Childrens Personalised Books

We love books. I think it won’t be long before Charlie’s book collection dwarfs the two of ours combined. I’m always looking for cute books and was tickled when I had the opportunity to review a personalized book from Saronti Books! Just looking at the cover, “The Cox Family’s Day at the Beach”, I was beaming. Visions of storytime fluttered in my mind, I could picture her just loving this treasure of a book already. .. Read the whole review here >

Saronti Review Video from erin cox on Vimeo.

Introducing the grandson to books is an absolute joy. Of course he just wants to eat them all, but when you get that spark of recognition that they are actually seeing the pictures and feeling the different materials, and hearing the squeaky squeaks it’s a truly joyous moment.

I have kept all the favourite books from my eldest- his Dad- and the 6 and 11yr olds- and it’s true what they say- you can’t beat the old ones- definitely the best. ‘Mr Bumble builds a house’ was the 11 and the 6yr olds favourites and at the time I searched high and low for a sequel with no luck. It’s now held together by tape and flaps missing but you can bet that the grandson will love it just as much.

I love to read with all the kids- although the 11yr old is far too old for that now. The thrill of opening up the crisp pages of a new book gives me the same thrill as it did when I used to read my Jill and her ponies books. I can remember it like it was yesterday and it seemed like I always had a book on the go. But then of course I had bags of free time and no worries or responsibilities.

I hope when I’m in my twilight years I’ll be able to get back to my reading- but then again I’ll probably have more grandchildren and who knows even great grandkids- wonder if Mr Bumble will survive??

My 6 year old daughter’s class reading project is Horrid Henry and they were treated to a special visit by him in the school.

On the day of the visit the kids were so excited, worrying about if he was going to throw chairs or spit out chewing gum on the floor, I was more intrigued by what he’d look like- or would it be a she dressed up like a ‘he’. Would it be a costume- with full on prosthetics or just a geezer in a dishevelled shirt and shorts? Well as it turns out Horrid Henry had been extremely naughty and wasn’t allowed out by his Mum!!! 30 heartbroken kids and a mob of peed off teachers and parents struggled to contain the wave of emotion.
So as we whiled away the time reading with the kids and talking about their favourite ‘Horrid’ moments it struck me of the hug difference between the girls take on it and the boys.

The boys think he’s well cool- as he’s always in trouble, eats nothing but rubbish, hates schoolwork and is generally every parents’ nightmare teenager about 5 years too soon. The girls on the other hand see him as rude, disruptive and you certainly wouldn’t want him in your set of friends.

When one of the parents argued that Horrid Henry is a terrible book for children as it leads them down the wrong path and glorifies troublemakers- I argued that on the other hand it shows some children that the opposite of Henry is the right way to be and they then aspire to be everything he’s not- and as all the stories show- Henry always comes a cropper at the end!!

So is it that boys follow the leader- no matter where it takes them- and girls analyse everything and then decide which is the correct path- or just that boys like farty stinkbomb jokes???

My 6 yr old came home with the best book ever. ‘The nearly ghost baby’.

Yep sounds a bit weird and not really what you imagine a 6yr old reading, but hey each to their own, thought I.  She started reading it in the van on the way home from gymnastics- after we’d picked up the 11yr old enroute from table tennis (it’s a long story). Avoiding the smell of fish from the refrigerated back of the van (even longer story), we thought a distraction was in order.

The 11yr old began the huge long sigh before the first page had even been opened- yes it’s a male 11 yr old!!. As the 6 yr old- yes female- launched into the opening scene of a small seaside cottage where a tragedy occurred 100 years ago, he removed his hands from his ears, stopped humming and sat back to listen. 40 mins,( yes it’s a long drive home), 7 chapters and a lot of ooing and aahing later we arrived home and the book was finished.

Well what a revelation, the book was brilliant, the kids chatted about the story like they were life long friends and the 11 yr olds interest in books seemed to be re-ignited. That is until he came home the following day moaning he had to read Silas Marner for English- Oh well things are back to normal!!!