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Mischievous, witty and playful, Nibbles: The Book Monster by Emma Yarlett (@EmmaYarlett_) is one of the most enjoyable picture books to read aloud I’ve come across in a long time. Indeed, it’s the sort of book that makes you want to go in for kidnapping small children if you don’t have any to hand.

Nibbles is a rather cute looking yellow ball full of energy with wide open eyes and a big smile. But don’t be deceived. He’s actually a monster. And a monster with a voracious appetite at that. He’ll eat anything and everything, but most of all he loves to gobble his way through books.

With each turn of the page we try desperately to catch up with Nibbles as he munches his way through fairy stories, surprising the characters inside along the way, and causing us readers to giggle and squeal with glee at the chaos he leaves behind him. Can we readers save the day and stop all this destruction? Will we be quick enough to capture Nibbles before he swallows all our favourite stories?

A reader’s delight, the energy and naughtiness of Nibbles will also capture the imagination of those who haven’t yet experienced how books can quicken one’s pulse and give so much enjoyment. Pacey and funny, drawing the reader and listener in to become active themselves within the confines of the story Nibbles: The Book Monster is a triumph.

Yarlett’s illustrations are rich, tactile and full of clever details. Fans of David Roberts will especially appreciate Yarlett’s style and patterning, whilst her gorgeous hand-drawn lettering might make you think of Oliver Jeffers’ work. The book as a physical object is gorgeous; full of flaps (surely a loving nod to the classic Dear Zoo by Rod Campbell) and cut-outs to explore, with fine attention paid to every detail from the textured cover to the barcode on the back (it’s definitely one to add to this fun post from 100 Scope Notes about the art of the picture book barcode).

Those who love reading and who happily devour books are often portrayed as “bookish”, quiet or shy but here is a bookworm a book monster full of verve and gumption – a whirlwind of activity showing that having a passion for books can be great fun. A brilliant book to savour, guaranteed to get listeners asking for seconds.

For a bit more of a flavour of Nibbles: The Book Monster, here’s the book trailer:

Unsurprisingly, we simply had to create some books we could lick our lips over alongside reading Nibbles: The Book Monster and I wanted to come up with something very simple, that even the kids could manage. We bought some ready-made puff pastry and the girls cut it into equal sized rectangles, placing one on top of the other, before pressing them down together in the middle (we used a skewer for this).

Once cooked (we just followed the instruction on the pastry packet), these rectangles puffed up to look like the pages of an open book. As soon as we took them out of the oven, we pressed down again in the middle, to help create that effect of open pages.

A dusting of icing sugar, a dollop of fresh cream, some strawberries and a special message from Nibbles written with coulis completed our booky treat.

As you’ll see, Nibbles tried to eat our edible books. Once sated Nibbles went to explore our bookshelves:

Can you spot Nibbles? (you can click on the shelves for a larger image to make hunting Nibbles easier).

Once you find Nibbles, do tweet the answer (the title of the book that Nibbles is diving into) using the hashtag #FindNibbles. All correct answers will go into a draw run by the publisher (@littletigeruk) and one person will be chosen to go forward into a prize draw at the end of the week to win their own copy of Nibbles – both toy and book! (If you don’t already follow me on Twitter, I’d love to see you over there – I’m @playbythebook.)

Whilst baking and sharing our edible books with Nibbles we listened to:

Other activities which might work well alongside reading Nibbles: The Book Monster include:

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Disclosure: I was sent a free review copy of this book by the publisher.

Sometimes I dream about world domination.

Really, I do.

You know, a world where book-inspired play is taken to a whole new level.

Not just me and my kids and a book or two, but rather whole schools, even whole towns, with libraries’ worth of books and stories.

I promise I’d be a benign ruler. And one of my first cabinet appointments would be Dr. Matt Finch.

Matt knows a lot about taking playing by, with and out of the pages of a story to a whole new level; I first came across Matt in teen zombie battle. Always a good place to find future members of one’s dream team, don’t you think?

Since then, having wiped away the blood and gore, he’s constantly surprised and amazed me with his ideas for getting people of all ages creating and having fun, whether via comics inspired by M.C. Escher, gambling (of sorts) and games at the British Library or laying down The Great Kiwi Book Domino Challenge.

Shortly before Christmas last year Matt and I finally managed to meet up in person and when we did so he let me in on a new project of his – an incredible multi-player game he’s devised that gets kids and grown ups really excited about books, whether drawn from a library’s collection or with a bookseller’s stock. I knew straight away I wanted to somehow make this game happen wherever possible and so I’m truly delighted that today I get to tell the world about it, and share it with you all.

But first some more details!

Playing by the book: So Matt, what’s your elevator pitch for the game?

Matt Finch: It’s an all-ages roleplay version of events like the Frankfurt Book Fair. Children form teams which are mini publishing companies. They explore a collection of books, then compete to acquire titles which they create posters and marketing materials for.

We’ve also run this activity with adults too, at workshops and training sessions. If anything, the grown-ups are even more competitive.

Photo: Susie Bishop, Pencombe CE Primary School

Playing by the book: In your experience of running this game, what do the kids get out of it?

Matt Finch: Kids get to really explore and engage with a wide range of books, not just in terms of content but also design and other physical qualities.

There’s a bit of relay racing and simple money management as they try to beat other teams to the books they want. They then get to respond creatively to the books that they’ve chosen. Older children often think very strategically about the business of marketing.

It’s a rare chance to blend reading, creativity, and real-world business skills.

As part of the game, players have to browse lots of books and decide which ones they’d like to stock.

Playing by the book: And what about the adults facilitating the game? What’s in it for them?

Matt Finch: Libraries, schools, or booksellers who host the game get to engage communities with their collection in a new and inspiring way. When children’s publishers or booksellers get involved, it’s a chance to see how their target market engage with your stock – and what kind of marketing materials they would create for their books.

Whenever we’ve played this game we’ve tried to assign one adult to each team. We tell the children that the adult on their team is not their boss or their leader, but an extra resource for them to use. By changing that dynamic, adults get to work alongside the children in a different way, supporting but not directing…even taking orders from children when necessary!

Playing by the book: I’m sold! Take me to your game!

Matt Finch: You can download the full instructions for The Book Fair Game here!

Playing by the book: HURRAH!

Players enter a bidding war for the books they most want to stock

Playing by the book: But before I run off and round up some people to play the game with me, I’ve a couple more questions.

Why is playing with books so important?

Matt Finch: Books are hardly the only gateway we have into other worlds and other ways of knowing, but they’re one of the most established and reliable. That kind of ancient magic needs to be explored freely, irreverently, and enthusiastically.

A game like the Book Fair lets children consider the book as a physical object – they even get to sniff them. It also encourages children to reflect on their personal response to a book and how others might respond to that book, too.

Playing by the book: What process do you go through when designing play opportunities which feature books?

Matt Finch: It’s great to incorporate literacy into even the most boisterous play activities. During our live zombie sieges in Australia and New Zealand, the ‘survivors’ had the chance to evaluate fiction and non-fiction as survival aids. In another session for younger children, time travel adventures began with spotting anachronisms in mocked-up newspapers.

In our biggest trial of the Book Fair game, with 100 kids from three schools, we actually folded the activity into a day-long adventure with ninjas fighting bandits – and setting up a bookshop as part of their quest.

For me, play begins with storytelling, and books are just one of many excellent hooks on which we hang the stories that inspire play.

Photo: Susie Bishop, Pencombe CE Primary School

Playing by the book: Did you “play” / act out books as a child? If so, what do you remember doing?

Matt Finch: Oh, all sorts of bizarre stuff got mashed together. By the end of junior school, it was intense. French Resistance stories out of Commando comic blended with Larry Niven scifi which was probably too old for me – with guns that shot slivers of anaesthetic crystal to knock out baddies! Take that, Nazis!

I also played with Star Wars toys, except they were never Star Wars characters. Lando and Leia were the heroes, Luke was a Space Nazi (spot the recurring theme) because he had blonde hair and a single black glove.

And it wasn’t just books. There are embarrassing photos out there somewhere of me and my brother dressed up as Agnetha and Anni-Frid from ABBA. It was about crossing the lines from everyday life to make believe, through any and all points of contact.

Playing by the book: What’s the last book you’ve read (for adults or children) which inspired you to do something, whether that was a trip to visit somewhere, a creative response, cooking new dish or….??

Matt Finch: I’m currently talking to Brisbane’s Rock ‘N’ Roll Writers’ Festival about possible partnerships and that led me back to eccentric rocker Julian Cope’s book The Modern Antiquarian, a guide to the stone circles of Britain.

It’s totally indulgent and bonkers, but experts were forced to agree that he’d done his homework and researched the book well. It’s a kind of deranged gazetteer to these ancient neolithic sites, and another example of how books are a gateway, at any age, between mundane life and weirder worlds. You only need to skim it once and you’ll be hankering to visit your nearest stone circle.

Playing by the book: Matt, just for you, here’s my favourite stone circle:

The Ring of Brodgar, Orkney

Maybe this is where my cabinet and I will hold our inaugural meeting when I finally take over the world. Yes. I rather like that idea.

Huge thanks to Matt (left) for setting free his Book Fair game into the wide world. Do download it and see how you could use it in your library, your school, your book group. Matt and I would love to hear about the adventures you have with it.

Matt Finch (@DrMattFinch) is 2016 Creative in Residence at the State Library of Queensland and writes a weekly newsletter, Curious, Mysterious, Marvellous, Electrical which you can join here: tinyletter.com/marvellouselectrical

You know how you can climb up the ladder at the top of the Magic Faraway Tree into magical lands, often those which match your wildest dreams? I’ve just spent 23 hours in my own magical treetop land, a place packed with more books than I think I’ve ever seen in such a short space of time and the good news is, I wasn’t imagining it; it was REAL!

Hay-on-Wye is a small town on the border of England and Wales and whilst its resident population is under 2000, it has over 20 bookshops, a library and one of the two biggest book festivals in the UK, bringing in over 80,000 visitors for a week in late May/early June each year.

Here are some of the wonderful bookshops we visited:

1. The Children’s Bookshop

The Children’s Bookshop

The Children’s Bookshop would be my first recommendation for anyone looking for children’s books which they actually want to read themselves or give to children. Whilst the stock is all second-hand (as is the case in most Hay bookshops), the books here are not primarily collectors items selling for £££. Rather they are simply older books in good condition, many for £1 / £2 / £3.

2. Rose’s Books

Stella and Rose’s bookshop is a specialist children’s bookshop, ideal for collectors

To survive in a town with so many others, most bookshops have carved out a specific niche for themselves. Rose’s specialises in collectible, rare and out of print children’s books and is full of very, very beautiful books. Whilst children are allowed in the bookshop, this is really a place for adult collectors with a bigger budget than most parents buying simply for their kids’ enjoyment.

3. Hay Cinema Bookshop

Hay Cinema Bookshop (a vast shop with books on almost every subject, and most definitely not just film!)

We nearly walked past this bookshop as I thought it might be dedicated only to film books, but how wrong I was. This place is VAST and has books on every conceivable subject. Remaindered books mingle alongside second-hand books, and there’s also a specialist section containing rare and collectible books.

4. Open air shelves in the Castle grounds

The open air Castle Bookshop

Hay is a very picturesque village, with narrow winding roads and a ruined castle at its heart. There are two sets of open air bookshelves in the castle ground which you can peruse as you picnic.

5. Only for the brave

You can guess what sort of books you might find in here…

6. Richard Booth’s Bookshop

Booths, said by some to be the best bookshop in Hay.

Richard Booth is credited with having started the book revolution in Hay, and he continues to play a significant role in the town running a cafe and a cinema alongside this beautiful bookshop. The children’s section isn’t enormous, though it does mix new books alongside second-hand books, so if you are looking for more recent publications this is a good place to head.

