching the bottom on the footmuff, I’m hoping it will last the winter.

Other than that, it’s a good footmuff and a great addition to the Techno XT.

Would I Buy It? Yes, ideal if you are buying the buggy from birth.

The cheapest I found it was £39.99 at Kiddicare

NM X 

Book Review – Recipes Every Man Should Know by Susan Russo and Brett Cohen

If you are looking for a stocking for the men in your life whether it’s your other half, dad or brother this is the book for them.

Recipes Every Man Should Know by Susan Russo and Brett Cohen is a pocket sized cooking guide that everyone not just men should have.

It’s packed full of usual tips and advice plus some great recipes.

It has 6 sections-

Introduction – with cooking terms and kitchen tools

Hearty Breakfast Classics – including The Hangover Cure and Fool Proof French Toast

Sandwiches, Burgers and Snacks – including Eight Essential Sandwiches

Meat and Potato Dinners – including a Ten Minute Tomato Sauce

Beer, Bacon and Bar Food (my favourite) – including Beef and Beer Chilli

Chocolate, Cheesecake and More – including No Bake Cheesecake

The recipes are easy to follow and the book is quite witty.

OH found it interesting and useful, he especially like the Beef and Beer Chilli!

Would I Buy It? Yes, its the kind of book I would buy for my Dad or Brother for Christmas (ssh don’t tell them one of them might be getting it!)

Available from Play.com, Waterstones and Amazon. 

NM X 

Book Reviews – Books from Top That Publishing

BG has developed my love for books, she loves to have stories read to her but is also quite happy to sit and flick through a book looking at the pictures by herself. I’m hoping that this love of books lasts throughout her lifetime as it has mine.

Top That Publishing sent BG two books for her to read, the best present a girl can get in my opinion and this is what we thought about them

Baby Bear and the Big, Wide World by Dubravka Kolanovic and Elle Patterson £5.39

Baby Bear and the Big Wide World is a lovely story of a young bear that leaves the safety of his mother’s arms to explore the scary outside world. Along the way he makes friends and finds the world is not so scary after all. The illustrations are beautiful and story is sweet, it’s an ideal bed time story. BG liked this book but sometimes it was a bit long for her, she would listen to a few pages and then be off running around and at other times she would sit and listen to the whole story.

When I Dream of ABC by Henry Fisher £6.29

This was BG’s and mines favourite book of the two, it’s an ABC book with a twist. I found this book really funny and the pictures are fantastic. Each letter has a funny description and I love they have gone for the norm. J is for Jelly, U is for Unicorn and my must be X.

X marks the spot....where pirates bury their treasure. 

Pirate treasure is made up of chocolate biscuits, sweets and gold. NEVER take a pirate’s treasure as it makes them rather sad.

BG really loved finding out what each things was and I really enjoyed reading it.

Would I buy from Top That Publishing? Yes

They have a great selection of books from pre-school to adult, a site worth visiting.

 NM X