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.
The app is easy to use and it didn’t take my 4yr old long to work out what to press to get to where he wanted to be. He loved just listening to stories and repeated each sentence after hearing them. There are also some fun little activities at the end and one to find a certain object hidden on each page throughout the book. I liked the questions at the end to check the child’s understanding of what he had read or listened to. Mister B loved the spot the difference puzzles too!
Miss M is 6 and a confident reader but she enjoyed reading the books from the higher levels by herself before bed. I wasn’t sure she’d be keen but the Biff, Chip and Kipper books really seemed to appeal to her. The stories are fun and easygoing with a widespread appeal and certainly kept her quiet!
The apps are available for iPhone and iPad from the App Store, Android from Google Play and the Windows Store.