7. Addyman Books

Whilst of course the two specialist children’s bookshops were real delights for me, perhaps my favourite bookshop in Hay was Addyman Books. With a very wide ranging collection of books, including the best selection of children’s books I found outside the two dedicated children’s bookshops, Addyman’s is enormous fun to explore not least because of its themed rooms with interesting and unusual décor.

8. Broad Street Book Centre

Broad Street Book Centre had the best selection of children’s non-fiction I found anywhere in Hay.

9. Greenway’s Corner Bookshop

Tucked down a little alleyway Greenway’s has only a small children’s section but it will always have a special place in our hearts as it was actually the first bookshop we visited when we arrived in Hay. M was especially delighted as she found one of the books in the Dune series (her current passion).

10. The Poetry Bookshop

My only disappointment in Hay. But that’s only because it was on my “target list” but by the time we got there it was shut (5pm) so we didn’t manage to get inside.

Hay is lucky to have its own library as well as all these bookshops. I do wonder what it is like to be a librarian here!

Another library nearby which is very definitely worth visiting is Hereford Cathedral’s Chained Library.

Photo: Rosemary Firman. Click to go to the source.

Housing many medieval manuscripts (and next door to the incredible Mappa Mundi) this is a powerful space for reflecting on the value, beauty and longevity of books. It’s part of a great exhibition in the Cathedral and whilst it is about 20 miles from Hay (easily reached by public transport), it should be on any book lover’s itinerary.

For more photos from my time in Hay, head on over to Playing by the Book’s Facebook page.

What’s been your favourite ever bookish destination?

The power of ideas and the resilience which comes with imagination are key themes in Michael Foreman‘s fabulous celebration of stories, The Little Bookshop and the Origami Army, about a bookshop threatened with closure.

Developers want to replace the bookshop with a supermarket but hope arrives when an energetic and powerful superhero, Origami Girl, folds herself out of a newspaper delivery boy’s bag. She summons an army of friends out of the pages on the shelves of the bookshop and local library, and when builders and the local bigwig come face to face with characters they themselves loved in the books they read as children, do you think they can still continue with their plans to bulldoze the bookshop?

There’s so much to enjoy in this optimistic and not a-political picture book. From the very first illustration, which I’m sure is semi-autobiographical (Foreman himself was a newspaper delivery boy, and the blue and white scarf is perhaps a nod to his life-long support of Chelsea football club), to the final pages showing a completely different building project which really serves the local community, each spread from Foreman has something to make readers smile and feel empowered.

The story arc reminds me of Foreman’s piercing and brilliant War and Peas; Conflict and peaceful resolution are key themes throughout his oeuvre, perhaps unsurprisingly for one whose outlook on life has been so coloured by his experience of World War 2 and the Cold War (the former engagingly explored in War Boy).

Colour plays a powerful role in the illustrations in The Little Bookshop and the Origami Army. Yes, Foreman is known for his intense blue washes, and they are present here, but by counterpointing these with flashes time and again of rainbow hued details (the passing train, the children’s outfits, the railway bridge arches), the blue lifts and brightens, and the palette and composition of his spreads embody energy and hopefulness. For me, each rainbow splash is like a shaft of sunlight hitting the page.

Fictional characters coming to life have a long and wonderful history. Two of my favourite examples are to be found in Otto the Book Bear by Katie Cleminson and Eleanor’s Secret, a marvellous animated film which deserves to be much more widely known. Classics old and new are represented in Foreman’s visionary army, with McKee’s Elmer and Ross’ Little Princess marching alongside Alice, Puss in Boots, Toad of Toad Hall and many more, including some of Foreman’s favourites from earlier books of his. This playfulness seems to me a Foreman hallmark; when I interviewed him I was especially struck by the twinkle in his eye and joie de vivre. His sense of mischief shines through too: The spread showing politicians snoring in parliament is a hoot!

Unfortunately, the future for bookshops is not as bright and rainbow filled as Foreman’s rich book suggests. Just this week Saltaire Bookshop has announced that it may have to close in 6 months time, with takings currently averaging only £2 a day. The stats for the UK are bleak: Ten years ago there were 1,535 independent booksellers here, but by 2014 there were only 939. Interestingly, the situation in the US seems more hopeful: According to the American Booksellers Association, the number of independent bookshops (or should I say bookstores) in the U.S. has grown significantly in the last 5 years (figures differ, but if you’re interested, take a look here and here).

I can only encourage you to do your bit to ensure there continue to be local independent bookshops to feed our imaginations by getting your own copy of this loving ode to the impact books can have on us and the value of places which store stories for us all by seeking out your own copy of The Little Bookshop and the Origami Army. It will make your book-loving heart sing!

Inspired by Foreman’s fabulous book we wanted to create our own bookshop full of origami characters. First we had to fill our shop with books, and not just any old books, but edible ones. These were made with little chewy sweets (fruit salads), but you could use any small individually wrapped rectangular sweet.

We also included in our inventory these enticing books:

I hope the image below gives you a good enough idea of how to make these books yourself. If you do use fruit salads or blackjacks (in the UK) you can use my printout for the words on the pages by downloading from here. Each double page spread is a excerpt from a different Grimm’s fairy tale so you can include everything from Rapunzel to The 12 Dancing Princesses in your bookshop.

The fairytale texts were attached to the sweets and book covers (small slips of cardboard) using tiny glue dots.The second type of book was made out of fig rolls (fig newtons) and strips of dried fruit / fruit leather (we used these), with writing icing to decorate the covers.

Once our bookshop stock was ready we had to build some shelves and create some origami characters to hide in amongst the books:

We used Densho Origami: Traditional Japanese Figures for Everyone to learn how to make origami figures. It was ideal for my 10 year old who quickly graduated to the more complex projects, but J, at 7, also found the instructions for the simpler patterns easy to follow.

Finally our bookshop had a grand opening. You can imagine how many books got eaten in the celebration!

Whilst making our little bookshop full with origami friends we listened to:

We also tried learning The Origami Song…. it’s surprisingly addictive!

Other activities which would go well with reading The Little Bookshop and the Origami Army include:

Disclosure: I received a free review copy of this book from the publishers.

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Once a month I lead a book group for 8-12 year olds at our local public library and our most recent session was about science fiction books. It was one of the most enjoyable sessions we’ve had, so I thought I’d share what we did.

My first challenge was to come up with a list of science fiction which 8-12 year olds might enjoy. This wasn’t such an easy task, but in the end my book list read like this:

Several people helped me come up with this list (thank you!), but I’d like to give a special shout out to author SF Said who was tremendously helpful in making suggestions about books I might like to consider.

I knew that most of the kids in my group hadn’t read any science fiction at all (though most had seen either some Dr Who episodes or the Star Wars films), and so first we had a discussion about what we mean when we talk about science fiction in relation to books. The definition we came up with was:

Fiction which typically focuses on:

As the aim of the session was to get the kids exposed to a wide variety of SF, and to choose at find at least one SF book which they thought looked interesting enough to read, I wanted to expose them to lots of different books in the short time we had. And so I came up with a board game which the group played in teams.

All the books on my list above, plus some space-themed poetry and space non-fiction books were placed in the centre of our table, and each team was give a game template, a dice and a lego spaceman or alien as their counter.

The aim of the game was for each team to get to the end of the board game (set out a little like snakes and ladders ie with the possibility of having to move forward and backwards on the board), collecting as many (glow in the dark) stars as possible along the way. Teams won stars by correctly answering questions associated with the numbered star they landed on each time they rolled the dice.

All the questions were about the books in the centre of the table, and so to find the answers, the kids had to do a lot of browsing. Some questions were very simple (“Who is the author of X”), some involved a value judgment (“Choose three words to describe the illustrations in Y”) and some required more in-depth browsing inside books (eg “Which book opens with the lines XYX” or “Which book is set in X”). When each team had found the answer to a given question they came and gave me the answer, and if it was correct (or simply reasonably thoughtful in the case of value judgments), the team got a star and returned to roll the dice for their next question.

The game was over when every team had reached the end point on the board, and the winning team was that which had collected the most stars. The victors each won a Mars bar (you get the space connection?) and the book of their choice from a small selection I brought with me from my past review pile.

Once winnings had been distributed we went round the group and everyone had to pick up one book which had caught their eye, and comment on what it was about the book that they liked the look of.

The session went with a blast (no pun intended, but I’m happy to keep it in ). I think it worked so well because:

If you’d like to try the game out you can download a copy of this board game here (pdf) but you’ll need to create your own set of questions to go with whichever books you’re using in your session. You’ll see on the board that there are time warps (they look like tornadoes), a teleporter, and two tardises (tardi?) – if kids landed on these they had the choice to go forwards or backwards along the board, and pretty soon they realised that it was actually beneficial to move back wherever possible as this gave the team the chance to win more stars.

Next month’s bookgroup meeting is actually all about celebrating our first birthday, so if you’ve any suggestions for great book-themed party games to play, I’d really love to hear about them!

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If you liked this post you might enjoy two past posts of mine: 7 ways to set up and run a children’s book group or Book Bingo!.

Archie Greene and the Magician’s Secret by D. D. Everest takes you into a world where bookshelves are enchanted, librarians have magical powers, and spells aren’t just something to read about in dusty tomes. It’s ideal for kids around the age of 10 who perhaps enjoyed the magic of Harry Potter, but it can also can be enjoyed as a family read with younger children who’ll be excited by mysterious apparitions and strange goings-on.

Various Archie Green covers – from L-R: UK paperback, UK hardback, US

Archie Greene receives a curious birthday present; an old wooden box containing a book written in a language he can’t read, along with the command to return this book to its rightful place on the shelves in the Secret Library. This is the first step on Archie’s journey to meet the family he never knew he had and a band of people dedicated to finding and saving magic books.

Atmospheric and exciting, I enjoyed this book so much I’ve since recommended it to several children in my 8-12 bookgroup. With a paperback edition hitting bookshelves early in June I took the opportunity to interview D.D. Everest about this book.

Playing by the book: Archie Greene and the Magician’s Secret is a wonderful fantasy novel. What is it about fantasy as a genre that appeals to you? I’m especially curious because of your background as a journalist and non-fiction writer, both of which seem to be about as distant as you can get from fantasy… which is maybe part of the answer?

D. D. Everest

But I have always loved magical fantasy. My favourite books growing up were the Hobbit and Lord of the Rings. What I love most about those books is the depth and detail that Tolkien gives to the world he creates, the layering of the stories and the myths and the cultures that he describes.

Playing by the book: I love books where true facts coincide with the story and this very much happens in Archie Greene and the Magician’s Secret; John Dee really did exist and was Elizabeth 1’s adviser, and there was indeed a Library of Alexandria which was destroyed by fire. What other truths have you smuggled in to your story? (What other truths did you discover during your research which you would like to have included in your story)

D. D. Everest: I think including real facts and places grounds a story. It connects it to the real world so it feels like you can almost touch it. It’s something I really wanted to do with the Archie books. Using history is a great way to give the story some of that depth that I mentioned before.

John Dee, who is in the first Archie book, was a real person. He was described as Queen Elizabeth I’s court magician. He really did collect books about magic and he did think he could talk to angels. The Great Library of Alexandria is also historically accurate, although the part about Alexander the Great’s magical book collection being kept there is just wishful thinking!

Another historical detail I included in the book is the Great Fire of London. In Archie’s world, the fire was started by a magical experiment that went wrong. That plays a big part in the second book Archie Greene and the Alchemists’ Secret.

Playing by the book: With another hat on you’ve written several non-fiction books. How has writing fiction compared? What’s been more difficult about writing fiction? And what has been more enjoyable? Do you still write non-fiction?

D. D. Everest: Writing fiction is much harder, especially fantasy because you are creating a whole world from your imagination. That world has to be plausible enough for people to believe in it and exciting enough for them to want to read about it.

