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Utterly bonkers and enormously fun for all that, full of wackiness, crazy inventions, tight corners and one seriously big (and invisible) problem to solve, The Genius Factor: How to Capture an Invisible Cat by Paul Tobin (@PaulTobin) with illustrations by Thierry Lafontaine (@ThierryArt) has had me and my eleven year old giggling with delight.

It’s a madcap tale of one bright Nate Bannister, who – rather admirably – makes a conscious effort to keep his life interesting; every Friday the 13th he chooses to do three things which are either a challenge or likely to bring some adventure. This year this includes creating an enormous, invisible cat who does indeed make life rather more exciting… by going on the rampage.

Fortunately Nate has a loyal friend (indeed, his only friend), Delphine, and together they try all sorts of things to stop the crazy cat from destroying their neighbourhood. Inventions galore and smart thinking abound, but it’s not at all straight forward, because the Red Death Tea Society (ominous baddies of the most evil variety, who just happen to have astonishing tea brewing skills) are set on preventing Nate and Delphine from saving the day.

This riotous book, ideal for 9-12s, celebrates being a little bit different and being curious and clever. Brilliantly, it does this with a great dose of silliness and laughter, so it always feels exhilarating and never sanctimonious. Pacey, eccentric, highly imaginative and with characters and a story line likely to appeal to both boys and girls, I’d suggest How to Capture an Invisible Cat to anyone who loves off-the-wall adventure and thinking outside the box.

There’s something very mysterious about the Red Death Tea Society and so we couldn’t resist having a go at making up some tea they might enjoy. We gathered our tea making ingredients; a mixture of warm spices (cinammon, cardomum, cloves, star anise), fresh herbs (rosemary, sage mint), citrus zest (lemon and orange) and sugar lumps, plus small muslin squares to make the teabags (alternatively you could make teabags out of coffee filters using these instructions, or be inspired by this tea bag themed pinterest board).

Deciding on tea flavours was a bit like mixing up magic potions.

Once the flavours were carefully selected, the muslin squares (about 12cm long on each side) were tied up with red thread, and a tea bag label was stapled onto the thread (using a knot to hold it in place).

M designed the logo for the teabags, but if you’d like to use them you can download them here (pdf).

Once all our teabags were ready, we made boxes for them:

(Again, if you’d like to re-use the logo, here it is in a large size, idea for using on boxes.)

We filled some our boxes up (you’d better watch out, in case you find one on your doorstep!)…

But we also had to brew some tea for ourselves:

And of course, a cup of tea without a biscuit is no good, so we made some invisible cat cookies.

Yes, you may be able to see them, but this is only because they contain that magical invisible cat de-cloaking device (spoiler alert): peanut butter. (Here’s the recipe we used.)

Whilst making tea and eating peanut butter cat biscuits we listened to:

Other activities which might work well alongside reading How to Capture an Invisible Cat include:

If you liked this post you might like these other posts by me:

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Disclosure: I was sent a free review copy of this book by the publisher and this post is the final part of a blog tour that’s been travelling around the world:

Monday, March 21 — Daddy Mojo (US)

Tuesday, March 22 — Nerdy Book Club (US)

Wednesday, March 23 — Jenuine Cupcakes (US)

Thursday, March 24 — This Kid Reviews Books (US)

Friday, March 25 — Fiction Fascination (UK)

Monday, March 28 — Gobblefunked (ANZ)

Tuesday, March 29 — MumtoFive.com (ANZ)

Wednesday, March 30 — Playing by the Book (UK)

When you’re already giggling just eleven words into a story, you know you’re on to a very good thing.

And so it is with the delicious child- cake-eating-troll-quest to save a lost little sister that is Grumbug! by Adam Stower (@Adam_Stower).

Dolly, blissfully unaware of any danger that might be lurking out there, has wandered off. We have to keep our fingers crossed that she hasn’t ended up at the home of the “biggest, meanest, grumpiest and greenest troll of them all“, the troll which has all others quaking in their boots: GRUMBUG!

Determined to find her, and in the sure belief that anything can be sorted out with a jolly nice slice of cake, big brother Oliver and his old (blue) friend Troll set of to bring her back home.

Oliver seems utterly oblivious to the ominous signs that are all too obvious to us readers and listeners as we follow Dolly’s tracks further and further from safety. And just as the tension has been ratcheted up as far as we can take it… a gloriously theatrical page-turn has us all relishing in the relief, laughing as we realise we’ve been holding our breath.

But then comes a twist in the tale that makes for a particularly enjoyable readaloud (especially if you love a bit of acting it out or making silly voices) before we all find out whether or not cake really can save the day.

Grumbug!‘s encouraging message that bravery and kindness are able to solve all sorts of problems is delivered with bags of humour, in text, in pictures and in the interplay between the two of them, making this a book which remains a delight to read time and time again. (In fact, once you know all the surprises, they become even more enjoyable.) Then there are the little details which might only come to you after several readings; Check the endpapers for clues as to what you could find…

Delightful characterization, an upbeat take on life and – yes – plenty of cake make this a marvellously happy read, despite the looks of anxiety on the book’s front cover. I loved Troll and the Oliver enormously, and this second book with the same characters is a worthy successor. Here’s hoping Oliver and Troll with be back for a third outing to make us giggle and fill us with delight.

As I would so very much enjoy reading this book to a classroom of kids I wanted to come up with an activity which could be replicated fairly easily for 30 or so kids to join in with. I designed a simple mask (ideally to print onto card), which can be customised for either Troll or Grumbug.

You can download the mask (A4, pdf) here.

A bit of paint, some glue, tissuepaper and a few pipecleaners later…

…and here we have Troll…

And here we have GRUMBUG!

And here we have Dolly and Oliver and one ENORMOUS cake. Has Grumbug eaten that slice of cake or is he going to gobble up the kids?

Whilst making our masks we listened to:

Other activities which would go well with reading Grumbug! include:

If you liked this post you might like these others of mine:

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

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.

If you liked this post you might also enjoy these other posts of mine:

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Every evening for the past couple of weeks I’ve had an appointment in the Kingdom of Silk.

The Kingdom of Silk is a small patch of ground on the outskirts of a small Australian town. It’s remarkable for the wealth of love and creativity, the depth of compassion and brightness of sincerity you can find there. It’s a place full of peals of laughter, although visiting it is also known to squeeze gentle tears from your heart.

This magical location may sound vaguely familiar to you: It’s the setting of a series of short novels by Glenda Millard, the first of which I reviewed earlier this year. It’s not often I return to the same book on my blog (indeed re-reading more generally is something I rarely do, knowing that time is always too short and the worlds to be explored between the pages of a book are ever expanding) but back in February when I first entreated you to find a copy of The Naming of Tishkin Silk, I had only shared one of the series with my children, and I was curious to witness how they would take to the honest, unpatronising, sometimes heartbreaking exploration of emotionally complex issues that continues across the entire series of Kingdom of Silk books. After all, fostering, dementia, refugees and world peace are not your everyday, run-of-the-mill themes for books for children.

