Wide Eyed effortlessly bag their first Book of the Week of 2020 with a book that we road-tested with our guest star mini book-blogger, C's 5 year old cousin. She loves maths and numbers already, and really loved this fantastic cross between a 'find the hidden objects' book and a counting book.

"Search and Find: A Number of Numbers" by A.J Wood and Allan Sanders is a huge amount of fun, filled with numbers of course but also filled with exquisitely detailed scenes, and a ton of fun characters to make this far more than just a 'by the numbers' learning experience (did you see what we did there?)

There are 26 fun page spreads with the usual numbers 1 to 10 and beyond, right up to a fantastically detailed spread containing 100 objects for you to discover.

There are also quirky extra things to find, and if you get to the back of the book, even more suggestions for things you may have missed (which caused squeals of delight from our guest little miss when we shared the book with her).




It's a large format book, which means it's perfect for sprawling out on the floor with to fully enjoy all the exquisite little sight gags and details that A.J and Allan have crammed into this one.

Absolutely brilliant stuff for early years, and far more fun than those dull books that just count from one to ten!

Sum this book up in a sentence: A fun-filled slice of numerical awesomeness to kick off 2020 in grand style, making learning your numbers a huge amount of fun!

"Search and Find: A Number of Numbers" by A.J Wood and Allan Sanders is out now, published by Wide Eyed Editions (kindly supplied for review). 

Got an art itch that you need to scratch? In the long summer holidays we find that happens a lot...!

Here's a pair of fantastic activity books to stimulate your senses and bring out your creative side.

The "Etchart" series allows you to take a stylus and bring out the amazing beauty of the designs in both books.

Starting with "Hidden forest" there are 9 different scenes to etch your own designs onto, with black scrape-friendly surfaces providing a wealth of colourful designs once you start to reveal the layer underneath.

It's a neat idea both my wife and I remember from our childhood, brought forward in time to dazzle a whole new generation of creative kids who will love this simple but thoroughly absorbing activity.

The designs are really beautiful, intricate and folk-arty...

Reveal the glorious colours underneath the black etchable surface.

It's then over to your child's imagination to make their own beautiful designs spring to life.

There's also "Secret Sea" for children who prefer something a bit more nautical, again with 9 fabulous designs featuring undersea animals and plant life, ready for your artistic designs and etchings.

We loved these books, there's something quite restful and mindful about gently scratching away at the dark surface to bring out the colours (though you might want to put some newspaper down so that all those little black bits don't go all over carpets or clothes for younger kids).

The "Etchart" range starts with "Hidden Forest" and "Secret Sea", both available now from Wide Eyed Editions (kindly supplied for review).