Writing children’s books is the most challenging of all. Having said that, I don’t write for children as such. I write what I’d like to read. But I hope children will enjoy it.

The best thing about writing for children is that they have such rich imaginations that you have lots of licence to be creative. So, you have a big canvas. But the other side of that is they have very high expectations. They question everything in a way that adults don’t, which means they could get ahead of the plot or find holes in the logic. So you have to work really hard at that.

Playing by the book: Can you share a little of the research you did for Archie Greene and the Magician’s Secret – I imagine you spent time exploring the back streets of Oxford and visiting atmospheric libraries, perhaps even learning some bookbinding skills?

D. D. Everest: Luckily, I was doing some work at the university when I was writing the first book so I was in Oxford quite a lot. I wandered around at night taking lots of photos with my phone. I sometimes show the pictures when I do school events. Again, it grounds the story and makes it feel real.

Oxford

For example, there is a description of when Archie first goes to the magical bookshop and he crosses a cobbled square and goes into some narrow lanes. If you go to Oxford it is very easy to find that cobbled square!

Playing by the book: Libraries play an important role in Archie Greene and the Magician’s Secret. Can you share a memory/experience of libraries and the role they’ve played in your life?

D. D. Everest: Most of my memories of libraries are of being told to be quiet because I was talking too loudly! That’s probably why I wanted the Museum of Magical Miscellany to be a noisy place, full of children laughing. Books should be exciting and fun. And magical books should be even more exciting and fun, so that’s how I imagined the Museum.

I have been lucky to see some famous libraries like the British Library, which are fabulous places. I’ve always wanted to have my own library – with revolving bookcases and secret passages. Perhaps I will one day!

Playing by the book: Did you always want to be a writer? If you weren’t a writer, would you rather be? (A professional football coach, perhaps?)

D. D. Everest: I have always wanted to be a writer ever since I was very young. I didn’t really know it at the time but looking back I can see it now. I was the kid who wrote pages and pages when the teacher asked us to write a story. My stories were always too long and complicated to finish in the lesson time. I still do that!

When I’m not writing I manage a junior football team. Most of them have been with me since they were about six – they are now 17. They are a great bunch. I’m not sure how good a manager I would be but I do enjoy it, especially on match days.

Playing by the book: What’s the most magical (in any sense) book you’ve read recently?

D. D. Everest: I really enjoyed Rooftoppers by Katherine Rundell. It is very imaginative and beautifully written. The Graveyard Book, by Neil Gaiman, is so original. The other really clever book I’ve just read is Lockwood & Co. The Screaming Staircase by Jonathan Stroud. He’s a great writer – I loved his Bartimaeus series.

One of many interior illustrations by James de la Rue ffor the hardback edition of Archie Greene and the Magician’s Secret

Playing by the book: What magic trick would you most like to be able to perform?

D. D. Everest: I’d like to be able to vanish, so I could avoid people I don’t want to talk to. I’d love to have a permission wall around my study, too, like the one that protects the Museum of Magical Miscellany so that only people with the secret mark could come in. But best of all I’d love to be able to talk to magical books like Archie!

Playing by the book: Oh, yes I’m with you on that one! Here’s keeping our fingers crossed that such magic comes our way!

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Martin Salisbury is a Professor of Illustration and course leader for Anglia Ruskin University’s MA in Children’s Book Illustration. To say he knows a thing or two about art in children’s books is something of an understatement. So back last Christmas, when I first heard rumours of his new book, 100 Great Children’s Picture Books, I knew it was going to be a 2015 highlight, a book that would open doors into new worlds, spark curiosity and… likely cause a run on my bank account.

Having enjoyed his past books (Illustrating Children’s Books, Play Pen: New Children’s Book Illustration and Children’s Picturebooks: The Art of Visual Storytelling, written in collaboration with Morag Styles), I knew Salisbury’s selection wouldn’t focus on books which you’d find on sale in supermarkets or filling the weekly Top 10 list in The Bookseller. But I also knew I would make lots of discoveries and that I’d be challenged (so many books and illustrators I perhaps hadn’t heard of before, so much art which I might wonder about how children would respond to rather than adults). I knew it would be an exciting book.

And indeed it is.

Salisbury has chosen 100 books from approximately the last 100 years, using a “luxuriously subjective approach... [with] rather un-academic, unscientific criteria, ultimately based on the ‘wow’ factor.” Whilst the curator of this collection acknowledges that “the successful picture book is about much more than good art and design“, his focus is illustration alone. These books have not been chosen because they work well as complete books, where the storytelling and the interplay between words and illustration is as important and finely honed as the artwork. Rather, they have been highlighted because Salisbury is passionate about the pictures.

Gloriously international in its coverage, with books from Italy, France, Switzerland, Russia, Germany, Japan, China, Belgium as well as a large UK and US contingent, and with the added bonus of some historical contextualisation (the books are presented in chronological order so you can follow changes in printing techniques and the impact that’s had on illustration), this is a gourmet buffet for those with an adventurous palette. Even the inclusion of illustrators you’d place bets on having entries comes with surprises; Salisbury chooses books that are generally not the first associated with these big names. So Bemelman’s Hansi, and not Madeline is highlighted, Sendak’s The Moon Jumpers rather than Where The Wild Things Are, Velthuijs’s The Monster from Half-way to Nowhere rather than his Frog books.

Some illustrators get two entries, whilst others you might anticipate being included are absent (Shaun Tan and Anthony Browne for example), but this doesn’t matter. The aim of this book is not the provision of a definitive list; this is not a best 100, but rather a more honest and subjective, more playful simply great 100. Alongside interior spreads from the book in question Salisbury explains his choice, flavoured with opinions (you can look for entries including “appalling” or “extraordinarily naive“, for example), often with a brief biography of the artist.

This is a book for making discoveries, brilliant for collectors, those with a passion for viewing or creating art, and anyone with an inquisitive mind. It isn’t really a book for parents wanting to find the next great book to read to their four year old however. Many of the books included are not available in English translation, some are out of print and extremely expensive to buy and Salisbury’s tastes are probably more avant-garde than most who don’t live and breathe children’s books. I would have preferred the more honest title “Art from 100 Great Children’s Picture Books”.

But this is a minor quibble. 100 Great Children’s Picture Books, an intellectual and visual treat, does what every exceptional book does: it nurtures deeper engagement and sets you off on paths you didn’t previously know about but now want to follow.

I would never normally encourage underhand or devious behaviour, but today I’m most wholeheartedly advocating cooking the books!

Recipe For a Story by Ella Burfoot is a joyous and playful guide on how to have great fun creating a story good enough to eat. A little girl tells us, in lilting rhyme, how she weighs out her words, mixes in characters, adds flavour with feelings, colours and sounds, sprinkles in some punctuation and glazes her baking with happiness, all to ensure her story is a delicious read.

And Ella Burfoot’s book is indeed a very appetising offering! Both text and illustration are clever and comical, creating an enormously enjoyable story to share, but one which also offers scope for learning about aspects of bookmaking and storytelling; this is a book which could work as well in the classroom as at home on the sofa.

Illustrations full of jokes about both books and food offer lots to ensure repeat reading will be requested, with new details being discovered each time. The images also ooze happiness (there are so many smiles in this book, including a gorgeous one created – presumably – by Burfoot’s own child at the front of the book) and a charming child-like innocence. Burfoot’s use of pencil, crayon and collage in the illustration, at times reminding me of Louise Yates‘s work, will inspire kids not only to try writing their own stories, but also to illustrate them.

Recipe For a Story by Ella Burfoot is delicately and sweetly flavoured feel-good treat perfect for feeding the writing bug! Bon appetit!

Now I’ve got a bit of a thing for edible books so I knew I had try my hand at making book slices inspired by Burfoot’s pie illustration above. After all, a slice of pie or cake has just the right shape to represent an open book. One Victoria sponge and inordinate amounts of icing later I had a teatime treat ready for my girls:

Like Recipe For a Story, these books made from cake and icing were devoured with delight.

M and J then wanted to set up their own “story kitchen” with jars full of special ingredients. Old jars, labels and a few cut-up newspapers later, we had our ingredients all ready to be mixed up in bowls and turned into stories of our own.

The girls cut out words they liked from a variety of newspapers and magazines:

Jam jar labels were filled in with the names of various ingredients:

The girls created jars for “Quality Adverbs”, “Juicy Adjectives”, “Nonsense words”, “Crazy words”, “Hyphens”, “Book words” and my personal favourite, “Kim’s tiny words from concentrate”.

We used shop-bought labels but if you’ve a good printer you could print your own jam jar labels at home – here’s a Pinterest board full of ideas.

Whilst eating cake and filling our story kitchen cupboards with good ingredients we listened to:

Other activities which could be paired nicely with reading Recipe For a Story include:

What’s your favourite recipe for a good story?

Disclosure: I was sent a free review copy of Recipe For a Story by the publisher.

This time last week I was dismantling the book den I’d built out of books. This time next year, maybe I’ll be dismantling a CASTLE built from books: over on Twitter @storyvilled alerted me to a lovely little book by Bernard Clavel (the translation is not credited to an individual), illustrated by Yan Nascimbene with the enticing title Castle of Books.

Sadly both author and illustrator are now deceased. Clavel was a French writer for both adults and young people who began his working life as a pastry cook apprentice, not becoming a full time writer until in his 40s. Nascimbene was born in France but studied at the School of Visual Arts in New York. Specialising in watercolour, he illustrated over 60 books and 300 book covers. You can see lots of examples of his work here.

But getting back to my dreams of building a castle with books, Clavel and Nascimbene’s picture book is a quiet meditation on turning dreams into reality. Benjamin has always wanted to live in a castle whilst his father, a poet, is always looking for just the right word or turn or phrase to include in his latest work.

Living in a house packed to the rafters with books, Benjamin realises he has the bricks he needs for his castle on the shelves in front of him and so sets to work taking books from the back of shelves (behind the second row of books at the front) so that his father won’t notice what is going on.

Once the castle is complete his father visits and is delighted because he rediscovers just the books he was looking for to help him with his latest poem. gently removing those ‘bricks’ from the castle walls.

Without realising it, Benjamin has helped his father, by bringing books hidden from view out into the light (I recognised myself here for I definitely discovered some long forgotten favourites last week as I handled all my books).

A gentle flight of fancy, with subtle and soothing illustrations, Castle of Books (unfortunately out of print) is a charming vision of a father-son relationship, and a testament to the inspiration to be found in books.

I’m so grateful to @storyvilled, who blogs about books for children and young people at https://specsisters.wordpress.com/ for telling me about this delightful book. If you know of a book you’d think I like, please don’t hesitate to get in touch!

This fabulous illustration by Rosalind Beardshaw features the lovely Lulu from a delightful series of books written by Anna McQuinn, and seems just perfect for National Libraries Day.

I’ll be spending much of today at my local library, running this month’s book group for 8-12 year olds (you may recall I wrote about it here). Today’s theme is “funny books” and as well as exploring a whole host of joke books and other books to make us giggle, we’ll be having a library wide cracker hunt.

Thanks to the power of Twitter many authors and illustrators have shared their favourite jokes with me, and I’ve packed them up inside crackers, along with a brief bio of each author/illustrator (and perhaps a sweet or two…). Once the kids have found all the crackers around the library, the book group will be looking for as many books as possible by each of the authors/illustrators who shared a joke with us. The more books they find, the more treats they win!

We all get to laugh. We all discover new books. We all get to have a great time in our local library! HURRAH!

And if you can’t make it to your local library today, treat yourself instead to How the Library (not the Prince) saved Rapunzel, written by Wendy Meddour and illustrated by Rebecca Ashdown Petrie, a rhyming, funny, modern-day take on the much loved fairy tale which does a splendid job of celebrating – in both words and pictures – just how brilliant libraries are.

