We’ve been sent some great stuff to review as part of the 100 books challenge, but this has been one of Small’s favourites. So I’m particularly glad to have been sent two copies – meaning I can give one away without having to pry it out of Small’s grasping fingers!
We like Haynes stuff here. Small has a Haynes manual Death Star t-shirt that I got him just before Christmas, and Tim is slightly jealous that they don’t go up to his size. This book is everything you’d expect from a collaboration between experienced manual writers and slightly nutty contraption builders – especially ones who’ve created an Edit-o-Mattic machine :D. It’s great fun for Wallace and Gromit fans, and pretty good even if you’re not that up on them. There’s loads of pics from the various films, detailed drawings of all the contraptions, and descriptions too. Plenty of material to keep you going for quite a while.
If you fancy your own copy of this manual, all you need to do is leave me a pick-me comment. And if you’d like a second entry, tweet or FB this post, preferably explaining a little about the #100books challenge and what I’m trying to achieve with it, and leave me a second comment telling me where you’ve shared it. The competition will run until Friday 11th at midnight, and I’ll pick a winner using random.org on Saturday. (If that winner doesn’t get back to me by Friday 18th, I’ll pick again.) UK entries only please, as I’ve to cover the postage!
Book 63 of 100. [Read more…] about Wallace & Gromit: Cracking Contraptions Manual by Haynes – review and giveaway #100books
– her third Jeremy Strong of the week I think. And I took a look at the 
, as sent to us by Top That Publishing.
which he seems to have liked. Not that there seems to have been much he hasn’t liked to be honest 😉
from a friend’s last week (accidentally leaving my half finished review copy of 
there in exchange, so that won’t get finished and reviewed til next week now, *oops*). I like Jan Mark – as is obvious by the fact that I’ve already reviewed a couple by her this month, and this looked interesting.
. It could easily be read on a lighter level, but there’s a lot going on – Jan Mark really didn’t hesitate to address the darker side of human nature and society in these books, ostensibly for teens. I can only say that any adults who turn away from them because of those labels are doing themselves no favours at all.
is one of the batch of mini treasures that we picked up, but it’s also a book we’ve had for a while. It doesn’t seem like a first picture book somehow – it’s quite a deep story, and they are detailed, older pictures if that makes any sense. It’s a thought provoking tale at some levels, as well as being a quiet short story about a girl and some animals.
and 
are large format pictures books with flaps that have survived two children so far, though may have to work quite hard to survive Smallest as she seems to take personal affront to anything stuck in books, like library labels or flaps. These are both somewhat moralistic stories in which Kitty discovers the virtues of helping her friends, most of whom are more often found on cat menus rather than Christmas card lists iyswim. So Kitty helps little Rabbit find his teddy, and shares her ball of wool with the birds and mice, and everyone lives happily ever after with smiling Cat looking on. That said, these books are really quite inoffensive, and have been favourites of our family for a decade now.