Category: Book Reviews

Book reviews including Children’s books. Reviewed by myself and the girls.

3 Christmas Books To Snuggle Up With

Book Reviews / 8 years ago / RelentlesslyPurple

Little Tiger sent us 3 Christmas Books to snuggle up with as thy are releasing new paperback editions of some of their much-loved Christmas titles. We enjoyed snuggling up on the sofa to read these 3 lovely Christmas books.

3 Christmas Books Perfect For Snuggling Up With

 

One Noisy Night

One Noisy Night

Written by M Christina Butler and Illustrated by Tina Macnaughton this gorgeous touch and feel book is perfect for snuggling up with on a cold wintery night. The gorgeous wintry scenes and soft touch & feel flocking throughout makes it lovely to read keeping your little one involved.

One Noisy Night inside

Little Hedgehog and his friends hear strange creaking sounds coming from the woods giving them a strange puzzle to solve. A wonderful story of friendship & bravery, One Noisy Night is the 10th book of the best-selling Little Hedgehog Series. We love this new release which is available for £6.99 on Amazon. Christmas books like these are lovely to read during the Christmas season and make lovely presents too.

The Perfect Present

Written By Stella J Jones and Illustrated by Caroline Pedler this beautiful Christmas tale is about giving, receiving and friendship. This is such a cosy Christmas story to cuddle up with.

The Perfect Present

Billy and Bella are the best of friends & they would do anything to make each other happy, even if it means giving up something they love. Full of beautifully festive illustrations this lovely Christmas book is a great one to snuggle up with giving you that festive feeling. We love Christmas books like this and think it’s great for £6.99 on Amazon.

 

Santa To The Rescue

Santa To The Rescue

The 3rd book on our list of Christmas books perfect for snuggling up with over Christmas is written by Barry Timms and Illustrated by Ag Jatkowska. This book is a fun and festive picture book with beautiful illustrations.

Santa To The Rescue

Perfect for sharing with little ones excited about Christmas, this story follows the bears of mistletoe mountain on Christmas eve. The bears get snowed in and the animals of Holly tree Forest Work together to help Santa save the day. We find Christmas books like this really get us into the spirit of Christmas. Available for £6.99 on Amazon.

Do you think these 3 Christmas books would be perfect for snuggling up with your little one too over Christmas?

Burnished Chaos

The Storm Dog – Christmas Books

Book Reviews / 8 years ago / RelentlesslyPurple

We received a copy of The Storm Dog by Holly Webb to review, published by Stripes, an imprint of the Little Tiger group. Holly Webb has written over ninety books for Stripes including Animal Stories, My Naughty Little Puppy & Maisie Hitchins Series. This book is an unforgettable tale of courage and adventure just in time for Christmas. Available in hardback for £8.99 The Storm Dog is a great gift for children Eva’s age (7).

The Storm Dog

The Storm Dog

The Storm Dog is about a girl called Tilly who is excited to spend Christmas in wales with her gran and great-gran. Gran promised to help Tilly on a big school project about the second world war. Her gran had been evacuated herself during the war. At least that was the plan!

Tilly falls asleep on the train and time-travels back to world war 2 instead! Upon waking Tilly finds herself being evacuated along with her two younger brothers. She comes across a stern old Mr Thomas who reluctantly agrees to give her a home on his farm.

Mr Thomas lives alone with his beautiful sheepdog Tarran. As Christmas approaches the farmhouse gets cut off by the snow. Tilly has to be braver than ever when Tarran comes to her for help one stormy night.

Eva started reading as soon as the book arrived and was glued to it for 2 days until she finished it. She thought The Storm Dog was a great book because it has lots going on. Tilly was so brave at the end of the story that Eva thinks she is super cool. The Storm Dog is a fantastic action packed, courageous adventure!

I would recommend The Storm Dog if you are looking for Christmas books having seen Eva become so absorbed in the storyline. Eva retold the story so well where she was captured by the magic of this beautifully heart-warming story. It is definitely a book I can see her re-reading too.

 Do you know a child that would love The Storm Dog to add to their bookshelf this Christmas?

 

 

 

 

Personalised Alphabet Book: Find My Name In The Alphabet Train

Book Reviews / 8 years ago / RelentlesslyPurple

Dr Niamh recently launched her first fully personalised Alphabet book: Find My Name in the Alphabet Train , Illustrated by Valeria Leonova. I received a lovely copy for Izzy in exchange for an honest review.

Personalised Alphabet Book

Personalised books are always a lovely gift idea for children. A gift children can both learn from and cherish for years to come. Children benefit greatly from being read to and reading, personalised children’s books are read on average 9 times more than traditional books. Children love being centre of attention and books like this encourage early learning and a passion for books.