I have to admit that there have been one or two occasions in my lifetime when I’ve lost a library book.

I’ve never had a reasonable excuse (the overflowing levels of books in my home may be what has swallowed them up, but I cannot use this an acceptable defence). I’ve certainly never been able to claim that any loss was on account of a wild bear hungry for words.

But a twelfth century Brother Hugo could and did. Or at least he does in the delightful and engaging Brother Hugo and the Bear by Katy Beebe, illustrated by S. D. Schindler .

To make good the loss of a missing manuscript, Brother Hugo is ordered by his Abbot to prepare a fresh copy. Having borrowed the neighbouring monastery’s version of the lost text, we follow Hugo as he carefully recreates the book that has disappeared.

All goes well until his journey to return the loaned copy, when he is stalked by a hungry bear…

A historical note at the end of the book quotes from an extant letter written by Peter the Venerable (c. 1092 – 1156, a real-life abbot who published the first Latin edition of the Koran amongst other things):

“And send to us, if it pleases you, the great volume of letters by the holy father Augustine, which contains his letters to Saint Jerome, and Saint Jerome’s to him. For it happens that the greater part of our volume was eaten by a bear.“

Beebe has used this historical fact to build a captivating and funny story. We learn a lot about how books were at one time made including where parchment comes from and how some inks were made. But this is no dry non-fiction text.

Historical figures and settings come to life in ways which make them real and relevant; “The dog ate my homework” is an excuse I’ve yet to hear in real life – a bit like seeing someone slip on an actual banana skin – but it’s an excuse we are all familiar with, and which resonates clearly with poor Hugo and his encounter with the bear. Beebe’s text is perfectly peppered with slightly archaic language, giving a lovely flavour seasoned just right for using this book with slightly older children.

Schindler’s illustration are a delight, drawing heavily on many styles and motifs used in mediaeval manuscripts. Illuminated letters start each paragraph and the finely executed, detailed ink and water colour illustrations contain much humour. As befits a book about hand-created manuscripts, Schindler’s illustrations are completely executed by hand (you can learn more on Schindler’s blog), without computer manipulation, a relatively rare thing these days in picture books.

Text and illustration are both splendid but what truly completes this book is the inclusion not only of a historical note and glossary but also a commentary from both author and illustrator on the inspiration and process of their work. This adds real depth to an already interesting and beautiful book.

Brother Hugo and the Bear has appeared on several “best of 2014″ book lists in the US, including 2014 American Booksellers Association Best Books for Children Catalog, Kirkus Best of 2014 and School Library Journal Best Books of 2014 and it is certainly worth ordering a copy of this American import (unfortunately you’re unlikely to find this in a UK library). It would make an ideal book to use as the basis of some activities for World Book Day.

Inspired by Brother Hugo we wanted to make our own illuminated manuscripts. Using some colouring-in pages printed from the web as our inspiration we drew outlines for illuminated letters using pencils before going over them with ink.

The inked letters were then filled in with watercolour and a little bit of gold guache before being leather bound.

Completely at their own instigation the girls used a Latin dictionary to find words they liked to write in their manuscripts.

Whilst making our manuscripts we listened to various 12th century music such as this, this and this.

Other activities which would work well alongside reading Brother Hugo and the Bear include:

This year sees the 10th anniversary of another of my favourite books about books: Charlie Cook’s Favourite Book written by Julia Donaldson and illustrated by Axel Scheffler. Over the course of the next few weeks I’ll be reviewing a few new book-themed book discoveries – but do let me know your favourite picture books which celebrate books and the joy of reading.

Once a month I run (as a volunteer) a children’s reading group at our local public library. It’s targeted at 8-12 year olds and we’ve been going about 7 months now. It brings me enormous pleasure!

I thought it would be a fun idea to bring together lots of mini case studies about how different people have set up book groups for children in the hope that it might encourage some of you to consider setting up one in your community or your child’s school. You’ll find lots of tips and practical advice in these case studies and just maybe you’ll also find yourself thinking that you too could run something similar.

Case Study 1: Gita @storyvilled

“I’m writing this post after the Chatterbooks group I run weekly at our local primary school. I am not a teacher or librarian but a parent. Armed with an MA in Creative Writing and Children’s Literature I decided it would be fun to set up a children’s book group. As all who work with children know, the reality is both harder and MUCH more rewarding than I’d imagined.

Today, in forty minutes we:

1) Returned last week’s books and gave feedback. Lovely comment from a girl re SF Said’s Phoenix that it was ‘surprising and sad.’ Couldn’t have said it better myself.

2) Designed our own planets, thinking about distance from the sun, number of moons, gravity, atmosphere and planetary life (this month’s theme is Science Fiction).

3) Chose from a selection of new books and issued them.

4) Talked about ‘Why I can’t live without books’ in preparation for a World Book Day event. This led to a discussion with a child about his family history involving an exciting tale of how his grandfather escaped Nazi Germany! I promised to find ‘When Hitler Stole Pink Rabbit’ by Judith Kerr for him next time.

5) Discussed how amazing ‘El Deafo’ by Cece Bell was with a girl who’s borrowed it THREE times, and whether her friend could borrow it though it didn’t fit our theme of Science Fiction (Yes!)

However much you’ve planned (and I do!) the best and most surprising moments are child-led.

I couldn’t have done it without:

1) Support from the school (in my case a keen Year 6 teacher.)
2) Joining Chatterbooks (this is free) and in my case going on a training day (this is not.) They provide a great monthly newsletter with suggestions for themes and activities. Link here: http://readingagency.org.uk/children/quick-guides/chatterbooks/
3) The AMAZING online community of book bloggers and tweeters who have helped me find books to attract young readers.

TOP TIPS!

1) All the children LOVED graphic novels (reviews here: http://specsisters.wordpress.com/2014/11/04/highbrow-lowbrow-nobrowdoes-it-matter)
2) A display board helps to promote the club and the children enjoy seeing their ‘mini-reviews’ posted.
3) Bring BISCUITS!”

Photo: Mike Licht

Case Study 2: Carmen from Rhino Reads

“Last year I ran an informal book group for 13 year six children (10/11yrs) We met every Wednesday in the school library during their lunch break. And I learnt just as much as the children did!

Running a book group can be a hugely rewarding experience. The satisfaction of watching a child find *that* book – the one that chimes with them and becomes the beginning of a special journey- is a truly wonderful feeling. Sharing books and ideas with children is a real privilege. You become part teacher, part librarian, part mentor and part friend. It is immensely fun! But it can be tricky, too. Here’s what I have learned over the last year…

Structure is helpful… But don’t be afraid to go wherever the kids take you.
The book group was set up as part of the East Sussex Children’s Book Award -for the children to read the shortlist and vote for their favourites – so we had a ready made starting point and structure which was very helpful in the initial ‘getting to know each other’ stage. We had six books to read through, review, and write about creatively. It only took us a couple of weeks before we were flying wildly off tangent and reading all sorts of brilliant books alongside the shortlisted six, but that initial structure helped us immensely. You could shadow a book award, have a different theme every week, or a new author each week. Whatever you choose, don’t be afraid to change and follow what catches the interest of the kids.

Keep it informal
These kids were giving up their lunch break to come and talk books with me. I tried to keep it as informal and fun as possible. We sat on the tables or on beanbags, we chatted, we shared, we took turns and we laughed. Sometimes I brought sweets. That went down well! I made mistakes in front of them and let them make mistakes too. We trusted each other and we became friends.

What do they like? What do they want?
I found it really helpful to find out why they’d signed up for the book group – what they hoped to get out of it. Mostly they wanted to find new books and authors, improve their reading or their creative or critical writing, and to meet authors. As I didn’t know the children I also asked them what they liked reading and for some of their favourite books. All this information really helped me tailor the book group sessions to suit the kids and helped me find new books for them to read. I read their favourite books and then gave them new suggestions. I forwarded their reviews to authors and publishers and set them up with their own website where they could show off their writing. Some of the best moments came from having that initial info – their faces when Matt Haig tweeted their work, their excitement about having a tweet-chat with Anne Booth after reading Girl With A White Dog, their joy at reading a book I’d recommended that was just the kind of story they wanted. The more you know the children and what they want, the more you can give them.

Know what’s out there
Last year I read A LOT of books for their age group so that I could recommend the best ones. It really helps to know what’s out there and what’s good. Ask around, do your research, READ!

Mix it up a bit
Because of the shortlisted books we were focusing on, we read mainly fiction for the 8-12 market. But we mixed it up a bit too. I brought in a few picture books that made them think and reassess what – and who – picture books are for. I used The Yes by Sarah Bee, but Shaun Tan books are great for this too. One girl dreamed of becoming a journalist so I brought in some non-fiction books. What about comics or graphic novels? I’d have loved to use them if we’d had more time.

Kids love Free Stuff
I found that bringing in a few new books each week for the children to pounce on really kept up their enthusiasm. I would raid the school library shelves in advance and bring in my copies from home. They started doing the same and through their recommendations I ended up finding new books and authors too! I also brought them a load of bookmarks (picked up at my local Indy bookshop) and I always had post its and pens out so they could write down mini reviews and ideas. It’s amazing what a glitter gel pen can inspire! This worked out really well for the shortlisted books and we ended up making a display of all our post-it’s around a photocopy of the book cover.

And lastly…
Don’t run your book group at the same time as football
I lost 2 of my group when football club started in the new term. Learn from my mistake.”

Photo: Enokson

Case study 3: Liz

“I taught English at Secondary level for 25 years and after giving up full time work ran a kids reading group held at our very small local library. The library is really more like someone’s sitting room with sofas, bean bags, etc. so its ot at all intimidating. We meet once a month between 5 and 6p.m. It has been going for about 5 years but obviously the members change over time. We advertised in local schools, libraries and youth clubs.

The group isn’t running at the moment as winter nights are a bit tricky in a rural ill lit village! The group is for 8-12 year olds but in reality tended to be mainly 8-10 year olds. I very much let the group lead, as far as activities were concerned and we mainly started with” My Favourite Book” and how to persuade others to read it. They brought along their own copy. I didn’t want to make it too much like school but I did try to steer them away from just re telling the story and to talk about character and setting a bit. Inevitably this got others talking about what they liked about books too. We always have a drink and nibble break when the books are put in the middle for everyone to look at.

We have looked at different genres and ordered books from the library that we thought might be good. I found that hearing about other’s choice of books often meant they would try something new. It is a good idea to use the library facility because a) It encourages the use of libraries (Use it or lose it) and b) they can try a book without shelling out money. Most libraries let kids take out 20 books. They can order on line from the whole county stock for free and have it delivered to their local library and return it there too.

I often took along a selection of books and we would look at beginnings and endings and talk about what makes a good story. One group wrote some beginnings and endings and we all shared them…..some demand for them to finish the story was quite amusing! There are fun things relating to characters you could do too.

I would suggest limiting the age range and the size of the group. Ours tends to be a maximum of about 8. You need to change tack quite often…your instincts should tell you when its time to move on to something else!

We gave our book group a name based on where our group is located and designed a badge which we had printed.

Our sessions were an hour with a break for squash and biscuits half way. This is quite a long time for some and we often had some sort of activity for example, designing book covers, looking up authors on the internet, producing a comic style book about their favourite books and seasonal activities like Spooky Stories, Christmas Stories or Holiday Stories. Once or twice I read to them for part of the session which has been surprisingly successful on occasions! Be prepared for activities not to get finished to any satisfactory conclusion but it isn’t school and as long as they have fun it doesn’t matter! I’d advise avoiding too many writing activities as that seems too much like school to them!

There are organisations which produce magazines for book groups and you could band together with some other local groups and approach locally based authors who will sometimes come along for free as long as you promote their book!