These books (illustrated by Caroline Magerl and Stephen Michael King) have been our end-of-day bedtime delight for about a month now. I’ve been reading them to both M (10) and J (7) at the same time. We’re almost finished The Tender Moments of Saffron Silk, and September, when the last book in the series (Nell’s Festival of Crisp Winter Glories) is due to be published, now seems unbearably far away.

I’m sharing all this with you because these evening visits to the Kingdom of Silk have been so quietly beautiful as a shared family reading experience that I’d love for you to be able to experience them too. Sharing the stories of the Silk family and how they face up to the challenges family life throws at them and seeing how they respond generously and kindly to problems faced by people they love has brought so many “tender moments” to our own family. It’s brought magic into our lives as the stories have made us see creative, enchanted opportunities where we didn’t see any before. This magic is pin perfectly described in Plum Puddings and Paper Moons, the 5th book in the series:

‘We’re all born with magic in us,’ she said. ‘A child’s magic is so powerful it sometimes rubs off on grown-up people. When that happens, they rediscover their own leftover magic and all kinds of remarkable things happen. Their limpy legs grow stronger and they don’t need as many naps. The words of long-forgotten songs and stories come back into their heads. Sometimes they compose completely new tunes and whistle them on red buses in the mornings when they’re going to the library to borrow books about interesting topics like magic puddings or very hungry caterpillars. And on cold, dark, dismal days they see fired-breathing dragons and knights in shining armour, where once they saw only clouds. People like this laugh loudly and often, and they smile more, because they’ve discovered the marvellous secret that leftover magic is a cure for gloominess and loneliness[.]”

The Silk Family have a wonderful institution: The OCCASION Breakfast. Each Saturday morning, a member of the family prepares a themed breakfast over which everyone lingers. This weekend M and J insisted on our first OCCASION Breakfast, which they themed around the colours of orange, yellow and red, honouring the Silk children Amber, Scarlet and Saffron.

Breakfast isn’t the only time food brings people together causing outbreaks of smiles and laughter. Cakes feature in every volume of the Kingdom of Silk. There’s a lovely passage (also in Plum Puddings and Paper Moons) about how the gift of a cake can quietly speak volumes. Ever so keen to try out the recipe for Amber’s Armenian Love Cake which Millard supplies, we’ve been baking them, gobbling them and giving them to friends.

Amber’s Armenian Love Cakes – wonderfully nutmeg-y light cakes with a biscuity base

Whilst I love cakes, if I had to choose between them and books, I’d have to forgo the sweet treats. And why? This short passage, from the sixth book in the series, The Tender Moments of Saffron Silk, nails it:

On the bottom tier was a small cut-glass dish of sugar-coated aniseed rings, a plate of pink jelly cakes and a tattered copy of Anne of Green Gables.

It was Nell’s book. She’d had it since she was a young girl and had learnt a lot about being a better person by reading it, even though it was a mostly made-up story. From the moment her daughters were born, Nell read to them. it didn’t matter that they didn’t understand the words. books are many things: lullabies for the wary, ointment for the wounded, armour for the fearful and nests for those in need of a home.”

The Kingdom of Silk books are music to entrance and transport you, balm for bruised souls, practical tools for fostering empathy, and the most comforting, comfortable refuge at the ends of busy days. Lots of books come to life in our home but having seen how my daughters have taken these stories deep into their hearts and lives, their play and conversation, I wouldn’t be surprised if in forty years time it is these ones which my children remember most happily when asked to think of their favourite books of all time.

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.

Imagine packing up your home, leaving Earth and setting out to travel across space to colonise a new planet.

The journey will take so long you’ll be put into a cryptobiotic state. But there is absolutely nothing to fear: You’re on sleek new spaceship, looked after by a team of well-programmed robots, and everything has been carefully thought through. When you finally arrive at Nova Mundi (it only takes 199 years to get there), you’ll be woken up to a delicious breakfast and the start of a whole new and wonderful life.

It sounds great, doesn’t it?

And so it is in Cakes in Space by Philip Reeve and Sarah McIntyre. Astra and her family are on their way to their new home but – you’ve guessed it – something goes wrong. Astra wakes from her suspended sleep, and feeling peckish goes off in search of a chocolate biscuit.

The Nom-O-Tron (a highly developed version of Star Trek’s Replicator) satisfies Astra’s request, but when she’s tempted to ask for something a little more outlandish (how many times have you seen the word “Ultimate” used to describe a dish?) something goes awry. Soon Astra is hurtling through space surrounded by cakes which have learned to evolve. Cakes which are fed up of being eaten themselves. Cakes which have developed a killer instinct.

Will Astra be able to save her family from the Ravenous Crispy Slices and Ferocious Fruit Cakes stalking the spaceship’s corridors? How much more complicated will things get when a second front opens up and her spaceship is raided by alien life forms known as Poglites, desperately searching for their holy grail, that technology which they haven’t been able to master: SPOONS.

Yes, this is a totally surreal and deliciously outrageous story of friendship, ingenuity and hundreds and thousands.

It’s fast-moving, exciting, just ever so slightly scary in that enjoyably adrenalin pumping way and above all it’s FUNNY! Add into the mix some genuinely beautiful writing (sometimes young fiction is all about the plot and the language – especially for an adult reading it aloud – can be somewhat unremarkable, but Reeve at times writes sentences which I found myself wanting to copy out), a plot which will enthral both boys and girls of a wide age range, and the subtle inclusion of some philosophically meatier issues (the consequences of greedy desire, the demonisation of that which we don’t know and can’t name) and you’ve got yourself a remarkable book.

Image: Sarah McIntyre. Please click on the image to be taken to the original blog post – well worth reading!

McIntyre’s illustrations are a crazy but perfect mix of 1950s brave new world sleekness and outrageous sponge-and-icing based fantasy. I’m delighted that Astra’s family are mixed race (this isn’t mentioned in the text at all, but how great to see some diversity just as-is, without it being an issue in the book).

The top-notch content of Cakes in Space is matched by a stunningly produced physical book. Like last year’s Reeve and McIntyre production, Oliver and the Seawigs, this is first being published as a small hardback in pleasingly chunky, strokingly hand-holdable format. Everything about the book is appealing.

After indulging in a solo read, I read this book aloud to both girls over a couple of days last week. Before we’d even finished the books my girls were off to raid the cutlery draw in the kitchen for highly prized spoons to create a collection of which any Poglite would be proud.

Carefully curated, they labelled every spoon with where it had been found in the galaxy, its rarity and its monetary value (I can see how this could develop into a Top Trumps game…)

Spoons are one thing, but cake is another, and I couldn’t resist the opportunity to host our own mini Cakes in Space party. We baked a host of fairy cakes and then turned them into KILLER CAKES…

Lollies made great eyes on stalks…

… as did Maltesers and Aero balls.