Izzy

Personalised Alphabet Book

The Find my name in the alphabet train book is available in soft or hardback. The story can be personalised with your child’s name, gender, skin & hair colour. The personalisation includes adding a personalised message, printed on the last page which makes this alphabet book extra special. I love that you can personalise the book, Izzy’s personalisation turned out great!

The personalised Alphabet book contains great animal characters who take your child on a journey through the entire alphabet to find special letters in your child’s name. This gorgeous personalised alphabet book written in rhyme and uses phonics throughout the story. Learning phonics help’s young children learn the sounds and personalities of each letter. Perfect for Izzy’s age group!

Find your name in the alphabet train

The Storyline

The storyline and animals throughout the book make it colourful and lively. I found the book fantastic fun to read out loud with the phonic sounds and rhymes making the story sing. Books like this are a fantastic gift for Birthdays and Christmas which is just around the corner.

Izzy

The end of the story is laid out with the last page containing your personalised message & their name on the train. Dr Niamh’s Personalised alphabet train children’s book really is a gorgeous gift for any little girl or boy.

What do you think? Would your little one love this too?

 

 

Burnished Chaos

 

St Grizzles School For Girls, Ghosts And Runaway Grannies

Book Reviews / 8 years ago / RelentlesslyPurple

St Grizzles School For Girls, Ghosts And Runaway Grannies is the second book in this hilariously quirky series written by Karen McCombie. With fantastic illustrations by Becka Moor this sure to have children aged 7-9 years giggling away! Eva recently read and reviewed the first book in the series, St Grizzles School For Girls, Goats and Random Boys which she loved. Eva couldn’t wait to get stuck in to the second book having read the first in the series.

St Grizzles School For Girls, Ghosts And Runaway Grannies

St grizzles school for girls, ghosts and runaway grannies

With Karen McCombie’s fantastic storylines accompanied by Becka Moor’s hilarious illustrations this book draws in young readers who are looking for something with a bit of humour. Eva loves anything a bit quirky and funny and this series really fits the bill. Who couldn’t love a book where the head teacher wears a unicorn onesie!? How funny!

St Grizzles School enters a short-film competition between the local schools and Dani is made director. Dani struggles to concetrate, whilst she has a ton of ideas there is too much weirdness going on!

Whilst students at St Grizzles work hard on the short-film but village school boys, Spencer and his mates are determined to sabotage their work. Granny Viv secretly takes up residence in the schools treehouse with Down boy the dog. Granny Viv has come to help Dani, much to her surprise! Can they finish their short film & win the competition? With ghost’s and runaway grannies accompanied by funny illustrations this book is sure to give you a laugh.

Granny Viv

St Grizzles School definitely has a great amount of appeal to young readers, think Mallory Towers & St Trinians. Covering friendships and video blogging, St Grizzles will appeal to the younger YouTube generation.  Eva would love to Vlog herself but there’s always something getting in the way (usually a noisy sister!). It definitely appeals to children aged 7-9 especially those with a quirky sense of humour.

St Grizzle’s School For Girls, Goats And Random Boys – Book Review

Book Reviews / 8 years ago / RelentlesslyPurple

St Grizzle’s school for girl, goats and random boys is written by Karen McCombie and Illustrated by Becka Moor. Published earlier this year by Stripes (An Imprint of Little Tiger Group) is available in paperback for £5.99. Perfect for children aged 7-9 years St Grizzle’s is a hilariously quirky book.

St Grizzle’s Series

St Grizzle's

Eva loves to read books that are funny and a bit quirky and she is currently loving books based around schools. I remember enjoying similar books at her age. We’ve been hunting out new series for her and we were sent St Grizzle’s school for girls, goats and random boys. The title caught Eva’s eye because it had such a silly name.

As soon as Eva had started reading she was giggling away. The main character, Dani is packed off to a strict girls boarding school while her mum heads off to the Antarctic to study penguins bums! St Grizelda’s school for girls turns out to have had a drastic change of teaching style. Dani and her mum realise the school is in chaos with no rules, craziness and a goat!?

Dani feels homesick but has to wait for her mum to make alternative arrangements. Whilst she waits the madness begins to warm Dani’s heart. The quirky characters throughout the story kept giggling throughout the story. She loved Dani and after reading the teaser for the second book in the series she couldn’t wait to read more! She loved the illustrations throughout the book making sure to show me each one. Luckily I have a copy of the second book St Grizzle’s school for girls, ghosts and runaway grannies for her to review next week. Check back to see what Eva thinks of the next book and to find out more yourself!

Do you know a child that would love this book too?