I found looking at one set book as a group wasn’t very successful as they are often unwilling to move out of their comfort zone and so won’t read it beforehand.

I did find that the kids who wanted to join were already keen readers; it is an ongoing problem to attract in the unwilling readers. About equal numbers of boys and girls take part thought the girls are generally much more likely to read the boy’s choices of books than the other way round. They tend to meet in the Fantasy genre!”

Photo: Sweet Jessie

Case Study 4: Katie at Storytellers, Inc, @storytellersinc

“We have three book groups for children at the moment here at Storytellers, Inc., separated by age group. The 8-9 group, 10-12 group and 13+. Each group meets once a month to discuss a single book they have all read in advance of the meetings. The sessions are usually fuelled by an abundance of biscuits, crisps and hot chocolate (although my sophisticated teens love the Mocha in our coffee machine!).

I lead the discussions to try and keep us on topic but we invariably end up talking about One Direction and Doctor Who – which is fine if that’s where the conversation goes. Book club isn’t a school lesson, the children are there in their own free time and I think it’s important that it’s run in a way that means they want to attend. I always select the books myself and in most cases I’ve read the whole book myself before I’ve selected it; what I’m looking for is great, standalone stories that the children might not have come across on their own. I won’t ever pick Wimpy Kid or the latest David Walliams, I’m trying to nudge them outside of their comfort zone to read as widely as possible. Vocabulary, spelling, grammar and grasp of English in their own writing is all vastly improved by reading for pleasure so I avoid putting anyone on the spot with test-like questions or insisting anyone writes up a formal review -so long as they give the book a go, I’m happy. If they didn’t like the book, I expect the discussion to be about what exactly they didn’t like, how it could be improved, what they would have preferred etc., and if we’re really stuck I like to hear about what else they’ve been reading since I saw them last.

The children in the group become friends quite quickly, most of them attend on their own and because of the range of schools nearby they rarely know each other before joining book club, so they have the added bonus of making new friends outside of their school circles. It’s confidence building. Some members drop in and out but you can usually tell which ones are just here for the sweets, the true book lovers stick with it and are willing to try anything in order to discover a new potential favourite read- some of my members have been coming since the groups were created – nearly three years ago now. I know they love it because they keep coming back and I’m delighted when parents tell me that they’ve had a sneaky read of their children’s book too – great stories know no boundaries!

My top tips for starting a children’s book group would be:

Photo: Salem (MA) Public Library

Case Study 5: Centre for Literacy in Primary Education

In 2013 CLPE was funded by the Siobhan Dowd Trust to set up book groups in Southwark schools. This free downladable guide sets out what was learnt during the project and gives guidance to schools hoping to set up their own book groups. Full details can be found at https://www.clpe.org.uk/page/68

Photo: San Jose Library

Case Study 6: Laura Sheldon

“I’ve been running a school book club for 3 years now. I’m a teacher at the school and also the literacy coordinator and I also have responsibility for provision for more able pupils. The book club initially started as an opportunity for more able pupils to read and discuss more challenging books. It has evolved slightly and although this is still partly the aim, all pupils are encouraged to join and we have a mix of reading abilities in the group now. (The group was always open to anyone who wished to join of course!). Two members of staff are in the group and it’s entirely voluntary. We meet every week for half an hour at a lunchtime and either discuss an aspect of the book we are reading (theme, character development etc) or respond to the book in some way. For example, our last book was Rooftoppers by Kathryn Rundell and I asked the pupils to write an early memory on a piece of paper. We collected them in a scrapbook and shared with each other.

We all read the same book (which the pupils have to source for themselves – they usually share copies, visit the library, download onto kindles etc) and we close a different book at least once a half term. We choose books in a bit of a haphazard way. I ask the children for their ideas but also suggest one or two myself. The children vote for their choice and we usually end up reading something that stretches them a little. Past favourites have included Holes by Louis Sachar, Framed by Frank Cottrell Boyce and Varjak Paw by SF Said.

I used to have cake at every meeting (sometimes provided by me, sometimes the children but that stopped when we increased the frequency of the meetings). We now have cake on special occasions and celebrate the end of the year with a poetry picnic in which every member has to come prepared with some food and a poem to recite/read.

I would say to someone looking to start a school based club that regular meetings are key. I used to hold them once a half term and found that only half the pupils had read the book. For this age group you need to keep on top of them and encourage book sharing etc.

Last year the book club entered the book slam run by the Wales Book Council which was an excellent motivator. They had to read two books from a list, discuss one and do a presentation on the other. They made it to the final in Brecon and we had a brilliant day out. This year we will be entering again and have just started reading the first book on our list.

I was asked by a local exhibition space to create a storytelling shed for their interactive children’s exhibition (in my role as children’s author) and so I’ve asked the book club to respond artistically to their favourite stories and decorate the shed. We’ll see how that turns out…

There’s so much I’d love to do with no money or time restraints… Visits to book shops, libraries, exhibitions, authors workshops etc, more detailed analysis of each book, time for high quality feedback/artistic responses, blogging, vlogging, the list is endless.”

Photo: Christchurch City Libraries

Case Study 7: Zoe from Playing by the book

“The book group I run meets once a month in the local public library. We don’t have a set text each month, but rather we have themes. Past thenese have included comics and graphic novels, poetry, war stories, children’s magazines, diaries. Each month, with the help of the paid librarians, I order up a trolley load of books on the given theme (an advantage of being based in a public library) and we “speed taste” them (like speed dating, but the children don’t like the term ‘dating’). Speed tasting goes down incredibly well. It’s quite physical and frantic, but I’ve found it a really successful way of getting members to choose new books which they might not have discovered otherwise to take home with them.

We’re not able to do activities which make mess (so no crafting, for example) and can’t bring food into the library (so no biscuits!). However, one activity which has worked well is using Twitter to interview authors during our book group meetings. We’ve done this a few times now and it’s been very successful. We start such sessions by brain storming questions we’d like to ask, and then spend 10-15 minutes on Twitter (we have our own account as a book group, which we also use for publicity) in a quick fire conversation with the author or illustrator. If you’d like to do this with your group, you’ll need to think about your policy on e-safety (for example we get parents’ permission, we only use first names, and if a child doesn’t want to be named they can still ask questions), and also how you’ll recompense the author for their time (don’t assume they’ll do the interview for free).

When a new child joins the group I give them a quick questionnaire to fill out about their interests. I do this because each meeting I come up with a personalised book recommendation for each child (not necessarily to do with the theme of that month). If the library has the book in stock, I order it up, so it is ready for them to take away, otherwise I give the the title and author and a brief description on a piece of paper so that they can take it home or look for it in the bookshop. At the end of each session I also ask the children to find me at least one book in the library that they would recommend to me, and I commit to reading that book by the time of the next meeting. This reciprocity has created a really great atmosphere in the group. The children are always really excited to choose a book for me and then to find out what I thought of it.

Photo: Pratham Books

Huge thanks to everyone who contributed to this post. I hope it’s given you a flavour of different ways children’s book groups can be run by people just like you! If you’re tempted to set up a children’s book group I’m of course happy to share more ideas or be a sounding board – just get in touch!

I believe any book can fuel the imagination when it arrives in the right hands at the right time, but there are also some which explicitly explore how we nurture creativity and create space for inspiration and following our dreams. The Wonder by Faye Hanson and The Imaginary by A.F. Harrold and Emily Gravett are two such books which I’ve read recently and which have left me brimming with delight, hope and happiness and which have sparked hours of inspired play in my children.

The Wonder by Faye Hanson is a sumptuous début picture book about a young boy whose head if full of daydreams which transform the humdrum world around him. Time and again adults tell him to get his head out of the clouds and come back to reality, but this is barely possible for a child who finds wonder, curiosity and delight wherever he looks. Finally in art class he’s able to let loose his imagination onto a blank sheet of paper delighting his teacher and filling his parents with pride.

The child in this story sees ordinary objects but has the imagination to turn them into astonishing stories, breathtaking ideas, and worlds full of adventures waiting to happen. I know I want to foster this ability in my own children (and in myself!); the world becomes more beautiful, richer, and simply more enjoyable when we are able to imagine more than the grey, wet and humdrum daily life that all too often catches us up. This utterly delightful book is an enthusiastic encouragement to let more imagination in to our lives.

Click to view a larger version (it’s really worth it!) of this interior spread from The Wonder by Faye Hanson

Hanson’s illustrations are dense, saturated, and rich. Careful use of colour lights up the boy’s dreams in his otherwise sepia coloured life. Limited palettes add to the intensity of these pictures; it’s interesting that their vitality doesn’t come from a rainbow range of paints, but rather from focussing on layer of layer of just a few colours, packed with exquisite detail. There’s a luminosity about the illustrations; some look like they’ve got gold foil or a built-in glow and yet there are no novelty printing techniques here.

All in all, an exquisite book that will tell anyone you share it with that you value their dreams and want to nurture their ingenuity, inventiveness and individuality.

Now let me play devil’s advocate: Is there sometimes a line to be walked between feeding a child’s imagination and yet enabling them to recognise the difference between real life and day dreams? In The Wonder, there are plenty of adults pointing out the apparent problems/risks of day dreaming a great deal. On the other hand, in The Imaginary, a mother fully enters into her daughter’s imaginary world, not only acknowledging an imaginary best friend, but actively supporting this belief by setting places at meal times, packing extra bags, even accepting accidents must be the result of this friend and not the child herself.

Amanda believes that only she can see her imaginary friend Rudger. But all this changes one day when a mysterious Mr Bunting appears on the doorstep, apparently doing innocent door-to-door market research. But all is not as it seems for it turns out that Mr Bunting has no imagination of his own and can only survive by eating other people’s imaginary friends. He’s sniffed Rudger out and now he’s going to get him, whatever it takes.

Click to see larger illustration by Emily Gravett, from The Imaginary by A. F. Harrold

If you’ve ever wondered where imaginary friends come from, and what happens to them when their children grow up and stop day-dreaming this is a book for you. If you love a good villain, adventures which include libraries and narrow escapes you’ll enjoy this too. If you’re a fan of elegant and attractive books you’ll want to feel this between your hands. The illustrations by Emily Gravett are terrific (in every sense) and incredibly atmospheric, magically adding beauty and tension to a story which I thought couldn’t be bettered.

Intelligent, clever, thoughtful, and packed with seeds of love and inspiration The Imaginary is perhaps my favourite middle grade/young fiction book of the year. If you want a fuller flavour of this gem before hurrying to get it into your hands, head and heart, there’s a full teacher’s guide to The Imaginary available on the Bloomsbury website and you can watch a video of Emily Gravett working on her illustrations here.

One of the ways my girls have been inspired in their playing since sharing these books became clear when they told me they wanted to make a star-making machine to go with the one features in The Wonder (see the illustration above).

M first wrote out some recipes for stars:

I provided a little food for thought…

…and a selection of machine parts.

Several hours later the star machine was coming together

Next up a selection of star ingredients were sourced:

The machine was fed…

Can you see the pulses of one star in the making?!

And out popped these stars (here’s a tutorial) at the end of the star making process:

Here’s one just for you:

Whilst making our machine we listened to:

Other activities which could work well alongside reading The Wonder and The Imaginary include:

How do you foster your kids’ imagination? And your own?

Disclosure: I was sent free review copies of both books in today’s post.

Spend any time on Playing by the book and you’ll soon realise that bringing books to life is something I’m passionate about; taking their wonder and bringing it out of the pages and into our lives. And so, when I recently heard about the work Australian librarian Tracie Mauro was doing in Parkes Library I was keen to hear more; Tracie is a big believer in enabling kids to have enormous fun with activities inspired by what they find between the pages of the books they read as you’ll read in our conversation below:-

Zoe: Can you tell me a little bit about your job and the joys it brings?

