The major draw of Minecraft for us is building! As we've previously mentioned in our other Minecraft articles, imagine having a near-infinite construction set to play with, and a vast landscape to build in and you can certainly see why delving into the secrets of "Minecraft: The Official Construction Handbook" has a lot of appeal.

The book taps the knowledge of one of the top UK construction teams, FyreUK, for amazing tips, tricks and some truly stunning building!

FyreUK's amazing buildings are really eye-catching

Using this book, you'll learn to unlock the holy grail of block building, setting up the perfect pad for Minecraft Steve to live in and feel safe in when monsters and shambling nightmares come out at night.

Helpfully detailing the components you'll need, with clear screenshots to show you how to get started with some of the simpler projects, you can really let your imagination fly. FyreUK specialise in producing architectural feats of wonder, from amazing palaces and castles, to windmills and sailing ships.

Another brilliant addition to Egmont's official Minecraft range (and our favourite of all the Minecraft handbooks!)

Charlotte's best bit: The amazing interiors in the Royal Palace model. Love those thrones!

Daddy's Favourite bit: So many brilliant tips from how to make floating islands, to using parts for purposes other than intended!

(Kindly sent to us for review by Egmont UK)

Whoah that's an impressive hairdo!

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Let's take a look at the first of our booky explorations of all things Minecraft for our official Minecraft week on the Blog. Starting off with a book that is absolutely essential for anyone new to Minecraft, this book can (quite literally) save your life in the game, and help you get off to a flying start if you're completely mystified and baffled by Minecraft's complexity.

In essence, "The Official Beginner's Handbook" is like a survival guide! Imagine the scene: You're alone, you're standing in the middle of a vast landscape. Around you there are lush green trees, mounds of grass and perhaps a lake or some water.

Sometimes you may spot an animal or two, other times you may spawn in fields of flowers. But this landscape contains hidden dangers because once it gets dark, things take an entirely sinister turn!

The Beginner's Guide can ensure that by following a few simple instructions you can survive that first harrowing night, tucked up safely in your own shelter while the shambling monsters and roaming nasties mooch around outside.

Charlotte's first night in Minecraft

When daddy first let me play Minecraft, I played in "Build" mode so I could make anything I liked with lots of different blocks. When I first played "Survival" mode I was quite scared because I wanted to build a house with a door and windows but couldn't get enough blocks!

Daddy's first night in Minecraft

I played Minecraft back when it was fairly basic, and hadn't heard anything about it from my friends other than they were spending huge amounts of time playing it (so I really wanted to find out what the fuss was about). I played it safe, with a mode where you're given a chest with a few basic goodies in it but still spent too much of my first day exploring. On my first night, the world around me turned pitch black and I had no tools so I struggled to make a shelter quickly enough!

I thought I had safely made a dirt house but completely forgot that in early versions, Monsters could actually still kill you even through one block width of wall so died horribly at the hands of a nefarious zombie!

If we'd had the Beginner's Handbook we'd have known that the quickest way to build an effective shelter is to find a hillside or cliff edge and dig into that to make a shelter really speedily. We'd have also learned that we could leave a one-block 'window' to spot when daylight came again, seeing off the monsters!

Packed with fantastic advice and some early 'recipes' for some of the Minecraft essentials (like how to make glass for 'safer' windows, how to make a bed to make those long Minecraft nights pass quickly - and just how dangerous all the roaming monsters in Minecraft actually are (and how to avoid them, yay!)

Egmont publish four utterly essential official Minecraft books and this is the best one to start with for new players. Chock full of great advice, some fantastic anecdotes from players (including Minecraft hero, Captain Sparklez) and a potted history of how Notch and Jeb put together one of the world's most popular games.

Charlotte's best bit: She hasn't met one yet but Charlotte was tickled to death by the idea of the Skeleton Riders (who ride around on the back of spiders, for a double-dose of lethality!)

Daddy's Favourite bit: Even for experienced Minecraft players, there are some excellent little secrets tucked away in this Beginners Guide. For new players it's an utterly essential head start to a game that can be baffling, bewildering and overwhelming at first but soon develops into an obsession!

(Kindly sent to us for review by Egmont Books)

YAY! Sir Charlie is back, the pint-sized whiffy-socked but nevertheless brave and gallant knight hits the high seas!

When Sir Charlie discovers a mysterious note floating in a bottle while at the seaside, with just one word - "HELP!" - written on it, Charlie, Envelope and Charlie's gallant steed race off to the rescue. Who sent the mysterious note? What does it mean? Charlie won't rest until he's on the case but to resolve a seafaring mystery, you definitely need a ship!

