Shockingly, it's over two years since Multiplication made easy appeared here on Ladybird Tuesday. Back then I wrote about how maths can really divide people as a subject. Some love it and some hate it. I've always thought of myself as being firmly in the "love maths" camp. When at school it was the lesson I always looked forward to. The idea of English or Drama on the timetable filled me with dread. Give me double maths over that any day of the week. I'd like to say that I'm still on the "love maths" side of the fence, but as Little Miss C has advanced through the school system (she's ... read more
I Love My Wok – Nicola Graimes
When I moved house recently a replacement wok was one of the first things I bought for my new kitchen. I've always used a wok loads for cooking a variety of different dishes in, and so I was quite surprised to read a press release for the book I Love My Wok describing it as "often... underused and undervalued". It's far from that in my house! I'm no great cook and have to admit that my wok based meals aren't really thought through as meals designed to be cooked in a wok, more that it's just the thing I choose to use in the kitchen. I was intrigued therefore to take a look at I Love My Wok ... read more
Ladybird Tuesday: ‘People at Work’ The Fireman
It's been a while since I've bought any new Ladybird books. Partly because I was trying to save money, but also partly because they just weren't to be found in local charity shops at a reasonable place. I've been travelling around the country a lot more recently though, and in doing so discovering new charity shops, and more Ladybird books! The whole of Ladybird Tuesday started with me featuring a book from series 606B, People at Work, when I wrote about In a Hotel. Since then though I've gone on and actually featured quite a few of this series, and it remains one of my absolute ... read more
Ladybird Tuesday: The Public Services – Water Supply
Way, way back in the early days of Ladybird Tuesday I dipped into series 606E, The Public Services, looking at Electricity. I even commented at the times about how the whole concept of Electricity, Gas and Water being public services was vintage in itself. Years on, it's time to revisit the series again, but this time we've moved on to the Water Supply. I still smile to see this book labelled as being "A Ladybird 'Easy-Reading' Book", but then when I consider some of the slightly obscure titles that Little Miss C brings home as school reading books maybe it isn't as strange as I used to ... read more
Ginny Moon – Benjamin Ludwig
If I'm honest I don't think I knew that the word "blurb", when describing that bit written on the back of a book, was an official term until my daughter started school and they started learning all about the different things that make up a book. I obviously knew about authors, titles, contents pages, indexes etc etc, but I hadn't realised blurb was an official name. It was always just that "bit on the back cover". The thing you read when browsing in a bookshop and looking for something for a bit of escapism. When someone sent me the blurb for Ginny Moon (purchase here from Amazon UK) there was ... read more
Ladybird Tuesday: Trains
Oh the dalliances I'm having with Ladybird Tuesday! It comes back every now and again, before vanishing without even a goodbye. I'm sincerely hoping that this will be the start of a proper return, but bearing in mind how late in the day I'm finally getting round to writing this post this Tuesday, you never know... But enough of that and on to the book itself. Now Master C is more than a little obsessed with trains right now. In fact, I'm not even sure that "obsessed" is a strong enough word to be using. His whole day seems to revolve around either talking about trains, playing with ... read more
The Pirate Craft Book
Sometimes in life, timing is perfect. And that was exactly the case when an email popped into my inbox asking if I'd like to review The Pirate Craft Book. Little Miss C has just had pirates as a learning topic at school and this culminated in a pirate dressing up day. Strangely we don't have a pirate costume in the dressing up box at home, so I knew I was going to have to pull together a costume from somewhere and this book is the perfect place to start. Written by Laura Minter and Tia Williams (the mums behind Little Button Diaries) the book is packed with "15 things a pirate can't do ... read more
Ladybird Tuesday: The Do-Gooder
And we're back! With the most irregular regular blog feature ever - Ladybird Tuesday. Now, keeping in with the theme of all my other recent blog posts here, I'm doing something a little bit different again this week and I'm going to be talking about another new Ladybird title. This time it's The Ladybird Book of the Do-Gooder. Just in case you haven't worked it out by now I should probably explain that this special title has been released to coincide with this year's Comic Relief, and at least £2 from the sale of the book go to Comic Relief. As with the other modern day Ladybird titles ... read more
Ladybird Tuesday: Learning to Crochet
I've been trying to bring Ladybird Tuesday back several times now, but each time I appear to get half way through writing a post and then everything goes a bit wrong. This time though I've chosen a title that I do feel very passionate about in the hope that it keeps me on track somewhat - Learning to Crochet! Now, anyone who follows me on Instagram or who has read my post about 2016 in Crochet will know that over the last couple of years I have become a complete crochet addict. I have two crochet blankets on the go at the moment (the Moorland CAL from Lucy at Attic24 and also my third Spice ... read more
Topsy and Tim’s sister AND brother – an update
This week has been one of those weeks where a comment left on one of my blog posts actually made me squeal with excitement. Literally. It can be so easy at times to write about something that you're really excited about or interested in and then you just get tumbleweed in response. It's a post that you think loads of people will want to say something about, but you click publish and it's met with silence. I had feared that that might be what happened with the post I published about Topsy and Tim's sister Tansy. Having seen how many people happen across this blog after searching on Google ... read more