So often I spend my time reviewing new books. And new is great! We all know that shiny and new often receive the most attention and i...

Quick reviews: Five New(ish) Favourites

Monday, April 27, 2020 BookBairn 2 Comments


So often I spend my time reviewing new books. And new is great! We all know that shiny and new often receive the most attention and it's quite probably the main reason that my TBR (to be read) pile doesn't seem to be getting any smaller! Because I want to read all the new books.

However, my kids are less attracted to shiny and new (ok not entirely true but the shine seems to wear off very quickly, sometimes as soon as the book parcel is open and what's inside is revealed they are like "ok, it's another book") but prefer to return to the same favourites over and over again. Unfortunately it means that I've read the My Little Pony books approximately "too many" times and I can read our Spot box set back to front (don't get me wrong I actually love spot but he's been to the library and the supermarket and nursery every day twice a day for the last two weeks - maybe more as lockdown is messing with my time frame!). So I'll spare you those! But here are five books which are new-ish but not brand new that we have been enjoying (me too!) recently.

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One of the recommendations that I have been asked to make recently is for good encyclopaedias. I'm assuming that lots of parents ...

Encyclopaedias & Anthologies

Saturday, April 25, 2020 BookBairn 2 Comments


One of the recommendations that I have been asked to make recently is for good encyclopaedias. I'm assuming that lots of parents are looking for them in response to the lockdown and people needing to home school and home educate their children and encyclopaedias are a great way to get lots of information on multiple topics all in one place. I know as a child I loved the two encyclopaedias that we had and I can vividly remember their covers as well as revisiting the same favourite pages over and over. We don't have a huge number of encyclopaedias as yet because the bairns are only 5 and (almost - this week!) 3 so there aren't many that are age appropriate. However, BookBairn has recently become fascinated by the anthologies we have, which are both big hefty books like encyclopaedias but are all on one theme - nature or animals in these cases. She loves flicking through them and identifying the images as well as letting us read aloud some of the facts for her to absorb. I have been keeping some for BookBairn to 'grow into' in my book archive (storage boxes in our shed!) as couldn't justify the shelf space until she got a little older so think I dug those out and collated a list as well as restocked our bookshelves.

As I've mentioned my kids are only little so I don't have many encyclopaedias for older children, however I have done as extensive research as is possible without having access to a bookshop browse or library collection and created a list on my amazon shop which is tagged at the bottom of this post.

I've also done something I rarely do and pop an age recommendation on the end of each review but do remember that many books aimed at older readers are accessible to younger children in different ways - either with parents reading aloud or through exploring the illustrations which can be just as (and more) valuable as reading the text.

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Today is Earth Day! So I thought I would celebrate by sharing three of my favourite books about this wonderful rock that we live on! ...

Earth Day Books

Wednesday, April 22, 2020 BookBairn 2 Comments


Today is Earth Day! So I thought I would celebrate by sharing three of my favourite books about this wonderful rock that we live on! Taking time to appreciate and celebrate our wonderful planet and all the flora and fauna that live on it is the first step in encouraging children to learn to love, protect and cherish the Earth. With each orbit round the sun we learn more and more about Earth and I hope that we realise more and more how much we need to work together making small and big changes to reduce our impact on all that live here. So here are my three favourites that remind us that Earth is much bigger than we are, and yet we are central to it's destruction and protection.

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Sorry I missed last month's Kids Love to Read link-up but we had planned on being away on holiday and I was going to schedule the po...

Kids Love to Read #52 & Giveaway

Monday, April 20, 2020 BookBairn 1 Comments


Sorry I missed last month's Kids Love to Read link-up but we had planned on being away on holiday and I was going to schedule the post but then at the last minute we cancelled (our flight was one of the last flights to land in the US before the embargo came into place so technically we could have gone but decided it wasn't sensible). And the world has changed quite dramatically since then! But one of the things that we are really enjoying and centring a lot of our home education through is children's books and play. You can see what we have been getting up to in my recent 'At the Moment' blog post.

