Glitterbelle Princess Books – Review

Posted on February 8, 2015 by Fiona Martin

Glitterbelle is a new princess from Parragon books who loves to sparkle. The range of Glitterbelle books includes a story book and various activity books. We received a couple of activity books for Miss M to try out and they didn’t disappoint. Beautifully designs and excellent quality have meant they have been a great hit with us.

The Glitterbelle Dazzling Dress Up book is a really lovely combination of a story along with a sticker book, in which you dress up Glitterbelle and her friends Dazzlina and Angel in different outfits on each page depending on what’s happenning in the story. There are four pages of very pretty, glittery stickers in the centre containing all the outfits they need from dresses, skirts, tops, trousers, shoes and lots of other accessories. This is a really lovely dress up book that I’d highly recommend.

Glitterbelle Me and You is a lovely padded covered book with a purple, glittery elastic strap to keep the book closed. It is in face a diary, a place to write your secrets, answer questions, list your favourite things etc. The diary has full colour pages prompting you with things to write, boxes to tick and documenting facts about you, such as pets, hobbies and best friends.

This diary is perfect for Miss M who is 7 as she loves writing little things down and this keeps her occupied independently. She keeps it by her bed and likes to fill in a few bits at bedtime. She also loved the dress up book with the stickers and again could enjoy it competently on her own, reading the story as she went so she knew which outfit stickers to use on each page.

I think these would make a lovely gift for either a young girl who could do the activity books assisted by a grown up or for a slightly older girl of around 6 or 7 years who can enjoy them independently.

I love the Glitterbelle range of books from Parragon, why not take a look and see what you think?

All reviews are my own and my family’s opinions and we received the books in order to write the review.

DC Super Friends Activity Books and First Readers

Posted on April 22, 2014 by Fiona Martin

DC Super Friends are very popular with my little boy, so with Bantam releasing a range of activity and first reader books I knew he’d be excited. With all his favourite characters such as Batman, Superman, Green Lantern and others, these books follow the super friends on adventures of fighting crime and saving the day!

The first readers are aimed at 5-7 year olds, so 6 year old Miss M was keen to have read. She kindly read them to her younger brother and he eagerly viewed the pictures and enjoyed the story. These are perfect for her age to read with large text that is simple but interspersed with a few trickier words that she managed well.

Crime Wave is about a baddie, Black Manta, who plans to steal the world’s largest pearl, but fortunately the DC Super Friends are there to stop him escaping with the pearl and catch the criminal in action. This is a typical super hero type of story, one that little ones love and that Mister B has listened to over and over.

Hero Havoc follows Bizarro, a wannabe super hero who tries his hardest to have the same special powers as the others, but it always results in the opposite thing happening, therefore he never quite achieves what he sets out to do. He goes off to find Superman who is being held by Lex Luthor and it’s Bizarro that manages to set him free, finally making him happy and feeling worthy of being a hero.

Both these DC Super Friends books have been enjoyed by my children, with Miss M reading them herself and Mister B listening to them. These are firm favourites that I can definitely recommend. The full colour picture pages help bring the stories to life with lots of recognisable characters that little ones will love!

There are also a couple of activity books available, a wipe clean book which is great for practising pen control, something Mister B is just getting to grips with so this book has been great for him to write, draw, match etc. using his favourite super friends to guide him. The DC Super Friends sticker book has 4 pages of stickers to use on pages within the book as well as other activities such as mazes, counting activities, find the odd one out etc. The stickers proved a big hit with Mister B as I’m sure they will with any young super hero fan.

We love the DC Super Friend’s range of books and like that they cover both fiction and activity books. We’ve really enjoyed them and found them a bit different to any other books we’ve had or seen.

Why not check out these and more in the range from Bantam books?

All reviews are my own and my family’s opinions and we received the books in order to write the review.

Woolly & Tig Books – Review

Posted on March 14, 2014 by Fiona Martin

Woolly & Tig has been a firm favourite in this house since the first series aired on CBeebies, so I’m pleased to see a range of books have now been published by Random House. They have a good selection, covering story books and activity books which include wipe clean and sticker types.

If you haven’t met Woolly & Tig before, they are a young girl called Tig and her toy spider, Woolly. The shows aim to explore new experiences that young children face such as the first time going swimming or being afraid of the dark. Woolly encourages Tig to try new things, not be afraid of things and learn lots of new activities.

We received a couple of story books, Woolly at Nursery and I Love Mummy. They are both high quality books, with thick glossy pages and bright pictures.

I Love Mummy discusses the relationship between Tig and her mummy, how much her mummy loves her and all the things she does for Tig. It then shows Tig how she should help her mummy and understand that sometimes her mummy has to do things and can’t play but it doesn’t mean she loves Tig any less.

Woolly at Nursery explores the fun Tig has at nursery until she accidentally bumps into a little boy one day. They both blame each other and she no longer enjoys nursery. But by learning to share her worries and concerns she is happy to go back to nursery. Both these books build on experiences and we have enjoyed reading them. They make good talking points if your child has come across similar issues.

We then had a look at the activity books. The Wipe Clean book is excellent for little ones who are just starting to hold a pen and get to grips with making marks on paper. This is perfect for 3 yr old Mister B who could follow the lines, dots, shapes with the pen. It also has simple words to copy which he struggles a bit with, but this makes the book a bit of a challenge and gives him something to learn from. He is the ideal age for this and has really enjoyed doing it.

The sticker books are all of a high quality, with lots of colourful stickers for little ones to add to the pages. There are lots of other activities such as mazes, counting, colouring in etc. plenty to keep little ones occupied. We’ve had great fun with these and it’s perfect to sit down with Mister B and do. He’s really enjoyed them.

If you are looking for activity books for your young children, then I’d definitely recommend trying out the Woolly & Tig books from Random House.