My children might now be reading the likes of Shatter Me, Red Queen and New Moon independently, but I have very fond memories of reading stories to them.

Judith Kerr’s Mog books and The Tiger Who Came to Tea; Spot the Dog, The Very Hungry Caterpillar, Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What Do You See?, loads from Usborne’s touchy-feely That’s not my… series and the wonderful My Mum book by Anthony Browne were firm favourites. A plethora of Julia Donaldson books including The Gruffalo, The Smartest Giant in Town, The Highway Rat, What the Ladybird Heard and Room on the Broom also featured regularly as bedtime (and daytime!) stories.

Julia Donaldson and the Gruffalo

A mouse took a stroll through the deep dark wood. A fox saw the mouse and the mouse looked good…

It looks like we weren’t alone in our love of Julia Donaldson books. A survey commissioned by The Works reveals that nearly 20 percent of parents will choose one of her titles as the first book they read to their child. The modern classic The Gruffalo tops the list and is selected by one in eight parents. Released in 1999, The Gruffalo has sold over 13 million copies to date.

My girls loved the Gruffalo. We had the book in different versions (as well as The Gruffalo’s Child), had lots of merchandise and even had the Match and Memory Board Game!

The top 10 first books parents read to their children:

1. The Gruffalo – Julia Donaldson
2. The Very Hungry Caterpillar – Eric Carle
3. That’s Not My…  – Fiona Watt
4. Guess How Much I Love You – Sam McBratney
5. Peppa Pig
6. Spot – Eric Hill
7. The Tale of Peter Rabbit – Beatrix Potter
8. Dear Zoo – Rod Campbell
9. Winnie the Pooh – A. A. Milne 
10. Harry Potter – J. K. Rowling

The research highlighted that 44% of parents read to children from birth. This is certainly what we did, and I’m convinced it fostered my children’s love of reading.

The First Books We Remember

A certain series featuring a boy wizard tops the charts in terms of the books that we remember as our first read. The survey highlights that 5% of the population cite one of the J.K. Rowling books as the first they remember reading either independently or having read to them. 

The second book on the list is Enid Blyton’s The Faraway Tree followed by the author’s Famous Five series. Winnie the Pooh and The Very Hungry Caterpillar complete the top five.

Roald Dahl features prominently in the top 10 with The BFG, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory all making the list with 13% of the respondents recalling something written by the author. For me it was George’s Marvellous Medicine.

Gruffalo versus a Caterpillar

Eric Carle’s The Very Hungry Caterpillar – which has sold over 50 million copies since its 1969 release – is the only book to feature in the top five of both lists. That is it’s the book we most remember being read to us and one of the first books we read to our own children. I certainly remember it on both sides of the fence!

World Book Day 2024

World Book Day, a charity that operates in the UK and Ireland, aims to enrich lives by promoting a love of books and reading. Whilst dressing up has become a big aspect of the annual celebrations there are plenty of other activities and ways to engage from ‘adopting an author’ to redesigning book covers and being a contributing author in ‘story consequences’.

Find out more below:

World Book Day takes place on Thursday, March 7th 2024. The Works are supporting the charity and are encouraging children and parents to bring their £1 book token into stores any time up until March 31st to exchange their token for a book from the World Book Day 2024 range.

You can find out further information here: https://www.theworks.co.uk/page/world-book-day.html

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The Summer Reading Challenge

The annual challenge encourages primary school children to read for pleasure over the summer holidays. During the challenge, participants collect prizes and stickers, play games and, of course, discover a world of great books.

Taking part is simple

Once signed up, children receive their packs and can start collecting special materials, which relate to this year’s theme: Gadgeeters.

Your child simply needs to read six books to complete the challenge and these can be anything that takes their fancy: fact, fiction, poetry, comics, audio books… They log each book completed on their poster and receive a medal and certificate if they successfully finish the challenge.

There are also plenty of activities to extend the fun online including plenty of games: https://summerreadingchallenge.org.uk/games

Meet the Gadgeteers – 2022’s Challenge

This year, The Reading Agency has joined forces with Science Museum Group for a science and innovation-themed challenge. The aim is to inspire children to be imaginative and creative and discover the science that’s all around them in everyday objects.

During the Challenge children join six ‘Gadgeteers’ on a journey of discovery. These fictional characters explore the science behind a host of interests from fashion and technology to cooking and music.

With resources from the Science Museum Group, the Gadgeteers Summer Reading Challenge also features lots of ideas for great experiments and activities. 

Additionally, there’s an accompanying book collection curated by the team. These fun, science-themed recommendations are packed with facts and tales of innovation and creativity to make science and reading accessible to everyone.

The challenge is taking place now and finishes on September 17th, 2022. For more details visit: https://summerreadingchallenge.org.uk/.

Taking part in The Summer Reading Challenge, is just one of my Summer Holiday Challenges. You can read about the rest here.

