For our Indie slot this week we're looking at some corkers, and we'll kick off with a fabulous flavoursome tome by the wonderful Mrs C. She knows only too well how devoted children can be to avoiding eating their greens, and in this tale we meet Spike - a boy who does exactly that. He'll happily scoff sausages or chomp chips but when it comes to broccoli or peas, Spike turns his nose up! EW!

His little sister loves peas and beans and cabbages, but Max is adamant that he'll never eat his greens.

On a trip to Grandpa's house, Spike and his sister learn how vegetables are grown - but when Grandpa pops off for an afternoon nap, strange things begin to happen in the greenhouse. The vegetables come to life!

Will Spike ever change his mind about the goodness in greenery and the value of veg? You'll have to read the book to find out!

Again, this is the sort of book that we absolutely love - with a story that's fun and engaging for children without feeling too preachy, and some really fun alternative names for our favourite veg (Charlotte of course loved the fact that the Shallot was called Charlotte!)

Mrs C really gets into her role as a veggie ambassador!

"I Don't Like Vegetables" by Mrs C is available from Pavilion Publishing.

About Mrs C

As a mother of three sons, Mrs C knows the importance of getting children to eat a healthy and well balanced diet….. she also knows the challenges and frustrations that arise when trying.

The whole idea behind I Don’t Like Vegetables was to introduce vegetables to children, without dictating to them. She hopes the book will inspire young children everywhere to try new vegetables and grow their own.

After self-publishing and selling out of 1000 copies of the book in 2012, Mrs C has now decided to work with Pavilion Publishing to continue her crusade to bring healthy eating to young children.

When Mrs C isn’t dressed as a carrot and attending schools to read her book, she likes walking her black labrador in the forest. Mrs C lives in North Dorset with her husband and sons.

Charlotte's best bit: Charlotte the Shallot and Carrie-Carrot. Also, giggling at Max wiping his muddy hands on his sister's dress. What a meanie!

Daddy's Favourite bit: Full of fun veggie characters, a touch of magic and a groovy veg-growing grandad. Vital vitamin-packed booky goodness when your child is a devoted salad-dodger (like Charlotte is!)

(Kindly sent to us for review by Pavilion Publishing and Mrs C)

Head Over Heels About Gymnastics Volume 1 - By Head Coach Gemma Coles

For Indie Pen-Dance Wednesday and our second indie book for today, we were lucky enough to be given the opportunity to look at Gemma Coles' excellent "Head Over Heels About...Gymnastics". Described as "An absolute must-have for anyone with an interest in gymnastics", it got Charlotte very excited about taking a look at some of the exercises, and giving them a try at home.

In fact, I'm handing over the review to Charlotte - who loved the book so much that she couldn't wait to start trying out some of the exercises. Here's Charlotte doing some Teddy Bear Rolls.


Volume 1 covers floor skills for girls and boys, with brilliant clear photography and progressive 'shadow moves' to demonstrate each move in detail. Of course, most important is a section on warming up and stretching, and we emphasise this strongly for the purposes of our review, the book should be used with supervision for younger children.

It's hugely encouraging, and Charlotte liked the idea that the book 'stands up' (and hooray, it's spiral-bound too - so it stays put for you to be able to concentrate on move progression without having to juggle with the book while you do so!

What? How does she do that? I can't do that!

Charlotte does Ballet at school and is very active, so the book was definitely of huge interest to her. She now wants to do gymnastics at school as soon as the more organised programmes begin (her school do a gym class but it's fairly informal and doesn't have the structure that the books demonstrate so well).

Charlotte demonstrates a warm-up straddle stretch.

When someone is as passionate about what they do as Gemma obviously is - and puts their expertise and knowledge into a book like this, it really shines through, and provides a fantastic accompaniment to gymnastic classes or even offers pointers to children and parents who may want to try out some of the simpler moves themselves before progressing to organised classes in and outside school.

It got a huge thumbs up from all three of us (Charlotte, my wife and me of course) and anything that positively encourages children to take up physical activity in such a fantastic way is definitely worth looking into. Here's Charlotte again with the second part of her routine. What a little star!


"Head Over Heels About...Gymnastics - Volume 1" can be obtained from Gemma's website, priced at £11.99 :

http://www.headoverheelsgymnastics.co.uk

Charlotte's best bit: All of it! Particularly putting a routine together, and doing teddy bear rolls.

Daddy and Mummy's Favourite bit: A hugely positive response from Charlotte to a book that really does capture the essence of gymnastics, and presents it in a clear, concise and above all fun way to inspire children to get active!

(Very kindly supplied for review by Gemma Coles)

We're stunned by the sheer quality of indie titles that have been added to our "Indie Pen-Dance Wednesday" roster. This is something unique and special though, a small-time business founded by three dads (David, Pedro and Asi) and one uncle (Tal) who are the genius collective behind "Lost My Name".

Name books have a habit of feeling impersonal. Gluing a child's name into an identikit story often falls quite flat, and we've received books like these as presents that - though the intention is to make the book feel like the child is the star - end up making them feel anything but special.