Kicking off at a cracking pace, this seventh adventure for Sir Charlie is a piratical piece of perfect storytelling with a child hero who boys and girls instantly take to.

Charlie meets the rambunctious Captain BurntBeard, who mysteriously disappears into his cabin every night, prompting rumours of an evil curse. Charlie, Envelope and the good grey mare find the mystery full of twists and turns until one final clue drops into place!

We see a lot of pirate books on the blog, and we're always on the look out for neat new nautical twists. Sir Charlie's determination reaps rewards and we're all treated to a Great Buccaneer Bake-Off! Hooray!

Children are going to absolutely love this seventh adventure. Hop on board the black toenail and join the gallant quest!

Don't miss the book's wonderful trailer either, which we're delighted to share with you below!


..and pop by Sir Charlie's website for more fun!

http://www.sircharliestinkysocks.co.uk

Charlotte's best bit: The fab bit where Sir Charlie's socks attract mermaids (probably because they want to know what on earth could be so whiffy!) She also really loved the big foldout reveals tucked into the book, like giant 'lift-the-flap' sections! Cool idea!

Daddy's Favourite bit: Sir Charlie is an endlessly endearing character (basically we still think he's FAR FAR better than the rather annoyingly smug Mike the Knight!) and this piratical adventure is pitch-perfectly paced, huge fun and has a great little twist or two to the tale at the end. Sublime!

(Very kindly sent to us for review by the wonderful and supremely talented Kristina S herself!)

A Creeper. You really do NOT want to get this close to one, trust us!

The Minecraft landscape. It might look blocky and basic but looks can be VERY deceiving!

So what on earth is Minecraft?

If you've been living at the bottom of a deep dark mineshaft with no sticks and charcoal to make torches with, the whole Minecraft phenomenon might've completely passed you by. Minecraft entered official alpha testing way back in 2009 / 2010, the work of Markus (Notch) Persson and a small team of developers at Mojang, beavering away in a tiny studio in The Netherlands (quite apt really!)

Minecraft's first version was basic and rudimentary, lacking most of the features we know and love today (the first versions didn't even feature crafting - the way you delicately gather ingredients and materials to make other things in the Minecraft world).

Several versions later, Minecraft exploded onto the Indie games scene with a colossal TNT-fuelled BOOM! People started to realise that essentially what they had was the infinite power of pixellated creation in their grubby little mitts.

To date, 17,136,328 people have picked up a copy of Minecraft, available on just about anything you can think of (PC, Mac, PS3, PS4, PS Vita, Xbox 360, Xbox One, Android and iOS). Minecraft is now the world's biggest gaming community and Minecraft players and engineers wear their colours proudly (I usually kick around with a couple of Minecraft charms tied to my work bag!)

Whether playing on their own or collaborating with others, Minecraft engineers soon begin to turn the various blocks and items found in these randomly generated worlds into amazing constructions. Name just about any building in the world, or element of popular culture and you can bet someone somewhere has rendered a fairly good likeness in Minecraft.

It's like owning a never-ending set of Lego at its most basic, but for more experienced Minecraft players and engineers, there's a lot more to it besides.

You can take a look at Minecraft by hopping over to the Official Minecraft Website here. You can also play a demo of the game, running in your internet browser, to see if it's your cup of tea...!

We'll be continuing our posts throughout the week, starting off by looking at Egmont's superb range of Official Minecraft Books. A quartet of brilliant 'how-to' guides that will get you off to a flying start with Minecraft Basics, Crafting, Combat and Redstone!

Important Note!

Minecraft has evolved into a huge (and largely uncontrolled / unmonitored) online community. Please exercise caution when letting your little ones loose on the Internet to look at Minecraft stuff and always take a look at anything they've flagged up first. The majority of Minecraft users are lovely folk but do take care online, particularly in multiplayer online games.

Our usual default expression when reading books. That's a good thing, right? Right?

“We need a critical culture in books. We need for people to say what they want about a book, for a healthy book culture.” “Books are ideas. They are debate starters. They are conversation starters. They are meant to spark a range of opinion.”

One of the reasons we really love Book Island is their tendency not to shy away from publishing longer children's picture books. Charlotte often gets quite annoyed if we cuddle up for a bedtime read, and the book we've chosen is over in five minutes flat.

