#HappyNewYear #2023 #ChildrensBooks and #YoungAdultBooks I Highly #Recommend that I #Reviewed in #2022 of many genres from #PictureBooks to #ChapterBooks to #Novels

I reviewed a number of children’s books right across the ages from 0 to teenagers. Here are some I highly recommend. Starting with young children’s books, working up in age range. I have also provided links to the blurbs and full reviews as you wok you way down.

The Picture Books – 0 to 6 years

Trains, Trains, Trains! Is a fun-packed picture book that works on different levels. It encourages thought, speech and language as kids choose their favourite trains. It also has fun with counting and speed and provides children, including babies with a certain comfort in its train like rhythm of the words. It’s a book that adults can have fun with reading to children. Here is the link: Trains, Trains, Trains

Tilda Tries Again By Tom Percival was recently on CBeebies, read by Rob Burrows. It has fantastic illustrations, which really goes towards aiding the story along. It’s a positive, encouraging story that takes children into Tilda’s world, where it’s okay to give things another try. Here’s the link to the blurb and full review Tilda Tries Again

David’s Bathtime Adventure By Sue Wickstead is great for kids who love or dislike bathtime alike. It’s full of imaginative fun. It’s also got great tips for adults after the story too. Here’s the link to the blurb and full review: David’s Bathtime Adventure

The Fairy In The Kettle By Pauline Tait is a sweet story about friendship. It is also fun with a fairy who lives in a kettle and plenty goes on in this short adventure. Check out the blurb and review here: The Fairy In The Kettle

What The Ladybird Heard at Christmas By Julia Donaldson and Lydia Monks is full of adventure and trepidation in this fun poetic story. Find out more in the link here: What The Ladybird Heard at Christmas

Daddy’s New Shed By Jessica Parkin sees him needing a new one, but who will get to use it? It has much humour. Here’s the link to the review and blurb: Daddy’s New Shed

Where Is My Smile? is charming and about a boy who has lost his. Is there a solution that can be found? The book promotes talk of feelings and wellbeing. Here’s the link to the blurb and review: Where Is My Smile?

The Middle Grade Books – 7 plus years

The Ultimate Guide to Growing Dragons by Andy Shepherd shows you too can grow dragons. The book is great for the adventurous and for young gardeners and the curious. It’s part of the excellent The Boy Who Grew Dragons series. This one also has fun pages set out like collection cards and so much more, as well as the story. Find out the blurb and full review in this link: The Ultimate Guide to Growing Dragons

Benji And The Gunpowder Plot By Kate Cunningham gives children a great time travelling adventure to the time of Guy Fawkes. It’s the first book in The Time Tumblers series. Find out more in the link for the review and blurb: Benji and the Gunpowder Plot

Jump By J.G.Nolan is a football story where old and young come together. They each learn something about football and a particular footballer. Here is the blurb and full review: Jump

Dread Wood By Jennifer Killick, author of the successful Craters Lake, is middlegrade horror at its best, on a par with Goosebumps by R.L. Stine. It’s atmospheric and twisty with mystery and dark tunnels… also a detention to boot. Why then is a teacher underground and a caretaker acting strangely? Here is the link to the blurb and full review: Dread Wood

Which Way To Anywhere By Cressida Cowell – author of How To Train Your Dragon and Wizard of Once, is exhilarating with a terrific cast of characters, including a robot assassin and trees not being quite how you would expect in this new magical world. Here is the link to the blurb and full review: Which Way To Anywhere

Young Adult/Teens -12 years plus

Being is Better and Beyond Invisible is a duology of books. Meet Amber and her friend. Both have quite different backgrounds and yet find each other. The book highlights teenage loneliness, grief, parental divorce, health issues, friendship. It is relatable and essential reading for teens/young adults. Here is the link to full blurbs and reviews of both books – Being Is Better Duology

#Review By Lou of. Where Is My Smile? By Natalie Reeves Billing @BillingReeves @LoveBookTours #ChildrensBook #Wellbeing #PictureBook

Where Is My Smile
By Natalie Reeves Billing
Illustrated By Hannah Jesse

Where Is My Smile? is charmingly illustrative with an engrossing story children can engage with and adults can use as a conversation starter about emotions.

Natalie Reeves Billing has many successful books, including the Monsterous Me series for young children.

Thanks to Love Books Group for the book and review opportunity. Discover more in the blurb and my review below.

