Adoptive Mummy

I was recently approached by Barefoot Books to review some books on my blog. I am somewhat wary about using my blog for promoting companies but on the other hand Girl and I (and Boy is getting to enjoy it too) love to share books together, we always end the day with a story and knowing the quality of Barefoot Books from previous purchases I decided to go for it. I had a chat with my contact and specified that at this time I only wanted to review books that were appropriate to my blog content and boy did they deliver.

The first book I read and my personal favourite was a book called Motherbridge of Love. It’s a simple poem about adoption that has been beautifully illustrated. I have to say good adoption books for children are few and far between and genuinely this is the loveliest I have ever read, it actually brought a tear to my eye. The illustrations are thoughtfully done with the emphasis on the relationship between the child and the adoptive mother but the birth mother is not far away in the illustrations that have a nod to the ethnic background of the child in the story. Girl did not understand the book this time round but liked the pictures, in time I think this is a book that will mean a lot to her.

The next book we read was Lola’s Fandango, Girl enjoyed this as it was quite a long story but simply told, we enjoyed clapping out the rhythms and trying out some of the actions that Lola had to learn like moving the wrist like a bird’s wings. We also enjoyed learning the Spanish words together and again another wonderfully illustrated book. The book’s underlying message is about self-esteem and this is what Barefoot Books can be particularly good at, their books have good stories but also have some educational or inspirational value to them too without being too ‘in your face’ about it. This is a book we may be exploring further and using as an example for behaviour.

The last book we read and Girl’s favourite was The Prince’s Bedtime about a prince who refused to go to sleep (ringing any bells?), the illustrations were fun and the whole story enjoyable to read, we do love the rhyming one’s the best. I particularly liked the simple end to the story but I am not giving it away!

All in all (as I suspected I might be) I was very pleased with the selection, on browsing the catalogue I found some other books that might be of some use to us too such as Emily’s Tiger. We do like a fun story but sometimes something more specific is required to help Girl through a situation and Barefoot Books seem to have given this considerable thought when putting their catalogue together, that books and stories can meet a need. Their books cover areas such as ethnicity, behaviour, environment, education and folklore.

As a thank you for reviewing their books Barefoot Books have offered readers of my blog a 20% discount until the end of July 2012. To redeem the discount just click on the link below and it will be done for you automatically.

http://www.barefootbooks.com/uk?bf_specialoffer=ADOPTIVE