Awww, Valentine's Day. Love it or hate it, it's the perfect opportunity to pour on the book love with a selection of cuddly, smoochy and loved-up books from awesomely creative folk.

First up is a real "HUG" in book form, in fact it's called "The Hug" and it's by Eoin McLaughlin with glorious characterful illustrations by Polly Dunbar.

In the spirit of "Guess How Much I Love You" you'll meet a cute Hedgehog and a wrinkly tortoise.

Both are feeling very sad because they can't seem to find a hug anywhere. Each animal they encounter shies away, but when they find out that it's because Hedgehog is too spiky, and Tortoise is too bony, perhaps all they need to do is find each other!

A beautiful little book which comes in a large paperback format, or a cuddlesome and cute tiny hardback edition. Lovely!

"The Hug" by Eoin McLaughlin and Polly Dunbar is out now, published by Faber and Faber. 

Our perennial fave characters, those awesome Mr Men and Little Miss characters from the creative minds of Roger and Adam Hargreaves are back with a very special book all about love.

The Mr Men and Little Miss Folk will help you show that special someone just how much they mean to you with this warm and witty celebration of love and friendship.

Following the bestselling My Mummy and My Daddy, this delightful book pairs Roger Hargreaves classic artwork with affectionate and humorous new text to help children and adults share the love on Valentine's Day or at any time they want to say I love you.

We've loved the Mr Men and Little Miss books for years, so don't miss out on this very special new book that's perfect for the book lover you know (or just as good as a special treat for yourself!)

"Mr Men and Little Miss: Love" by Roger Hargreaves is out now, published by Egmont.

Another brilliant lovey-dovey book from Egmont now. "Love from Pooh" couples lovely little verses and prose taken from A.A. Milne's classic books, coupled with the gorgeous line art of Pooh's world from the pen of E.H. Shepard.

It's the perfect gift for Valentine's day. Wear your heart on your sleeve with this lovely gift book featuring words of love from Winnie-the-Pooh. 

Even baked goods like to get their groove on and in "Bagel in Love" by Natasha Wing and Helen Dardik, you'll meet the most adorable pair of characters ever.

Bagel loves to strut his funky stuff, but for some reason he really struggles to find a partner.

With the annual dance contest coming up fast, poor Bagel sits on the sidelines, coming to terms with the prospect that he may never get to shine in front of an appreciative audience.

But wait, there's a certain little cupcake who might be able to help him fulfil his dream. From a sad bagel to Fred Eclair (oh we can't resist a bun-shaped pun or two!)

The story is adorable and should tick all the boxes for mini "Strictly Come Dancing" fans.



Helen's illustrations are also utterly sublime, and dare we confess that it's almost impossible not to suffer from chronic sugar cravings while reading this book?



Super stuff for tinies!

Sum this book up in a sentence: A glorious little underdog story with the cutest baked characters you'll ever see strutting their funky stuff.

"Bagel in Love" by Natasha Wing and Helen Dardik is out now, published by Sterling (kindly supplied for review). 

Never undererstimate the importance of play in your child's life.

One of the things we've really enjoyed is seeing C playing, now that the slight pressure of entrance exams and the snowball of homework has shrunk a bit, it's just good to see her easing off the throttle and just being a kid again.

Normally she loves nothing better than tucking herself away with a good book when she has spare time, but with a trio of brilliant new items from Laurence King, we've been rediscovering our love of games.

First up is "Super Happy Families" - a colourful and brilliantly designed card game from Aidan Onn, illustrated by Kirsti Davidson.

You're probably familiar with the old card game Happy Families, but imagine what it would be like to play a version where everyone has superpowers!

Team up magnetic Maggie and anti-gravity Felicity from the Quantum family or unite Fiammetta and Lolly Elemental. Collect illustrated cards of 44 super-powered goodies and baddies and place them into superfamily groups. Whoever gets the most groups first wins! It's quick to master, but very competitive and fun for 2-4 players. 

Dinos and Dominoes! What a great mix!

One thing we've hoped and clamoured for in 2019 are more books that uncover hidden historical figures.

