Hannah the Spanner (book giveaway)

Many of us enjoy reading to our children at bedtime.
I have read a vast amount of books to each of my sons. I still do. Those evening hours are our special time. With my younger son, we have moved now onto Middle Grade/Young Adult fiction, but I still remember the picture books and simpler stories with great fondness.
Certain stories delight our kids even more, when they feature characters with the same name as a child you are reading to. My younger son loved stories where the characters were named Eddie. I also used to tell stories about him, which I invented (How Eddie got his name, etc).

Stuart Simmonds took his love of story-telling to the next level, and wrote a whole series of books which take their name from Stuart's eldest daughter. Hannah the Spanner series is written for parents reading to their children at bedtime.

Stuart comments, "Reading to Hannah and Lucy every night was one of my favourite parts of their childhood, it's something that both of them remember and talk about often. With a long summer break ahead of us, I hope these books give parents and children alike the opportunity to enjoy reading together. I have done my best to ensure they are entertaining for parents, as well as the kids - I know parents often have to read the same book to their children many times!"

Stuart is spot on when he talks about reading and re-reading the same stories. There are some books I can easily recite by heart, without looking at the lines, since I've read them so many times.

If you're looking for books that are ideal for reading together with your children, as part of home schooling or as a bedtime story, or just to keep youngsters aged 4-9 occupied, then we'd like to suggest the Hannah the Spanner series of illustrated children's books.

There are seven books in the series. Each book follows a different adventure for Hannah and the dreadful Aubrey:
- Hannah The Spanner and the Dancing Bear
- Hannah The Spanner and the Robot
- Hannah The Spanner and the Circus
- Hannah The Spanner and the Trip to the Moon
- Hannah The Spanner and the Diamond Robbery
- Hannah The Spanner and the Racing Car
- Hannah The Spanner and the Polar Bear.

The Hannah the Spanner paperback books are full of colourful imagery to keep little ones entertained, funny engaging stories to win the hearts of older kids, and a storyline that adults will appreciate too.
Each full colour book is illustrated by Bill Greenhead, who has previously worked on Charlie Smith Super Kid (Emma Lynch) and Animal Avengers (Malorie Blackman).

The books have proved to be such a great way to get children interested in reading, that Stuart has been inundated with bookings from schools in the UK and abroad asking him to visit to read the books and run workshops encouraging children to read.

Stuart Simmonds is an accomplished cricketer and sports coach, he now runs a property business from his home in East Grinstead, Sussex. Prior to writing the Hannah the Spanner series, he wrote an autobiography on a life in cricket, titled Watching With My Heroes, which was widely sold through all major retailers.

The Hannah the Spanner series is available from Waterstones and all good bookshops, Amazon and direct from the Hannah the Spanner website - www.hannahthespanner.com

Social Media Links:
Twitter: @StuheadLtd
Facebook: @stuheadltd
Instagram: @studheadltd

GIVEAWAY:
If your children haven't discovered yet the world of Hannah the Spanner, you have a chance to win two books from the series - Hannah the Spanner and The Dancing Bear and Hannah the Spanner and The Robot (first two books in the series).

T&Cs:
The giveaway is open to the UK residents only.
Please enter using the Rafflecopter box below.
The winner will be selected at random by Rafflecopter from all valid entries and will be notified by Twitter and/or email.
If no response is received within two weeks, then Chez Maximka reserves the right to select an alternative winner.
Open to all entrants aged 18 and over.
Any personal data given as part of the giveaway is used for this purpose only and will not be shared with 3rd parties, with the exception of the winner's information.
This will be passed to the publisher's PR and used only for the fulfilment of the prize, after which Chez Maximka will delete all data.
Please note, I am not responsible for dispatch or delivery of the prize. I'm only hosting the giveaway on the blog, for free.



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Reading goals for 2020

Providence has delivered me of every worldly passion, save this one; the desire to acquire books, new or old books of any kind, whose charms I cannot persuade myself to resist.
John Henry Newman

I'm no saint, but when it comes to books, I share Newman's evangelical fervour.  I cannot resist buying books, even knowing I have mountains of unread paperbacks waiting for me at home. It's an obsession really.
I buy books online (The Book People is a great source of temptation). I try to find older editions on ebay. I scour the local charity shops every week, looking for something exciting.

