The Gift of Books this Christmas #storiesforlife (Sponsored by Penguin Random House)

The Gift of Books this Christmas #storiesforlife (Sponsored by Penguin Random House)
I came home the other day from a particularly stressful school run, you know the ones where no one remembers what they are supposed to and you end up back home feeling like you’ve run a marathon, and I was pleasantly surprised and excited to find a parcel pushed through the front door. It was probably the prettiest envelope I have seen – it was electric blue and had snowflakes all over it. Brit Mums and Penguin Random House Children’s books had kindly sent us three lovely books as part of their #storiesforlife campaign. As an avid reader, reading is something I really encourage in my children and I think giving books to children for Christmas and their Birthdays is one of the best things you can do. Inspiring a love of reading in children is so important.

 

 

 

 

The parcel contained as I said, three lovely books – Max and Bird, The Dinosaur That Pooped Christmas and The Little Elephant Who Wants To Fall Asleep. We’ve had a read of the first two books, and all three of my kids (aged 6, nearly 4 and 18 months) enjoyed listening to them.

 

 

 

Max and Bird, is a lovely story, teaching what friendship is all about – Max the kitten wants to be friends with bird, but he also wants to eat him! Izzie and Ollie loved this story, and asked if we could get the other stories in the series that were on the back of the book. I think this would be the perfect present for any preschool aged child – I’m going to pass this on to my friends 4 year old as an extra little Christmas Present.
The Dinosaur That Pooped Christmas, tells the story of Danny who gets a dinosaur for Christmas and he gets more than he bargain for when the dinosaur eats up Christmas – and then poops it all out again. My kids are HUGE fans of ‘The Dinosaur that…’ books – we have quite  a few already – and in fact I had already bought this as a Christmas present for Ollie. I am again going to be passing this on to a friends little one as an extra present – one that can be enjoyed for many Christmas’s to come I’m sure.

 

Finally, The Little Elephant Who Wants To Fall Asleep. I intentionally didn’t read this to the kids, as I am going to wrap it up for Ollie for Christmas. We already have the previous book from the same author, about the rabbit who wants to fall asleep, which we had bought for Izzie when she had trouble settling at night. This is a perfect present for Ollie who is nearly 4, and has suffered from night terrors since he was two and a half. We find he settles so much better at night when we have a calm routine, and a story book is a big element of this – the calmer his bedtime routine the less chance of him having a night terror. The book is designed to help children relax and fall asleep quickly – using a magical journey that you go on with Ellen the Elephant through the magical forest. It is a really clever concept and I’m sure Ollie will love it.

 

As I have said, inspiring a love of reading in my children is so important to me – my favourite book when I was growing up was The Four Seasons of Brambly Hedge – it contains the Spring, Summer, Autumn and Winter stories, and tells of the lives of the little mice and animals that live in the hedgerows of Brambly Hedge, and also has the most beautifully detailed illustrations. I always asked for this book at bedtime when I was around Izzie’s age – in fact I think my mum read and re-read it so much she could probably still recite it off by heart.
I have now passed it along to Izzie, as you can see from the photo below – the top writing is my mum writing my name in the book and me copying it out, and now Izzie has added her name below it – maybe in years to come she will pass it on to her children. I have books that belonged to my mum – copies of Enid Blytons books from the the early sixties that I will pass onto Izzie when she is a bit older.

 

 

 

Disclosure: A huge thank you to Brit Mums and Penguin Random House Children’s Books for gifting us these lovely books – all photos and opinions are of course my own.

 

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