But back to this month's link-up, if you share or review children's books or are raising a reader whilst writing a blog then our co-hosted monthly linky with  Laura's Lovely Blog and Acorn Books is perfect for you! Kids Love to Read is a link-up to share blog posts written by other bloggers that star wonderful children's books. It's a great way to find new blogs to read and new book recommendations too, as well as invite people to come and read your own blog.

So if you write about your favourite children's books I would love it if you link-up your post! And I'm looking forward to reading them all!


Last Month's Favourites

My favourite post last month came from fellow host Acorn Books who has written about What's Where on Earth: Atlas and as I'm about to do a feature on Encyclopedias and Anthologies but have done zippo about getting an Atlas for the bairns this was a great recommendation.

Laura's favourite came from Raisie Bay who wrote a great review of The Plastic Problem. This is a topic we are loving seeing more books about but I hadn't discovered this one yet!




Linky Rules:
– Write about reading with children, share your love and your children’s love of books, what do you love to read together, how do you encouraging reading and books with your little or not so little ones? Books you love or book reviews.
– This Linky is open every 3rd Monday of the month for one week.
– Grab the Kids Love to Read badge and pop it in your post. It's linked at the end of the post for you.
– Use the #KLTR hashtag on Twitter and Instagram.
– Share the love – try and read & comment the host’s posts and on 2 other blogs listed on the Linky.
We look forward to reading your posts! And don't forget to enter the competition below!
Kim and the #KLTR team x


You are invited to the Inlinkz link party!
Click here to enter

Giveaway


We have a fabulous giveaway this month of The Puzzle Activity Book  - looks like a great one for keeping the kiddos busy and working on fine motor and problem-solving skills during lockdown.

*Terms and conditions: Entries are open to UK residents. The competition closes on the the 15th May 2020. Winners will be announced on social media and contacted via email. If the winner does not respond to the email in two weeks, a new winner will be randomly chosen. Please allow extra time for prize delivery due to current pandemic restrictions. Host reserves the right to substitute the prize for a suitable alternative in case of problems with supply. No cash alternative available.
a Rafflecopter giveaway



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Wide Awake Wiggles Let's Play Play Make Create How the Crayons Saved the Rainbow Books Always Everywhere Rabbit's ...

Book Poetry - Lockdown Life

Friday, April 17, 2020 BookBairn 7 Comments


Wide Awake
Wiggles
Let's Play
Play Make Create
How the Crayons Saved the Rainbow
Books Always Everywhere
Rabbit's Nap
Blocks
Fort Building Time
Mr Tiger Goes Wild
Time to Eat
Colin and Lee, Carrot and Pea
Tidy
Bathtime for Little Rabbit
10 Little Rubber Ducks
Are You Sitting Comfortably?
Five More Minutes
Spot Says Goodnight

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I have not blogged for such a long time. And the longer I left it, the more daunting it felt to get back in front of the computer and st...

At the Moment #1

Tuesday, April 14, 2020 BookBairn 2 Comments


I have not blogged for such a long time. And the longer I left it, the more daunting it felt to get back in front of the computer and start typing. But I've been reading lots recently about making more time for wha you love and the truth is I fell out of love with blogging. I think it's because it became more like a job and less like a hobby. So I've decided to pick up my pen again (i.e. return to the keyboard) and start writing. About things that I am passionate about. About things that inspire me. And most probably about books!

It also feels a bit remiss to sit here and restart blogging and not to mention the current climate of lockdown, quarantine and world pandemic. But I don't want not knowing what to say about the subject to prevent me from getting back to what I enjoy doing. I have put too many other barriers in place that made me shy away from writing and I'll be damned if I make another excuse. Maybe I'll feel more collected to share my thoughts on this at some point. Maybe not. But I think that's ok.

So I thought I would start by sharing five things that we are loving at the moment!