Our local Waterstones shop has a wonderful team of people who love books and read extensively. I love their window displays as well.
One of my favourite window displays of last year was for The Way of All Flesh. They even bought a skull on ebay, especially for the occasion.

Gemma and Patti organise fun events - you might have seen my photos from the Harry Potter-themed evenings, when children would arrive dressed up as their favourite characters from J.K.Rowling's books. There were quizzes, prizes, sorting hat bakes etc.

Eddie as Newt Scamander

There is another Harry Potter event coming soon in February, and Eddie and I plan to attend.

Needless to say, I do spend quite a bit in the shop.

In the last weeks I've been reading passionate discussions online, with references to the arguments that book bloggers are not "real" readers, because apparently they are paid to read and hence they are happy to sell their souls to the Devil and praise whatever they read.

I've never been paid to write any book review. And I don't know anyone who is, unless they do it as a job, like writing for a magazine, or work as a PR promoting books.

I had a discussion with a friend recently, who saw a big stash on the window of our dining room - books I received for reviewing in the oncoming months. She asked me if I were paid for reading them, and then couldn't quite comprehend why I would agree to do it. I told her that I enjoy discovering new names, and many of the books which I received for reviewing, might have passed my attention otherwise.
For example, two books which I reviewed last year got into my top reads of 2019 list, and I haven't heard of the authors before. Storytellers by Bjorn Larssen is not just in my top 10 reads, I would say, it's no.1 (sharing with The Girl Who Speaks Bear).

A year ago I wrote a post about my reading goals, and looking at it now I see that my goals haven't changed - I still need to declutter, I would like to read more non-fiction, as well as books in Russian.

If you have a look at the list of books I read (and finished) in 2019, out of 77 books, only two are non-fiction. I did start several more, but either stopped mid-way, or decided I might return to them at some point again. So, I failed my goal of 5 non-fiction books.

I read only one book in Russian - My Siberia (Memoirs) by Anastasia Tsvetaeva (sister of the famous Russian poet Marina Tsvetaeva). That's also pretty abysmal, I really should make more of an effort.

As for the genres, I read 25 thriller/crime mysteries, 32 children's/YA fiction, 7 - romance.

I did slightly better with my goal of reading more classics with Eddie - Treasure Island, Around the World in 80 days (abridged) and Oliver Twist (so abridged that I didn't add it to the reading list).
Plus two classics of crime - The Iron Chariot and The Forest Lake Mystery - both of which are regarded as the classics of Scandi Noir.

It would be good to expand on the classics' promise. And to definitely try harder on reading non-fiction.

The Reading Challenge on GoodReads gives you all the stats you might want be curious about, though some of them are slightly arguable.
For example, The Ice Monster appears to be the longest book on my list. Yes, if you count the pages, but most of them have pictures, some with just a word or two, so if you do a word count, it won't come as the longest.
Apparently, Percy Jackson and the Lightning Thief was the most popular book. We did love the book, and plan to read the next book in the series very soon.

Last year we went to several book-related events, and met three great authors - Sophie Anderson and Candy Gourlay, and Cressida Cowell.

I'm a big fan of Sophie Anderson. Her books are brilliant, and I can't wait for her third book.
She is also a very-very nice lady, and if you follow her on social media, you will know that she interacts with her readers with great kindness and enthusiasm.

Eddie was thrilled to meet Cressida Cowell, and he gave her a drawing of Toothless, which she kindly praised. She is a real trooper. The queue to have books signed was like a long serpent, we had to wait quite a bit to have a chance to talk to her.

She signed all books and also got up from her seat to have photos taken with everyone who asked for this chance.

I'm hoping we could attend more book signing events this year. That's a new goal for 2020.

Do you have reading goals and plans for the year?

