He's fearless, he's four foot tall, he's Mike the Knight and the second of our TV Tie-In reviews today. Charlotte was ridiculously excited about this when it turned up for review and dived straight into it with @thestrollingmum.

In this adventure, Mike is about to pose for a royal portrait. But how can a knight (even a mini-one!) pose with nothing but a fishing rod in his scabbard?

Mike sets out with his spellcasting sister Evie for an adventure, to try and find a real sword - but gets distracted when the palace's two dogs run off and get lost in the dark woods.

Stranded in the middle of a mud patch, it's up to Mike (with a little help from Evie) to rescue the dogs before they end up enjoying a muddy bath.

Charlotte and her mum really enjoyed practicing their 'Knightly poses' (I think Mummy's recent habit of watching 'Merlin' probably helped a lot with this, but thankfully we don't see Mike the Knight getting his top off every five seconds!)

A great little TV tie in, and if your mini ones are avid Mike the Knight fans, they'll love this to bits! One thing we did find though, at times the text is pretty poorly laid out and can be difficult to follow as it seems to lack a bit of 'flow' - also, dark text on a dark background is a very bad idea for bedtime reading when the lights are low and you're trying to relax your little ones before snuggling down to bed.

Charlotte's best bit: Practicing Knightly Poses with mummy

Daddy's favourite bit: Mike's fishing rod sword, how cool is that!

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

ReadItDaddy temporarily switches over to WatchItWithDaddy for a moment or two. Thanks to the good folks at HiT Entertainment, we've been given a preview copy of Thomas the Tank Engine's latest movie - Day of the Diesels - to review. 


Charlotte has been a fan of Thomas the Tank Engine for quite a while, mostly because she's inherited a lot of her uncle's "Railway Series" books and has seen a few episodes of the HiT Entertainment "Thomas and Friends" series airing on Channel 5's "Milkshake" segment. 


Those who remember the cute Thomas stop-motion stuff from the 1980s may already know that Thomas and the Island of Sodor are all now rendered in CGI. What's important though is that this hasn't changed a thing - the little engine and the rest of the characters are as great as ever they were. 


"Day of the Diesels" introduces us to some new characters that viewers of the TV show won't have seen before. There's Belle, a fantastic engine who can fight fires along with her friend Flynn, a rail-going fire engine as happy on the road as he is on the tracks. 


Then there are the diesels. They're dirty, they're rude and if truth be told, they're more than a little bit devious.


Without spoiling the movie too much, Day of the Diesels is more about Percy the little engine than it is about his best friend Thomas. In fact Thomas plays second fiddle to most of the characters in this movie but there's a good reason, as the movie weaves quite a purposeful tale of friendship, misunderstanding and what can happen if you fall in with a bad crowd. 


Diesel 10 - the silver-tongued (and slightly sinister) main miscreant in "Day of the Diesels" takes Percy under his wing. But is his friendship genuine, or does Diesel 10 have a rather sinister ulterior motive...?


Any engine with a gigantic claw on its roof can't be trustworthy, surely?


The film runs for just over an hour and despite a lot of to-ing and fro-ing, managed to keep Charlotte rivetted to the spot. She found some of the diesels a little bit scary (as I said, the main 'baddie' having a huge snapping claw on his roof was a bit scarier than the average TV episode) but thoroughly enjoyed the movie and wanted it straight back on again for a second viewing as soon as the end credits rolled. 


The bonuses on the Blu Ray (and DVD versions) were excellent too. Simple animated sequences to show exactly how Steamies and Diesels both work. There are also "guess the character" games, and two of the very catchy songs from the movie are also available with full sing-along lyrics. 


The movie will be released on DVD and Blu Ray on September 26th, 2011 - Here's an Amazon link. 

Thomas & Friends - Day of the Diesels [DVD] [2011]



Charlotte's best bit - Belle the brave fire-fighting engine


Daddy's favourite bit - The Diesels going absolutely loopy at the Steamworks


Rating - 4 out of 5 stars


(This item was sent to us for review)