The Love2Read Photo Books are a fab way to encourage children to enjoy reading, where they can be the star!

Our recent holiday to Tenerife was a lot of fun. But like most parents we never seem to get round to printing our holiday photos out - or any photos for that matter, as the world goes digital and we tend to keep all our pics on various digital or cloud sources.

So for once, it was extremely nice to be able to put together something unique and personal that had a dual purpose. Not only offering an attractive little summary of our holiday, but also a great little reading book for Charlotte to enjoy too.

Coming up with the idea of a web-driven book design service that uses various subjects (as you can see from the header image above, books about dad, holidays, friends etc) that can be tailored in a very easy to use online interface, Love2Read lets parents (and children) put together the books, before they're submitted for printing.

You'll get an absolutely BRILLIANT confirmation email back once your book is ready, then it will wing its way to you in the post.

It's a great idea for parents to do these as surprise presents for children or for books that a child can read while staying with grandparents or other family (our holiday one has been a huge hit with our relatives and friends) who can snuggle down with Charlotte and let her read it to them.

As mentioned before, the site is easy to use and you can save your photobook project part way through and come back to it.

The only thing we could mention really is that there's a list of keywords at the back of the book, common phrases that I'm assuming could've been drawn from the book's text but we couldn't see any way to alter this in the online design tools - so when our book turned up it just had the words "Holiday" and "Book" repeated over and over again rather than a list of words we'd come up with ourselves. It seemed to be the only part of the process that needed a tweak.

The results are great though and it's definitely something we'll consider using again for different book subjects or occasions. So whether you're looking for a unique surprise gift for a child just taking their first steps in reading independently, or just want a brilliant memento of an event or to celebrate a family member's birthday this is a really nice little idea.

(We were kindly supplied with a promo code in order to be able to use the Love2Read Service and try it out for ourselves)

Play dress-up with the extensive Usborne "Sticker Dolly Dressing" range (including "On Holiday!")

While the sun still blazes away in the sky (and the inevitable mumbles about 'it being the rainy season soon' rumble around like gathering grey clouds) it's the perfect opportunity to kick off our next #ReadItMD13 Theme Week - Holidays!

The long school summer holiday is here for most of us (we've actually been 'in it' for the last two weeks but a lot of kids broke up last friday) and there's always time to cram in a stack of summer reading and activity books for children.

Let's start with the Usborne sticker range, particularly the "Sticker Dolly Dressing" books. These are staple fodder at home, and with hundreds of stickers and brilliant illustrations, they're great for keeping kids occupied for a while. We recently looked at the fabulous "History" range with the Edwardian Costume book, and we've also been enjoying "Sticker Dolly Dressing - On Holiday" too.

The Usborne Holiday Activity Book - Makes, puzzles and stickers ahoy!

Usborne do quite an extensive range of activity books including the above holiday-themed one, and our recently reviewed "Summer things to make and do". They're very reasonably priced so stop by your fab local indie and pick up one or two.

Reading wise, we're aiming to tackle a few lengthier books over the summer as well as our usual picture book fare.


The Strolling Mum and Charlotte have recently been thrilling to the antics of those fabulous Rescue Princesses. Written by the wonderful Paula Harrison and published by Nosy Crow, the 2nd adventure "The Wishing Pearl" has been very well received at home with Mummy and Charlotte chipping away at it a chapter a night, which is a great way to supplement short and sweet picture books with early chapter reading for children who are just beginning to shrug off the need for illustrations with their text. Paula's Rescue Princesses, and her new range of Faerie Tribes books are hugely popular and thrilling so we're always ready for a new Princess or Faerie adventure.

Faerie Tribes by Paula Harrison - Edge-of-the-seat fairy-based stuff, awesome!

Our early chapter-based book list is rapidly growing and also on our stack is Mo O'Hara's latest giggle-a-thon "My Big Fat Zombie Goldfish 2 - The Sea-Quel" serves up a tasty seaside batter-covered duo of stories that are sure to tickle the funny bones and the tastebuds of your discerning mighty mites.

My Big Fat Zombie Goldfish - The Sea-Quel by Mo O-Hara. Do NOT look into his eyes!!

It's great fun and the bonus horrifying flip-book corner is ace!

We'll be back later on in the theme week with more summer book recommendations to tide things over during the holiday. In the meantime, please drop your favourite holiday or summer-based book recommendations into the comments below, tell us what YOU'RE reading!