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Today I am delighted to welcome my dear friend Becky Goddard-Hill to Penny Reads. My children and I loved Becky’s first book Create Your Own Happy and now she’s back with a follow up title – Create Your Own Calm – and today she is sharing her tips on finding calm in books and reading.

This is an extract from Create Your Own Calm – an activity book for 6-12 years olds written by Becky Goddard-Hill and published this week by Harper Collins.

It has contains 50 activities, all backed by science, to support kids with their big feelings and develop ways they can help themselves to feel calmer

Reading

‘Reading gives us a place to go when we have to stay where we are’  Mason Cooley (Speech and language professor) 

Those of you who love to read  will already know how amazingly powerful a book can be. It can educate you, distract you, change your mood and transport you to another world.

For those of you who have not (yet) discovered the magic of reading here are some tips to help you fall in love with books

5  tips to help you fall in love with books

1. Try books you haven’t read before. So, if serious books make you groan, try a joke book or something more light-hearted. Maybe you like books about people your age, or maybe mysteries will hook you? As a general rule of thumb the kind of things you like to watch on TV or at the movies are probably going to be the kind of books you like to read.

2. Read regularly. Like anything at all that you try the more your practice the easier it gets Try 15 mins a day for a week and see how you go. 

3. Try reading a series – it’s a great way to get into reading and brilliant to see the same characters across several books. Here are a few you might like ….

• The Worst Witch
• Diary of a Wimpy kid
• The Famous Five
• The Magic Faraway Tree books
• Beast Quest
• Ruby Redfort
• Murder Most Unladylike
• Percy Jackson
• Harry Potter

4. Not everyone finds reading easy or fun but pretty much everyone loves a story. Audiobooks are spoken books and they can be a lovely way to help you chill out.

5. Reading should be done somewhere where you can properly relax.  Maybe you can read under your duvet with a torch, in a warm, bubble bath, or lying on a blanket in the grass.. Make your reading space comfy and you will soon get lost in a book. 

The science bit 

Reading is a powerful way to relax. Even six minutes can be enough to reduce your stress levels by more than two thirds, according to new research at the University of Sussex. They believe this is because the distraction of entering a whole new world eases tension in both your heart and in your muscles. 

It works faster than other ways of de-stressing such as listening to music, going for a walk or having a warm drink.

Activity – Book Bingo 

Book bingo is a great way to read different books, maybe your school does this? The idea is to colour in ones you have done and when your book bingo is complete reward yourself with a prize (maybe a kitchen disco?) 

Create your own calm … by escaping into a story. 

If you want to find out more about this book and read some extract and activity ideas, check out the “blog tour” below!

Penny Reads – Encourage Reading Activity / Book Bingo 

Rainy Day Mum –  Stress Less Yoga for Kids

Much More for Less – Nature Crafts

Emma and 3  – talking about feelings  

Growing Family – Creating  a pizza garden

Thrifty Mum – Cloud Watching

As you may have gathered from previous posts, the toddler is currently obsessed with books. The fact that words like “book” and “story” are in her vocabulary mean that she’s not only able to go and grab books from her shelf when she wants one read to her, but she can also stand in her cot and demand one after we’ve put her to bed! Animals are one of her favourite things and she’s getting rather good with the noises some of them make, so we decided to test her a bit with Do Cats Moo? and Do Sharks Bark? by Salina Yoon.

These two books use funny, rhyming verse and flaps to give children some fantastic opportunities to shout out animal noises as they lift a flap on each double page spread. They really are books perfect for reading aloud and sharing.

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AD: We’ve loved reviewing Do Cats Moo? and Do Sharks Bark? by @salinayoon Sent to us by @gmcpublications little @tubestopbaby has had great fun learning about animal sounds and opening flaps! Review over on Penny Reads – link in bio. #review #childrensbook #bookreviews #children #toddler #toddlerbook #boardbook #picturebook #toddlersofinstagram #epig #pennyreads

A post shared by Penny Blogs (@pennyblogs) on Jul 9, 2020 at 7:44am PDT

With bright colours, and clear illustrations children can easily spot animals that they are already familiar with and learn to recognise new ones. The big flaps are just the right size for little toddler hands to open them up as they share the book with you.

At the end of each book is a two gate-fold grand finale, where children can see all the animals from the book together one one page. The perfect opportunity to see if they can remember all the noises they make.

About Salina Yoon

A little fact about author and illustrator Salina Yoon for you that I discovered when researching this post – as well as having written nearly 200 books for children (some of which we’ve reviewed before) she also co-authored and illustrated Marie Kondo’s (yes her of tidying fame) childrens book *Kiki and Jax: The Life-Changing Magic of Friendship.

Where to buy Do Cats Moo? and Do Sharks Bark?

Both books are published by Sterling Children’s Books and are available to buy online via the following links:

• *Do Cats Moo? ISBN 978-1-4549-3433-2
• *Do Sharks Bark? ISBN 978-1-4549-3434-9

Disclaimer: We were sent copies of Do Cats Moo? and Do Sharks Bark? for the purposes of this review. All opinions remain my own. All links marked * are affiliate links. If you buy a product through these links I receive a small commission (not even enough for a cuppa if I’m honest) but it will cost you no more than usual. Many thanks for all purchases you do make through links. They are very much appreciated.

I’m not really sure where to start with Born Lippy. I picked it up from my local library whilst waiting for the kids to make their audio book choices (seriously – if your kids love audio books make sure they check out their local library as their collections are wonderful!) and just assumed that I knew what it would be like. I was expecting a typical Jo Brand style journey through her life with amusing stories of the highs and lows of being a female from her, rather unique, viewpoint. That wasn’t quite what I got.

Born Lippy is far more of a self help style book than I was expecting. It’s a book that you dip in and out of, rather than one that you read straight through. In it Jo does pull on her own life experiences (which are incredibly varied and utterly fascinating) but it’s not done in a narrative fashion. Instead she jumps from topic to topic, dishing out wonderful advice that she wishes she had had or listened to earlier in life. As the mum of teenage girls, it’s also the sort of advice that she wants to give her teenage daughters about being a woman.

It’s a great read. An informative read. A really useful read, especially with a list of helplines and useful URLs at the back. An enjoyable read. But, just not the read I was expecting when I first picked the book up.

Some of what is said in Born Lippy is now out of date though. Then again, the extraordinary circumstances we find ourselves in with the current COVID-19 lockdown make much of our pre-coronavirus lives seem out of date. The sections of the book where she writes about health and how, for the sake of their mental health, people shouldn’t try to self-isolate obviously jar massively with today’s situation. But, none of us could have predicted quite what 2020 would bring. If Jo’s publishers (or Jo herself maybe) are reading, that might make a good extra chapter for any future version. How women should prepare themselves for any similar future pandemic and what women learnt from this one. Then again I’m pretty sure Jo’s advice would be something along the line of stocking up on cigarettes, alcohol and chocolate in advance and not following Joe Wicks on YouTube every morning!

Born Lippy by Jo Brand is available *online in various paper and digital formats. Or, if you’re reading this post lockdown, why not get a copy from your local library.

Disclaimer: This post contains affiliate links marked with a *. If you buy anything through these links it costs you no more than if you had gone there and bought it independently, but I receive a small amount of commission from your purchase. All commission is very much appreciated. Thank you.