Wow, January was a busy month wasn't it? But we're not slowing down. I might have just hit the half century (yes, saying it like that makes it sound EVEN MORE SCARY THAN IT IS!) but that doesn't mean C or I will be easing off on the throttle of bringing you the most amazing book reviews every single month.

So we're kicking off with a new book that definitely caught both our eyes. "Horace and Harriet Take on the Town (Horace and Harriet Book 1)" by Clare Elsom. It's such a fresh and original idea that we really wanted to make a huge fuss about it - so we are!

Lord Commander Horatio Frederick Wallington Nincompoop Maximus Pimpleberry the Third (or Horace, for short) has been a statue on a plinth in Princes Park for hundreds of years.
Somewhere in the Badlands, embedded deep in rock and sand, lies the skeleton of a massive dinosaur, larger than anything the world has ever seen.
In this first book we meet the Bear family, who, sadly, are locked up in a bear pit in Berne.  As the mighty alien fleet from the latest computer game thunders across the screen, Johnny prepares to blow them into the usual million pieces.  Muddle the puppy is magic, but he's also a little bit naughty! 

This could almost be the definition of C's perfect picture book, featuring that most beloved of subjects dear to her heart...

We're taking a trip to an incredible destination with intrepid Professor Astro Cat and his crew. But this time we're not jetting off into space...more like Inner Space!

Two of our absolute children's book HEROES have combined mighty forces for a whole new take on that classic nursery rhyme...sizzling stuff!

Ooh now this is utterly WONDERFUL! A new "Search and Find" book revolving around one of our favourite children's books of all time...

There are just SO MANY great books around at the moment. So we couldn't resist cramming in one more "Book of the Week" winner this week for a chapter book par excellence...

Sometimes a picture book text just flows over you, like the gentle lapping of a stream's cool currents or the whisper of a summer breeze. So it is with our second picture book of the week this week, "The Night Box" by Louise Greig and Ashling Lindsay.

It definitely seems to be a fantastic year for dog books, as our first Picture Book of the Week for this week definitely demonstrates...

Our Comic(s) of the Week this week hail back to a (sadly departed) attempt to stick a ton of dynamite up the butt of the british children's comic industry...

One of the things that's always worried me about being a book blogger, and having a book-blogging daughter is that sometimes the sheer number of books we read can lead to an interesting (but slightly worrying) pattern developing.

This week's ReadItTorial post was partially inspired by a Twitter conversation around what constitutes "A Matilda* level of book numbers read". There seems to be a belief that the more books a child packs in during a given year, the more successful they will be in other aspects of their life (particularly academic).

It's fair to say that a child who genuinely loves reading will definitely reap their own rewards at school. We quite often have some rather nice compliments paid to us about C's reading ability (and one of the positives from the Twitter conversation was hearing the same from other booky parents), and her sheer voraciousness for books.

We politely (and yes, sometimes rather smugly) smile, grateful that when our daughter is stuck for something to do, she'll reach for a book rather than an iPad, games controller or something else screen-based. We actually get a lot of negative comments about the amount (or lack) of screen time C gets. Usually at weekends when there's some dead time C will either catch up with comics, catch up with reading or opt to play a game on the iPad or games consoles but very rarely so, and she knows where the boundaries are and not to push against them (don't we sound like the most horrible hateful strict parents!)

Honestly though, normally the default is reading or books.

I get a slight tingle in the hairs on the back of my neck when I see folk professing that their child has read a 'phenomenal number of books'.

I keep a spreadsheet of the books we read and review through the blog, and most years the blog has been in existence I can honestly say that we have read AT LEAST 500 as the lower end of the scale, but sometimes on a good year we've cleared over a thousand. For want of a frame of reference, in 2017 we read, reviewed and wrote up over 700 books and that's just the stuff documented as part of our normal blogging schedule, that doesn't reflect older stuff we've re-read or stuff we've read but not reviewed.

The only reason we count at all is from a necessity to have some semblance of organisation around the blog. The spreadsheet I keep is a convenient way to keep track of what we've been sent, stuff we've reviewed (splitting picture book and chapter book sections so we can track each individually) or any blog tours etc that we're taking part in. Nothing more, and certainly not some "My child is better than yowrse" yardstick.

The point I'm getting to glacially slowly is that competing over 'numbers read' seems like a really odd thing to do, and fails to take into account that the types of reader vary greatly in children and adults.

For example, all three of us (my wife, C and me) all read at different speeds. I'm a dyed-in-the-wool speed reader (having previously learned speed-reading techniques to blast through huge thick technical manuals for Microsoft exams). Unable to switch this off, but able to blast through a decent sized paperback in a few nights or less. Always with a need to re-read books later on if they've piqued my interest enough and I feel I need a second or third pass.

My wife polishes off a fair-sized paperback in a week or just over. She can blast through most stuff fairly quickly, and has more staying power when it comes to books (I'll basically ditch a book if it starts to bore the pants off me, but she usually stays with them through hell and high water).

C can blat through middle grade chapter books in a single night or a couple of nights (which is very handy for the reviews), squeezing in other reading at breakfast, sometimes after school (homework permitting), mostly at weekends and always after we've read to her at night.

Some children will read slowly, savouring every single morsel on the page, almost to the point of wearing the print off. Some will (like C) read books incredibly quickly, or juggle several at a time (this is another nasty habit C has picked up from me but it's not exactly difficult to see why).

Then of course there's the other factor in the numbers game. If you proudly claim your child can get through more than 300 J.K Rowling / Deathly Hallows-sized books a year, that's definitely something of an achievement (and makes me wonder what the heck they do with the couple of hours they have spare every day, I'm assuming food is ingested, personal cleanliness is taken care of, perhaps they even go to school?)

