My Beautiful Room: Interior Design Workbook is written and illustrated by Jasmine Orchard and Olivia Whitworth and published by Ivy Kids. Through gentle tuition and completing of projects your child learns many of the essential principles of design.

If this sounds boring, think of it more as 'designing your own epic bedroom'.


The first thing you realise about My Beautiful Room is that you are jealous of your child's book. My partner and I both poured over it and commented how much we'd have loved it. We were actually more keen to get stuck in than the children.

Paper Aliens by Jennifer Bryan and Paper Robots by Alexander Gwynne are two amazing large format paperback books which are full of press out characters for your child (and you) to make. Suitable for children aged around 8+, once you have made your models, the books also include games to play with the robots and aliens, even having press out cards at the back of the books for extra gameplay.


Although these books have a recommended age of around 8+, both my 6 and 7 year old boys did a fine job of making the models, with only a minimum of help. They weren't the only ones who got excited by the models though...

Some children's books are a joy, and Secrets Of Winter is one of them. This is a book with a secret, in fact every other page holds a secret, and it's only when you 'shine a light' behind the page that you can find it's hidden treasure...


Written and illustrated by Carron Brown and Georgina Tee, Secrets Of Winter is one of a series of 'Shine-A-Light' books. We were reading at bedtime, so we used a torch to 'see' the pictures as we read.