A bookish Advent
Tomorrow is the start of advent, the count down to Christmas. There are many different ways families count down, the most popular is an advent calendar of some sort, often involving chocolate. In recent years, I've seen some ideas for advent calendars involving books,...
Getting back the joy in writing for our children
I am a big believer that writing should be fun. Everyone should be given the opportunity to have fun with writing and with words. There is an article going around titled Where has the joy of writing gone and how do we get it back for our children?. A lot of the...
Alternative places to buy new books
When you think of buying books, you probably think of heading to your nearest bookshop or going online to sites such as Amazon. There are some other places you can go to buy books, especially if you want to discover some new authors. While you can also get second hand...
Why books make great Christmas gifts
Christmas is about six weeks away and almost everywhere you look, people are asking for recommendations for Christmas gifts. My answer to them always is BOOKS. Books make fantastic Christmas gifts, no matter who you are giving them to. Here are eight reasons why: They...
Modelling Reading to your Kids
As a parent, I'm constantly told that I need to model reading to my children so that they will learn to love books and reading too. The reality is simple, life is busy. It can be hard to fit in something else, even something as enjoyable as getting into a good book,...
What I’ve Read – October 2018
During October, I took a break from audio books, partly because I didn't have as much time as I wanted to browse the library shelves to find some, and because my kids took control of the CD player in the car! The list of books read during October has been shorter than...
What I’ve Read – September 2018
September was a month full of audio books and picture books! At least it felt like that. I started the month with an audio book, Full House by Janet Evanovich. I picked this up in the library as I loved the Stephanie Plum series. This was a fun book to listen to on...
Latrobe Valley Eisteddfod – 2018
We moved to the Latrobe Valley a few months ago. Since moving, I've been spreading the word that I'm now an author local to the area. Last week, I donated copies of my books to the Latrobe Valley Eisteddfod as encouragement awards for the Speech and Drama section. All...
What I’ve Read – August 2018
Billie B Brown and The Ella Diaries dominated August. I had to read them before passing them on to a friend who has a Little Free Library. Both of these series came out after my kids had grown past them and, having two boys, probably wouldn't have been picked up by...
Chapter Book Challenge Lite – 2018
Today is the first day of ChaBooCha Lite. This is a challenge I first participated in during 2012 and have done every year since it began. All my currently published middle grade books were written and/or edited at some point during the Chapter Book Challenge (March)...