Reading Notes

Reading Notes

Are you part of a Book Reading Group or just like to read?

Do you ever forget what books you have read or what you thought of a particular book or author?

Reading Notes is a handbag sized notebook which is the perfect companion for the avid reader. The book is set out with spaces for you to fill in details about each book you have read (or would like to read). giving you room to make notes such as: Title, Author, Date read, and any Reading Notes that you have about each book (ie.. did you like it? did the story flow? was the ending what you expected?).

Keep it handy in the library so that you don't accidentally take out a book you have already read, or use it to remind yourself about books you may like to read again. You can even use it as a gift guide for fellow readers if you know what genre or style of books that they like to read - then you can buy from your own experience.

Its nice to see that someone is thinking beyond the 'book' for a hobby, gone are the days of scribbled notes on a book mark. With a Reading Notes notebook you can be organised at your book club meets and help along the discussion with your own thoughts quickly and easily.

I would have liked the notebook to have had some kind of order to it, eg... alphabetical sections like an address book of authors or titles, so that you can refer back to a listing quickly, but maybe the designer could think about that idea for a future idea.

Reading Notes is a nifty little handy book - a great gift idea or an addition to your overflowing book collection.

http://www.readingnotes.co.uk/index.html

Single copies £5.99 each

My rating: 8/10

Discovery Box Books

Discovery Box Books

http://www.discoveryboxbooks.com/

Subscription service of books aimed at children aged 9-12 years. I am actually very impressed with how much information has been piled into a magazine style book, its not chunky and will easily fit into a schoolbag or side pocket of the car to read on the move.

Contents obviously vary per issue but our issue contained some great articles about History, Animals, Science (even Hubby liked this bit), The World and Sport. The articles are age related and are written to include understandable language for the 9-12 age range. Each page has informative information - but not too much! which is great as most children prefer to read bite-sized chunks than a while page of information.

A lot of the pages are coloured with the text printed on the top, there is a lot of white text on a coloured background which some children may find difficult to read. Also the font is quite small compared to the other books for younger readers. However the quality of the illustrations are very good and include a lot of photographs of relevance and interest to the subject.

With approx 15 pages of 'Funstuff' included this is an all-round magazine for young readers. Emma thought the information was 'just enough' and the fun pages interesting but not too tricky.

Emma's rating is 8/10 for information, with lost marks for the size of text for the younger age bracket.

A years subscription for Discover Box (10 issues) is £39.00 (UK) but please visit http://www.discoveryboxbooks.com/ for up-to-date prices and current offers.

Adventure Box Books

Adventure Box Books

http://www.adventureboxbooks.com/

This is a subscription magazine service providing chapterbooks full of stories, facts, games and other fun activities to encourage children to read.
Each type of books contents are geared around an age range, for the adventure books the ages are 6-9 year olds.

Each issue contains an exciting 44-page chapter story carefully chosen to encourage newly independent readers. The colour illustrations on every page engage children’s interest and ensure they will enjoy the challenge of reading on their own.

Full of stunning photos and fascinating scientific information about nature to compliment what your child could be learning at school written to the same level of understanding. These books could also be taken into school to show their teacher what they have been reading and learning at home (extra merit points for young learner :) ).

For fun the books contain two hilarious comic-strips with mischievous characters that children will love, plus games and quizzes to stimulate children’s literacy and reasoning skills in a fun way.

In the issue we read Emma found the type font really easy to see and read, the font was of a good size with black letters on a white/off white background. The illustrations reminded her of Roald Dahl books (Quentin Blake illustrations) which Emma thought was brilliant as they were not babyish but not too old for her. The story seemed to be quite funny as I could hear her chuckling away to herself whilst engaged in reading the story.

In the middle of the book there was the results of a recent competition, Emma commented that this was a good idea as she then knows what type of competitions are held and the level of entries that have won (ie.. good drawings or colouring skills for a colouring/poster competition).

She liked the puzzles but did complete them quite quickly, I had to remind her that the Adventure Box Book is for 6-9 year olds and as she is nearly 9 they could be quite simple for her at the top of the bracket.

Emma gives this issue of the series 8/10 as its colourful and interesting, but a little too simple for the higher age bracket.

Monthly/10 issues per year approx £39.00, please visit http://www.bayard-magazines.co.uk/ for more up-to-date pricings and current offers.