Barefoot Books Review and Giveaway

Posted on December 8, 2013 by Fiona Martin

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Barefoot Books are a lovely children’s book company with a large range of beautifully illustrated titles for all ages. The books are of a high quality both in the finish of the book and the detail inside. They also have a large range of books with an included story CD, perfect for children to listen to independently or for long car journeys. We received a couple of books to try out and they didn’t disappoint – see what we thought below.

Port Side Pirates is a delightful singalong adventure that both my children throughly enjoyed. Pirates seem to be a popular theme for them and 5yr old Miss M had actually sung a couple of verses of this song with slightly different words in her pirate school assembly a few months back. She was keen to lead the way with the words and 3yr old Mister B eagerly joined in. The book has brightly coloured illustrations that we all enjoyed but the jolly nature of the song is what got us all up singing along, the children dancing and left us feeling high spirited. A great little book with a CD that’s perfect in the car for singalongs – I think I’ll be hearing this one many times over – both my children love singing along and adding in their own pirate expressions between verses!! “Shiver me timbers, me hearties”

The Twelve Dancing Princesses is a high quality hardback book by Xanthe Gresham, with the most elegant, exquisite illustrations I have seen. Illustrated by Miss Clara, this really is a book to treasure and should last a young girl many years of enjoyment. Being quite a lengthy book, I read this to Miss M although she did enjoy sitting trying to read the pages herself. The story follows the mystery of twelve princesses who go dancing each night through a secret passage under the castle. Princes are invited to discover where they are disappearing to in order to win their hand in marriage and eventually one does. A lovely story with a magical feel to it, we’ve really enjoyed reading this. Miss M loves the secret staircase and the enchanted woods the princesses pass through each night. Definitely a book to enjoy again and again that would suit girls of many ages and also includes a story CD, perfect for Miss M to listen to in her room.

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Barefoot Books have an extensive range of children books, all with lovely illustrations sure to catch a child’s attention. They have been kind enough to offer one of my readers a book of their choice to win.

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The Girl with a Brave Heart – Barefoot Children’s Book Review

Posted on May 15, 2013 by Fiona Martin

The Girl with a Brave Heart by Rita Jahanforuz is a hardback book from Barefoot Books that is set in Tehran. Illustrated throughout, this is a lovely quality book with a fairly lengthy story aimed at children aged 4-10 years. My daughter is 5 and I felt this as a lovely length to read to her but not too long that she got bored.

If I’m really honest I’m not sure I would have given the book a second look from the front cover but I sat down with Miss M to read it one evening and I have to say I was very surprised by the story inside and how much we both enjoyed it. It’s about a young girl Shiraz who lives with her stepmum and stepsister and is made to do all the housework. Then one day she drops a ball of wool over the terrace into the neighbour’s garden. After knocking on the door, an old lady asks her to do a number of jobs before returning the wool. Shiraz sees through the old lady’s requests and does the job she feels is right rather than exactly what she asks. As a reward for this she gets to jump in a pool that makes her look as beautiful on the outside as she feels on the inside.

Her stepsister tries for the same results without success and the moral of the story is ‘When people are sad, they do not always know how to ask for what they need’

I found this story totally enchanting and both 5yr old Miss M and myself really enjoyed it. We have read it several times and found the storyline to be fast moving which really helped maintain interest and eagerness to find out what happened next. With it’s traditional feel and values to be learnt, I think this is a great book for young girls to read.

We loved the storyline of The Girl with a Brave Heart and it’s a book that we’ll read again and again.

All reviews are my own and my family’s opinions. We are not paid for reviews although we do receive the product to try out and enable us to write the review.

Barefoot Books – childrens CD story books

Posted on February 5, 2013 by Fiona Martin

When we were sent a selection of books from Barefoot Books I knew my children would be really pleased as they both love reading and are constantly bringing a pile of books to my lap saying “Please read some books mummy”. The first thing that stood out about the books were the brightly coloured covers along with the high quality shiny pages. These books definitely looked inviting so I couldn’t wait to take a look inside. The three large picture story books are a lovely size with lots of bright, detailed illustrations throughout with the added bonus that they each include a CD tucked into a little pocket at the back of the book.

The first book we read was Little Red Riding Hood, the classic tale we all know and love from our childhood. Miss M loved this story and it is a firm favourite that she has selected each night for her bedtime stories. It’s easy to read, she roughly knew the story anyway but it is story that never fails to please. We then listened to the CD which retells the story from the book. This has proved really successful with Miss M who loves to listen to the CD when I’ve finished reading to help her drift off to sleep.

