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Find out moreActivity books are a great way to keep kids entertained. Pack one of these activity or puzzle books for your next long journey. To help you choose, download an extract and you can order the book too!
Eleven year-old, Harrison Beck is very reluctantly joining his Uncle Nat for the last journey on the royal steam train, The Highland Falcon. His mum is having another baby and he feels he is being sent away…..But as the train makes its way to Scotland, Harrison realises this could be more fun than he first thought. Within the first few hours, a priceless diamond brooch goes missing and things suddenly get a lot more interesting on board. As suspicions and accusations become heated amongst the high-profile passengers, Harrison turns detective and uncovers a few surprises along the way. Can he solve the mystery and catch the thief before they reach the end of the line…..?
Find the perfect silly joke in this collection from Andy Griffiths and Terry Denton, the creators of the internationally bestselling Treehouse series. Q: How do monkeys make toast? A: They put it under a gorilla! Q: What's grey and powdery? A: Instant elephant mix! From Bears to Birds, Penguins to Pirates, School to Space, The Treehouse Joke Book is packed full of hilarious jokes and silly one-liners that will make anyone laugh their socks off. The perfect gift for any Treehouse fan, join Andy and Terry as they find the ideal joke for any occasion!
Little mouse Winston stars in a perfect Christmas adventure. Even for a mouse, he’s small but Winston’s got a big heart and when he finds a lost letter for Father Christmas he’s determined to see it delivered. His expedition is full of challenges, but along the way he’s helped by some equally warm-hearted and generous animals, including a beautiful white cat and a rat who ‘works’ at the famous Fortesque’s department store. Winston’s good deed is rewarded and the little mouse finds a warm bed and a new family for Christmas. The book is divided into 24 ½ chapters – one a day for 1st – 24th December plus a treat for Christmas morning! Interspersed are festive craft activities too and there can’t be a better book to set readers up for Christmas. Alex T Smith’s illustrations are gorgeous – big, busy and dramatic scenes but always with our little hero centre stage.
Bring the Bolds into your home for some festive fun and frolics! Julian Clary’s stories of the Bolds, a family of hyenas who live in Teddington disguised as humans, are full of fun, mischief and charm, and so is this Bolds-themed Christmas activity book. Packed with David Roberts’ fabulous illustrations it’s gorgeous to look at and the different activities featured are certain to keep everyone smiling too. Naturally the jokes are of a particularly high standard – Mr Bold’s job is to write cracker jokes after all – but there are some good riddles too as well as puzzles and, best of all, lots of chances to draw or write about the Bolds. Lots of fun and a perfect Christmas gift.
Invent 100s of games with friends and family | Featuring over fifty stylishly rendered boards, this is an interactive doodle book with a difference, and certainly takes the lingering trend for adult colouring-in books to the next level. Most of the book comprises unfinished boards for users to transform into their own tabletop games – twenty designs in all, followed by twenty-five sets of rules for players to choose to follow, each of which encourages creativity with suggestions for fashioning your own versions of classic board games. There’s also plenty of options for users to invent their own entirely new games, with a superb “Stuck for Ideas?” section that suggests fun themes and mash-ups, among them “Throne of Crowns” and “Uninvited Ghost”. There are suggestions specially devised for younger players too (for example “The Magical Maze” and “Lost Pets”) making this a compendium of creativity for all ages. Taking an average of half an hour to create each game and a further half an hour to play, this provides a plethora of opportunities to exercise one’s cerebral muscles while having a whole lot of fun.
November 2019 Book of the Month | Prepare to explore ten of the most haunted places on Earth in this striking book, and then to learn their secrets ingeniously with the help of coloured lenses. With the naked eye, the huge colour illustrations are just a jumble of lines; enticing, but baffling. View the same pages through one of three different coloured lenses, and suddenly a whole new vista springs into life. The red lens shows the people who inhabited these special places (ranging from Bran Castle, Romania to San Juan Chamula Cemetery, Mexico), the green lens shows us the place and its surroundings in detail, while best of all the blue lens magics up the ghostly and supernatural beings that haunt it. Short, sharp snippets of information accompanying vignettes on the following page tell us more about our discoveries. It’s a treat to explore, deliciously spooky and the illustrations are super stylish.
Over 70 fun activities for children | I wish this book had been produced when I first started teaching, I would have loved all the different ideas and the clear and interesting way the pages are laid out. As an experienced teacher, however, I found that many of the ideas, story starters and writing suggestions a little predictable. Nonetheless, the ideas/brainstorming pages were brilliantly written with some super ideas to inspire, such as the A-Z of character traits, the use of a dice to choose settings for a story and the work on genres and choosing better words. It is a very accessible book and I would definitely use many of the ideas included. I do think the author has missed a trick, however, as it would be very easy to tuck in some grammar in amongst the creative suggestions. Key words such as ‘alliteration’ and the use of descriptive adjectives and verbs could easily have been mentioned or even disguised amongst the pages, making the book a more valuable resource. As with any activity book, it is one to dip in and out of rather than follow religiously, but is certainly idea provoking and very accessible to both teacher and child. Its accessibility and clear concise instructions would also lend itself well to the parent who wants to work on some writing tasks at home, or for a keen, creative child who wants some extension tasks or a fun writing task to work on independently. A fun and well-constructed workbook that I am sure will prove a popular resource.
September 2019 Book of the Month | Room on the Broom, Julia Donaldson and Axel Scheffler’s story of a kind-hearted witch is now recognised as a modern classic, a book that should be in every little child’s collection. With its rhyme and repetition, jolly cast of characters and wonderfully satisfying ending, it can hardly be bettered – except that here it can, because as well as the story and the pictures and the rhyme, there are also sound buttons so that children can join in and croak with the frog, woof with the dog and ‘whoosh’ with the broom. One to share for Hallowe’en or indeed any night of the year.
September 2019 Book of the Month | This lovely book is packed with a whole host of ideas so that parents, with the help of their children, can throw a fabulous party themed around Julia Donaldson and Axel Scheffler’s much loved Room on the Broom picture book. It’s all there, from invitations to party games and decorations, to tasty food – cauldron sandwiches and ice cream potion anyone? All the ideas are fun but straightforward and well-explained, while extras helpfully include photocopiable and traceable pages. Guaranteed to make the party preparations lots of fun while the two hours party time itself will fly by!
Matilda is BRAVE and BRILLIANT - and you can be too! Packed with GAMES, JOKES AND QUIZZES and much more, this marvellous book has all the tips and tricks you need to become a REAL HERO and even stand up to THE TERRIBLE TRUNCHBULL.
August 2019 Book of the Month | Inside this sturdy and pretty little box, children will find the story of Alice in Wonderland, but told via 20 double-sided puzzle pieces (and with some thoroughly modern twists – the White Rabbit sports a natty baseball cap and unlocks flamingos from what looks a lot like a bike docking system). It’s up to readers to put the pieces of the story together which, of course, allows for endless new and different versions. The illustrations by Anne Laval are bright, lively and attractive, and surely Lewis Carroll would have thoroughly approved of the concept. Great fun for children who enjoy reading and creating their own stories.
Every Harry Potter fan worth their salt will know their wingardium leviosa from their expelliamus, but this handsome book takes a really close look at the myriad different spells cast and warded off in the books, using stills and images from the Warner Brothers films as illustration. There are quotes and anecdotes from the actors too together with behind-the-scenes information on how the spells were created on screen. It all makes for fascinating stuff, and added extras include stickers, pull out posters and, best of all, a set of special Patronus cards for characters including Harry, Ron and Hermione. Guaranteed to keep Harry Potter fans spellbound for hours!
