Before December even arrives, the cry goes up at ReadItDaddy Towers as Charlotte's thoughts turn to making a list, checking it twice, trying to work out whether she's been naughty or nice..."Is It Christmas Yet?"

It's only a matter of weeks before Star Wars Episode VII hits cinemas, and as the world has already gone ape crazy over Star Wars stuff, let's take a look at a couple of space-faring crackers from Usborne.

First up is a book full of the most incredible spaceships, robots and laser guns from the "Build your Own" series.

"Build your own Robots & Spaceships" is packed with gloriously illustrated page spreads waiting for you to decorate with a ton of stickers to complete each design.

Big clanking robots are ready to be kitted out with pincers, tractor treads and lasers while out in the depths of the galaxy you can also get busy building perfect spaceships to conquer and explore. "Build your own Robots and Spaceships" is out now so nip down to your local spaceport for a copy.

For younger children here's a fantastic space-themed activity book for budding little astronauts...

"The Usborne Little Children's Space Activity Book" is packed with tons of stickers, brilliant puzzles and tons of dazzling colourful designs for tiny hands to get to grips with.

There are tons of pages in here to keep little ones busy long after they're bored with their Christmas toys so it's a fabulous stocking-stuffer if space is your thing!

"The Usborne Little Children's Space Activity Book" is available now from Usborne Publishing.

Is there a more Christmassy book than this? For Day 10 on our Booky Advent Calendar here's a festive classic reprinted lovingly in a new hardback edition...

I know, I know! Christmas isn't even out of the way yet but we're already looking forward to another bumper book year in 2016.

Four new titles coming up in January and February 2016 have arrived at ReadItDaddy Towers and we can't wait to tell you about them!

First, a re-issue of a book that should definitely be top of your wishlist for the new year, written and illustrated by one of our top Twitter pals Dan Santat. "The Adventures of Beekle - The Unimaginary Friend" is the story of a lovely little cuddly fellah who lives in the realm of mysterious imaginary beasts, waiting for a child to 'imagine' them into existence. There are many fantastic creatures in this fantasy land but poor Beekle always seems to be overlooked.

It's time to take matters into his own hands, and so Beekle decides it's time to visit the big city - and find a friend of his own! Will Beekle succeed?

It's gloriously illustrated and such a wonderful little story that we couldn't help but fall head over heels in love with it straight away. It helps that Beekle looks a lot like Eugene from Evil Emperor Penguin, one of our fave strips in The Phoenix Comic!

Next in our Andersen Press pile, a hilarious book that's been wowing tinies over in the US, now heading for our shores (hooray!)

"Wolfie the Bunny" by Ame Dyckman (who is also a Twitter superstar btw!) with illustrations by Zachariah Ohora is a hugely funny tale of Mr and Mrs Rabbit finding a rather peculiar 'present' sitting on their doorstep. It's a little baby but this little baby doesn't have cute floppy ears and a twitchy nose. This little baby has rather sharp teeth, a long bushy tail and a long nose!

Little Rabbit sees straight through this guise and thinks that the whole family will end up as rabbit pie - but is Wolfie the Bunny more inclined to search for more healthy fare such as crunchy juicy carrots instead of bunny burgers?

Wildly funny and entertaining, you'll be able to see what all the fuss is about in February.


We're getting slightly obsessed with feet for our next two books...

"Where my Feet Go" by Birgitta Sif is a rollicking riot in book form, as we join a little Panda's adventures seeing where his feet will take him.

Do feet love the feel of grass, or a sandbox or the prickly wooden branch?

When you're tiny your feet can take you just about anywhere in this bouncy read-along fun story. Fabulous characters and a great story will make this one very appealing to fidgety energetic little ones so check out this book when it arrives in February 2016.

Let's stick with the subject of feet for our final look ahead to 2016 and a book from a particular 'fave' of ours here at ReadItDaddy Towers...


Splendid socks are the starts of "Odd Socks" by Michelle Robinson and Rebecca Ashdown. Let's meet Sosh and Suki, a perfect pair of snuggly warm socks who have all sorts of adventures - but woe befalls poor Suki when she develops a loose thread which turns into a nasty little hole.

Poor Suki is distraught and decides to run away before she's thrown in the bin, but Sosh is determined to track her down. Perhaps there really can be a life after stinky feet for Sosh and Suki!

Brilliant rhymes, colourful illustrations and a hugely original and entertaining tale, you are going to love this one loads!

We'll be featuring big and proper reviews of each of these titles nearer release. Don't they look fab though?

Salina's pint-sized Penguin pal is back in an all new snowy adventure. Let's find out what penguin has been up to?

One of THE essential yuletide movies ever made gets a picture book outing. Step inside for our first Advent Book of the Week (ya filthy animals), it's "Home Alone - The Classic Illustrated Storybook" by John Hughes and Kim Smith (Quirk Books)...

Our last Editorial of the year, and it's on a subject that really has (quite rightly) been in the spotlight for most of 2015, mostly thanks to a fantastic campaign by Sarah McIntyre (Pictures Mean Business) to ensure that artists get equal billing on picture book covers and other printed items featuring their work.

We've covered this a few times on the blog but this blah is more about the often tricky prospect of being paid once you've come up with a fantastic piece of art that someone's willing to use, but not always so willing to front up some cash for.

I'm just an amateur scribbler but through work I've had a few opportunities to stretch my meagre talents and come up with graphics or illustrations for various projects. These are always things I'd need to work on outside of normal working hours in my own spare time and recently I took on a couple of jobs like this to design a new logo and some branding elements for an ex-colleague.