We had fun making teeth out of snapped white chocolate buttons, tictacs and rice paper snipped to look like rows of sharp teeth.

We also had some Ferocious Florentines and Sinister Swiss Rolls (helped along with edible eyes).

Other characters from the book were also present: The Nameless Horror was a big bowl of wobbly jelly dyed black with food colouring and with licorice shoelaces reaching out across the table, and jars of purple gloop (thinned down Angel Delight, again dyed to give a good purple colour) with gummy snakes in them made perfect Poglite snacks. Alas these were guzzled before I got to take a photo!

Preparing for the party was at least as much fun as the party itself…

Great music for a Cakes in Space party includes:

Other activities which would make for a great Cakes in Space party include:

We’ve all heard of Death by Chocolate, but what’s the nearest you’ve come to being killed by a cake?

Disclosure: I received a free review copy of Cakes in Space from the publishers.

The phenomenal, ongoing success of Horrid Henry and the recent rebranding of Blyton’s Naughtiest Girl in the School series (with new illustrations by Kate Hindley) show how many young children love to read about kids getting up to no good. Picture books which revel in really bad behaviour are less common but Children are Naughty by Vincent Cuvellier and Aurelie Guillerey and The Cake by Dorothee de Monfreid (@DdeMonfreid) are two new books which are exceptions to the rule. In these books there is no moral finger-wagging telling readers the behaviour is inappropriate or unacceptable; the naughtiness is not redeemed by charming features elsewhere (such as in Pippi Longstocking, for example) but rather they are celebrations of all that is entertaining about unadulterated misbehaving.

Children are Naughty covers just about every bit of bad behaviour you might find kids getting up to, from pulling hair, to not sharing toys, throwing tantrums and refusing to do what is asked of them. There’s a funny nod to an adage all too often wheeled out in parenting: “Do as I say, not as I do” (or in this case did) – acknowledging that adults too were once kids, and of course as kids we were always angelic and never ever broke any rules (ahem). The illustrations have a 1960s feel about them (as does the text at times with some casual sexism I didn’t feel comfortable with) and are beautifully produced to look like vintage prints (a technique the publisher, Flying Eye is very good at, as can also be seen in their reproductions of Dahlov Ipcar books).

In The Cake a bunch of hungry friends agree baking a cake would be a good solution to their predicament. But they can’t agree on what sort of cake to bake and [spoiler alert] their disagreements end up in an enormous food fight. The tone and visual style of The Cake will appeal to fans of Poo Bum by Stephanie Blake (from the same publisher, Gecko Press); full bleed pages of bold, saturated colour, and characters drawn with thick black lines and a certain wobbly naivety.

Both have provoked me to reflect on my own values and where the boundaries lie (if there are indeed any boundaries) when it comes to what content I as an adult (as a book buyer, as a librarian, as a parent) am happy with. It’s not often I’m made uncomfortable by a picture book! I wonder if it is just coincidence that both books are translations from French (Linda Burgess translated The Cake, but sadly no translator is acknowledged in Children are Naughty). Is unrepentant naughtiness one of those themes like sex and death which are more common in continental European picture books than English/US picture books?

I don’t think these are books for everyone. Some will love the cheekiness, the rebelliousness of these books. Others will feel they go a step too far. One of my girls loved both books, whilst the other was actually saddened by them, feeling that the behaviour was a bit mean. I’d encourage you to seek them out and see how not only you, but also your kids react to them. You might be surprised.

Connecting with our inner rebels, these books encouraged us to have a food fight of our own. Instead of pistols it was plates of squirty cream at dawn:

It has to be said we laughed a LOT doing this. There really was something exhilarating about doing something so “naughty”. I won’t be encouraging a repeat performance, but we had 20 minutes of unbridled joy. I’m pretty certain this particular playing-by-the-book will find a place in family lore in years to come.

Music to go with cake and/or a food fight includes:

Other activities which go well with reading The Cake include:

What is the most unusual cake you’ve ever eaten? Have you ever had a food fight? And just how comfortable are you with books, especially picture books, which don’t model angelic behaviour?!

Disclosure: I received a free review copy of both The Cake and Children are Naughty from the books’ distributor.

“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.

We’ve had a lot of snow this week and one of the ways we’ve been really enjoying it is by using it as an excuse to return to some favourite wintry books/scenes. First up we made Sugar Snow, inspired by the classic description in Little House in the Big Woods by Laura Ingalls Wilder.

I boiled up a jar of maple syrup, using a jam thermometer to tell me when it got to the firm ball stage. This took about 10 minutes. Then I poured the bubbling mixture onto fresh snow, where the maple syrup immediately hardened into Sugar Snow.

The Sugar Snow was delicious but very, very chewy – not one if you’ve got wobbly teeth!

Next we made an igloo, inside which we told stories, and reminisced about Holly Webb’s The Snow Bear (which we reviewed here), and the utterly gorgeous picture book Immi by Karin Littlewood (which we reviewed here).

I also brought the snow theme into my school story + craft sessions, and read Penguin and Pinecone by Salina Yoon. This simply illustrated book is quite literally full of heart (you’ll have to read it to see what I mean). The pictures are great for the youngest of listeners who appreciate bold, uncomplicated pictures, the penguin is undeniably cute and the story is perfect if you want a smattering of snow without any reference to Christmas.

You can get a good idea of what the book is like from this trailer:

Having read the story I helped my 30 5 and 6 year olds create their own play set for Penguin and Pinecone. I gave them each a pinecone (I collect these every year when a local tree sheds them) and a short stretch of felt, with a small snip in it, so one end could be threaded through the other to create the scarf around the pinecone.

To make the sledge each child had a craft matchbox, an elastic band and a small piece of pipecleaner. I prepped the matchboxes by making a hole in the matchbox drawer, and each child then threaded through the elastic band and inserted the pipecleaner to keep the elastic band in place.

We stuck lollypop sticks on the side to make sledge runners, and then we made pine trees and penguins using the templates below.

I printed this template on to green paper for the fir tree crowns and used strips of brown paper (about 8 inches long by 3 inches high) for the trunks.

The penguin templates can be downloaded here. They work fine printed onto regular paper, but for something more robust you could print them on card.

If you’re looking for some snowy, kid friendly, non christmassy music I can recommend:

This has some great lyrics!

A dreamy song for swirling around like snowflakes, with a pretty gorgeous video.

An all time classic…

For other activities to go with Penguin and Pinecone you could try:

Have you had snow recently? Or are you suffering in summer heat?

Disclosure: I received a free copy of Penguin and Pinecone from the publishers. I was under no obligation to review the book and I received no payment for this review.

Oh Dear, Geoffrey! by Gemma O’Neill is a tale of friendship, finding out about yourself and what suits you best.