We're more than used to seeing those 'fantastically inspirational' books that seem to feature the same folk again and again, but this rather beautiful story hails one of the unsung heroes of photography and botany.

"The Bluest of Blues: Anna Atkins and the First Book of Photographs" by Fiona Robinson is an utterly beautiful and stylish historical account of a young girl whose early life was tinged with tragedy, but who went on to achieve greatness in her chosen fields.

After losing her mother very early in life, Anna Atkins (1799–1871) was raised by her loving father - who (like me) loved sharing the magic of science with his daughter.

In the early 19th century, the world was changing rapidly as new discoveries were made, hailing an unprecedented period of great achievement and scientific innovation.

Anna's father made sure that his daughter received a scientific education, which was highly unusual for women and girls in the early 19th century.

Anna loved to spend as much time as possible drawing and painting plants but always wondered how she could capture their beauty in even more detail.

Fascinated with plant life, Anna became a botanist and loved recording various plant species for posterity in her own journals, with glorious illustrations and engravings.

In 1842, a massive innovation in photography had a profound impact on young Anna. The invention of Cyanotype photography allowed Anna to use new techniques in order to catalogue plant specimens—a true marriage of science and art.

Anna's father ensured she received a scientific education, unusual in the early 19th Century for women.

In just under a year, Anna had mastered the new photographic techniques and published the book Photographs of British Algae: Cyanotype Impressions with handwritten text and cyanotype photographs. It was revolutionary, the first book of photographs ever published - and testament to Anna's passion for her subject.

How to capture the beauty of a poppy in hues of blue?

This utterly fascinating story of Anna and her life is a piece of art in itself, picked out in the trademark blue hues of cyanotype, with masterful and glorious illustrations complimenting the details of Anna's lifelong love of plants. The book even shows you how you can make your own Cyanotypes (you'll definitely need an adult to help if you go down the route of using chemicals described in the book, though Cyanotype paper is fairly widely available and very easy to use - just wait for a sunny day!)

Sum this book up in a sentence: A beautifully written and illustrated history of one of the most passionate pioneers of early photography and botany, thoroughly fascinating work from Fiona!

"The Bluest of Blues" by Fiona Robinson is out now, published by Abrams Young Readers (kindly supplied for review). 

We absolutely love Wide Eyed Editions' superb series of books celebrating iconic and inspirational men and women.

Two new titles in the "Inspiring Icons" series have been released and the first is an absolute doozy.

"Black Music Greats (40 Inspiring Icons)" by Olivier Cachin and Jerome Masi lists some of the most influential, inspirational and downright funktastic performers on the planet, past and present.

From Kanye to Beyonce, From The Supremes to Tupac, you'll find all these amazing folk and many, many more tucked within the pages of this amazing book.

With tons of interesting facts about their music and achievements, it's a huge resource of information on some of the world's most amazing performers who have become mega-successful million-selling artists, and have gone on to shape the course of music for decades.

"Black Music Greats (40 Inspiring Icons)" by Olivier Cachin and Jerome Masi is out now, published by Wide Eyed Editions. 


If science is more your thing, then there's also "Super Scientists (40 Inspiring Icons) by Anne Blanchard and Tino lists 40 of the most inquiring minds in science.

Collected together in a fantastic volume of the series, these inquisitive and innovative men and women are waiting to showcase their big ideas.

Find out how these scientists spent their lives asking questions and making leaps and bounds in the world of science and technology.

From Marie and Pierre Curie to Albert Einstein, from Isaac Newton to Stephen Hawking, they're all in here, and so is a huge range of information about these super-brainy folk.

Perfect for the budding scientist!

"Super Scientists (40 Inspiring Icons) by Anne Blanchard and Tino is also out now, also from Wide Eyed Editions. 

(Both books kindly supplied for review). 

Children's irrational fear of the dark, and comforting books about how to allay those fears are as popular as ever, and in our time on this blog we've seen quite a few.

But there's always room for another truly beautiful one, so step forward Marie Voigt's utterly gorgeous "The Light in the Night".

The story introduces Betty, a little girl who loves her night-time stories, especially the one about Cosmo the bear. 