"The Little Girl Who Lost Her Name" (For obvious reasons, we chose "the girl" over "the boy") is a story that starts off with a girl who - yep you've guessed it - has forgotten everything about herself, even her own name. Over the course of the story, the girl slowly manages to reclaim all the letters that spell her name - and due to some extremely clever branching software, repetition is avoided and the child's name is woven delicately into a story that doesn't feel pieced together. It has a flow to it.

The other bugbear we have about 'name books' are that they often look a bit cheap and nasty compared to children's picture books that your child will already know and love. Not so in this case, "The Girl Who Lost Her Name" is an utterly and completely beautiful book.

The Boy meets a Robot with a letter "R" to give...

You can start building your child's book in seconds on the "Lost My Name" website. The whole process from start to finish took us next to no time, and was actually quite good fun. With Charlotte having a nice long name, we wondered how children like Amy or Eve, or even Ian would fare. Thankfully they get as great a story and as good a deal as children with longer names (£16.99 for a book that is as luxurious as this, and that feels as personal as this is a pretty good bargain methinks - the quality of the finished product is stunning!)

If you're on the hunt for a unique christmas gift, definitely take a look at "The Little Girl / The Little Boy who lost her / his Name" - An utterly fabulous idea and we wish this plucky team of dads (and uncles) all the very best with their venture!


Charlotte's best bit: The discovery of the girl's identity at the end of the book (She's razor sharp so she had guessed, but the book's journey was a wonderful one for her)

Daddy's Favourite bit: An absolute doddle to create, loved the emails that go out to confirm your order, and the wonderful way the book arrives. Such an awesome idea!

(Kindly arranged for review by Asi at LostmyName)

It's Indie-Pen-Dance Wednesday again and time to look at an utterly fascinating, artistic and fact-filled fun range of books by Miranda Sofroniou. With the heading "Things that Blow my Mind", the book range covers a diverse range of topics in a kid-friendly way, with utterly gorgeous illustrations to help children develop a deeper understanding of the world around them.

We were fortunate enough to be sent "Things that Blow my Mind - Oceans" by Miranda. Delving deep into the deep blue briny sea to examine the lifeforms that dwell within its depths, and humankind's impact on the oceans that cover 71% of the earth's surface, it certainly is a dizzying and mind-blowing set of facts for a five year old.

Miranda's art style is reminiscent of Eric Carle's wonderful books, utilising collage and mixed media to wonderful effect.

You can find the entire range of "Things that blow my mind" books on Miranda's website.

Find out how big a whale's heart is in "Things that Blow My Mind - Oceans"

Author Bio:

Miranda graduated from Camberwell College of Arts in London in July 2012 and has since been developing her "Things That Blow My Mind" book series into a range of products. Please visit Miranda's website linked above for further info on the range.

Charlotte's best bit: Working out which fish should have been caught in the net and which shouldn't!

Daddy's Favourite bit: A wonderful idea to spur children's curiosity about the world they live in, would be absolutely brilliant for use in schools too!

(Kindly sent to us for review by Miranda Sofroniou)

Learning languages is a huge amount of fun when Bosley's around.

For Indie-Pen-Dance Wednesday this week, we thought we'd delve into one of our favourite subjects. Languages!

We love indies and self published authors and illustrators but sometimes we're completely swamped by submissions (you really are a passionate and creative lot!)

So we've come up with a plan. Every week, we'll aim to cover at least one indie title on our new "Indie Pen-Dance Day" Wednesday slot. We'll choose an independently published or self-published book to cover in the slot, and hopefully tell you a bit more about the talented folk behind them too.

So to kick off this new slot, we've been in touch with Ariele Nolla, author and illustrator of "Penelope's Toothache" - a zany tale with a serious message, brush your teeth and keep your dazzling smile - and beware of the sugar bugs.

Penelope's family love vegetables, and brush their teeth diligently. But Penelope loves her Aunt Loveona, the most wonderful chocolate maker. Aunt Loveona always makes sure Penelope has plenty of sugary and chocolatey treats for a midnight feast.

One day though, sure enough, Penelope wakes up to find that her biggest and bestest tooth is aching, and soon the (slightly terrifying) family dentist, Miss Flossie Floss confirms Penelope's worst fears - that tooth is going to have to come out!

(squeamish children and adults - like us - might want to quickly skip past the bits with the HUGE NEEDLES! EEEK!)

All is not lost - Penelope can grow back her lost tooth, but the dentist tells her that the secret to a dazzling white smile, and keeping your teeth in your head rather than in a jar by the side of your bed, is to brush and floss and don't indulge in all those sugary sweet treats.

Ariele Nolla came up with the story first, and struggled to source an illustrator to do her book justice. So she painstakingly taught herself Photoshop, and dreamed up Penelope and her family, and the whacky world they live in.

You can pick up "Penelope's Toothache" for Kindle via Amazon.

Stop by Ariele Nolla's author page on Facebook for more on Penelope's Toothache and other book projects too!

Charlotte's best bit: Aunt Loveona, the best chocolatier in town!

Daddy's Favourite bit: Seriously impressed that Ariele taught herself Photoshop to design the illustrations for her book (and they're great fun too!)

(Kindly sent to us for review by Ariele Nolla)