The World of Miss Clara Gift Set (Barefoot Books giveaway c/d 15 December 2013)

Barefoot Books is an award-winning publisher, renowned for its distinctive collection of books. Their hardcovers and paperbacks are enjoyed by both children and their parents. We love Barefoot Books and have quite a collection at home. Some are so well-loved that we need to keep the pages together with the scotch tape.
The World of Miss Clara Gift Set (Barefoot Books) is a splendid collection of three books: The Princess and the Pea, The Snow Queen and The Twelve Dancing Princesses. All these titles have been beautifully illustrated by the French artist Claire Guiral aka Miss Clara.
Each book in the set is accompanied by a story CD.

All three books are illustrated in the same recognizable unique style. Miss Clara uses mixed media and digital technology to create a series of enigmatic collages, where 3D characters blend in with the paper cuttings, fabrics, splashes of paint and photos.
They remind me of Somerset Studio magazines on mixed media that I used to buy in the past when I was dabbling in the mixed media myself.
Each book is a pleasure to read and admire all the fascinating details of the illustrations.

"The Princess and the Pea" is adapted from the fairy tale by Hans Christian Andersen and retold by Xanthe Gresham. Her style of writing is beautiful and very poetic.
Just listen, how the story begins:
"There was once a prince whose heart was skinless. It quivered like a leaf in the breeze and shone like sunshine on a drop of water. And sometimes such a faraway light would well in his eyes that the servants laughed behind their dusters"
This sensitive prince goes travelling around the world in search of a perfect partner. Of course, when you are looking for perfection, you are doomed to be disappointed. Or maybe not? One stormy night, a young girl seeks shelter at the palace. "Her eyes were the very colour of the rain, her hair tangled with the petals of storm flowers and water flowed in and out of her shoes". The queen makes up a bed for her, with twenty feather mattresses and twenty embroidered eiderdowns, and places a hard little pea under all the mattresses.
Even if you are familiar with Andersen's story, you will enjoy the masterful retelling of the tale.
And only imagine how wonderful it is to discover this story for the very first time?

While revisiting the old favourites, I thought to myself: I wish I have seen these mesmerising illustrations when I was a child. I would have loved them so much. I remember spending hours with books, reading and drawing, trying to copy the illustrations

The second book in the set - The Snow Queen - is another superb edition which retells a classic fairy tale by Andersen.

This story centres on the struggle between good and evil. An evil troll creates a mirror which reflects the bad and ugly sides of the human beings. The mirror gets broken, and the splinters of glass scattered themselves all over the world and continued their evil work. When boy Kay encounters the Snow Queen, she blows him a kiss and with it two splinters of the magic mirror. One enters his eye and the other, his heart. His best friend Gerda goes on a perilous quest to free Kay from the wicked palace and the world of the Snow Queen.

These illustrations are so atmospheric, I can almost feel the blasts of the cold wind.

The last book in the set -The Twelve Dancing Princesses - is a charming story of love and romance.

As every fairy tale, it starts with Once upon a time... Each of the twelve princesses was given the name of a flower. There is a mystery of the slippers reduced to rags and tatters every night. Where do the princesses go at night and how do they leave the palace unnoticed? Will the riddle be ever solved?

Miss Clara works her magic again with the miniature maquettes of princesses, the scenes and the outfits are ethereal and hauntingly beautiful.

Any of these books would make a splendid gift for Christmas or birthday.

Barefoot Books are offering my blog readers a special 25% off Christmas discount code. Just use the code MAXIMKA when you place your order at Barefoot Books.
The code will be valid for one week only, from Tuesday December 3 to December 9.


And that's not all!

Barefoot Books have kindly offered a great prize for my blog readers. One of my lucky blog readers will be able to choose any book from Barefoot Books collection.


If you would like to win this prize, please fill in the Rafflecopter form.
T&Cs:
Only the first step is mandatory: all you need is to answer the question by leaving a comment (there is no right or wrong answer)
(if you login as Anonymous, please leave your Twitter name or FB name, so that I could identify you, I do not suggest leaving the email address in the comment)

All the other steps are optional, you don't have to do them all. All it takes to win is just one entry.
Only one entry per person is allowed (however, you can tweet daily to increase your chances).
The giveaway is open to the UK residents only.
Once the Rafflecopter picks the winner, I will contact them, if they do not reply within a week, the prize will be allocated to another person.