Blurb

A beautifully illustrated picture book about mental health for young readers. Where Is My Smile? is the story of a little boy who can’t find his smile anywhere. He searches and searches, but it’s nowhere to be found. Where could his smile be? This delightful picture book is perfect as a bedtime story, and to help little children understand that it’s okay to be sad sometimes, but we can always find our way through it. Where Is My Smile? is the first in a new series of picture books from Natalie Reeves Billing focused on children’s mental health.

Review

This is a well illustrated book of a boy who is very sad. He knows he has a smile, but it appears to be lost. He searched for it around the house. He sees the rest of his family with smiles, but he can’t seem to fin his. Even the rainy weather means the sun has lost its smile… until one day, it all changes and smiles are back.
It’s a simple story where children can have fun looking for the boy’s lost smile and guessing where it may be and how he finds it. It is clear, not only in the blurb, but also in the construct of the story, that with a pinch of ingenuity, it can also be used as a simple conversation starter to engage with children who are sad or becoming depressed. The book holds a lot of family love and a solution to what makes the boy in the story happy.

The illustrations are bold and fun as well as meaningful in a way that will also help children engage with emotions, as well as easily follow the story.

It, in conjunction with other books and support, will be a valuable tool for any parent and an enjoyable story for many young children as they learn about their own emotions and those of others, so it also then brings some empathy and understanding, which Natalie Reeves Billing does very well in her books; as proven not only in this one but also books such as her Monsterous Me series. This book – Where Is My Smile? however, also focuses on wellbeing and specifically mental health p, in a way children will quickly understand through also being entertained.

#BookReview by Lou of My Sister Is A Monster, My Brother Is A Monster by Natalie Reeves Billing @BillingReeves @RandomTTours #MonstrousMe #ChildrensBook

My Sister Is A Monster, My Brother Is A Monster
by Natalie Reeves Billing
Rated: 5 stars *****

I am absolutely delighted to be sharing with you the next installment of this wonderful series. Each book is complete within themselves and are worth collecting them all for the complete family of them. It is a split-perspective story, so you see both the sister and brother’s point of view. First one and then flip the book over to see the next, in whatever order you like, so it’s a bit like 2 stories for the price of 1 and with all the same excellent characters in both. It’s fun and it encourages a sense of self and empathy. Find out more about the author, the blurb and my full review of this excellent book as you meander down the page. Discover a link to activities that accompany the book after my review.
Thanks to Random Things Tours for inviting me to review. Thanks to the author Natalie Reeves Billing for sending me the book.

About the Author

Natalie Reeves Billing is a Liverpool lass with a dark sense of humour, which often spills onto the page. She loves to write spooky, fantastical stories for young audiences, and dabbles in poetry, contemporary fiction.
Natalie spent most of her early career in the music industry as a performer and professional songwriter. This lead, almost inevitably, to storytelling.

Natalie is an Arvon Foundation friend and is a student of the Golden Egg Academy. She is mentored under the Lloyds Bank SSE program, with her Bubs Literacy project. She is published in several anthologies with her poetry and flash fiction, including the Writing on the Wall, Read Now, Write Now, and is involved in several collaborations with fellow writers across poetry, song, and scriptwriting.
Her new book, My Mummy is a Monster (part of the Monstrous Me collection) will be available in March 2020 and Carry Love in June 2020
Connect with Natalie on Twitter @BillingReeves.

Blurb

Two Books in 1! The Monstrous Me Collection are split perspective books looking at situations from other points of view, helping children develop a sense of balance, roundedness and wellbeing. Readers can literally and figuratively, turn the story on its head, and look at the very same situations from different angles. In this book, a brother and sister are convinced the other is a monster. But, are they really? When we look at the story from the other side, we see a very different story.

Review

This is again, another terrific book that flips 2-ways to tell 2 stories. This time it focuses on the brother and the sister. It, like other books in this collection, has interactive elements of trying to find the Monstrometer as you go along. It adds an extra layer of fun and it is great that there are activities on her Lollipop Lodge website, which you can find just after the review.
Half the book is My Brother Is A Monster and then you flip it over to find My Sister is a Monster, or indeed, vice-versa, which is also fun and quite different.
The story starts at breakfast time, moving onto school and back home again before heading to bed. It tells of how the brother has the worst eating habits, bully’s his sister at school and then at home, won’t let her play with his toys and messes up the rules and the house. Then at the end, it demonstrates how he does love his sister really and does something courageous for her.
On the flipside, her brother sees his sister as being a monster as she is fussy at breakfast and has rules and then come school, won’t join in any games she thinks she will lose. At home she won’t leave her brother alone and tidies up rather prematurely. After all that, she then gives her brother a lovely homemade gift and shows she does love him after all.