Geoffrey is a giraffe, keen to make friends. But when he reaches down low to say hello to the meerkats he stumbles, when he tries to make friends at the watering hole he slips and slides and makes a huge splash. Needless to say, Geoffrey hasn’t quite found his niche. Fed up with being clumsy and unappreciated, he sets off to find some comfort in food, with a nibble of his favourite leaves in a tall tree.

And here, where giraffes are at home, with their neck high up amongst the branches, Geoffrey is able to find friends; monkeys and birds, who also love tall trees, where “You can reach as high as the sky…and see as far as the stars!”

This is an easy book to enjoy reading aloud, with lots of sentence internal rhyme, and great use of onomatopoeic words. Both the text and the illustrations reminded me somewhat of Catherine Rayner‘s Solomon Crocodile (which I reviewed here); not just the theme of finding the right friends, but also the use of scale and splatter in the illustrations. In one spread, we only see the lower half of the giraffe’s legs, so tall is he that he can’t fit on the page. In another the giraffe’s nose manages to peer over the edge of the page, again giving us readers and viewers a sense of just how large the giraffe really is. Compared to Rayner’s illustrations, O’Neill’s pictures are glossier, with more intense jewel tones (rather than softer watercolours), and may appeal more to those who like crisp edges and a digital aesthetic.

Seeing as we’re starting to warm up for the forthcoming Edible Book Festival we set about baking some giraffe biscuit, taking inspiration from the patterns on a giraffe’s hide.

Ingredients for giraffe biscuits

1. To make brown biscuits with yellow patterns, sift the flour, cocoa, baking powder, salt and sugar into your food processor’s bowl. Add the butter and mix in the processor until it looks like coarse breadcrumbs.

2. Add the egg and vanilla to the food processor bowl and mix into the “breadcrumbs”. The ingredients will come together to form a sticky mass. Put the bowl into your fridge for 30 minutes or thereabouts to firm up.

3. Preheat the oven to 200°C (Gas Mark 6). Line two baking trays with baking paper.

4. Sift the icing sugar and yellow edible dusting colour into a bowl. After 30 minutes in the fridge, shape the dough into walnut-sized balls and drop into the now yellow icing sugar, tossing until well coated. Place on the baking trays, leaving about 5 cm between each. Bake for 10–12 minutes or until just set when lightly touched. Cool on the trays for 5 minutes before transferring to wire racks to cool completely.

Although the dough goes into the over completely covered in icing sugar, it “cracks” as it cooks and cools, and so when the biscuits come out of the oven they have this pattern that is a little like that you find on giraffes.

To make the yellow biscuits with brown patterns, use 110g of flour instead of the flour/cocoa mix, but add yellow food colouring (preferably the thicker paste like this) to the food processor bowl to get the desired yellowness of dough. When the dough has set a little, roll it in a mixture of icing sugar and cocoa.

We were delighted with the results, both visually and gastronomically!

Whilst baking and munching we listened to:

Other activities which would be fun to do alongside reading Oh Dear, Geoffrey! include:

Do you have a favourite fictional Giraffe?

Disclosure: I received a free copy of Oh Dear, Geoffrey! from the publisher. I was under no obligation to review the book and received no payment for this review.

Ever had a day where if things can go wrong, then they do go wrong? If so, The Birthday Cake Mystery by Thé Tjong-Khing is for you

It’s rabbit’s birthday and dog is making her a cake. The party is about to get underway but… life is complicated and all sorts of things get in the way before dog can deliver rabbit’s cake. It’s definitely one of those days, where if things can go wrong, they will go wrong. A flying football crashes into the cake mixture, a naughty raccoon steals a mum’s purse, a ladder is knocked and sends pig flying, toys are pinched, monkeys get up to mischief and the poor birthday bunny is left in tears. Will things ever get put to right? Will rabbit’s day finally come together and be a cause of celebration, rather than stress?

This wordless picture book is packed with cameo dramas. Its narrative is not straight-forward and linear; so much is going on and changing from page to page that you can sit and read it together many times, picking up new stories and observing unexpected adventures with each reading. There is much to ask about, look for and piece together, making this is a book for conversation rather than a bedtime story. The accidents, chaos, humour, naughtiness and silliness will speak to all young readers/listeners, and also to their grown ups who will ruefully recognise such days and hope that they won’t be having one like this any time soon.

As a Dutch bilingual family, we were delighted to see one of our favourite illustrators from the Netherlands published for an English-speaking audience. Thé Tjong-Khing was born in Indonesia (at the time, a Dutch colony) in 1933 but has lived most of his life in the Netherlands. He’s a multi-award winning illustrator (with more than 300 books to his name) and there is currently an exhibition of his work in the Children’s Book Museum in The Hague. Some of our favourite books illustrated by him are the Fox and Hare stories (Vos en Haas), written by Sylvia vanden Heede, which, unfortunately, have not been translated into English. The prequel to The Birthday Cake Mystery, Where is the Cake? has been published in the US, and it too is worth looking out for.

In The Birthday Cake Mystery the raccoon thief is tracked down because he inadvertently walks through some spilt paint and leaves a trail of footprints. Taking this as our cue, we enjoyed an afternoon of painting the patio with our feet. Baking trays were filled with paint…

Sometimes this blog gives the impression that life in our home is idyllic, that I’m some sort of super mum and that our house gives off a continual pleasant, warm and loving glow.

Well. Let me assure you that this is not the case.

In order to get the material for this post I caused my kids to weep and scream at me. I even took photos of them yelling at me.

And why?

Well, I may score good marks on the glitter and glue front but I’ve failed utterly and totally when it comes to my kids and food: M is the fussiest eater I know, and J loves to copy her big sister so she too eats a hugely self-restricted diet (M will only eat 4 cooked things: sausages, egg noodles, fish fingers and, at a push, beefburgers. Yep, that’s it…).

So when along came a really lovely picture book about being a fussy eater I was delighted. Might it provide the breakthrough I’m constantly looking for?

One day Katharine Quarmby and Piet Grobler‘s Fussy Freya decides all the food she used to like is no longer yummy. She simply refuses to touch it. Her parents try to keep their cool but when the food they’ve lovingly prepared gets thrown on the floor they despair and decide to call on Grandma’s help.

When Freya throws down the gauntlet and tells her granny that she want to eat giraffe and other wild animals, Grandma calls her bluff and prepares precisely what Freya has requested. Warthog stuffed with cheese, grilled giraffe with cheese or mashed monkey, any one? Will this revolting food be a hit with Freya, or will she realise that what her parents offer her is actually rather yummy and so much more appealing than the exotic dishes her grandparents prepare for her?