If you haven't used the Rafflecopter before, you might want to watch this simple video.
The giveaway will close on 15th of December 2013 (midnight from the 14th to 15th)
And the question is:
Please visit Barefoot Books and tell me in a comment below which book you would choose if you win.

 (You don't have to make the final choice now, just pick any book you might enjoy, and the winner will have a chance to browse the shop again and choose what they want)



a Rafflecopter giveaway

If you enjoyed reading this review, you might like to have a look at my older reviews of
The Adventures of Achilles
and
The Barefoot Book of Mother & Daughter Tales
and
The Shape Song Swingalong

Disclosure: I received The World of Miss Clara gift set for the purposes of reviewing. All opinions are mine.

BritMums meet-up in Oxford at Barefoot Books

In the last few years I have become totally enwrapped in my family, while most of the old-days' friends and acquaintances drifted away, either removing themselves from the stress of our lives, misunderstanding what it takes to have a child with autism, or being fed up with my unsocial ways as I am forever finding excuses not to go out. Either way, our circle of friends has become very limited indeed, with just a few true companions who stayed loyal. Most of my interacting now goes online: Facebook, Twitter etc, it has its advantages, as it is on your own terms, you talk when you have a chance. I don't do the meetings and try to avoid any big gatherings of people as they make me uncomfortable. So, going to meet the BritMums' bloggers in Oxford last Wednesday was a very big deal for me. I knew it was going to be on a small scale (in comparison to the grand events organised by BritMums), it was easily reachable (just half an hour by bus to Oxford) and it was in a book shop environment (temptations galore!).

The meeting took place in the Barefoot Books Studio in Summertown, Oxford. A total Aladdin's cave of treasures for the book lovers. I absolutely loved it, a bright shop, full of colours, with a cafe inside (and the latte was very good indeed), plus there's a corner for a Story time for children and parents.
My husband kindly offered to come along and entertain Eddie while I was socializing.

This is Susanna Scott, the founder of BritMums, and me. She's as friendly in person as she's online. And looking poised next to my shining face.

It was a lovely event, and I was thrilled to meet new people and discover new (to me) blogs: Mary P from Over 40 and a Mum to one blog, Anne-Marie from Child-led Chaos blog, enthusiastic Chris from Two Ten who wants to create the safe Internet for children and the others.

Eddie was happy to browse and do some colouring, as well as enjoy a nice wobbly jelly.

We were given the goodie bags including the latest releases - A Farmer's Life for Me and The Girl with a Brave Heart (watch this space for the coming book reviews).

All attending bloggers were also given a generous offer of choosing any book from the bookshop plus a discount voucher for any purchase. I have wisely used my voucher to buy this gorgeous edition of The Genius of Leonardo, and have picked the superb collection of the legends "Arthur of Albion", illustrated by the famous Belorussian artist Pavel Tatarnikov.

Hope we'll be able to meet up again and talk blogging over a cup of latte.

The Barefoot Book of Mother & Daughter tales

Neither my Mum nor Grandma used to read any bedtime stories to me as a child, but I remember listening to the wonderful fairy tales retold without any book props. Telling a good story is not about entertainment only, this is the way the local culture and history passes from generation to generation.
Most of the stories in The Barefoot Book of Mother & Daughter Tales originate in this tradition of storytelling. These tales have been passed from mother to child for many centuries, and have been recorded as retold by nameless authors. These stories appear in many versions, and it is amazing how the same plots and story lines move within and beyond the national boundaries.

This beautiful edition is another gem in the already shining treasury of books from Barefoot Books. It comes as a collection of stories which deal with the themes of mother-daughter relationships: "These stories are about mothers, grandmothers, stepmothers, godmothers, foster-mothers and mothers-in-law as they weave their mysterious relationships with their maturing daughters". This collection has been retold by Josephine Evetts-Secker.

You will find the traditional stories from Greece, Russia, Germany, Japan, Norway and other countries.
I was pleased to find two of the Russian stories. One is Vasilisa the Beautiful. A fairy tale which kept me entertained and scared at the same time when I was a child. Another familar story from my childhood is Snowflake (though this version is Slavonic, as there are so many different variations across the Slavic countries). The Russian name for Snowflake is Snegurochka (lit. snow girl or snow maiden). I have always found this story poignant: a couple who are desperate to become parents, whose happiness feels empty because they have no children. They build a snow child who comes to life. Their happiness is complete, only to be snatched away by the cruel twist of fate, when their beloved child melted jumping over the bonfire. The fragile and vulnerable snow child is a symbol of the brevity of life.
The Turkish tale Katanya is another story of a woman's longing for a child. The little girl has miraculously appeared from the ripe date.