Tracie Mauro: My stodgy title is Parkes Branch Librarian. Parkes is a regional town in the central west of New South Wales, Australia. Annually, we celebrate Elvis, ABBA and comics, and we dress up as zombies when required.

What gives me the most joy? Providing the “unexpected”, creating wonder-based activities for kids and families that will spark a conversation round the dinner table and imaginative play in the back yard. If people in town are talking about how wonderful and different the library service is, and the kids resources are being used to their full potential, then I’m over the moon.

Zoe: Can you briefly describe 2 or 3 events you’ve done in the library that others might see as slightly out of the ordinary?

Tracie Mauro: I always thought cooking was the best kids literacy activity until we played hairdressers. The Big Bouffant written by Kate Hosford and illustrated by Holly Clifton-Brown (2001), is the story of Annabelle, a little girl sick of always wearing ponytails and braids.

We read the story to kids and parents then set them loose to play in the “Our Town Hair & Beauty Salon” (perfectly shaped around one of our mobile display units.) Mums, dads, grandparents, siblings and library staff had their locks brushed, combed, rolled and water sprayed. Assorted magazines filled the “waiting” room. Everyone talked, listened and looked at themselves in the mirrors. By the end of the 4 week program, one 3-year-old had all the fine motor skills and language perfected.”You know Sandie, you should keep this style,” he advised, inserting the rollers into our library officer’s hair. “This one really suits you.”

Polly and the frog, a story by Matt Finch, also received the Parkes Library special treatment. In order to save their froggy friend, Polly and the knights have to squelch through a muddy marsh so we filled our branch transfer tubs with instant chocolate pudding and jelly. At first we told them it was imported bog but when one little bright spark licked between his toes, our rue was up. Typically, one of the little girls wanted our recipe – but not to cook it, I’m pleased to report. She just wanted to go home and play the game again with her family.

Zoe: What’s so important about doing activities which bring books alive outside of their pages?

Tracie Mauro: Bringing books to life is a core business of our library. We love to provide sensory play that goes hand in hand with the story and it’s the immersive experience, I believe, that sparks curiosity and leads to self directed learning – and lots and lots of talking, speaking, listening and of course, reading! And borrowing! These days my clever staff say that they read children’s books differently now. It’s like they’ve developed a director’s eye visualizing an extension of the words using smell, touch and taste. Working out how to plug all those things into an activity to get the most out of the story is the fun part. We like to get the most from our library resources. It’s a way of working leanly but producing mega value.

Zoe: How can families approach bringing books to life at home?

Tracie Mauro: Cheaply! Considering the story and using one’s imagination to extend what’s on the pages doesn’t cost much. It just takes commitment to the game. When other libraries hear about the children’s services that we provide they moan about not having enough funds to pay for sophisticated resources. Most of the time we don’t have to buy anything, we just use what we’ve got in storage. A dragon’s eye that’s really a plastic egg can hold magical qualities if that’s what you want them to believe. When I accidentally dropped one into the Polly and the frog story before it was due, I adlibbed about the Bad Luck Curse and what would happen if it was touched. As the story progressed and the knight’s bottom was burnt by the fiery menace the kids cited the Bad Luck Curse and pointed the finger at the poor sod who’d accidentally trodden on it. But, like all happy endings, justice is sweet in the land of wonder-based play and our bad luck merchant received an extra slice of party cake. Nice.

Zoe: Nice indeed, Tracie. I love what I’m hearing from you but it leads me to another question – about how one changes a library (or even home) culture to allow such activities to take place. Whilst you mention fears about cost as one area that holds others back from replicating what you do, I can imagine another is perceived mess and possible damage to stock. How did you / your library embrace the mess that often comes with creativity?

Tracie Mauro: For library staff who haven’t quite “made the change” from traditional library services, duties and routines, then my approach to kid’s services, reading and play can be quite confronting.

Really, there is nothing that I do that causes permanent harm to the space where I’m working. It’s all cleanable. Honestly, I’ve never heard anyone walk into a library and say oh, what lovely clean carpet, you are doing a good job keeping that in lovely condition. They usually walk in and comment on how wonderful it is to see the kids in the library or that they didn’t know that you could do that in a library!!! That’s the sort of talk that you want spreading around town. It’s worth more than the new sign you pay for, or the 5000 pamphlets that get printed. Word of mouth is a wonderful thing in our business.

I can’t ever remember damaging any stock in my activities. When I talk to library staff or parents when/ if they are concerned about children’s items being returned “damaged” I remind them that this actually happens very rarely. Not never, but rarely. To me, it’s just part of the collateral damage of providing good, busy children’s services. If I have to replace a book or a comic because it’s been well used then I’ve achieved the best outcome possible. We’ve both seen how little kids read. It’s a tactile experience. The books get read on the floor, pages fingered, turned over and turned back again. Sometimes with gusto. They might read it under the table to the dog, or to a bed full of teddies.

I had to laugh the other week. One of our nanas that brings her granddaughter to storytime dragged me aside to have a quiet word. “I have a complaint. I’m sick to death of that library officer of yours. When Alex (the granddaughter) and I go home from storytime all she wants to do is play library. Over and over, I hear the same songs, the same stories. And I’m not allowed to call her Alex anymore. I have to call her Sandie.”

Winning awards is great, but that’s when I know that I’m on the right track. My question to librarians these days is not what they think will happen to their service if they do this, but what will happen if they don’t. Nurturing the love of books and reading is central to what we do. It’s just that these days we need to come up with more engaging ways to do so.

Zoe: It’s been inspiring hearing about your work Tracie; I and hope many other libraries will adopt and adapt your ideas. Thank you for taking time to chat today with me.

Thinking recently about books and stories which have been shared across at least three generations of our family, I was reminded of the Flower Fairy books by Cicely Mary Barker.

It was a little like suddenly seeing the trees for the wood, as Flower Fairies have long been a favourite with my girls; they love dressing up as Flower Fairies, they’ve recently “wallpapered” their bedroom walls with Flower Fairy postcards, and with autumn now approaching, they’ve been using the dried seed heads in our garden as Flower Fairy wands; as you wave them about ‘fairy dust’ (seeds) fly out casting magic which will grow next year.

These seed heads come from poppies, love-in-the-mist, bluebells, Granny’s bonnets (also known as Columbine), teasels and cow parsley. Playing with these natural objects is such a delight – not only are they free, they are exquisite. (Poppies, love-in-the-mist and Granny’s Bonnets have the added advantage of being the easiest flowers to grow: Just throw the seeds onto soil and forget, and they’ll reward you returning year after year!)

Apart from the original collections of Flower Fairy poems and illustrations, my girls favourite book is How To Find Flower Fairies. With truly magical paper engineering, replete with hidden treasures, and lavish illustrations this is a book they treasure.

In searching for new Flower Fairy related books I came across some incredible illustrations that actually pre-date Barker’s Flower Fairies:

These images come from “A Floral Fantasy in an Old English Garden. Set forth in verses & coloured designs” by Walter Crane (1899) and I found them in the British Library’s Flickr stream.

Whilst they’re not designated as fairies, you can see why I made the connection with Barker’s illustrations. I particularly love that there are so many men in Crane’s illustrations.

A second book by Crane also caught my eye. The following illustrations are taken from “Flora’s Feast. A masque of flowers, penned & pictured by Walter Crane” (also first published 1899), and again found in the British Library’s Flickr stream.

How I would love to dress up as any one of these next World Book Day!

If your kids also love the Flower Fairies, here are some other resources that might inspire them:

What books have been shared across three or more generation of your family? If you HAD to be a flower fairy, which one would you chose to be?

Seeing as you’re reading this blog I’m willing to bet that you hope the children in your life will develop a love of reading.

But is hope good enough?

What practical steps can you take to encourage a lifelong passion for books?

Help your Child Love Reading: A Parent’s Guide by Alison David provides interesting, forthright answers to this question. It is written in an accessible, encouraging way, full of clear lists of “Dos and Don’ts” and real-life Q&As from parents looking for reading advice.

David outlines concrete suggestions to help create a reading culture within your family, with targeted strategies for each age range; 4 core chapters focus on the 0-4s, 5-7s, 8-11, and finally 12-16s. The focus is solely on reading for enjoyment and is not about the technicalities of learning to read. And it is about reading for pleasure in a family setting; whilst teachers and librarians may also want to read this book, it is written primarily with the parent in mind.

The most important message for me in David’s book is about a glorious side effect of promoting an enthusiastic reading culture at home; reading acts as family glue, enabling better, deeper and easier relations between parent and child. She rightly quotes from research showing the benefits to the child who loves reading. Not only does that child have an enriched interior world, enlivened imagination, strengthened empathy and better self-understanding, there is also a measurable positive impact on that child’s academic achievement. Yet it is David’s novel focus on family reading as a tool for building strong families that I found most exciting; it’s a message I hadn’t heard loudly before, but one which really resonated with me.

A key plank of David’s approach to helping your child love reading is the restriction of screen time. I am 100% with her on this (for my family it has been a very deliberate decision to have no TV, no smart phone, no Wii or tablet at home), but I do wonder if some families may find the vigour of her arguments unpalatable, or at least (perceived to be) impractical and a challenge to follow through. Again I’m with David who believes parents can and should set firm boundaries (though where these are located will vary from family to family) and I hope parents who read this book will feel empowered to do so. I’d love to hear what you think about screentime and its interaction with reading.

Another area where David argues very clearly for a particular strategy (and one I haven’t seen so enthusiastically promoted in other reading-for-pleasure books) is when it comes to co-reading. Co-reading, ie where parent and child alternate reading aloud, is clearly something David and her son have enjoyed and so it is no surprise she strongly recommends it. I, however, don’t share her position on this.

Co-reading has always been an unpleasant experience for me and my kids (I shall admit that more often than not I have “forgotten” to make M and J do their reading aloud set by school). When I read aloud to my girls I want it to be an unadulterated pleasure for them, and asking them to read a paragraph or a chapter aloud before I continue strikes me as punitary. Of course IF your child wants to read aloud, be happy to listen to them, but I’d debate with David as to how essential it is as a device to foster a love for reading.

[If anyone can point me to research showing reading aloud having a beneficial impact on learning to read and/or becoming an avid reader I'd be most grateful if you would share it. I can see it as a useful tool for monitoring a child's progress whilst they are learning the mechanics, but my kids are living examples of it not being as necessary as some would have us believe. Could reading aloud regularly to your kids be just as beneficial in helping them learn to read as making them read aloud themselves?]

As a mother to a son David is keen to stress that a love of reading can be fostered equally well in boys as in girls, despite widespread misconceptions to the contrary. I’m delighted to see this tackled head on in her book, but it then comes as a disappointment that gender stereotypes in family reading for pleasure do appear elsewhere: there is a focus on what the mother can/should do in the family.

Whilst Dads/spouses are mentioned on the odd occasion, I would strongly argue that both parents can and should be at the heart of making the family home a hotbed for reading. One particular case in point is when David discusses strategies for reading to siblings of different ages. At no point does she suggest what seems to me the easiest and best solution for everyone involved; that one parent read to one child whilst the other reads to the second child. Why should spouses miss out on the “relationship glue”? If you’re arguing a family should think structurally and boldly about screentime, I think you could also encourage them to think about managing reading time so that the every member of the family can be involved, and not just the mother. Yes one parent or the other may work late, but this book is partly about blue-sky thinking, and about deciding what matters to you as a family – about making the effort to create time for reading… or not.

Help your Child Love Reading is a thought-provoking and supportive read. Whilst it doesn’t include a bibliography or further reading section for adults wanting to read more (there are plenty of interesting, well written books about promoting reading for pleasure out there, although few of them have been written – like this one – specifically for parents in the UK), it does contain a list of children’s books, sorted by age, which David has found very useful in supporting her son develop the reading bug. It’s great to see her include poetry and non-fiction, and to read how passionate she is about reading in all its guises including comics, newspapers and magazines.

