Is this the best year yet for children's non-fiction books? We really believe so and the year's far from over yet. Pop in for another random wombling about books in this week's editorial...

2014 marks the centenary of the outbreak of World War 1 and it's a subject that will receive extensive coverage in the media, in schools and in children's books. Usborne have already produced several brilliant resource books for the First World War and they were kind enough to send us a First World War Sticker Book from the new range, to take a look at.

Charlotte loves history, and she really loves sticker books so we were interested to see how Usborne treated a sensitive subject such as The Great War. In conjunction with the Imperial War Museum, they have produced a fantastic high-quality book packed with facts and figures about the war, the battles and the technology that was used on both sides.

100 stickers follow the timeline from the outbreak of war and the events surrounding it, to how quickly war swept across Europe and beyond. Photos and illustrations make up a fascinating (and sometimes gruesome) record for children to delve into, even after they've enjoyed sticking all the stickers down.

We always trust the Usborne brand to be of superb quality, informative and engaging and the "First World War Sticker Book" does not disappoint. Suitable for a range of ages from 7+, and supporting Key Stage 1/2.

Charlotte's best bit: The posters and propaganda materials. Women of Britain Say "GO!"
Daddy's Favourite bit: A really high quality engaging and respectfully produced sticker book, a fantastic place to start for children who are interested in history and want to find out more about the First World War

(Kindly sent to us for review by Usborne Publishing )

Anorak's fabulous "Happy Colouring Poster" - Just try keeping mummy and daddy away!

Hello, it's me, Charlotte! Do your grown ups often steal your colouring pencils and colour your things in when you're not looking, or are asleep, or are playing with Lego or Playmobil instead? Mine do. Mummy likes colouring animals and scenery while Daddy always scribbles away colouring anything with robots or cars in it. Boys eh?

Recently the lovely folk at Anorak Magazine kindly sent me their fabulous (and huge) Happy Colouring Poster to get to work on. As you can see, it's very busy and full of ace things to colour. Here I am getting cracking on it...!

Teddy Bear pencil toppers are a MUST for intense colouring sessions!

The thing is, I kept coming down in the morning to carry on with it - and finding that things I hadn't coloured had mysteriously coloured themselves in! Mummy and Daddy denied all knowledge but I have my suspicions.

The lovely folk at Pictura (Templar) also sent us a fabulous Shaun Tan scene to colour too...!

Picturaline's Shaun Tan range is just too tempting for daddies!

Daddy emitted a loud "Whoop!" when this arrived, and though he promised to let me share colouring it, he's only let me colour in a little bit. He spends far too much time cuddling it and cooing over it (again, boys!). Pictura have lots of brilliant 'grown up' colouring scenes to choose from but I don't see why daddy has to hog it all to himself (perhaps I'll wait till he's 'resting his eyes' and snoring loudly on a sunday afternoon and help him finish it by sneaking off with it!)

Usborne also have one of my favourite colouring books - which we bought to take on holiday with us.

The Usborne Big Book of Drawing, Doodling and Colouring. It is big and they are very clever, those Usborne folk!

There are so many different things to colour in here - mysteriously the page with monsters on it got coloured in while I was asleep. I'm sure you can guess who the culprit was.

So what can us kids do to stop mummy and daddy pinching our colouring pencils and colouring books? Well, christmas is coming and there's always mothers day or fathers day when mummy always moans about getting chocs that make her bum go big, or daddy always moans that he gets Simpsons socks when he doesn't like The Simpsons, so here are a couple of ideas! It might just work and might just stop their extremely rude behaviour!

"The Roman Mystery Scrolls" by Caroline Lawrence. Thrilling fiction, factual settings

We love history. We love visiting places that let us peek back through time, and we definitely love to explore the history of the world through children's books. 

Baldrick, what ARE you wearing? "Tony Robinson's Weird World of Wonders - The Greeks"

The Usborne "See Inside" range. Absolutely essential for young historians!

The Usborne "See Inside" range are absolutely perfect for Charlotte's age group, with brightly coloured and engaging 'lift the flap' pages, showing us fascinating facts about Ancient Egypt and Rome. The range is brilliant fun, and Usborne are definitely a publisher who endeavour to make learning as much fun as possible. Fabulous books, Charlotte absolutely loves them to bits. 

