Booky Advent Calendar Day 6 - 6th December 2013 - "Jack's Mega Machines" by Alison Ritchie and Mike Byrne (Simon and Schuster Children's Books)

We were lucky enough to receive not one but two fantastic "Jack's Mega Machines" books in the post recently - and they're great as christmas presents. Alison Ritchie and Mike Byrne have been establishing something of a cult following for these books, and their innovative papercraft vehicles.

In "Jack's Mega Machines - Supersonic Submarine", Jack's fabulous magic garage plays host to a brilliant little yellow submarine - ready for undersea adventures as Jack winds up caught amidst a fabulous football competition with a pod of happy dolphins.

In "Jack's Mega Machines - The Mighty Monster Truck" Jack fixes up a cool pick-up that magically transforms into a fat-tyred mud-stomping monster truck, just in time to embark on a perilous mission to rescue a little monster from a treetop in a dark, dark forest.

Though these books are firmly pitched at vehicle-loving boys, Charlotte always enjoys reading the stories together and playing with the vehicles - letting her imagination fly as she makes up her own stories using the papercraft models.

As we've said in our previous reviews of these fabulous books, the models are fairly tricky to remove from the book at first (the sticky stuff is just a bit too sticky, and resulted in Jack's supersonic submarine losing a wing - despite me being extremely careful about removing the models from the back cover).

Rollicking stories, brilliant artwork. Begin your Jack's Mega Machines collection today!

Charlotte's best bit: The poor monster truck getting completely trashed in "The Mighty Monster Truck!"

Daddy's Favourite bit: Brilliant undersea adventures and dolphin fun in "Supersonic Submarine"

(Kindly sent to us for review by Simon and Schuster Children's Books)