But in all honesty, the end line for this ReadItTorial is that clamouring about numbers read, in the words of the great Shania Twain "Don't impress me much" - Now if you have genuine tales of your child intricately dissecting a book, its world, its characters and being able to passionately talk about that book in glorious detail, that's likely to impress both of us far more.

(* - Matilda the Roald Dahl book, of course!)

We beg you, we implore you...PLEASE DO NOT CLICK ON THIS REVIEW...!

Frustrated that there has never been a follow up to the awesome "The Book With No Pictures" by B.J. Novak? Step right this way...

Canine fans are going to fall instantly in love with this happy-go-lucky poochy pal...

Now here's a book we can REALLY relate to, after all nothing worth doing is worth doing by halves is it?

Here's a tasty treat of a book that's all about sharing and friendships that'll entertain tinies with a cool cast of animal characters...

Books that deal with children's anxiety issues in a thoughtful and sensitive way are so valuable as part of a child's early years...

We love these rib-tickling "How To" guides from Margaret and Holly. Here's a handy guide for little ones welcoming a new pet into the house for the first time...

Everyone has a favourite toy, but what happens when your friend has a cool toy they want to swap  with you for your favourite thing?

Adam Stower is really no stranger to our Book of the Week slot...having staked his claim here with his fantastic picture books on a regular basis...

This one has been on our "Watch" list ever since we found out about it...and we're delighted to make this a Book of the Week for so many reasons...

There are so many artists and authors we always keep a very sharp eye on at all times when it comes to upcoming new releases...

We're delighted to have a guest post from Juliette Forrest, talking about five inspirational things that help her dream up the fantastic characters and worlds in her fabulous stories.

Without further ado, over to Juliette!

Oh dear. Pre-made costumes for a 'click and buy' generation. Convenient  or cash-in?

World Book Day is almost upon us - and once again on the 1st of March, book-loving kids all over the country (except, weirdly, those at C's school) will dress up as their favourite literary characters.

Or at least that's what's supposed to happen. You see World Book Day seems to have become yet another source of stress and annoyance for many parents, and just as many kids too.

Every year it feels like the pressure is on to come up with a costume that isn't just some shop-bought piece of tat (like the header image above, a merciless cash-in branded with the WBD ident and logo. I wonder how much Dave's topslice of the revenue from these is?)

Most of the stress at home comes from the element of competition schools introduce with World Book Day - and that bizarre 'middle-class-parent' struggle to come to school in a costume that looks like you've roped in a Hollywood Wardrobe Designer to design and build an eerily accurate rendition of a character cossie from a book.

Though C's school doesn't actually celebrate or support the day itself (and it seems a lot of schools do their own thing at other times of the year - just like C's school) there are still the inevitable times when we're called on to design a costume, make the durned thing (with my wife normally doing the bulk of the hard work - I just contribute the 'fancy bits' sometimes, as I can't sew to save my life) and then send C to school in something that most teachers and kids will scratch their heads at, and ask "Who are you meant to be?"

Quite often it's made worse by our school's bizarre choice of 'themes' for their own book week. Normally they seem to default to stuff like "Dress as someone from a Roald Dahl book" (easy enough, 'Girl from "The Magic Finger" it is then!) or someone from Alice in Wonderland...but...well...

You see, we're subversives - and as such we always look for the 'non mainstream' approach when it comes to Book Day / week costumes.

To date, C has gone to school dressed as the girl from "Pirate Girl" by Cornelia Funke. She's gone as Laura Ingalls Wilder from the "Little House on the Prairie" novels. She went as a huge and rather complex flower design meant to be one of the living flowers from Alice in Wonderland (because virtually ALL the other girls in her class just stuck a blue dress and Alice band on and went as Alice herself instead). All our costumes have been home made, probably taken longer than we'd liked but it felt more like we were entering into the spirit of world book day - to celebrate the joy of reading and have a bit of fun making a costume that didn't suck.

Anyway, back to that header image and the thought that World Book Day has become yet another celebratory day hijacked by mass consumerism.

If you think the Walliams costumes were bad, here's H & M's attempt to provide ready made costumes...

Crikey, talk about a lazy pass...

Obviously we do not have any problem at all with the prospect of comic characters being legit WBD characters / costumes but the above just shows what a rubbish and lazy pass big companies are capable of when they're trying to tap into the passion and imagination that *should* surround this day.

It does at least give most parents a ready made and 'easy' alternative (honestly though, can you really be as cheeky as to dress your girls up in Disney Princess costumes because "Snow White was a book once, right?").

Still our question remains though - what do you think World Book Day is about? What should it be about? Why does it often feel like books, a celebration of creativity and the essence of why we encourage our kids to read for pleasure is completely and utterly lost somehow? Admittedly this may be our own experience and ours alone. We look on in envy every WBD at some of the things that happen in other people's schools and wonder why not ours. But I'm sure we can't be the only ones thoroughly jaded with the whole thing? For book bloggers that feels a bit...strange really. We should be looking forward to it every year, not dreading it.

Sometimes it feels like WBD is now destined to become as tacky and over-commercialised as Halloween - a day that (I swear to god) would not have become the sh*t-show it has over here if it wasn't for the movie "E.T The Extra Terrestrial"?

We do at least get some cracking mini book editions going out on WBD which definitely make the day worthwhile from a reader perspective. But this biz about the costumes really can take the shine off things big time.

Let's hope this year's is a huge success but let's see less of the profiteering, more of the celebration of reading and fantastic kids books this year, eh?