Wearable

"Get up, get up, get outta your lazy bed. Before I count to three .................." If you recognise that line, chances are you grew up in NZ in the late 80's early 90's and watched a TV programme called "What Now". In which case you will also recognise the lovely lady in the picture above, Fifi Colston! 

I grew up inspired by her crafting projects, replicating many of them at home, scouting around for the items I needed, lots based around a humble egg carton. Fifi's talents extend to book illustrating and creating wonderful works of wearable art. 

Her latest book Wearable Wonders is a finalist in this years New Zealand Post Book Awards for Children and Young Adults. You can find the rest of the nominees here, it's quite an impressive list!

Before I was offered the chance to review this book, I had already sought it out and borrowed it from my local library. My kids are starting to graduate from the "mummy made" costumes and wanting to make their own so this book seemed like the perfect resource for them.

It's not formulated with a "do this, do that" approach, more a guide and the perfect starting place for Wearable Art inspiration, perfect for the older child who needs a starting point for their own creation, really making it their own without just copying it from the book. 

my attempt at "Steampunk" goggles

The book takes you through all the planning stages, opening your eyes to the "tools of the trade", you probably already have some most of them, as for the materials needed, think = things in your recycling bin! Everything is taken into account, making sure your wearable piece isn't a danger to the wearer, practicalities of getting it off and on etc. 

a water pistol given a "Steampunk" style make-over

I think we'll have this book out again in the future when the call comes home from school that a costume is required! (I've also noticed that most schools also have a Wearable Art competition these days, you too?). 

into the clouds

I'm pretty sure I'm no different to any other child (or adult), when lying on my back staring into the sky, I imagine what it would be like to sit in one of those fluffy looking clouds as they float on gently by. I have very vivid memories of this from my childhood, they look so inviting, don't they? 

 It's with these fond memories in mind that make me fall head over heels in love with this book - Mr Bear Branches and the cloud conundrum by Terri Rose Baynton (written and illustrated by! - super talented huh?). It also happens to be a finalist in the New Zealand Post Children's Book Awards. 

It's a lovely story about two friends, one with a dream of playing and sitting in the clouds and the other a "realist" or a spoil sport to put it bluntly!

It uses some pretty sophisticated language when describing why, playing/sitting in the clouds will never be a reality. This use of the correct terms delighted miss E who had studied the water cycle at school and knew all the correct terms. 

I know my two also harbour dreams to sit and play in clouds and we've laid on our backs together in long grass before, watching the clouds drift by. So I wanted to create a "cloud" for them. I told them to gather up all the pillows off each bed in the house, including the ones on mummy and daddy's bed (the ones they aren't allowed to play with!) and bring them to the lounge. 

They were just like this character in the book, Lintfrey Longfellow, they had "growing curiosity" as we placed the pillows into a circle and draped a crisp white sheet over. I hung a sheet behind them also. Then I dished out some "cloudy" snacks, popcorn with a meringue for afters. 

It was quite magical and we sat and read the lovely book. Made all the better by our cloudy surroundings for sure!

my camera didn't do a great job capturing the true magic of the cloud - so I magic'd them up a bit with pic monkey!

at the beach (or mudflats)

Today we went on another wee adventure, with a book along for the ride too. The book we took is a nominee for the New Zealand Post Children's Book Awards, in the non fiction section. At the Beach, explore and discover the New Zealand seashore by Gillian Candler with illustrations by Ned Barraud.

"At the beach is a delightful introduction to the natural history of the New Zealand seashore. The stage is set with beautiful, factually correct illustrations (including detailed cross-sections) of three familiar habitats - the sandy beach, rock pools and mudflats. Many of the plants and animals that play a part in these rich ecosystems are shown in situ, and readers are directed from there to pages dedicated to detailed coverage of:
- Crabs
- Sea stars, Kina and Sea Anemones
- Shellfish
- Seaweeds, Sponges and Sandhoppers
- Fish, Jellyfish and Shrimps
- Birds

The book covers not only the sandy seashore, or "the beach" as my children call it, but also "mudflats", which is great for us as we live (like lots of New Zealanders) close to some. We often walk the little trail that weaves it's way around the edge of the inlet, yet other than a bit of bird spotting we haven't really "explored" it at all.

 We took the book along with the hope of identifying some of the "creatures" beautifully illustrated within it's pages. We searched for the movements of mud crabs, we saw lots of mangrove seedlings and we spotted quite a few of the birds pictured.

The bird pages where especially helpful (many of the birds were a mixture of black, white and grey) and there was some lively debate over what birds we had spotted! The book comes with a removable, waterproof, quick reference guide which unfortunately we didn't have because our copy is borrowed from our local library, but I imagine that would have been really helpful to have on our walk and perhaps even handier if we were exploring a "sandy beach". The children were excited to pour over the pages, spotting lots of things they wanted to see and find, a trip to a "sandy beach" was suggested, no surprises there! I particularly loved the cross section illustrations, showing a sneak peek into the daily lives of our local sea creatures. 