Katharine Quarmby’s rolling, rhyming tale of a fussy eater is great fun. There’s a lovely little refrain that kids will quickly pick up on and join in with, and the mixture of humour, naughtiness and rather shocking dishes (most kids love a little bit of squeamishness, especially if it’s safely at arms’ length in the pages of a book) are great ingredients combined to make a satisfying tale. Piet Grobler’s illustrations are full of gorgeous colour and perfectly match the slightly grotesque story, being both full of love and warmth, and seasoned with a sharp edge.

One final aspect I really like about Fussy Freya is that Freya’s family is a mixed race family. This isn’t commented upon at all in the story – her’s is just a normal, “unremarkable” family. It’s great to see this in a picture book as it doesn’t happen often.

In the spirit of Fussy Freya I thought I’d offer my girls some really ghastly food in the hope that they’d realise that my offerings of “normal” food were actually quite ok.

For starters I gave them a bowl of snot. (Can you think of a child who doesn’t pick her nose?)

Cream cheese with a bit of food colouring, and bread st

Today I’m hosting STEM Friday, over at the STEM Friday blog. I’ve a review of a super, literally deliciously illustrated book for inspiring a love of… fractions! Do head on over to the STEM Friday blog to find out what it is, and if you’ve written a review of a STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Maths) book for children, please leave a link to your review over there, so it’s easy for anyone interested in in STEM books to find them all in one place.

As to what my mystery book inspired us to get up to… here are some photos:

Whilst we made our Edible Book version of my mystery book we listened to:

Neither are about fractions or division (both will get your toes tapping though), nor is the next song I had on, but I couldn’t resist:

Finally, a book which ISN’T my mystery book, but which is a fun read alongside the book I’m reviewing on the STEM Friday blog is The Doorbell Rang by Pat Hutchins – the perfect excuse for baking LOTS of biscuits and doing even more maths…

Join STEM Friday!

We invite you to join us!

• Write about STEM each Friday on your blog.
• Copy the STEM Friday button to use in your blog post.

It’s STEM Friday! (STEM is Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics)

• Link your post to the comments of our weekly STEM Friday Round-up. (Please use the link to your STEM Friday post, not the address of your blog. Thanks!)

And do go and see what book gave us such a good excuse to bake cake!

Welcome one and all to Playing by the book’s International Edible Book Festival!

As befits any gallery opening, there are drinks and nibbles on offer (albeit virtually)

To enter the gallery, click on the scissors below to snip the ribbon and view the astonishing entries. I’m sure you’ll agree with me there are lots of very creative entries, and really, every one is a winner!

The Gallery is open for public viewing all this week. Mélanie, from Library Mice, will be choosing her top 10 Edible Books, before passing on the shortlisted entries to our Festival Patron, Emma Chichester Clark, who’s wonderful Lulu and the Best Cake Ever was the inspiration behind the entire festival.

Emma will choose her top three Edible Books from the shortlist, and the winner will be announced on Monday 26 March, here on the blog. You’ll also be able to learn more about the different Edible Books that day – everyone is invited to link up to blog posts, facebook pages, etc that they’ve written about their entry.

Once you’ve visited the gallery, please do return here to leave a comment. Which cake made you smile the most? Which cake do you think deserves to win? Which cake would you like to eat?

A World of Food: Discover Magical Lands Made of Things You Can Eat! by Carl Warner doesn’t actually come out in the UK until May, but given that we’ve been playing a lot with our food recently, I couldn’t resist sharing this title with you now.

A World of Food showcases the incredible landscapes created out of food by photographer Carl Warner. 12 scenes are included, accompanied by a rhyming text describing some of what you can see in each image.

The photographs are incredible – witty, inventive, mindboggling. It’s enormous fun to attempt to work out what everything is made of; sand dunes from couscous, autumn leaves from cornflakes, railway tracks from kitkats, for example. At the back of the book there’s a key to each picture so you can check your guesses.

We found looking at the images inspiring and eyeopening. All of us wanted to try our hand at creating similar images, and the photos also made us look anew at food items we might have previously considered rather dull eg split peas, kale and sunflower seeds.

Unfortunately, the accompanying text doesn’t match the quality and inventiveness of the photos. The rhymes are a somewhat clunky e.g

If all the world were gray,
There wouldn’t be much room-
For every inch of ground would sprout
A tasty gray mushroom

or

Like herbivores on forest floor,
We’d walk through fresh green herbs
And share out thyme with passersby
In leafy, lush suburbs.

Perhaps I’m being a little harsh, as this book is really a showcase for Carl Warner‘s imaginative photography, which you can also see on his website. Indeed many of the images included in the book are (currently) available to view somewhere online which leaves me wondering who might buy this book?

I think it would be great for schools doing a healthy food topic. The images are such fun; they are bound to get kids looking at fruit and veg in a different light. I think families with picky eaters (just like our family) might enjoy this book. With my picky eaters half the battle is getting the kids just to touch the food; by offering them the chance to make pictures with their food at least this first hurdle become easier to jump over. I, personally, would love it if posters were available of these photos; they would look super in cafes, school canteens and even in my kitchen!

And so my picky eaters did

Wherever you are in the world, you are cordially invited to join us in celebrating all things bookish and delicious by taking part in the inaugural Playing By The Book International Edible Book Festival!

Edible book festivals have been taking place around the world since 1999, but as there are none near me I have decided to host an online festival for all of us who can’t get to a local edible book festival.

I am honoured and utterly delighted to announce that none other than Emma Chichester Clark, one of Britain’s most distinguished illustrators, is this year’s Festival Patron! I invited Emma to be the festival’s patron after reading her wonderful new book, Lulu and the Best Cake Ever (which I reviewed recently). If you love great children’s books and cake in equal measure, this book will be right up your street!

The Edible Book I made having read Lulu and the Best Cake Ever

Entry information

To enter the festival you should create an edible book, take two photos of it and email them to me, [email protected] by Friday March 16 2012 (please feel free to email me your pictures any time before then – it would be helpful if you didn’t leave it until March the 16th if possible).

NB One of your photos should include something that “time dates” the photo eg a newspaper, your computer monitor with this page in the background etc. This is to ensure that no-one submits photos of cakes they have simply found on the web. Your second photo should be the best photo you can take of your cake. I will use this photo in an online gallery of all submitted cakes.

In your submission email please include the title/author/illustrator of the book on which your edible book is based, and a sentence or two about what in particular inspired your edible book.

Children can enter, families can enter, bakers can enter. Even authors and illustrators can enter (maybe you’ll create an edible version of one of your printed books ). Do you run a children’s bookshop? Or library? Your customers (and you!) could enter… Are you a teacher? Maybe your pupils would like to enter?

Entries are welcome from all over the world, based on children’s books in any language. The only people who aren’t eligible to enter this competition are Mélanie (one of the competition judges – see below) and myself.

Each family may enter up to two edible books to the festival.

What is an edible book?

Your creation can be anything as long as it

Kerry of Picture Books and Pirouettes recently awarded me The Irresistibly Sweet Blog Award. Thankyou Kerry!