Ladybirds



BookBairn is truly fascinated by ladybirds at the moment. It started when we had a ladybird themed week to our daily activities and we made a What the Ladybird Heard map, and then watched a drawing tutorial with Lydia Monks and BookBairn is now thrilled with her ability to draw a ladybird that she seems to be drawing them at every opportunity she gets. We also have spotted several ladybirds in the garden and the road that we live on seems to have an abundance - we counted 45 on our daily walk yesterday. We alos read up about ladybirds in two fascinating books - Bug Hotel by Libby Walden and illustrated by Clover Robin which has the most incredible cut paper illustrations and also in Slow Down by Rachel Williams and illustrated by Freya Hartas which features 50 two-page spread natures stories, one of which is all about how a ladybird takes flight and BookBairn loved it and both her and her (nearly) three year old brother can now tell you all about a ladybird's elytra. Also an American blogger friend pointed out that they call ladybirds 'ladybugs' (which I knew) but it made me wonder why they are called 'ladybirds'. So I googled it! They were originally named "our lady's bird" or "our lady's beetle" after The Virgin Mary who is often depicted in artwork wearing a red cloak in early paintings and the seven spots on a ladybird (common ladybird's have seven spots - as The Wee Page Turner can tell you) were connected to her seven joys and seven sorrows. The things you learn. Every day's a school day!

Little Brian Paint Sticks 


Like a lot of people we have been decorating our window with rainbows to show our solidarity and brings a smile to passerbys faces. We actually did this before the lockdown began (and before it was trendy - not often I'm ahead of the fashion!) as BookBairn's nursery walk past our window regularly on their weekly trip to the forest and as BookBairn was on holiday (even though we had to postpone our trip for now) we wanted to leave a little artwork in the window. We always use our Little Brian Paint Sticks in the window as they are such vibrant colours but also wash off really easily. Both kids love using them and they are way less messy than actual paint. They do wash off really easily with hot soapy water or window spray but I would recommend using an old towel or cloth (or kitchen roll) to wipe it clean as the paint can stain fabric. But as the kids also quite like cleaning the windows afterwards I don't mind at all giving them an old cut up baby towel so they can clean their slate and start drawing again. It's also lovely to see people admiring our artwork.

Eating Together

One of the benefits of my husband having to work from home is that we can all eat dinner together early in the evening. Normally (and doesn't that word feel like it has new meaning!?!), I cooked and fed the kids their dinner around 5pm and then my husband would return home from work about 6.45pm, just int time for bedtime but it was often 8pm by the time we cooked and ate our grown up dinner. But now we can all eat together! At about 5.30pm. Sitting round the dining table together and it's so lovely. We talk about our favourite bits of the day, spend time together and everybody seems to eat better too. It also means that my husband and I can now sit down and relax much earlier in the evening so have more time for ourselves and to pursue our own hobbies, like reading and blogging!

Deliveries and Post

Thank goodness for continue deliveries and post. I would caveat this by saying how much I miss my daily chat with our lovely postman. He is such a nice bloke and always has a kind word to say. But now he has to stand on the drive and drop things off and it feels very strange to have an invisble barrier. However, I'm so glad he still comes to our house daily and we are still getting lots of lovely books to review as well as some other goodies like a wardrobe treat for each of us (since I never got my big American Outlet mall shopping experience!) and also It's The Wee Page Turner (and my) birthday this month so I'm glad his presents are still winging their way to us in plenty of time for his birthday!

Encyclopaedias & Anthologies

BookBairn is just fascinated by encyclopaedias and anthologies at the moment. She loves flicking through them and identifying the images as well as letting us read aloud some of the facts for her to absorb. I remember loving looking at my DK encyclopaedias as a child so I understand how much she enjoys just exploring the images by herself without actually being able to read the words. Her favourites include: Slow Down by Rachel Williams and illustrated by Freya Hartas, An Anthology of Intriguing Animals by Ben Hoare, The Wonders of Nature by Ben Hoare and Encyclopedia of Animals by Jules Howard & Jarom Vogel. Interestingly I've also had a few requests on social media for a list of encyclopaedias and I have been keeping some for BookBairn to 'grow into' in my book archive (storage boxes in our shed!) as couldn't justify the shelf space until she got a little older so think I will dig those out and get working on a blog post/list on that topic!


So that's the things we have been loving at the moment! I'm hoping to be able to get back to writing. And finding my passion and enjoyment for blogging again so it's been great to highlight our favourites of the moment. I've popped a few links below to things I've mentioned in case you want to find them yourselves. And would love to hear of any little favourites below which have brought you a twinkling of joy!

Hope you're all staying safe and well,
And looking forward to writing again soon!
Kim x


  
  

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