Rollercoaster Mum: We love books - a couple of (book) reviews

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Tuesday 30 April 2013

We love books - a couple of (book) reviews

We really do love books in the Rollercoaster household (even Rollercoaster Dad ) although the grown up members of the household are severely lacking in time to read these days but the girls are fast making up for us. They can both often be found with their little blonde heads stuck in a book. Little Miss Star reads properly long chapter books these days - in fact the problem can be finding age appropriate material that isn't boring or badly written. Some of the girly books series about things like ballet, fairies and small animals are truly awful - they have their place but there's just too many of them. Little Miss Sunshine is only in reception and is storming along on the reading front but at that stage where everything is sounded out but the main thing is she really tries to read her books, even ones which are really too tricky!

I've not really blogged about books and reading before and I really should have as it is something I feel passionate about. I have even added a little widget from Goodreads to the blog (down there on the right) to show what we are all reading or have read recently! As a child I never had my nose out of a book - I think it drove my mum mad. I would go to the library, get out my allotted 4 books (so good you can take out way more these days) and I would have read them all by the end of the day!

I am really pleased that my girls seem to love their books too so I was very excited to be offered the opportunity to review some children's books from an innovative publisher called My Little Big Town. They have a range of children's books ranging from ages 2-12, many of which are aimed at encouraging reluctant readers to read for fun, especially young boys. Now obviously my girls are not particularly reluctant (or boys) but I was intrigued.

For Little Miss Sunshine we picked 'Anisha's Adventures in Bangladesh' by Moinul Islam. This is the first in a series of books about a little girl (she even has her own facebook page) who is given magical necklaces on her birthday for herself and her pony Chloe. These transform them so that they may fly anywhere they want, taking pictures and finding out all about new places. Anisha is from Bangladesh so this is the first book and she explores her own country finding out all sorts of things about where she lives using her magical camera.


It is a picture book but not in the classic 'read in 5 minutes' book - I read it to Little Miss Sunshine over 2 nights. The recommended age is 5+ and she is not quite at the stage where she could read it by herself. I think the age is more to do with understanding the story and the facts in the book. It was certainly a good way to introduce her to a different culture and learn about the world. We are looking forward to the next book which is to be set in London so that should have some familiar places too. This was Little Miss Sunshine's own review of the book: (she wanted to draw the pony but said she couldn't hence the flag!)

Moinul Islam

Little Miss Star picked 'Gorgeous George and the Giant Geriatric Generator' by Stuart Reid. This book is aimed at 9+ and although she is only just 8 she's a pretty good reader but she did struggle with the first couple of chapters but once she got into it she didn't put it down. It sounds complicated but the author quite quickly explains words like 'geriatric' and 'generator' in the book within the context of the story. I thought it had overtones of Roald Dahl books and as she loves these it wasn't a surprise that she liked this book.

It is about a young boy who starts to notice strange things happening in his town and when his much loved Grandad goes missing he sets out to find out what is happening with the new girl (and his only friend) at school - Allison to help. They uncover a dastardly plot by the evil owner of the local power plant and his horrible wife (also George's teacher) to produce cheap power and control the town. It has mystery, adventure and pranks with poo - what more could you want! It is a good book and a very entertaining read. Boys would love it and any girls who've got over those awful ballet books!

This was Little Miss Star's views on the book.

Stuart Reid

Disclaimer: We were sent two books to review but all views and words are my own.

1 comment:

  1. Hi there - I may have mentioned it before, but no family library is complete without The Gruffalo! A wonderful book.

    Cheers

    Stewart M - Melbourne

    ReplyDelete

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