The brief was (predictably) vague and yet the 'customer' (who right up front admitted absolutely no knowledge of how art is taken from a concept to a finished design) had their own ideas of what they wanted to present to the folk who would end up using the logo and items on their website, in their printed materials and for their communications.

I've only completed a couple of jobs like this before and had done my research into what were acceptable charges for the amount of work, the variations in design and branding that would be required for a multi-use scenario, and of course the sticky legal issues around copyright and re-use.

As soon as the subject of payment was broached, it was like bringing down a set of steel shutters.

"Paid? What do you mean paid?" the customer stammered.

"I will be working on this in my own time, using my own resources so I've come up with a reasonable set of charges for the work" I answered.

"But I thought you'd do it for free, I mean your design is going to be seen by a lot of people! It might bring more work your way!"

At this point, most illustrators and artists are rolling their eyes and probably remembering similar conversations they've had throughout their careers. That old chestnut has been doing the rounds ever since Ug first daubed a crimson splodge on his neighbour's cave wall and his neighbour not passing over the promised juicy Mammoth steak claiming that his cave is visited quite often so Ug's work will achieve some sort of infamy.

Exposure won't pay anyone's bills and if you ask most artists whether exposure - even for fairly large corporate clients or companies - has ever done them any good, you'd better be prepared for a fairly abrupt response.

Of course, stupidly, I had already started work on the branding and logo project before thrashing out remuneration up front. I'm a keen amateur, not a hard-nosed professional so in hindsight (and certainly with any new commissions) this should have been discussed in the first meeting. The customer in this case dug their heels in and started to make all the usual piddly excuses about there being no budget, me not being a professional, the work being good but not THAT good - which was the point where I folded up my designs, closed my laptop and bid them adieu wishing them all the very best of luck finding someone else who'll do a quite substantial amount of work for nothing.

So I'm left with a few more pieces to add to my portfolio, and of course a lesson learned. As we've previously stated on the blog it's as tough a gig to get paid for your writing as it is to get paid for your artwork, but there's still a rather crappy assumption that artists gambol around in a state of heightened bliss always looking for any opportunity to waste hour after hour putting work together that ultimately won't be paid for (sure we all produce items of work for ourselves but if someone wants that work and wants to use that work to make money, they'd darned well better ensure you get a slice of that action in some way).

Things are getting better, and the supportive artist communities on social media are very quick to leap on any instances where someone's publicly taking the pith (particularly when an artistic opportunity is 'dressed up' as a competition, therefore somehow negating it from needing to be funded in any way if your submitted competition artwork is chosen and used thereafter).

When it comes to children's books, particularly picture books, Sarah is right - pictures mean business and the entire industry would grind to a halt if creatives downed their pens and brushes. Treat them with respect as professionals as you would the guy who comes to unblock your loo or the guy who services your car because that's what we (they) are.

Norman the Slug is back and this time he's just the mollusc to lend a helping...er...feeler in "Norman the Slug who Saved Christmas"...

Opening Door 2 of our Booky Advent Calendar, we find a delectable selection of gorgeous seasonal stories with a cute cast of wonderful animals. Let's take a look at "Tales from Christmas Wood"...

There aren't many bedtime reads to go until Christmas so thank you once again for joining us with our Booky Advent Calendar for the month of December. Each day we'll be delving into seasonal, snowy and christmassy books to bring you the very best new books as well as some well loved classics and reprints.

To kick off, we've been very good this year so Santa has bestowed upon us THREE different versions of Clement C. Moore's classic poem in book form, each with a different publisher and each illustrated by a superbly talented artist bringing their own unique vision of Santa's epic sleigh ride on Christmas Eve.

First up, we have Mark Marshall for Little Tiger Press with a glorious fuzzy and dream-like santa for their version of the tale. This big-page-format paperback is absolutely perfect for younger children, filled to the brim with a good dose of yuletide atmosphere. We really loved the reindeers in this version, speeding through the sky on sparkly christmas magic!

"The Night Before Christmas" by Clement C. Moore and Mark Marshall" is published by Little Tiger Press in Hardback and Paperback versions.

Next, we have a rather novel version of the story, this time adapted and illustrated by Daniel Kirk...


In "Twas the Night Before Christmas" from Abrams Young Readers, we get to see Christmas Eve through the eyes of a teeny tiny mouse family who wait for Santa's visit in their tiny mouse house. Once again interpreting the words of Clement C. Moore's poem in his own way, Daniel Kirk has come up with some gloriously colourful and clear illustrations with utterly adorable characters who listen out for the sound of Donder and Blitzen's hoof falls on the roof (and santa's big bum squeezing down the chimney!)

Charlotte adored this version, with one of the jolliest Santas around.

"Twas the Night Before Christmas" by Clement C. Moore and Daniel Kirk is published by Abrams Young Readers in Paperback, Hardback and Kindle versions.

Let's squeeze one more in...this time from Top That Publishing and Marcin Nowakowski...

"'Twas the Night Before Christmas" from Marcin and Top That is very much a beautifully produced and more traditional version of the poem. This time the sumptuously detailed illustrations really feel like they could leap off the page and prance around your living room at any moment. This beautiful version really sets the scene of the poem so well, with glorious snowscapes and a fabulous present-filled sleigh jetting across the inky dark skies as Santa makes his rounds.

This is probably our favourite version for children of Charlotte's age (7 and up). The artwork is truly spectacular and it's easily one of the most impressive versions of the poem that we've ever seen.

"'Twas the Night Before Christmas" by Clement C. Moore and Marcin Nowakowski is available in Hardback and Paperback editions from Top That Publishing. 

Phew! After all that gadding about in the snowy sky we need a hot chocolate! Hope you enjoy these three versions and do watch out for more Booky Advent Calendar posts throughout the rest of December!