Recipients of this award are encouraged to:

It’s not so long since I shared some random facts about me, so instead I’m going to share seven books about sweetness and baking that I love and think you’ll enjoy:

Baker Cat by Posy Simmonds
Cake Girl by David Lucas
Biscuit Bear by Mini Grey
Yum Yum! by Mara Bergman and Nick Maland
Who Made This Cake? by Chihiro Nakagawa and Junji Koyose
The Donut Chef by Bob Staake
Sweets by Sylvia van Ommen

Photo: Terren in Virginia

And here are some very lovely, inspiration blogs that I really appreciate, and hope you’ll explore too:

jama rattigan’s alphabet soup
Kat Cooks the Books
Reading, Writing and Recipes
Storytelling, cooking and kids!
Children’s Books for Grown Ups – look out for Natasha’s Bookish Bites!
Maison Cupcake
The Tea Box

Thank you Kerry once again for the award, and for the opportunity to share some sweet book suggestions and super blogs!

Earlier this week I brought you a classic Swedish illustrator and a book originally published over 100 years ago. As a foil to that, today I bring you a modern, prize winning Swedish author – Sven Nordqvist.

Born in 1946 Nordqvist originally trained as an architect before returning to his childhood dream of illustration with the publication of his first book, an alphabet book, in 1982. Three years later he published his first book in what has come to be an extremely popular series about a slightly eccentric farmer, Pettson, and his cat, Findus.

Winner of several prizes, including the Elsa Beskow Plaque (1989), The August Prize (2007) and the German Youth Literature Prize (1992), Nordqvist has seen his books published into many different languages from Hindi to Hungarian. Indeed, his Pettson and Findus books have been translated into English multiple times – originally as Festus and Mercury, and later retaining the original Swedish names Pettson and Findus.

And so it is to Pettson and Findus I turn now, with reviews of two books, Pancakes for Findus (one of the 1001 Children’s Books You Must Read Before You Grow Up) and When Findus was Little and Disappeared.

Pancakes for Findus takes place on Findus’ birthday.

Findus had three birthdays a year, because it was more fun that way. And every birthday, Pettson made him a pile of pancakes.

First he went to the hen house to collect a basket of eggs. Then he sat on the bench outside the kitchen and polished them. Pettson was a tidy man and he wanted them all clean and shiny.

So begins a hilarious story about Pettson, his chaotic life, and the lengths he’ll go to to ensure his beloved cat Findus can celebrate his birthday in style. One thing leads to another and before long baking the birthday pancakes has involved climbing over the shed roof, playing music to a bull, tying a curtain to Findus’ tail and adding that secret ingredient known as trousers to the pancake batter. Sound crazy? Well it certainly is, but it makes for a perfect recipe – both for a story and for pancakes.

**Don’t miss out on your chance to win a Moomin mug and plate set! Click here and leave a comment to be in with a chance of winning! (European addresses only)**

An important part of Reading Round Europe for us is going to be using the books we read as a family to explore other countries and cultures. So to go with our reading of It’s Snowing in Animal town (review here) I searched high and low for a genuine, fun Finnish activity for us to get up to us a family. I wanted something more interesting than colouring in the Finnish Flag so I reached out into the blogosphere for suggestions and discovered Ruth who blogs at The North Wing.

Photo: Ruth Landesa

Ruth is a jewellery maker and designer based in Finland and when I stumbled across her blog and website I was immediately drawn in by her beautiful photography which reminded me of another blog I enjoy, Bloesem. I wrote to her asking if she could help suggest an activity for me and my girls and despite it being the week before Christmas when I contacted her, she came up trumps and very generously wrote up a recipe for Pannukakku, “a very, very traditional Finnish dessert that is really easy and good to prepare with kids“… what could be better than that?!

Photo: Ruth Landesa

Ruth’s Pannukakku

For 2 generous portions

For 6 portions

1. Preheat the oven at 225 degrees Celsius.
2. Mix the flour and salt in a bowl. Add half quantity of the milk and whisk until the mixture is smooth.
3. Add the rest of the milk. Add eggs and whisk.
4. Grease a pan (Ruth uses a glass oven-pyrex pan for the small pancake and for the 6 portion pancake a pizza pan of about 30×40 cm size). Place the butter or margarine into the pan and put the pan for a few minutes into the oven until the fat melts and starts to get a little colour.
5. Pour the mix into the pan and bake at the middle level of the oven for approximately 25 minutes or until the pancake has puffed up and has a beautiful colour.
6. Leave to cool in the pan and cut.
7. Serve the pancake as a dessert with fresh fruit – Ruth normally use berries, berry jam or comp

A short, but very sweet post today Over the weekend it was my birthday and so we were on the look out for a good book and something chocolatey to go with it. We came up trumps with Yum Yum! by Mara Bergman and Nick Maland, a random but clearly meant-for-us find.

Photo: Scottfeldstein

Two cheeky children get messy in the kitchen whilst baking bread, oblivious to the menagerie from a nearby zoo creeping through the open window, drawn in by the delicious smell. But when a big bear crashes into the kitchen everyone is aware of it. What has the bear come for? Is he going to eat up the naughty (but nice) children?

What’s not to fall in love with when reading this book? Independent little kids (no sign of parents anywhere), a camel, a crocodile, great rhyming text that trips of the tongue and builds easily and effectively to the scary moment when the bear appears on the scene hungry for something to eat. The sprinkling of fear sweetened with a good dose of humour is a really a delicious combination.

The illustrations are drawn with simple clear lines but are bursting with textures which remind me a little, and in the very best way, of the work of Ian Beck. This is one of those books that cannot be read only once in a sitting – J demands at least 3 or 4 readings one after the other whenever we find this lovely book in our hands.

Much as I adore bread, my regular loaf isn’t so celebratory, so instead we decided to bake some chocolate buns based on “Jack’s chocolate buns” from Richard Bertinet’s Dough: Simple Contemporary Bread. The recipe, should you wish to use it, is at the end of this post – do let me know how you get on if you try it!

The whole process is very kid friendly – just make sure you have some spare chocolate for the kids to enjoy whilst they’re helping This batch didn’t last long!

Yum Yum!: ** (2 stars)

Music we danced to with chocolate stains round our mouths included:

Hot Chocolate

3 Comments on Yum yum yummy, last added: 10/11/2010

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Anamaria Anderson said, on 10/11/2010 6:15:00 AM

I just wanted to wish you a happy birthday, but now I want to make chocolate buns, too! Wishing you many more–birthdays, books, and chocolate buns!

Carrie, Reading My Library said, on 10/11/2010 8:18:00 AM

HAPPY BIRTHDAY!

And chocolate buns sound like a great way to celebrate to me!

Zoe @ Playing by the book said, on 10/11/2010 12:46:00 PM

Thanks Anamaria and Carrie!