No such worries with "The Big Question" which is a big, beautiful hardback book with a story that's more than long enough to get your teeth into.

It's the annual meeting of all the characters and animals that live in a magical blissful land. Turtle usually chairs the meetings, but turtle is ill so delegates chairmanship to wise Ant.

It's a daunting task, because each year the meetings ask big and difficult question - and this year's question is a doozy!

"What is love?"

As you'd expect, everyone in the story has an opinion. Snow White describes what love feels like when her prince kisses her. Others describe that feeling of overwhelming well being that comes with true love. Even the rocks describe what it's like when the one they love is next to them.

Ant listens patiently, as the tale weaves a wondrous combination of story and illustration that touches on the sublimely surreal. Reading it aloud, it feels poetic and dreamy. Ant brings us back down to earth with a thump though, as we get the impression that Ant really doesn't understand despite the amazing explanations from everyone gathered around. As they make their way home, Ant is left alone, none the wiser...

A modern fable with a really fantastic core message, "The Big Question" is touching heartfelt storytelling. Here's a challenge for you, ask your little one that big question and see what they come back with. It may well surprise you!

Charlotte's best bit: As Snow White is one of her favourite Disney characters, she was delighted to see her making an appearance in this story.

Daddy's Favourite bit: Like a modern-day Aesop's Fable, "The Big Question" doesn't shy away from a huge discussion topic of mighty importance. We absolutely loved the way the story evolves and the sublime artwork from Kaatje Vermeire helps to underpin the poetic tale perfectly

(Kindly sent to us for review by Book Island)

Lawks-a-Lordy! When Charlotte asked me who Russell Brand was, I had a bit of a quandary. How could I describe an actor, writer and comedian whose antics (on and off the pages of the red-tops) are not usually child friendly? (For info, I had to refer to him as one of the voices in "Despicable Me" and that still didn't really satisfy Charlotte's curiosity, so a little help here...?)

I've been intrigued by how Russell's first book for children would turn out, and when news leaked that Chris Riddell would be illustrating his set of "Trickster Tales" I was even more intrigued. An anarchic wit paired with an illustrative uber-meister? What could possibly go awry?

Nothing, is the short answer...and forgive me for being slightly more periphrastic with my language than usual for these reviews, I thought I'd try and emulate Brand's narrative in the retelling of the classic fairy tale, given a dark tweak of the neeps or two under Brand's locquacious pen.

The familiar tale of Hamelin begins with a description of the perfect town, where nothing goes wrong, everything is neat and tidy and ordered, and the townsfolk have little else to do all day but engage in fruitless competition over an atmosphere of tedious ennui. Everyone strives for perfection, so when a child is born who is 'less than perfect' in the eyes of the townsfolk, they reveal their hidden foulness, wanting to cast the child out. But his mother loves him, calls him Sam and defends him to the last, and so they make a life in Hamelin surrounded by scoffers, sneerers and ne'er do wells.

One particular ne'er do well is the biggest fattest bully-child in the town - who delights in picking on poor Sam. Along with the bully's compatriots (who are equally insidious), Brand really lets rip with his descriptions of these nasty tykes, sailing as close to the wind as the editors allowed (and boy oh boy, wouldn't you like to have seen the pitch meeting and the first draft of this book, if the final version is anything to go by?)

As the Townsfolk become more and more obnoxious, preparing for the "Prettiest Child" annual competition and parade, a plague of rats descends on Hamelin, ready to skitter amongst the perfection to wreak awful, terrible havoc. For a short while the rats rule the roost, but a mysterious stranger arrives - a Piper, with a simple remit.

"I can rid you of the rats" the Piper vows. "But I want paying in gold!"

I think it's worth pausing a moment here because you're probably more than familiar with the story, but I wanted to draw attention to Brand and Riddell's depiction of the Piper. Imagine if you can a cross between Alex from A Clockwork Orange, Noel Fielding and possibly even a smidgeon or two of Brand himself. Clad in pointy boots, a harlequin-esque jumpsuit, with hair as black as a crow's backside and a hat to match. He's exactly as you'd want the Piper to be orally and visually described. A saviour? Perhaps, but with the darkest blackest judicial heart beating silently under his cloak.

As the story unwinds, the Piper does as he is bid and rids Hamelin of the scourge. The Townsfolk (who, as we've already ascertained, are a nasty bunch bar Sam and his Mum) try to wriggle out of payment - offering the Piper a sandwich and nothing else. Needless to say, this isn't exactly a good move for a bunch of brainless nitwits and the Piper will be paid - or exact his terrible revenge!!