I love that inside the front cover there is a little blurb about "staying safe at the beach" and also "look after the beach and it's creatures". Very important stuff to teach our children and remind ourselves too! 

Click on the logo above to take you to the awards page to see what other great books are nominated, maybe like me you could find some in your local library or bookshop to take on a wee adventure of your own. 

Great

After school today I told the kids we were off on an adventure, not  really an exaggeration on my part, certainly an adventure in kid terms. I'd packed a few supplies, a great book to read, a cake, picnic blanket and water bottles ( I don't really leave the house without the kids water bottles, you too?).

We didn't have to travel far, which initially bought some disappointment, "this isn't an adventure" - maybe I over sold it? We are so lucky to live opposite a large park/sporting ground. After finding a perfect spot under some trees, we set up our blanket and the cake was spied immediately! With cake in hand they sat, under the trees, with the late Autumn afternoon sun filtering through the leaves as I read, A great cake by Tina Matthews a finalist in New Zealand Post Children's Book Awards.  I read it not once, but SEVERAL times - like all good books, you can't just read them the once! I had a totally captive audience, I should have bought more books along!

The cake! Made with the recipe in the back of the book 

Miss E is wearing pants by Croutons 

I don't want to give too much away about this book, but I'll share the little blurb from the Bookseller's website : "The essential ingredients in this book are family, imaginative play and simple pleasures. A must for every family with a preschooler. (I agree!)

Harvey wants to bake a great cake, but doesn't have all the ingredients. That doesn't stop him. Harvey can make cakes from the most amazing things"

Harvey has a couple of attempts at making a cake with some interesting ingredients, so once story time was over I sent the kids on a scavenger hunt to try and recreate the "cake" on the cover of the book, (yip I bought a wee bucket with me too, a well planned adventure!). I think they might have enjoyed scavenging around the park more than the actual eating of the cake! They found all sorts of things and even more on the walk back home. 

It made me think why don't we do that more often? Take a bunch of books to the park, or even set up in our back yard and have a read together. It's great just to get out of the house and forget about the housework, we came home all refreshed. 

I'd like to share a bit of back ground info on Tina Mathews the talented writer and illustrator of this book.

"Tina Mathews was born in New Zealand and now lives with her family in Sydney. She is an artist and designer who has worked in children's theatre and television for 25 years. Including on Bananas in Pyjamas, The Ferals, The Upside Down Show and Jim Henson's Labyrinth. Tina teaches puppetry at NIDA and is designer of the best selling Black and White Baby Mobile.

Her first title with Walker Books Australia, Out of the Egg won the Best First Book Award in the 2008 New Zealand Post Book Awards and Waiting for Later was a finalist in the Picture Book category of the 2012 New Zealand Post Book Awards" (info gained from the Booksellers website)

I was really impressed with the quality of the illustrations in "A great cake", after the initial reading the kids took great delight in pouring over the pages and looking at the little details in the illustrations. It's also got a "great" recipe in the back for making a cake of your own, delicious! Delicious I tell you!

This little adventurous outing has got me thinking of all, the other places we could take some books with us to read. Any suggestions? I think we'll  I'll abandon the housework and have afternoon tea/reading in the park more often.

A big thanks to Booksellers for supplying us with a review copy of  "A great cake"!

books!

So, it's kind of exciting that I'm part of the media team for the New Zealand Post Children's Book Awards! 
It couldn't have come at a better time for our family, because we've gone a little off track with our book reading. First of all, I'm a BIG book lover, children's books especially. When we are op shopping, I'm always encouraging the kids to choose a book to take home over a plastic toy, they don't need too much convincing on that by the way, they love them as much as I do. There is a big basket of books in our lounge that they read and lots more in their bedrooms. Books, books, books! Our house runneth over with books! But somehow we've stopped reading them to each other, or more accurately I've stopped reading to them. The kids both have readers each night from school/preschool that they read to me or Mr Green Buttons, they are allowed to read in bed and I every night I pull books off their little asleep faces and tuck them in.So I'm not sure when the reading to them stopped, it was something that I cherished, getting cosy on the couch with a child on each knee, getting lost in a book.

But we are bringing back the book reading! Over the coming weeks I'm going to share with you some of the books we are reading from the New Zealand Post Children's Book Awards finalist list and some of the activities and ideas we get from them. I hope you'll join me! You can find a list of the New Zealand Post Children's Book Awards finalists here. Do check them out at your local book store or library and support New Zealand writers and illustrators.