The book is well-rounded and encourages empathy and understanding as children will be able to see through the eyes of both characters and work out how things really are and what is percieved. I has wonderful humour, rhythm and illustrations throughout will easily engage children.
This is a book that is part of a great collection that will be sure to delight children throughout at home and in the classroom. It can be used for both reading for pleasure and in a nursery and young classroom school setting, such as Reception or Primary 1, for fun and for stimulating conversation.

Link to Activities

www.lollipoplodge.com

#BookList2020 by Lou – My Top Children’s Book Choices 2020 #ChildrensBooks #TopChildrensBook2020

My Top Children’s Book Choices 2020
Various Authors Various Genres Various Ages

I present what I consider the top 17 children’s books I have had the pleasure of reviewing. Discover more about them in the links provided. Each is in no particular order and I’ve included a couple of activity books at the bottom. There are books for every age group.

The Beast and the Bethany by Jack Meggitt Phillips Click Here for More Info

The Boy Who Fell Into A FairyTale by Ben Miller Click Here for More Info

A Jewel in the Sands of Time by Clive Mantle Click Here for More Info

The Boy Who Dreamed of Dragons by Andy J. Shephard Click Here for More Info

Blaze – The Magic Flag Mystery by Lin Anderson Click Here for More Info

The Castle of Tangled Magic by Sophie Anderson Click Here for More Info

First Prize for The Worst Witch by Jill Murphy Click Here for More Info

Red Snow by Larraine Harrison Click Here for More Info

Helping Hands Stories by Sarah – Duchess of York Click Here for More Info

A Better Place by Alyson March Click Here for More Info

Always Together at Christmas by Sara Sargent Click Here for More Info

The Butterfly Inside by Serena Lane Ferrari Click Here for More Info

My Mummy is A Monster by Natalie Reeves Billing Click Here for More Info

Gloria – The Summer Fun Bus by Sue Wickstead Click Here for More Info

My Awesome Autism by Nikki Saunders Click Here for More Info

Activity Books

The Dragon Book Club by Lexi Rees Click Here for More Info

Scavenger Art by Lexi Rees Click Here for More Info

#Bookreview of #ChildrensBook – Ben and The Bug by Natalie Reeves Billing – Essential Reading for Our Times @BillingReeves @RandomTTours

Ben and The Bug
By Natalie Reeves Billing
Rated: 5 stars *****

One of the most important and essential children’s books of our times!
Engaging and sensitive, this book takes children through our times of Covid 19 in a way they will understand and not be scared, but that will assist them to be more aware, through story, facts and a game.
I thank Random Things Tours for inviting me onto the blog tour and for them and Natalie Billing for sending me a copy of the book.

Blurb

When Ben meets Bug at the swing park, they instantly become the best of friends. But when everyone around them gets sick, Ben wonders about the identity of his new playmate.Ben and the Bug is written for families looking for a friendly approach to discussions around Coronavirus.

Review

This is an engaging story with one of the most important purposes of our times. Everyone knows about the Corona Virus now, but it can be challenging to remind children or know where to even start with children, when explaining it. In this engaging book that really brings everything down to a child’s level, this book will be an incredibly useful tool for children, child-educators and parents alike, through story and a game.

The game is “Spot the Bug”. On each page there is a bug to find, which will engage children further into the story of Ben and his Auntie Pat.

The book starts in the park. That’s where the bug was first encountered. It’s a fun, yet serious story that shows how a bug can be spread and make people feel unwell. It’s done in a sensible and sensitive way, through fun and bold illustrations and story, that is engaging for children. As well as the story are facts about keeping clean and the bug that all backs up the story and gently informs children. There are more facts at the back of the book as well, that can be brought into any discussion.
The book also shows the bug being sad that it is making people sick and wants to help. It will dissipate any fear factor, even though, of course the bug won’t do that, yet will help children to be able to better understand what is going on, to ease some anxieties, which could also help them to take the situation of Covid 19 more seriously. The book has elements of positivity as it tells of what people are trying to do to make this situation better.