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Here Simply Glass Wipe Boards discusses five key benefits for families who read.

Reading helps children to expand their vocabulary

Exposing children to more words will help them to expand their vocabulary and their understanding of the world. That’s why it’s important to establish a regular reading routine with your children, no matter how young or old they are.

If your child is struggling, it’s crucial to read at a pace that suits them and pick a book that they’re comfortable with. Once they’re more confident with the basics, it’s likely that they’ll naturally transition to more complicated texts.

If you’re looking for inspiration on books to read with your family, here’s what other kids all over the country are currently reading:

Reading helps to reduce symptoms of depression

During those dark days, it can be difficult to think of a way out. However, research has shown that reading can help with these low feelings.

Picking up a book can help you to escape the harsh realities of life and help you to see the world from a different perspective. No matter whether you prefer a real-life hero story or a fictional sci-fi tale, those little breaks from reality can help you to manage your depression in a healthy way.

Some feel-good books you can enjoy with your kids include:

• Wonder – R.J Palacio
• Middle School, The Worst Years of My Life – James Patterson & Chris Tebbetts
• Rules – Cynthia Lord

Reading can help you to bond as a family

Between the morning school run and after-school rush, it can be difficult to find a quiet moment to spend with your children. However, if you introduce a reading routine into your day it can help you to spend a little bit more time with your children and form a closer bond.

A popular time to get into a book is right before bedtime. Not only can this help you to get closer to your child, but it can also help you to wind down and switch off before it’s time to sleep.

Reading can help you to get a better nights’ sleep

Research shows that using electronic devices before bed can keep your brain awake and prevent you from getting a good nights’ sleep. To avoid this, you and your family can use your bedtime story to prepare yourself for the night ahead.

To make the most of this time, make sure there are no distractions around before you start your book. Switch off phones, tablets and TVs and make sure there is minimal background noise so that you can get stuck into your book with ease.

Reading increases health and wellbeing on the whole

On the whole, reading can have a positive impact on health and wellbeing in kids and adults. Although it might be difficult to kickstart these habits as adults, you only need to read for 30 minutes a week or more to experience these benefits.

To help you and your family get started, here are a few easy reading tasks you and your kids can work through over the coming months:

Image sources: Simply Glass Wipe Boards

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i-SPY in the Garden

i-SPY Butterflies and Moths

i-SPY Garden Birds

i-SPY in the Night Sky 

I was a fan of the Michelin i-SPY books when I was little and I’ve bought a number for my children; I even included i-SPY On a car journey in my Car Games for Long Journeys post.

So I was happy when Collins told me about a new range of titles for the series. I picked three to review with my daughters and we’ve been using them loads since they arrived.

If you’re unfamiliar with them, the pocket-sized books all have a different theme, but same premise: you spy something, you tick off what you see as and get a score for it (5 points through to 50 points according to how common/rare your spot is). When you get 1000 points you can apply for a certificate and badge.

The books really encourage children to look around and take notice of their surroundings and environment and provide a great on-going challenge.

i-SPY Wild flowers

Plenty of Gorse!

We’ve been on a number of walks during the Easter holidays and have spotted lots. There was plenty of Gorse when we went on the National Trust trail at Headley Heath; in the wetland area of Morden Hall Park I found out that what I’d always thought were mutant buttercups were in fact marsh-marigolds, at Hampton Court we spotted an array of wild flowers and we also discovered that the banks of motorways were a haven for them, particularly primroses. We even got a ‘top spot’ with Green Alkanet in our own garden!

The book is colour-coded so if you spot a white, yellow, blue, pink… flower you can skip right to the appropriate bit in the book. This makes it nice and easy to use and the pictures are clear so everything is easy to identify. There is also a brief written description to make extra sure you’ve got it right. It’s also all indexed. There’s a fact file about each including info on when it flowers, where it’s found and what its scientific name is.

There are also some wild flower questions included so you can amass bonus points if you answer correctly. This one was my favourite of the three books.

i-SPY Flags

Flag spot jackpot!

My daughters have always been interested in different flags and particularly love spotting the Devon and Cornish ones when we’re travelling in the southwest, so this one was ideal.

The book contains over 140 flags and there is a nice little fact file on each country with details on the capital, languages spoken, currency, population and county’s size. All the countries are indexed too.

We’ve found that flags are fertile ground for spotting. We’ve not only seen them outside restaurants and shops serving food and selling products from different countries, but also on the news, at the funfair, at currency exchange bureaus and even when watching the Bahrain Grand Prix! I’ll keep you posted on our progress in spotting the São Tomé and Príncipe flag…

This is my eight year-old’s favourite of the three.

i-SPY Something beginning with…

Already spotting ‘something beginning with…’ and they’re still in their PJs!

I wanted to get this one to give us some inspiration and hopefully expand the repertoire of our traditional eye-spy game.