Alphablocks Reading Programme giveaway (c/d 3 January 2014)

Eddie enjoys learning his letters, and though he is still mixing up his Bs and Ds, Ms and Ns, he is enthusiastic and willing to learn, and that's what matters at this stage. His reading might not be perfect, but he's only 4, and he will get there. I know some of the children in his class are more fluent readers, some are less, and we, parents, should do our best to encourage our little ones in this big adventure. If teaching your child to read sounds a bit daunting, there is a very helpful educational tool called Alphablocks.
You might already know about it, if your children watch Aphablocks on TV. But there is also a fantastic Alphablocks Reading Programme available for foundation-aged children, which helps them to develop and progress with their reading skills.

We recently received part I of the reading programme, and have had hours of great fun, going through educational activity-packed magazines and playing with all the extras like stickers, letter tiles, flash cards and finger puppets. You can discover more about the programme, if you read my review of Alphablocks Reading Programme.
Kind people at Alphablocks have offered two Reading packages as prizes for my blog readers.
There will be two lucky winners who will receive a complete Alphablocks Reading Programme (usually worth £39.99 plus P&P).

To be in with a chance of winning, please enter the giveaway via Rafflecopter gadget.

T&Cs:

Only the first step is mandatory: all you need is answer the question by leaving a comment (if you login as Anonymous, please leave you Twitter name or Facebook 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 winners, I will check if they have done what was requested. I will contact the winners, if they do not reply within 28 days, the prize will be allocated to another person. I will pass on the winner's' details to Alphablocks PR who will dispatch the prizes. 
The giveaway ends on 3 January 2015 (midnight).

Good luck!

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Precious memories with Love2read

Are you children struggling with reading? Or are they just beginning to read and need all the possible encouragement? There are many ways to help your child, and a personalised book is one of the great props which will boost your child's interest in reading.

When the opportunity arose to review a book from love2read, I jumped at the chance. Caroline Edwards, the brain behind this business has background in teaching and knows exactly how to help the young readers.
She has started the business initially to inspire her own child with special needs "to start picking up books and to help her to recognise words".

The site is very easy to navigate. Customers can upload up to 10 digital images to create their own unique reading book.
The choice of titles is pretty amazing: you get all the possible family members and occasions. I loved that you can choose the word that you use the most at home, for example, you could do a book about Daddy or Dad, Papa, Dada...

Caroline says:

"The aim of each unique book is to help your child develop a love of reading. It does this by presenting photographs which reflect your child’s world and relating them to simple words. Research shows that if your child loves books they will learn to read much faster and you will be encouraging a lifelong love of reading.

The key words in each book are known as “high frequency ” words, which are some of the first words your child will be taught to recognise when they start school."

I wanted to make a book for my younger son. I was torn between so many good topics to choose from. Should I make a book about our holidays in Cornwall? About our stay at the grandparents' in Italy? A book about Papa? Choices, choices. I have finally decided that Eddie will love to read about about his older brother and himself.

It is very easy to add the photos to the book template once you pick your title. You can adjust the photo to fit in the given frame and choose the colour of the frame. You can then personalise the text and make it relevant to your young reader. The personalised front cover is automatically generated from the photos you have added to the first four pages of your book.

Let me tell you, we love the book. My Mum who is visiting us this month was going Oh and Ah, and "Could I have one as well?" And wouldn't the Italian grandma love one too? Eddie was delighted to see a book where he and his brother appear on every page.

The final result reminded me of the social story book we have done at home for my older son who has autism. We made a book for him "When Papa is away" to help him cope better with his Dad's business trips. I imagine that love2read books could make excellent social stories, if they expand the possibilities of the blank book template, so that the customers could choose their own titles and key words (at the moment every sentence starts with the same word. For example, our book starts with "My brother". I appreciate that the repetition here works for a young learner, as they gain confidence with their reading, but social stories could be another venue to explore, and as far as I know nobody does customised social stories that you can do in the similar fashion).

It is a beautiful little edition that we'll treasure forever. A brilliant way to preserve the precious memories and encourage your little one to read at the same time.

The book costs £14.99 each + postage, there are discounts if you order more than one.

To find more about Love2Read visit Love2Read books Facebook page.

Disclosure: we were offered a free code to create a book and write a review, all opinions are my own.

As rated by the Varese family: 10/10