Vlad The World’s Worst Vampire – Book Review

Book Reviews / 8 years ago / RelentlesslyPurple

Eva has been reading Vlad The World’s Worst Vampire this week. Written by Anna Wilson and illustrated by Kathryn Durst, Vlad The World’s Worst Vampire is available in paperback for (RRP) £5.99 and perfect for 7-9 year olds. The first book of a brand-new illustrated series, featuring fangtastic characters & batty humour, Vlad tries to find where he belongs.

Vlad World's Worst Vampire

Vlad The World’s Worst Vampire

We recently discovered books published by Stripes in the library, Stripes is an imprint of Little Tiger Group, our favourite publisher! Eva decided she wants to work her way through books published by Stripes. I have to admit they seem rather funny and quirky, perfect for her. Seeing Eva so excited about reading is fantastic and she was ecstatic to receive Vlad The World’s Worst Vampire.

Vlad is the youngest member of the Impaler family, the bravest vampires ever! Vlad isn’t that brave though, he’s even scared of the dark, much to his parents disappointment.  Wanting to make friends Vlad decides Human school is the best place to make friends. With his pet bat Flit Vlad heads off to Human school in search of friendships, trying his best to keep his true identity a secret!

From the very first page you can tell this will be a hilarious book to sink your teeth into. Anna Wilsons fantastic humour makes this book the perfect read! We will definitely be keeping an eye out for the rest of the series as they are published.

 

Eva’s Thoughts

I liked Vlad the worlds worst vampire because he pretended to be a human but was actually a vampire! He pretended to be a human because he wanted to go to human school. After reading about Jollywood academy – The best school in the world, Vlad decides he prefers the sound human school. His family isn’t too happy about it though! It is such a funny book to read.

 

 

 

Burnished Chaos

Facts! One For Every Day Of The Year!

Book Reviews / 8 years ago / RelentlesslyPurple
Facts! One for every day of the year

We received* a fab book of Facts! One for every day of the year, written by Tracey Turner and illustrated by Fatti Burke and published by Bloomsbury Children’s publishing. Available to buy from Amazon at £12.99 this book would make a great addition to any child’s bookshelf.

Facts! One for every day of the year

Facts! One for every day of the year

The Book comes with postcards, one for each month with a fun fact and illustration. From animal facts to how to say ‘Happy Christmas’ in 20 different languages! We love postcards and have started collecting them when we visit somewhere new so Eva loved adding these fun postcards to her collection.

Postcard Facts!

Postcards

Facts! One for every day of the year is a fantastic book for children is a beautifully illustrated fact book for children aged 4-8 years. This book would be a fantastic educational Birthday or Christmas gift to be treasured and read daily. Children enjoy learning fun facts and this book is absolutely bursting with them! Everyone can learn something with this book.

Introduction

Introduction

It’s amazing reading through the facts, they are so interesting and accompanied by such fun, colourful illustrations that will draw in any child! Eva (7) loved flicking through and finding facts for certain days such as our birthdays. Interestingly Izzy shares her birthday with Alexander Fleming who discovered Penicillin, which both girls & I are allergic to.

6th August - On this date

We’ve had lots of fun checking the daily facts and Eva has learnt plenty of interesting facts to go back to school and share with her friends & teachers. I can see this book being pulled out daily to read and show to visitors too. Children are knowledge hungry at this age and I love to feed that hunger with books like this.

 

Facts

This book contains amusing animal facts, amazing space stats, scientific discoveries, fantastic achievements, and so much more! There really is something for everyone is this fantastic book for children. I would definitely recommend this to anyone looking for an interesting and educational gift.

*This is a sponsored #Ad

Nibbles: The Dinosaur Guide

Book Reviews / 8 years ago / RelentlesslyPurple

Nibbles: The Dinosaur Guide by Emma Yarlett is another fabulous book published by Little Tiger. A fantastic book for children aged 3-6 years. Nibbles: The Dinosaur Guide is a gorgeous hardback for £12.99. We received a copy from Little Tiger to review and I knew from the second I opened it we would thoroughly enjoy it! Who doesn’t love Monsters and Dinosaurs?? (We’re still a little unsure about the Dino Doo-Doo Nibbles though!)

Nibbles: The Dinosaur Guide

Nibbles: The Dinosaur Guide

Nibbles the book monster managed to escape from his first book back in 2016 and now he’s back munching his way through The Dinosaur Guide! Fantastically written and illustrated by award winning author and illustrator Emma Yarlett this excellent book is full of excitement.

Nibbles: The Dinosaur Guide

Nibbles, a wild book monster finds his way into The Dinosaur Guide! A book munching, mischief making monster, Nibbles needs to be returned to his cage. The Dinosaur Guide is full of fantastic information about different species of dangerous dinosaurs.