I ended David’s book feeling bolstered, hopeful AND also armed with real-life strategies to help my children love reading. Perhaps this book should be given to every set of new parents by their midwife, so more parents can be equally encourage and enthused?

I love a good bit of juicy anticipation and so today I bring you a round-up of the books being published this autumn which I’m most looking forward to reading.

Out in September

Bears Don’t Read by Emma Chichester Clark (Harper Collins)
How to Hide a Lion from Grandma by Helen Stephens (Alison Green Books)
A World of Your Own by Laura Carlin (Phaidon)
The New Small Person by Lauren Child (Puffin)
Is there a dog in this book? by Viviane Schwarz (Walker)
The Fairytale Hairdresser and Father Christmas Paperback by Abie Longstaff (Picture Corgi)
The Moon Child by Cate Cain (Templar)
Terror Kid by Benjamin Zephaniah (Hot Key)

How to Write a Story by Simon Cheshire (Bloomsbury)
The Giant Game of Sculpture by Hervé Tullet (Phaidon)

Out in October

I am the Wolf…and Here I Come! by Bénédicte Guettier (Gecko Press)
Flora and the Penguin by Molly Idle (Chronicle Kids)
How the Library (not the Prince) saved Rapunzel by Wendy Meddour, illustrated by Rebecca Ashdown Petrie (Frances Lincoln)
Snow by Sam Usher (Templar)
Wall by Tom Clohosy Cole (Templar)
Woozy the Wizard: A Spell to Get Well Paperback by Elli Woollard and Al Murphy (Faber)

How to Train Your Dragon: A Journal for Heroes by Cressida Cowell (Hodder)
The Adventures of Hermes by Murielle Szac, translated by Mika Provata-Carlone (Pushkin)
The No. 1 Car Spotter Goes to School by Atinuke, illustrated by Warwick Johnson Cadwell (Walker)
The Imaginary by A.F. Harrold, illustrated by Emily Gravett (Bloomsbury)
A Song for Ella Grey by David Almond (Hodder)
The Rising by Tom Moorhouse (OUP)

The Snow Merchant by Sam Gayton, with new illustrations by Chris Riddell (Andersen)
How to be a Space Explorer by Lonely Planet Kids (Lonely Planet)
Book by John Agard, illustrated by Neil Packer (Walker)
Atlas of Adventures by Lucy Letherland (WideEyed)
The Dolls’ House Colouring Book by Emily Sutton (V&A)
Gravity by Jason Chin (Andersen)
Star Cat: Book 1 by James Turner (David Fickling)

Out in November

Claude Sets Sail by Alex T Smith (Hodder)
Pigsticks and Harold and the Tuptown Thief Paperback by Alex Milway (Walker)
Les Miserables retold by Marcia Williams (Walker)
Papercraft Christmas Paperback by Ellen Giggenbach (Templar)
Write and Draw Your Own Comics by Louie Stowell (Usborne)
The Story of Britain by Mick Manning and Brita Granstrom (Franklin Watts)

I’m also really looking forward to a new novel from Mal Peet, The Murdstone Trilogy – though this is being marketed as an adult book.

Dates for publication listed here may be subject to change. A couple of these books have already been released in the US, but will be making their UK début this Autumn.

What new book are you most looking forward to reading this autumn?

My girls were away for a couple of days last week staying on their own at their grandparents and whilst I LOVED having a bit more time to myself, I couldn’t resist a special welcome home picture book party; a day spent reading, playing, eating and dancing.

On the evening they arrived home I gave them invites inspired by the artwork in The Zebra who Ran Too Fast by Jenni Desmond. Set on the African plains, this book explores rings of friendship, how they can break and make up again – a simple, kind and non-threatening exploration of a situation many children find themselves in at one time or another. Desmond’s use of muted stone and moss colours is stylish, and the illustrations feel loose and free with lots of “scribbles” and splashes.

I used Desmond’s sun motif to form the basis of the party invites; a round piece of watercolour paper with flamecolour centre, surrounded by drops of ink, blown outwards using a straw.

Whilst I made these invites, the process is definitely easy enough for kids to enjoy too (if you’re worried about kids drinking up the paint/ink accidentally you could use food colouring instead).

The following morning we started as we meant to go on. We made vanilla ice cream (without a freezer) and tested different vanilla flavoured icecreams to discover our favourite. This was inspired by Vanilla Ice Cream by Bob Graham. Graham is THE master of global perspective. He knows how to zoom in and out of scenes and stories like no other teller of tales I know, and once again he works wonders with this understated story, following a sparrow who hitches a lift on a cargo ship. Masterful picture books often include a clever “reveal” in their final pages, so I should have known something was coming. Still, I was taken by great (and joyous) surprise with the twist Graham pulls off in this colourful, delightful story endorsed by Amnesty International.

To make icecream without a freezer you need cream, sugar, icecubes and salt. The cream and sugar go in one bag – here’s the cream, sugar (and vanilla in our case):

And below you can see it having frozen; the cream-containing bag is put inside a larger bag full of ice and salt. Because salt lowers the freezing temperature of water, the icecubes melt, extracting heat from the cream as they do so. After about 5 minutes shaking the icecubes were mostly melted and the cream mixture was like soft icecream.

And here’s the final result – definitely the most luxurious vanilla icecream I’ve ever eaten!

For full details on how to make your own icecream without a freezer and in under 10 minutes, do take a look at these instructions from the National STEM centre.

I love a good book about books and storytelling and Herve Tullet has created a mischievous and inventive interactive piece of theatre exploring story characters, plot and the need for a title in his Help! We Need a Title!. A motley collection of characters are in need of a good storyline and a punchy title. They appeal directly to you the reader/listener for help. With plenty of surprises this book is lively and highly amusing.

If you like the sound of Tullet’s book do look for Do not open this book by Michaela Muntean, illustrated by Pascal Lemaitre, one of the funniest books in our home – an absolute must-have for families who like a bit of interaction with their books and harbour dreams of writing stories.

Taking our lead from characters who walked in and out of the pages of Help! We Need a Title! I set up a book “stage” with the help of the patio doors, a basket of dressing up costumes and a selection of liquid chalk markers (you could also use whiteboard markers).

My girls love drawing on photos in newspapers and magazines so it was a natural extension that we then drew “on” the characters who walked into our patio-door picture-book.

And finally the contents of our picture book were included too.

After lunch, for some chill-out time, we got out good old staples: lego and the wooden railway, this time brought to life by Bruno and Titch: A Tale of a boy and His Guinea Pig by Sheena Dempsey. Bruno has always wanted a guinea pig. Titch, a guinea pig, has always wanted to be taken home from the pet shop by a Big Person. One day their paths cross – but does it work out how they’ve each always imagined it would? Deadpan guinea pig humour (yes, really!) and fabulous illustrations full of new details upon each reading add something special to this tale about friendship, imagination and looking after pets. We especially loved Bruno’s passion for invention, right down to the poster of Einstein by his bed.

Our interpretation of Bruno and Titch’s lego/railway play:

No party is complete without dancing, so following a reading of Frances Dean who Loved to Dance and Dance by Birgitta Sif we cleared the kitchen to create space for a good old boogie, aided by a prop or two.

Put your cynical adult brain to one side and remember a time when the phrase “dance like no-one’s watching” felt like something utterly joyous and liberating. Sif’s book is all about holding on to that freedom and not being afraid of a little bit of exuberance mixed in with a good shot of rhythm. It’s an encouraging story about holding on to what you care about, even when others seem to doubt you, a message I think every child deserves to hear time and time again.

For a book bursting with so much heart and happiness, the colour scheme is particularly interesting; there are lots of natural greens and browns rather than the bright sparkly jewel tones often used by illustrators to convey intense happiness. For me this speaks of the impact being connected to the outdoors can have on feeling content and happy; indeed all of the scenes showing Frances Dean dancing take place in parks and forests surrounded by space, trees and wildlife.

We reused embroidery hoops and ribbons to create waves of colour we could dance with.

Jumping for joy? Yes, that pretty much sums up our 2014 Picture Book Party An all day festival of playing and reading – just what summer holidays are made for.

Disclosure: All the books featured in this picture book party were sent to me a free review copies by the Walker Books, as part of the Picture Book Party blog tour. See how how more families have been partying at the following stops on the tour: 26 August: www.mummymishaps.co.uk, 27 August: www.culture-baby.net, 28 August: www.theboyandme.co.uk and 29 August: www.beingamummy.co.uk

This really speaks to my heart.

Open Doors is Book Aid International‘s new appeal to create library environments for children in which reading for pleasure and learning can flourish.

Soroti Library’s Children’s Corner, Uganda, 2013. Photo: bookaid.org

Between now and 2018 they are planning to create create a total of 60 child-friendly spaces – Children’s Corners – in libraries in Tanzania, Uganda, Malawi, Cameroon, Zambia and Zimbabwe, in conjunction with local partners. They will train librarians to work effectively with children, supply new books from the UK and provide each library with a grant for refurbishments and the local purchase of books.

Children’s Digital learning pilot project in Kenya. Photo: bookaid.org

Why am I telling you this?

Open Doors will revolutionise access to books for thousands of children in sub-Saharan Africa, where many children live below the poverty line and literacy levels are among the lowest in the world.

With few books in their schools and no books at home, children struggle to read and to learn. For most children, a local library – where one exists – is the only place where they can read the books they need to prepare them for adulthood. However, few libraries have suitable spaces for children and most librarians are not trained to work with children.

It happens that I was born in Zambia and had my first books read to me there.

Me in Zambia

We didn’t have access to many books, but my favourite was Tiger Flower by Robert Vavra, illustrated Fleur Cowles which my Mum found in a bookshop in Ndola.

My first introduction to the power and beauty of books, and the way they open doors into worlds of opportunities happened in Zambia, one of the countries where Book Aid works. So this campaign not only appeals on a professional level, it matters to me personally.

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Please consider making a donation to the Open Doors Campaign – you can do so via this link: http://www.bookaid.org/get-involved/opendoors/
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If you’re reading this as a publisher or book distributor please do take a look at this information sheet about how you can get involved. Each library is looking for new stock and you could be the one to make a huge difference. The number of books being sought really isn’t enormous.

Each of the 60 participating libraries will receive 2,500 children’s books. This will be broadly made up as follows:

If you, as a publisher, do decide to get involved, let me know and I’ll be so delighted to tell the world what fab folk you are!

Perhaps it was the toast rack that done it.

Mooching round the local junk shop recently I spied a bread bin and suddenly I could see pop-up reading nooks everywhere…

With a lick or two of some thinned-down PVA glue…

…and some cut up comics and book covers from magazines…

…M soon had her own book box she could fill and take out and about with her to wherever she wanted to do some pop-up reading.

I can imagine making these for the tree house, the bathroom, the allotment… Where else might you create a pop-up reading nook out of a bread bin?

Red Squirrel, a new imprint from Barrington Stoke, is dedicated to creating exciting picture books.

Fair Enough.

But what makes them sit especially tall on the bookshelf is that as well as superb storytelling and inventive illustrations, these picture books contain lots of dyslexia friendly features so that grown-ups with dyslexia can also experience the joy of reading aloud to the kids in their lives.

One of their first offerings, All I said Was, written by former children’s laureate, Michael Morpurgo and illustrated by Ross Collins is a cautionary tale about the dangers of wish fulfilment.

Have you ever been reading a book and then fallen into a reverie imagining yourself as the character you’re reading about?

This is exactly what happens in All I said Was, and as a consequence – with the help of just a little magic, a boy and a bird swap places.

The boy-turned-bird is delighted. “This flying lark is amazing. I wan to to be a bird all my life.”

The bird-turned-boy is also pleased as punch: He discovers the joy of being able to read.