I'll leave you to discover the ins and outs of how the story plays out in Brand and Riddell's version of events, suffice to say that both of us could not put this book down. It's long for a children's book but we wanted to read it through - twice - before bed.

A note of caution though. Of all the celebrity-penned children's books we've seen while we've been compiling posts for this blog, this is the one that you can close your eyes for a second after reading a paragraph or two, and imagine Russell Brand himself writing it, reading it aloud and then arguing vociferously with editors and probably even with Chris over how exactly this book should look, feel and sound when it hits eager hands after purchase. Because of that, it's something that you'll probably want to read through yourself before letting your little ones loose on it. I can take or leave Mr B, but I do get pretty uppity about 'celebrity' books, and the veiled assumption that writing for kids is a piece of cake - anyone can do it. Of course, dear children's book blog reader, you and I know different.

There is also slight irony in the fact that Brand's latest "Grown Up" book Revolution is being described as long-winded, rambling and smug when this first Trickster Tale is also being slammed for similar reasons in the broadsheets.

It's not particluarly long winded, doesn't ramble and gets to the core point of the tale with a fair amount of style and aplomb. It's certainly not smug either, in fact it's easy to see how the whole idea of letting Brand put a modern spin on classic fairy tales could've suffered adversely under the wrong editorial hand.

And that, dear reader, is an impressive achievement for any author. It's actually quite tricky and delicious to read aloud, it's quite rude in places (not too much, but I would probably aim it squarely at children a couple of years older than Charlotte who can probably stomach all-too-descriptive passages about pierced nipples and slick poo) but it's undoubtedly stamped with Brand through and through.

Writing aside, Chris Riddell's illustrations are (as you'd expect) utterly and completely brilliant so if you really can't stomach the thought of Brand having his wicked way with your favourite fairy tales, at least let Chris's visuals talk to you in their anarchic inky tones instead. Some of the page spreads in this are truly glorious.

The only real 'no getting away from it' negative points I'd have to raise about the book are the fact that certain words are explained throughout the story in little box-out clouds - and there's also a glossary of terms at the back. Personally I'd have let children ask the meanings of the words of their parents - no better excuse to dig out a dictionary and increase your own vocabulary but a big fat hooray for at least leaving those lengthy complicated words in! There's also the fact that Brand played it fairly safe, merely adapting (an eventual set of) traditional tales rather than coming up with his own stories. Not such an easy gig after all, writing for kids!

Charlotte's best bit: There are several wordless spreads in the book as the piper weaves his musical magic, first on the rats and then on the townsfolk and they're just utterly brilliantly illustrated (though she also rather loved the 'roundabout language' (as she described it) in the story.

Daddy's Favourite bit: I'll be perfectly honest, I expected to hate this. "Yet another celebrity cashing in on what they think is an easy gig" was my first thought but I was won over in a matter of pages. It's ribald, rude, it's funny and it's hugely entertaining. Brand's writing is hectic, chaotic but always expertly constructed and beautiful to read aloud (you can definitely visualise the man himself reading it in your head!) Chris Riddell's illustrations are (as ever) utterly and completely perfect too. A belter! More please Mr Trickster sir, more please!1

(Kindly sent to us for review by Canongate Books)

Time for something festive! By now you're probably well into your christmas shopping (er, no we aren't!) and are longing for that first mince pie and glug of mulled wine. But before you do any of that, take a look at this yuletide sequel to a brilliant animal book!

Anna Bogie and Rebecca Elliott are back again with their awesome animal gang, the happy hooves - this time with the animals busily preparing for christmas and the imminent arrival of Santa Claus himself!

But there's a lot of fuss and panic, and tidying up to do - and not all animals live somewhere with a chimney! How on earth will Santa be able to deliver any presents?

Thankfully Cow is full of wisdom and insight, and has the perfect solution to the Happy Hooves Gang's problem - Spend christmas together in a riotous celebration!

Brought forward for a timely release to pop right into your christmas shopping list, "Happy Hooves Oh Oh Oh" is out now!

Charlotte's best bit: Charlotte loves Cow's festive jumper!

Daddy's Favourite bit: A lovely cuddly little tale, and a fantastic book to pop onto your christmas shopping list!

(Kindly sent to us for review by Fat Fox Books)

The cover of "The Wonderous World of..." from Wonderous Ink. Adventure starts with every letter!

A lovely cuddly page summarising the child's own awesome name!