Somehow Nibbles keeps escaping whilst causing havoc, munching his way through dangerous dinosaurs throughout the book. He just about manages to nibble his way away from the terrible Triceratops, Diplodocuses and Velociraptors! Nibbles then faces the most dangerous of all, the terrifying Tyrannosaurus Rex!!

This book is hilarious and so much fun to read! We loved the nibbles on the corners of the pages and holes through the pages. The book is full of fun flaps to lift too. This is such an interactive story which kept Izzy’s attention throughout. Nibbles destroys chunks of the pages but there are still plenty of dinosaur facts to learn too!

I would definitely recommend this book, it is such a cheeky, funny, colourful picture book. It is bound to capture the attention of any child. Even older children will enjoy it, Eva(7) loved it as there are several amusing jokes throughout the story.

 

 

Stomp School Book Review

Book Reviews / 9 years ago / RelentlesslyPurple

We received a copy of Stomp School from Little Tiger Books written by Jeff Norton and pictures by Leo Antolini. The front cover is colourful and full of fun looking Monsters ready to stomp. Aimed at toddlers this fantastic book is all about creativity and destruction, 2 things toddlers LOVE!

Stomp School

Stomp School

Rikki, a little Kaiju (Japanese for a strange breast) is determined to build biggest, best city ever. He couldn’t wait to show his daddy but baby brother Torik wants to play too. Poor Rikki couldn’t stop Torik from stomping, crushing and smashing the city to pieces. Which of course Izzy found hilarious, what little monster wouldn’t?

Stomp, crush, smash

 

When Rikki gets upset and Stomps his dad decides it’s time for Stomp school, where little monsters go when your favourite monsters go to work. The first day at Stomp school starts and Rikki just wants to go home and build. Instead he stays and builds with Miss Bronte the whole class, ALL day!

They all work hard to build the biggest, best city ever… then of course everyone decides it’s to stomp, crush and smash it.

Smash

Poor Rikki is sad he still doesn’t get to show his daddy the biggest, best city ever and stomps himself. Miss Bronte tells Rikki it’s time to paint what they had built before stomping. Rikki paints his biggest, best city ever to show his daddy.

 

Rikki

Relieved to be able to show his daddy his hard work Rikki joins in having lots of fun, stomping, smashing and crushing the city to pieces. He proudly shows his daddy at the end of the day and heads home looking forward to returning the next day.

 

Our thoughts

We love Stomp School as it is such a fun book with a relatable story. Eva read with us and mentioned she feels like Rikki sometimes. Izzy is Torik as she smashes Eva’s creations down. She also saw the funny side and decided next time Izzy smashes down her tower she will join in and enjoy the stomping and smashing too! Izzy just loved the idea of stomping and smashing things.

With fun peek-through holes and flaps to lift this is a really fun story to read and stomp to together! Stomp school is available now from Little Tiger Press Books for £6.99. A great addition to any little ones bookshelf.

Looking for new books for your toddler? Check out our review of 10,9,8 Owls Up Late by Little Tiger Press too.

10,9,8… Owls Up Late – A Bedtime Book

Book Reviews / 9 years ago / RelentlesslyPurple

10,9,8… Owls Up Late is a fantastic bedtime book aimed at 1-4 year olds available from 10th August from Little Tiger Press. Written by Georgiana Deutsch and Illustrated by Ekaterina Trukhan, 10,9,8… Owls Up Late is great for counting down to bedtime.

10,9,8… Owls Up Late

10,9,8... Owls Up Late

 

10 cheeky, bouncy, noisy owls are playing in a tree. Mummy calls for bedtime but the owlets are having far too much fun to go to sleep! Aimed at reluctant sleepers, 10,9,8… Owls Up Late uses the count-down of owls to make bedtime fun, educational and relaxing.

We recieved a copy from Little Tiger Press and Izzy has fallen in love with 10,9,8… Owls Up Late. For £10.99 it’s a great bedtime book for all toddlers! Izzy loves this book, especially the peep-through pages. The muted colours and count-down helps children relax. Creating a tranquil mood with it’s warm and loving conclusion, children effortlessly drift off to sleep. 

The soothing use of rhyme with the peep-through images adds an intriguing, interactive element, revealing different amusing animals & their expressions. Georgina Deutsch’s gorgeous owl illustrations definitely caught Izzy’s attention and the fabulous counting guide at the back teaches children numbers.

10,9,8… Owls Up Late is a superb bedtime book and we would definitely recommend it! Joining in and shouting ‘We’re having too much fun and we won’t go to bed!’ really amuses Izzy. If you are looking for a bedtime book to help settle your little one this is a brilliantly helpful book.

Do you read at bedtime? What’s your little one’s favourite book to fall asleep to?