Our second Picture Book of the Week is another absolute treat from one of our fave picture book authors.

"Molly's Moon Mission" by Duncan Beedie is the tale of a little moth with big dreams.

From the genius behind "The Bear who Stared" - a book that we STILL talk about even to this day, you're probably expecting something rather special. This most definitely is!

The tale begins with Molly, a moth who lives at the back of the wardrobe with her moth family.

During the day she's an ordinary moth who pitches in helping her family with the chores. Looking after moth grubs, all the while dreaming of her grand plan.

For at night, Molly dreams of jetting to the moon, that amazing glowing globe in the night sky. As Molly looks up, she dreams of becoming an astro-moth!

But it's not an easy task, how can a tiny little moth go all that way? She's going to need a lot of help, pluck and determination.

Duncan has once again created a book that worms its way into your thoughts and musings, as the underlying message of believing in yourself and following your dreams is beautifully described.

Molly daydreams about space, following astronauts and astro-dogs into the inky blackness!

We loved all the little touches and homages to space travel in this, so many gorgeous spreads as Molly's story unfolds.

(Gotta say, that lovely little nod to classic Lego Space figures also completely won us over!)

Utterly adorable! Go Molly!

Does Molly achieve the dizzy heights she aspires to? You'll have to read the book to find out!

Sum this book up in a sentence: A gorgeous tale of a mighty little moth with big dreams and equally huge determination to see her mission through to the end.

"Mollys Moon Mission" by Duncan Beedie is out now, published by Templar (kindly supplied for review). 

The problem with playing catch-up with well-loved comic series is that you feel duty bound to try and slot everyting you read into some sort of linear timeline - and when it comes to Marvel Comics and series fragmentation, that's a purely impossible task.

So our Comic of the Week this week, "Spider-Man: Miles Morales Volume 1" by Brian Michael Bendis and Sara Pichelli might now be two years old, and Bendis may have jumped ship to DC Comics from Marvel (lucky old DC, Bendis is an IMMENSE talent) but this series is undoubtedly one of the best if you've been looking for stuff that has interesting paralells that run comfortably alongside the behemoth "Into the Spider-Verse" movie.

Miles Morales here is a bit older than he's depicted in the movie, with even more of the same issues he encountered in the flick.

Being a teenager is hard enough. Being a teenager who also happens to be Spider-Man, has just been drafted into the Avengers AND has a Grandma who is convinced he's on drugs or running around with questionable young ladies is quite another matter entirely.

So poor Miles. Alongside his long-suffering (but utterly brilliant, in our opinion) friend Ganke Lee, the dude's trying to cope with nefarious demons who want to turn the world to ashes, kicking the Avengers' collective asses in the process (thankfully Miles is around to add a little sting here or there to the invader) - but also trying to cope with plumetting school grades and a love life that careers from non-existent to completely disastrous.

With the addition of a new pupil at his part-board school, Miles also has to deal with his secret identity accidentally being blurted out to "Golden Balls" - a mutant ex X-Men member who can summon golden spheres from...well, we never quite find out where from (thankfully).

We love Ganke Lee!

As the story begins to unfold at breakneck pace, Miles soon realises that a new super-criminal cadre would rather this new Spider-Man was hung up by his webs - permanently.

Pichelli's artwork combined with Bendis' superb plotting, fantastic observational eye for teen angst - and a ton of tongue-in-cheek jokes, cameos and utterly KILLER lines, this is a total win of a comic. We've devoured Volumes 1 and 2 and are just waiting for Volume 3 to arrive so if you're on Team Miles and haven't read this yet, this is a truly awesome jumping-in point for more of his ace comic run.

Sum this comic up in a sentence: It's not easy being Spidey!

"Spider-Man: Miles Morales Volume 1" by Brian Michael Bendis and Sara Pichelli is out now, published by Marvel Comics (self purchased, not provided for review)

This week's Chapter Book of the Week isn't the first fictional dalliance with the darkest night for Benjamin Read and Laura Trinder...

Our Picture Book of the Week this week is a brilliantly presented smorgasbord of amazing journeys by things we pretty much take for granted...