But is bird-life really all it’s cracked up to be? And can the magic ever be undone?

A quietly funny celebration of the power of a good book to transport us anywhere – safely – this is lovely story, told clearly and concisely. Its theme makes it particulars appropriate for opening a new venture which will hopefully enable more families to enjoy more stories.

Collins’ characterization and visual humour are especially strong (I particularly like his farmer and pigs). The illustrator also has the final say with a brilliant twist in the tale once Morpurgo’s words are complete. It’s a brilliantly satisfying, slightly naughty and rather funny end to a super book.

This is a book that could be enjoyed for so may different reasons – whether you’re looking for a prime example of illustrations doing so much to enrich a written text, a book celebrating how books can bring our imagination to life, or simply a funny story to share at bedtime – whether or not you yourself sometimes struggle with the written word.

All I can say is: Hurrah for Red Squirrel and their broadening of what it means for picture books to be inclusive.

Both M and J said they too would love to experience flying like a bird. The nearest I could offer them was the joy of flying…. a kite, made to look like a bird. Ah well, us parents, we can only try our best

We cut out very rough bird shapes from old plastic bags which we decorated with permanent pens. Once the feathers, beaks and eyes were in place we attached thin doweling to our birds. I used this commercial product as a starting point, cross referencing it with these instructions for making a diamond kite to come up with All-I-Said-Was-Kites Mark 1.

We each made one kite and then imagined us swapping places with the birds as we flew them.

Additional activities which could work well alongside reading All I said Was include:

Chasing pigeons. I don’t know a child who doesn’t love chasing pigeons!

Photo: Owen Jell

Music that goes well with All I said Was and the playing it induced in us includes:

If you could swap places with a character in a children’s book, which character would you swap places with (bearing in mind whoever you swapped with would take your place in your family/classroom/library….)?

Disclosure: I received a free review copy of All I said Was from the publisher.

Well… almost.

I’ve joined up with My Independent Bookshop @MyIndieBookshop to spread the word about breathtakingly brilliant books for children and young people. There are so many great books out there that I’d really like to be able to sing about and the little corner of My Independent Bookshop that I now inhabit helps me to do just that.

My Independent Bookshop is a new reader recommendation website for booklovers everywhere. You can play at being a bookseller, by setting up and curating your own bookshop, reviewing books and recommending reading suggestions to others. Or you can simply browse, building up a street of all your favourite mini bookshops to wander in and out of.

My first book recommendations and reviews cover everything from boardbooks, to YA novels, with picture books, books for emergent readers, and children’s non-fiction all mixed in. It’s my intention to update my recommendations every month. You’ll never find anything there that I’ve already reviewed here on the blog so you can be sure to discover new suggestions. You can go straight to my shop by clicking http://www.myindependentbookshop.co.uk/Playbythebook.

Click on any book cover in my shop to be taken to my review of that book, and should any of my reviews inspire you, you can buy the books with a simple click of your mouse. The books in my bookshop are available to purchase through Hive, and I’ve chosen the independent, bricks and mortar children’s bookshop, Tales on Moon Lane to benefit for any sales (I won’t receive any money): Tales on Moon Lane will receive a minimum of 5% commission on book orders and 8% on e-books orders. So buying books can not only be fun for you, but it can support a real bookshop that does an enormous amount to support authors and illustrators who create fabulous books for children and young people.

Choosing stock for my opening day was the most delicious sort of difficult challenge. Which twelve books for children and young people would you put on your shelves if you were to open a mini bookshop of your own? (As indeed you can – you’ll need to sign up here).

As Terry Pratchett says, “My Independent Bookshop gives readers the ability to discover surprising new worlds in an interesting way. Go on, have a virtual rummage around you’ll never know what you might find.”

Yesterday my girls got 2 new bookcases in their room, and whilst we filled the shelves, I made a 48 second video:

I’ve been wanting to make a stopmotion film of bookshelves ever since seeing this:

and this:

Our little film is somewhat clunkier, but it does feature only children’s books (look out for the beer drinking tiger!) and the kids (did you see any whooshes of orange?) and I had a ball making it.

If you’re tempted to try, I highly recommend Open Shot Video Editor, a free, open-source video editor for Linux.

Both giggle inducing and surreptitiously brain expanding, Little Answer by Tim Hopgood is about BIG questions (“What is the meaning of life?”, “What is the secret to happiness?”).

And sausages.

Yes, really. It’s about sausages.

And I say that even though you could in fact argue Little Answer is ultimately about the biggest existential questions any of us face; it’s about trying to find out who we are, about trying to understand how we fit into the big wide world.

Profound AND full of laugh out loud moments, kindness and good old fashioned silliness, this is a fabulous book for all ages.

In this philosophical and joyously absurd book Little Answer actually knows his name (‘Sausages‘), but the worrying problem is that he can’t find his question. Something’s missing in his life, and until he can find the Q to his A, things just don’t feel right.

With help from a friend, Little Answer asks around. Could he be the answer to “What makes the wind blow?” or “Where did everything come from?”. There must be a question out there just right for him to answer…

Children will recognise themselves in the gloriously satisfying end to this book, and they and their parents will enjoy the inclusion of brief answers to all the more challenging questions posed in the story. Indeed this is the perfect book for children always asking “Why?”

Tim’s richly textured illustrations are bright and beautiful. His scribbles and prints, full of energy, have an appealing child-like quality to them. Thick crayon strokes look like they’ve just been drawn on the page. And Little Answer’s characterization is brilliant; he’s utterly personable and endearing!

Tim’s told me that the idea for this book came to him during a question and answer session at the end of one his school visits.

One boy put his hand up and said “I’ve got a guinea-pig” and the teacher then explained to the boy that that wasn’t a question.

She then asked the class “What does a question need?” to which they all replied “An answer!”.

And at that point Tim immediately thought, “But what if the answer can’t find its question…”

I do hope that little boy and his guinea pig one day find out they’ve inspired a wonderful, witty, and warm book perfect for feeding (and satisfying) curiosity.

You know a book’s hit home when within just a couple of hours of it arriving, the kids are already at play, inspired by the book. And so it was with Little Answer. Balloons were filled with rice (making them lovely to hold), and then eyes, smiles and legs were added to make our own Little Answers.

M couldn’t resist making a BIG Answer too! And the answers didn’t go nameless for long.

They were called:

The girls told me that these were all answers to questions they had come up with, and it was now my job to find out what those questions were.

Well I like a challenge, and I was certain that one of the questions must involve cake, so off we set for a cafe.

To the huge delight of the girls, I was WRONG! None of their answers involved anything to do with a cafe (though they were more than happy to try some cake, just to be sure).

I thought I better up my game, so I then decided that the local library would be a good place to look for questions. M was very obliging and looked up the dewey numbers for the books which might help me find the right questions to the answers she and her sister had prepared.

So at least I was in the right section for some of my questions…. and I started knuckled down to work, with the Little Answers looking along side me.

The Big Answer preferred to lounge about!

I have to admit, it was quite a struggle to find the right questions. But in case you’re wondering what they were here they are:

And are you ready for the really really BIG question?

I especially liked the big question. It really reminds you how different the world can see when you’re a kid!

Even if I struggled to find all the questions in the library, we had so much fun with this activity. Any game where the kids are in the know and the adults are clueless is always popular in this home! Plus, along the way we got to practise research skills and giggle a great deal. What could be better?

Music we listened to whilst making our little answers included:

Other fun activities to try out alongside reading Little Answer include:

What are you the answer to? What questions are you looking for?

Disclosure: I received a free review copy of Little Answer from the author.

“Books transmit values. They explore our common humanity. What is the message when some children are not represented in those books?”

Last weekend Walter Dean Myers, a previous National Ambassador for Young People’s Literature (the US equivalent of the UK’s children’s laureate) wrote a thought-provoking article in the New York Times about the need for books for children’ and young people to truly reflect the world around them. In his piece he was focussing on the lack of black children and young adults in books written for them. But I think much of what he writes is more widely applicable, as was explored and demonstrated at last month’s Inclusive Minds ‘What About Me?’ day at Imagine Children’s Festival. Among many other activities that day there was a discussion of the “concept of normal” in books for children and young adults, and the importance of diversity, of showing all sorts of children, from all sorts of backgrounds, so that all children could read books and see themselves somehow reflected, included and valued.

In a beautiful case of serendipity, with Myers’ words in my head, I picked up The Astonishing Case of the Stolen Stories by Anca Sandu (@anca_sandu).

Across a fairy tale kingdom, all stories have been stolen. The palace bookshelves are empty, the bookshop has no stock, and even cookery books and spell books are missing. A trio of detectives are called upon to crack the case and track down the culprit, but when they do so the explanation given for the thievery is heartbreaking:

“Well, I don’t know who I am,”
replied the thing. “I’ve found everyone
else in a book, but never me –
I thought if I kept looking
I might find a book with
my story in it.”

Children may not always be able to articulate it, but it is tremendously powerful when they find a story in which they recognise something of themselves, or something of what they could be. It’s the same for us grown ups, isn’t it?

Sandu’s gorgeous story ends positively with the detectives not only solving the case, but going further and taking steps to solve the source of the problem. Upbeat, witty, inventive, with compassion and creativity – there’s lots to love here.

The Astonishing Case of the Stolen Stories is tantalisingly ripe for use in literacy lessons, begging for teachers and children to work together to write their own stories. There are even jokes about enriched vocabulary, which will revitalise the drive for kids to use “wow” words or “power” words.

Sandu’s illustrations are shot with spring-like pastel hues and achieve a quite magical balance of clutter free, smooth spreads (enhanced by slightly glossy printing) sprinkled with humorous detail: See how many fairytale characters such as the Gingerbread man and Rapunzel you can find hidden in the illustrations.

Although I love The Astonishing Case of the Stolen Stories and would urge you to read it yourself, I also feel Sandu perhaps missed an opportunity in illustrating her story about the importance of readers seeing themselves somehow reflected in the books they read.

There are few female characters in this book; the humans that feature are all white, and the only inclusion of someone with any sort of disability is a pirate with an eye patch. Now I’m not saying that every book has to feature equal numbers of males and females, and different skin colours and people who use wheelchairs (for example), but I am observing that even in a book where your attention is drawn to the fact that readers like to find themselves in books (and thereby explicitly acknowledges the importance of reflecting society in its beautiful diversity – even in a fairy tale kingdom – in the stories we write and read) perhaps more could have been done to reach out to those kids who find it hard to find themselves in stories.

Inspired by the hunt for stories in Sandu’s book we set up our very own storybook treasure hunt. M and J were designated storybook detectives for the afternoon, after I had hidden books and clues around the house and garden.

The clues were very simple and just asked the girls to work out a location based on a book I knew they knew. So, for example, I asked “Where was Pushka trapped until Lulu rescued him?” (The oven, see Pushka), “What gave Ulysses the squirrel his name?” (A vacuum cleaner, see Flora & Ulysses) and “What are you sorting out when you go DING DONG BANG or BING BONG CLANG?” (the kitchen pans, see All Join In).

They then rushed around finding the books I’d hidden…

And when they had solved the final clue we sat and read a selection of the books they’d found whilst munching on a treat:

These are entirely edible storybooks made from no-cook fudge, coloured to match the pastels in The Astonishing Case of the Stolen Stories

The recipe is super easy and brilliant for kids – just 3 ingredients (not including colouring or sprinkles), and all you need to do is mix everything together. The resulting “fudge” is lovely to play with, a little like edible playdoh. If you put it in the fridge for a little it firms up nicely and makes perfect books!

Whilst making the no-bake-fudge story books we listened to:

Alongside reading The Astonishing Case of the Stolen Stories you could enjoy:

What sort of stories are you currently hunting for?

Disclosure:I received a free review copy of this book from the publisher.