There are vulnerable heroines, there are strong characters like Vasilisa, there is a whole spectrum of women's personalities.

The book is beautifully illustrated by Helen Cann. Her style of painting is distinct and original, the illustrations are reminiscent of the multi-coloured blocks in patchworks, bright and intricate.

If you enjoy listening to the stories, this book comes with two discs. All the stories are narrated by Juliet Stevenson. A real treat!

Happy International Women's Day to all my blog readers who are daughters, Mums, sisters and grandmothers!


P.S. I received this book for the purposes of reviewing. All opinions are mine.

The Adventures of Achilles

Years ago I was teaching the history of the world art in school. I wish I had this edition of The Adventures of Achilles (Hugh Lupton, Daniel Morden & Carole Henaff) from Barefoot Books then to help me with the visual material for the lessons in Greek mythology.
This book is a true feast for eyes. The panel and border illustrations by Carole Henaff depict both gods and humans and remind of the images from the ancient Greek vases. It is a homage to the ancient Greek art without actually copying it, but giving it a modern twist.

This edition comes with two full-length CDs so that you can listen to the riveting retelling of the Iliad and be transfixed with the story of the Trojan War, its  causes and violent progress. The young audience will get their first taste of Homer's language with the references to Apollo, the Lord of Light, the Mighty Archer, to ox-eyed Hera, owl-eyed Athene and Great Father Zeus, the Cloud Compeller.

I have read some rather critical reviews of this book on GoodReads, which accuse the book of being too sophisticated for the younger audience or being too grim. Yes, some of its content is too dark for the younger children, but that is true with most of the Greek myths, they are pretty much sombre and morbid. I must have read the Greek Myths for the first time when I was 8 or 9 (and several times afterwards including recently). Many of the storylines were totally alien to me, but it was such a fascinating world, with its own rules and logic.

This edition is a brilliant combination of the most compelling narrative retold in modern language, striking art of illustration and a fabulous audio-recording.
As you may have read, the original Greek statues were brightly painted. These paints have become very faint or completely disappeared after thousands of years, but the Infrared and X-ray spectroscopy helped the scientists to see the original colours. I imagine they used the same intense blues and terracottas as the artist of The Adventures of Achilles.

My older son and I took our time to go through the book, as we listened to the story in installments. This is a thought-provoking book, and I would suggest reading this book or listening to the CD together with your child.

Score: 10/10

Disclosure: We recieved a free copy of the book for the purposes of reviewing. All opinions are ours.

Watch and sing along with The Shape Song Swingalong

We first discovered Barefoot Books a few years ago, when Sasha's teachers mentioned how much Sasha enjoyed dancing to the musical CDs that come with the Barefoot Books publications. Since then we have acquired quite a collection of these superb editions, and now it is Eddie's turn to enjoy the music and books. I have signed in for reviewing the Barefoot books recently and kept my fngers crossed that we'd be selected to read and test the new publications. We were delighted to discover The Shape Song Singalong as our assigned task.

Like all Barefoot books that come with the CDs, it is a very bright cheerful edition, with a huge appeal to both mainstream kids and children with special needs. This book is illustrated by the talented David Sim. The illustrations are simple but imaginative. As you read the book, you learn about different shapes. The images remind me of the patchwork quilts. I can easily see them transferred into the fabric appliques.

Music is written and sung by Stevesongs. The song describes the creative process of drawing, using many shapes to assemble a whole world full of wonders: a beachside waterslide or a party in the park.

The tune is very catchy, my little man has been dancing to the music and repeating Line, line, Circle, circle...

The CD is actually a CD-ROM, so you can watch it on a PC. This singalong CD is a fab way to develop the listening and singing skills.

And it's not just shapes. Eddie was delighted to see all the animals, he was especially excited to find a big roaring lion. He kept saying "Yayon, yayon" (he hasn't mastered his Ls and Rs yet).
This book is a fab addition to our collection of Barefoot books.

And once you listened to it, I'd challenge you not to hum to yourself: Line, line, circle, circle...