Arranged alphabetically, there are a great variety of items to spot for every letter ranging from an easy apple to a very difficult ‘top spot’ of zither.

It was the easiest book to navigate, very straightforward with no fact files or info and it really suited my twin five-year olds; it even helped with their phonics homework.

We found it was worth flicking through first to familiarise ourselves on some of the things we should be looking out for. However, if you spot things that aren’t included there are extra blank spaces at the back for each letter to record your personal spots.

—–

Priced at just £2.69 or less, I think they represent fantastic value for money. The girls are particularly eager to get their i-SPY certificates and badges, so their interest will be sustained. Easy to use and ideal for taking out-and-about or alleviating boredom, these were perfect for my daughters, who are aged between five and eight. I think they would suit any child from the age of three and I’ve certainly been enjoying spotting things too!

You can find the full list of new titles here. They are available now.

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I struck gold: one box full of reading books and one box of information books (don’t worry I haven’t catalogued all of them).

The memories came flooding back in an instant. There were Pigeon Street books, Cockleshell Bay books, King Rollo, Willow the Wisp; a huge Thomas the Tank Engine Collection, a plethora of Ladybird read it yourself books and Well-loved tales books (with their ornate tree designs on the inside cover) as well as Paddington, Roald Dahl and Alice in Wonderland. Blue Peter and Mr Men annuals added to the eclectic mix. Then I found a collection of books that really stopped me in my tracks: My first library – READERS DIGEST Mothercare books, and in particular The day the clocks stopped, one of the books in the collection. I remembered it vividly. I was simultaneously really happy and rather sad: happy that I was reunited with them, had so many great memories of them and that I could share them with my children, but sad that my mum wasn’t here to share in it. She’d have loved dusting them off (well actually little dusting required as they were in pristine condition) and reminiscing with me and sharing them with her grandchildren.

My slightly morose feelings soon subsided when I delved into the ‘information books’ box.  Ladybird’s We Can Cook and Usborne’s First Cookbook were first up. Both had spawned a number of culinary nightmares and I could remember each page as if I had a photographic memory. I instantly knew that the Usborne books The Knowhow Book of Paper Fun and Science Tricks & Magic would entertain Sofia as much as they had me, and that the Who?, What?, Where?, Why?, How? and When? compendium might save me from incessant questioning about absolutely everything in the way they’d saved my mum. I even found the official programme for the marriage of H.R.H The Prince of Wales and The Lady Diana Spencer in there!

However, the pièce de résistance had to be The Body Book by Claire Rayner *shudder*.

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The site doesn’t look the slickest, but is a real Aladdin’s cave of new and old time classics with a wealth of activity books, fiction, non-fiction, book & CD combos and even work books (scary Key Stage 1 and 2 stuff). They will even source books at the best possible prices if they aren’t already offered on the website.

You’ll find heavily discounted books from much loved and more mainstream authors such as Julia Donaldson, Michael Rosen, Anthony Browne and Jill Murphy – a hardback copy of Julia Donaldson’s The Highway Rat costs just £5.50 instead of the RRP £10.99 – on the site, but The Book Stalk also seems to excel in finding lesser known treasures.

Looking at Perseus flying in Greek Myths and Legends

Amongst the more unusual titles is Greek Myths and Legends (which I got a sneak preview of and which has just become available on the site at £6.50 instead of the RRP £12.99) – a hardback anthology of 11 of the most familiar myths and legends from ancient Greece. I feel this would really appeal to boys as an antidote to some of the traditional fairytales, which are often targeted at girls, and is a good example of The Book Stalk’s varied offering. However, speaking of traditional fairytales, the site also has some lovely compilations and has offered readers of this blog 50% off two great titles.

Julia Donaldson’s The Highway Rat and Tales of Princes and Princesses

Fairy Tales – A Classic Collection compiles ten classics including Little Red Riding Hood, Snow White, Cinderella, Puss-in-Boots, Blue Beard and Little Thumb. With wonderful illustrations and stories varying significantly in terms of subject and characters, this would appeal to boys and girls alike. Available on the site for £9.99, readers can receive a 50% discount by using the code ParentSocial50 at checkout.

Unashamedly girly, Tales of Princes and Princesses is a beautifully presented collection of nine tales adapted from the stories of the Brothers Grimm and Hans Christian Anderson, each illustrated by a different artist. This hardback book with a lovely fold over magnetic closing is available on the site for £12.99, but readers can get a copy for just £6.50 by using the code ParentSocial50 at checkout.

The Book Stalk also offers some other great gifts, such as children’s cooking sets, convertibles and many games from our family favourite, Orchard Toys, at heavily discounted prices.

A wonderful collection at fantastic prices, but do watch out for the delivery costs as they do vary quite a bit from product to product and can bump it up.

Visit: www.thebookstalk.co.uk

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