Happy Third Birthday ReadItDaddy! Bumper Bonus Bloggy Birthday Post!

Mmm! Cupcakes!

Today is ReadItDaddy's third birthday! Hooray! We've been up and running for a lot longer but we started out with our Blogger site 3 years ago this very day and you can take a look at our first post (well, our first non-introductory post) here...

"No Roses for Harry" by Margaret Bloy Graham and Gene Zion (Red Fox Picture Books)

Since then we've managed to somehow scrabble together nearly 1000 book reviews, app reviews, articles and general booky chat. We've met some of the loveliest people in the children's book business and conversed with many many more via our always busy Twitter feed but we thought we'd give you a quick recap of ReadItDaddy and what we do, and why we do it.

• All our reviews are a team effort. I read the books to Charlotte, my 5 year old daughter - and the reviews are put together both from things she says about the book or things the book leads on to (it's always great when a book doesn't finish just because the covers are closed and the older Charlotte gets, the more often a book leads to further investigations and discussions, even crafting activities - awesome!

• We mix together books we've bought ourselves, books we've loaned from our superb local library (Abingdon Library in Oxon is pretty much the fantastic place that got us started with a stack of brilliant book loans and we still drop in as regularly as we can) and we are fortunate enough to have lovely people send us books and things to review too. With the latter, we always mention when things have been sent to us. 

• We are currently running a year-long 'theme' of encouraging parents to read to their children. Each week we'll look at a different topic during 2013. We've covered subjects as diverse as getting kids to draw and doodle, we've covered brilliant books about diversity and inclusivity, songs and stories, rhymes, teacher's favourites and a stack of other topics. Stay tuned for this week's theme which looks to the stars!

• Overall we're here to give you an unbiased and honest opinion on children's books, the old, the new, the borrowed and the blue (and pink). Hopefully you enjoy reading us as much as we enjoy writing for you.