The Kite Princess is a story about Princess Cinnamon Stitch, a tomboy who doesn’t enjoy sewing and all the other usual ladylike princess activities. Instead she would rather be outdoors cart wheeling in the puddles and running around in the fresh air. But eventually she puts the sewing skills she has learnt to use and sews together lots of fabric to create a kite and goes flying off freely outside the castle. She is so happy. The story reminds me of my daughter Miss M who isn’t as girly as I thought she would be and would much prefer to be scooting down the street with the boys!! She really enjoyed reading and looking through the pictures of Princess Cinnamon. She also liked the instructions to make a kite at the end of the book and I have promised that it will be a future craft project one weekend. The CD went down very well with Miss M and this also has made it’s way to the bedtime CD pile.

Driving My Tractor immediately caught the eye of Mister B – with his love of all things on wheels, a transport theme to this book was sure to be a hit. With it’s brightly coloured pages and lots of farm animals in the pictures, it has been great to read and spot things in the pictures. Again the CD has been a hit and has been happily playing on short car journeys around town for the last few weeks. Mister B loves jigging away in his car seat to the tunes and has enjoyed reading the book when being at home.

We have all really enjoyed the selection of books we received from Barefoot Books, they are all made to a high standard and look like good quality books. The added bonus of a CD in the picture story books adds great value to the stories and takes them from just being a story book to something a child can enjoy independently. The CD’s will also be great in the car for both long and short journeys to keep the children entertained. These books would make lovely gifts for children and I know my two will enjoy the books they received for a long time yet.

All reviews are my own and my family’s opinions. We are not paid for reviews although we do receive the product to try out and enable us to write the review.

Barefoot Books for Children – Review

Posted on June 7, 2012 by Fiona Martin

When Barefoot Books sent me some books to review, I have to admit that is wasn’t a book publisher I was aware of before but after having a glance over their website, the books all appeared to be vibrant, brightly coloured and enticing so I was intrigued to see what the stories were like and how well received they would be by my two children. The Barefoot Books company was set up in 1992 by two mums, with four children between them who were looking for meaningful, creative careers hence the Barefoot Books brand was born.

The first book Clare Beaton’s Nursery Rhymes was perfectly aged for Mister B. It is a board book with really smooth, high quality finished pages containing seven well illustrated nursery rhymes.

Having read the book several times throughout the last couple of days to Mister B, he really enjoyed looking at the illustrations as we sang the rhymes to him. To try to encourage his speech and vocabulary, after each rhyme we look at the pictures and point out the various objects. He has enjoyed listening to the nursery rhymes, making the relevant animal noises as we come across them in the pictures and is happy to sit looking through the pages on his own. All in all a good little first nursery rhyme book.

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The next book Ruby’s School Walk was perfect for Miss M who is due to start school in September, although let’s hope her imagination isn’t quite as vivid as Ruby’s who sees witches and various beasts on her walk to school. This book had lovely rhyming verse throughout as well as the repeated phrase “I must be brave, I must be strong” appearing at the end of each section.

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The final book we reviewed is The Real Princess – A Mathemagical Tale. This was a very interesting and different style of book to the usual princess tales out there. The story included many number references, e.g. The king and queen had 1 butler, 2 footmen, 3 maids, 4 horses, 5 grooms, 6 dogs, 7 gardeners, 8 chimney sweeps etc. The story is about the king and queen’s 3 sons who are on the look out for a genuine princess to marry. They go about this by the queen getting them to sleep on a huge pile of mattresses with a number of peas underneath – in a similar fashion to the classic Princess and the Pea fairytale but written in a modern & quirky style.

This book was a good grown up book for Miss M, which she needs to move forward from the simple Peppa Pig style short stories she has loved over the last couple of years. She enjoyed the brightly coloured illustrations and loved counting and pointing out the references to numbered items that appeared through the book. I love the educational aspect to the book as Miss M is totally oblivious to the learning side of the book, and if she is too tired then we can just concentrate on the story.

There is an unusual little twist at the end of the book with a double ending which Miss M was fascinated by and a Test Your Counting Skills page of questions at the end where you have to go back and find number related answers to questions throughout the book – a great little extra.

But the best surprise which I hadn’t noticed on first picking up the book was that there is a story CD included with the book. This was perfect as Miss M loves listening to her story CD’s when mummy and daddy have finished the bedtime reading. The story can either be listened to alone or you can follow the words on the pages in the book.

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The Barefoot Books website is not only an online shop to purchase books but contains some excellent digital content to entertain your children. These include storytime podcasts and animated videos featuring some of the best of Barefoot Books. There are also activity pages to print out containing puzzles, colouring sheets, children’s recipes and even themed party ideas!

I hope you get to read a Barefoot Book soon and enjoy them as much as my family have. Their bright, colourful illustrations are a winner with children and keep them entertained why you read the stories. There are a huge variety of titles on offer at Barefoot Books covering all ages and subjects as well as puzzles, finger puppets and more… Be sure to check them out soon.

All reviews are my own and my family’s opinions. We are not paid for reviews although we do receive the product to try out and enable us to write the review.