DK's "Millennium Children's History of the 20th Century" - a big weighty tome full of brilliant content

The truly wonderful 'Laika' by Owen Davey (Templar Books). You need this book.

Phew! It's time for another theme week and this week for our #ReaditMD13 Theme, encouraging parents to read to their children we're looking beyond our little blue planet and out into space.

My wife and I are both real space nerds and have always encouraged Charlotte to be a mini space nerd herself.

When I was a child, mixing fiction and non-fiction 'space' books was an essential part of growing up. So I'd look at books like this...

The Usborne Book of The Future (Usborne Books). Let's all meet up in the year 2000

...which featured fantastical and sometimes factual visions of our future, with books like this...

Skylab, America's First Space Station (Hallmark Publishing)

Charlotte's interest in space mixes fact and fantasy too, and we've recently loved Owen Davey's brilliant "Laika the Astronaut" (Templar Publishing)  which tells the story of the first living creature in space, a brave little Russian dog called Laika - and how she paved the way for manned space travel. It's still a way off being released (you'll have to wait until November in the UK), but definitely get it on your preorder list, it's utterly utterly beautiful.

On the factual side, once again Usborne are still leading the way with brilliant books about space.

Look Inside Space (Usborne Publishing), a great introduction to all things spacey.

The Usborne "Look Inside" series has a space edition crammed with lots of facts and fun (and lots of little flaps for busy little fingers to lift and explore).

There's also a brilliant Usborne Solar System book for would-be planeteers...

The Solar System (Usborne Books). Take a trip around our  'back yard' in space.

We'll be looking at more spacey books as the week progresses, with reviews of space books coming up. If you've found a brilliant space book to stimulate children's curiosity, please let us know in the comments box, we'd love to share your spacey recommendations!

For this week's #ReadItMD13 Theme Week we'll be taking a look at various aspects of making and crafting in conjunction with children's books. To kick off though we'll take a look at some of the making and crafting books we've enjoyed, as well as some of the ones that have slipped through our net.

For us, the best make-and-do books are the ones that offer feasible (very important that) and engaging makes, that perhaps stretch things a little beyond just sticking two yoghurt pots together and calling it a butterfly.

Last Christmas we were very impressed with Lion Hudson's range of christmas-themed crafting books (yes I know it's the middle of the summer but it's never too early to start your christmas shopping and making, haha). With all sorts of activities ranging from simple christmas card makes, through to some quite spectacular Rudolf Red Nose truffles (which we make even when it's not Christmas because they're so yummy).

(There is a slightly less girlishly pink one available too)

DK are pretty much THE go-to for make books. They produce absolutely stunning books with clear diagrams and photography, and a whole host of brilliant ideas.

The Fantastic Rainy Day Book (Dorling Kindersley)

"The Fantastic Rainy Day Book" is probably quite hard to get hold of but this is definitely a book chock full of brilliant makes and ideas for art.

Make a hat!

DK also publish a range of Mr Maker themed books (and everyone loves Mr Maker...don't they? What do you mean "We would if he ever let the kids on his show have more of a go!")

Mr Maker - Let's Make It! (Dorling Kindersley)

Children's Making and Crafting books come in all shapes and sizes, covering a massively diverse range of subjects. We particularly like Origami at home, and this is one of the best Origami books we've seen...

Easy Origami by John Montroll

 Unlike most, it's very easy to follow and you can genuinely make all of the models in the book without getting your fingers tangled. Origami is a really easy and satisfying activity and the end results can be really beautiful.

Last but not least we had to mention Usborne's amazing crafting and making range.

"Summer Things to Make and Do" from Usborne Activities. Perfect for the British summer!

We've been taking a look at this one recently and it's absolutely perfect for the British summer - when you need to find lots of things to do indoors because it's nearly always raining (actually it's been boiling hot for most of the weekend but even so, you can drag a crafting mat out into the garden and do all your summer making in the beautiful sunshine too!). With lots of stickers for your crafting projects (vitally important to a busy 5 year old like Charlotte), it's full of fantastic ideas to get your summer started properly.

These few books we've covered just offer an insight into a tiny tiny fraction of the huge market for children's activity, make and crafting books. If you've got a favourite we haven't covered, why not leave a comment below and tell us which book you like to dip into for makes and crafting!