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21. Museums, wicked witches and calories galore

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By: Zoe, on 9/19/2010
Blog: Playing by the book (Login to Add to MyJacketFlap)
JacketFlap tags:  Fairy Stories, Baking/cooking, Lisbeth Zwerger, Magic, Christmas, Add a tag

When I’m looking for inspiration as to what to read with M and J I often have a look at what’s going on at the various museums and centres around the world dedicated to children’s literature and illustration. Even if I can’t visit any special exhibitions myself, they often provide a lead to a new author or illustrator I might not have come across through browsing in our library or local bookshop and Lisbeth Zwerger is a case in point.

The Eric Carle Museum of Picture Book Art is currently hosting an exhibition of this Austrian illustrator I had not previously heard of, and so I decided to track down what I could by her. The only book available in our whole library system was Hansel and Gretel by the Brothers Grimm, illustrated by Lisbeth Zwerger, retold by Anthea Bell. Despite its small size and it being the only offering I could get hold of without spending money, it’s a gem of a little book full of utterly gorgeous illustrations. Lisbeth Zwerger is indeed a wonderful, exciting discovery.

The story of Hansel and Gretel, like so many great fairy stories, is perhaps not for the faint hearted. There’s a wicked stepmother who wants to abandon the two children of her new husband in the forest to meet whatever dreadful fate may befall them. There’s an evil witch who captures the children and attempts to eat them up. But there is also something which at least my 2 children have the happiest dreams about – a house made of cakes and confectionery, that Hansel and Gretel nibble from. What a delicious fantasy!

This version of Hansel and Gretel doesn’t disguise the evil intent of the stepmother and the witch and this, combined with the fact that the text does not feel simplified or abbreviated (there are perhaps 10 or 15 longish sentences on each page) meant M got much more out of it than J.

The illustrations are stunning, reminding me a little of muted Carl Larsson and Edmund Dulac, with an apparently looser yet very effective use of watercolour to suggest different atmospheres. These are definitely the sort of images that I’d love to have hanging on my wall as well as in the books I read with my children.

What else could we do once we had read this treat of a book other than make our own house out of cake and sweets? Making a gingerbread house is a Christmas tradition in some families – but we couldn’t wait till Christmas for this sugar extravaganza. Here’s how we did it.

I used the basic recipe for gingerbread from Good Food – this recipe is a UK one, so the ingredients and quantities are easy for us over here. If you’re elsewhere in the world try googling “gingerbread house recipe + your country” to find a version tailored to your local setting. The Good Food recipe came with templates for our cottage which I printed out in triplicate and then M cut out the various different sections.

3 Comments on Museums, wicked witches and calories galore, last added: 9/19/2010

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Margaret Perry said, on 9/19/2010 4:52:00 PM

Oh! I am so glad you discovered her. I always assumed she had a following in England. She really is marvelous–my favorite of her works is THE GIFT OF THE MAGI. But her illustrated Bible is the most beautiful I’ve come across.

Fiddler said, on 9/19/2010 6:42:00 PM

Zwerger’s books are gorgeous, and our tiny little town library has six of them, which makes me very happy. I’m already thinking of ways to tie in The Canterville Ghost to our October homeschooling! Thanks for posting about her.

Zoe said, on 9/19/2010 10:52:00 PM

Hi Margaret, Hi Fiddler, I’m envious of you having access to so many other Zwerger books. I must admit I’ve now ordered 2 from Amazon (you’ll have to wait and see which ones I’ve chosen but thanks for your tips!). As to the difference in popularity in the US and the UK I’ve just checked on the 2 Amazon sites to get a rough picture – the most popular Zwerger book on the uk site is ranked 173,619, whereas the most popular Zwerger book on the US site is ranked much higher – 59,658. I’m so much looking forward to seeing more of her work.

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22. Nonfiction Monday – Learning to cook

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By: Zoe, on 3/21/2010
Blog: Playing by the book (Login to Add to MyJacketFlap)
JacketFlap tags:  Nonfiction Monday, Baking/cooking, Add a tag

For my contribution to this week’s Nonfiction Monday I’m reviewing a cookery book that M has been using recently: frame>by>frame quick and easy – the cookbook that shows you every step.

As a family we bake and cook a lot, but normally my kids’ involvement (unless it is something sweet) revolves around play cooking – a few pots and pans, bowls and spoons, water and a little bit of chopped up whatever that has fallen off my chopping board. It’s a great way to keep them happy whilst I’m getting supper ready, but the end result of their culinary endeavours is not usually terribly edible.

With the arrival of the new year I thought M was about ready to start learning how to cook food that we could actually enjoy as a family and so I started hunting for a good cookbook to use with her. I didn’t want recipes for puddings and desserts – I wanted to encourage cooking food for meals, not treats – and I found it quite hard to find a cookery book for kids that didn’t have a disproportionate number of sweet recipes. Eventually I gave up looking in the kids’ cookery section and tried my luck in the adults’ section instead, and there I found the perfect book for us.

I say the perfect book, but I have to admit frame>by>frame quick and easy – the cookbook that shows you every step is not at all the sort of cookery book I would usually buy. It has been “produced” by a whole team of people, not written by a chef or food writer (indeed, no author is actually listed in Amazon), and at first glance it looks like it might be all about the visuals of food, rather than recipes that work and that are delicious: every recipe in this book is shown (as it says in the title!) step by step through a series of photographs, starting first with a photo of all the ingredients, then 5-8 photos showing the various stages and finally a photo of the finished product.

The photos are very clear, but they don’t show people actually cooking – rather the ingredients at various stages of preparation beautifully present on clean, clutter free work tops. It looks like the good fairies have been at work rather than actual people (and certainly rather than a crazy mama and two eager-to-get-stuck-in kids).

However, I thought this book might work for us as the layout and use of photos would really help M make he

3 Comments on Nonfiction Monday – Learning to cook, last added: 3/23/2010

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Nonfiction Monday – Learning to cook | Playing b said, on 3/22/2010 2:26:00 AM

[...] Follow this link: Nonfiction Monday – Learning to cook | Playing by the book [...]

Natalie said, on 3/22/2010 3:12:00 PM

We are not quite ready for independent cooking yet, but I quite agree with your choice to stick to real food vs. desserts. I bought My First Cookbook by Paula Deen some time ago, but didn’t really have a chance to test it yet, since at 3 year old my daughter is not quite ready for independent cooking

Zoe @ Playing by the book said, on 3/23/2010 12:13:00 AM

Hi Natalie
Yes, M wouldn’t have been ready at 3, but it’s great to hear you’ve already got a cookbook lined up!

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23. Jitterbug Jam

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By: Zoe, on 2/18/2010
Blog: Playing by the book (Login to Add to MyJacketFlap)
JacketFlap tags:  Friendship, Monsters, Alexis Deacon, Barbara Jean Hicks, Baking/cooking, Add a tag

I know that several of you who read Playing by the book also write book reviews. What’s the process you go through for this? Do you draft your reviews? Do you check out what other’s have written about the book in question?

And, dear readers, whether your write reviews or not, what is it that you look for in a review? Do you read book reviews elsewhere e.g. in magazines?

When we find a book we love and I want to review here, I tend to sit on it for quite a few days. If it’s a book I really love, often the review takes even longer to write – In fact, library fines are generally one way for me to tell which books are the real gems! Finding the words that a great book deserves can be quite a challenge for me and today’s book has been a case in point.

I’ve just sat down with a coffee and re-read (on my own, with some peace and quiet) Jitterbug Jam by Barbara Jean Hicks and Alexis Deacon. The first few phrases I jotted down after closing the covers were:

Literary flair

Captivating, original illustrations

Warms my heart

Jitterbug Jam is a wonderful story about finding friendship despite differences and fear. A young monster cannot sleep at night because there’s a boy hiding under his bed.

Even Godzilla, who everyone knows
is the bravest monster ever,
would be scared of a boy
with pink skin
and orange fur on his head
where his horns by right should be,
and eyes that awful colour the sky is
when you wake up in the middle of the day
and can’t see, it’s so bright out.

What the young monster learns in the course of the story is that the way to overcome his fear is to reach out and take the risk of (quite literally) extending a hand in friendship. The gamble pays off, and the young monster realises that he and the boy are more alike than not.

I lie awake a long time after,
thinking about that boy,
how he has a brother
and plays Hide ‘n’ Seek
and says ‘please’ and ‘thank you’
just like Mama taught me.

And I think about how that boy must have a ma of his own,
and maybe a grampa like Boo-Dad
who tells him never, ever to
look at a monster’s toothy grin,
or he’s like to turn
to fluff and dust for ever.

The story is told in the first person, with a distinctive, unusual voice (I can hear the words with what I’d call a southern US drawl), and whilst this might make the text more of a challenge for a kid to read to themselves, it lends the story very well to being read out loud. The illustrations don’t remind me of any other’s I’ve seen before – and by this I want to say that they really are something fresh, different, engaging. They are full of detail that you’ll want to return to and will give you plenty to talk about with your kids.

Despite severa

3 Comments on Jitterbug Jam, last added: 2/19/2010

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Kristine said, on 2/18/2010 11:49:00 PM

I love seeing how other people think and work. I’d also love some fresh marmalade.

I have a little surprise for you
http://bilbified.blogspot.com/2010/02/blogging-glory.html

Sheela said, on 2/19/2010 2:18:00 PM

Love the way you put so much thought into every thing… I was nodding along about book reviews – so many books just pass us by and I end up only writing about a fraction of the ones that really impressed us in some way (especially the children)…

Oh, and another thing we have in common: home-canning Putting food by is the simplest of pleasures am glad to pass on to my kids.

It is very inspiring to see the labels being made – using print-making technique. How neat is that?!
Cheers,
Sheela.

Carrie, Reading My Library said, on 2/19/2010 10:37:00 PM

This is an awesome post. I love hearing your perspective as you approach a book to review. Quite clearly you put a lot of time and effort into thoroughly enjoying the books you are reading which I think is just fantastic! You inspire me and I love your site!

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24. Winter Starlight

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By: Zoe, on 1/28/2010
Blog: Playing by the book (Login to Add to MyJacketFlap)
JacketFlap tags:  Mice, Moon / stars, Baking/cooking, Kenneth Steven, Louise Ho, Winter, Add a tag

This last month I’ve been on the look out for books with a wintry but non-christmas theme and the search has brought a few lovely, previously unknown books into our household thanks to the library reservation system. One in particular which has caught M and J’s attention is The Sea Mice and the Stars by Kenneth Steven, illustrated Louise Ho.

Photo: Navicore

A family of mice who live on an old ship (which reminds me of the gorgeous Maggie B) have a special job every winter: when there is a shower of shooting stars it is their job to go on land, gather up the stars and distribute them to other mice, to light their homes and keep them safe.

One year they venture out to gather up the “pieces of magic” but a terrible storm brews up and whilst gathering the sparkling treasures one of the sea-mice children gets lost in the snow. Fortunately the light of the stars helps her family to find the young mouse and they are able to complete their mission; the land mice throw a great party to celebrate the distribution of the glowing stars and the sea-mice are able to return to their ship, happy and content after their adventure.

Re-reading my precis of the story I think it sounds a little strange, but actually the story is charming – just the right amount of adventure, fantasy and suspense married with sweet little mice-characters (with oldy-worldy names like Ashenteen and Filidore) and the enduring charm of sparkling stars. Indeed, I think the illustrations are what really capture the attention of my kids – the stars are all shiny and sparkly, and their lustre shows up particularly well against the purples and blues which dominate the pages of this book.

At the said mice party…

There were spicy hot drinks that made Ashenteen’s nose tingle, and singing and dancing that never seemed to end. “This is the most exciting night ever!” Ashenteen whispered to Willabee as they nibbled on special star-shaped biscuits, still warm from the oven”

And so, to recreate this celebration M, J and I made our own star-shaped biscuits and hot spicy drinks:

Hot Moroccan “Ginseng” (from Sophie Grigson’s Sunshine Food)

Serves 2
30g (1 oz) caster or granulated sugar
1 mace blade
1 cinnamon stick
4 cloves
4 cardamom pods
2.5 cm (1 inch) piece of fresh root ginger, sliced
1/4 teaspoon freshly grated nutmeg
6 allspice berries
300 ml (10 fl oz) water
1 teaspoon lemon juice

Put

5 Comments on Winter Starlight, last added: 1/31/2010

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Sarah N. said, on 1/29/2010 3:53:00 AM

The Sea Mice and the Stars looks lovely. I will have to look for it. And your feast looks tantalizing. We’re expecting lots of snow tonight so we might have to give those recipes a try to warm us up this weekend. Thanks for linking to me.

Steph Burgis said, on 1/29/2010 10:10:00 AM

Those pictures are adorable! And the food looks delicious. I’ll be bookmarking this page for the recipes – I think my son and I would both enjoy them!

Susan Stephenson, the Book Chook said, on 1/30/2010 1:28:00 PM

I came to visit after you commented on my blog post for the Carnival, and am so glad I did! I love the idea of weaving other activities into your literature sharing, and am always looking for such tips to share with my own readers.

I also love The Galaxy Song! And my favourite snow story unfortunately is also a Christmas story but only slightly – The Snowman, by Raymond Briggs.

vanessa@silly eagle books said, on 1/30/2010 6:22:00 PM

I love the pic of the girls reading the book and the licking the icing pic is just precious! Your daughters are beautiful.

Kristine said, on 1/31/2010 4:25:00 AM

The story sounds lovely and isn’t your little one looking like a little girl now!

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