Nov2

Blue Sun by Tracy Abrey

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IMG_5457Blue Sun by Tracy Abrey, paperback novel, 360 pages, published by CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform in 2013.

When Genny Hazard’s scientist father is offered his own lab on the tiny Isle of Man, she has no choice but to leave everything she knows and go with him. With her American accent she is sure to garner some attention at her new school and around town, but Genny never expected to attract the attention of the hot school swim star, Ken. Nor did she expect to be followed by people sporting a peculiar tattoo on their necks. Genny is extremely smart, and believes strongly in science and logic, but the island is swathed in legends and myths. At first Genny scoffs at such nonsense, but soon she will have to re-examine everything she’s ever known, altering her life as she knows it.

Blue Sun is a captivating young adult fantasy. It was fairly quick paced and each chapter left me wanting to read the next. I found it interesting and a little different. It’s not just another apocalyptic teen novel, it begins the story well before any disaster can befall the island community where the book is set, so it’s more of a pre-apocalypse novel. We get to know the characters as they are before they have to re-adjust to a new world, which I liked. Elements so often seen in young adult fiction, such as girl meets boy, new school, parent issues, are there, but the story goes deeper than that, as the mysteries of the island are uncovered.

The story is set on the Isle of Man in the Irish sea. The author has obviously put a lot of research into the island’s history, culture and myths, which created a very realistic scene. There are some references to Manx culture and language, though it didn’t make it difficult to read and there is a list of translations at the back of the book. The mythic elements that are so much a part of Ken and his family really clash with the science of Genny and her father. This collision of ideas and beliefs was interesting and cleverly constructed. Swaying Genny into believing occurrences outside of the scientific realm was a difficult process, but one which needed to occur.

There were a few moments of cheesy romance, but it wasn’t forced. I was even glad that Genny got to experience young love, as she certainly wasn’t getting much affection from her father. She is quite independent, almost defiantly so, but she has to be that way to cope with her mother gone, and her father pulling away form her. She’s a good, strong character, and I liked her. Genny will never really be “normal”, but her path of self-discovery from brilliant loner to an integral part of her new community made her seem more like the teenager she is, despite her apparent destiny. The other main character, Ken, is also complicated, yet charming and lovable. Despite his popularity, and his swim star status, he is neither a dumb jock, nor a prig, he is actually just a nice guy. His family is a little odd, especially his mum, with her hippyish clothing and occult crystal store. I can even smell the incense wafting through the beaded curtains… I thought all of the characters were well developed and described.

The ending was a set up for the sequel, so I felt a little deflated when I finished. I just wanted to keep reading about Genny and Ken and the Isle of Man. Luckily for me, the next book in the series, Dark Waters, is now available!

Blue Sun is the first installment in the Blue Sun series from Tracy Abrey, and is suitable for high school students and up.

 

*I received this book from the author, who asked me for an honest review of this book. I did not receive any other remuneration, and the review is composed entirely of my own opinions.

Oct22

Minion Cake

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IMG_5554After watching Despicable Me and Despicable Me 2 many, many times, when the Minion Movie came out, my kids were keen to see it. They loved it, and have been a little minion crazy ever since. This minion love has even extended to cakes now!

Cake base.

Cake base.

The cake base was made from two butter cakes, one square and one round. I cut the round one in half to make the head of the minion. I also leveled the top of the cakes to make it easier to decorate.

I used a basic butter cream recipe to make the yellow icing, which I applied to the entire cake. This provided me with a base on which to stick the fondant icing I used for making the cake into a minion. To make sure I was making the cake look like an actual minion, I kept a picture of a minion nearby to check on throughout the decoration process.

Grey snake ready to make the goggles edges.

Grey snake ready to make the goggles edges.

The rest of the decoration was done using fondant icing. I started with the eye, rolling out some white fondant until a few millimetres thick. I used a cup to make a neat circle, and then lifted this carefully onto the cake. I coloured the white fondant with a little bit of black food colouring to make the silver edge of the goggles. I rolled out a thin snake of the grey fondant, and shaped it around the edge of the eye, carefully smoothing it down to cover the white edge. I used a little bit of the left-over butter cream to stick the grey fondant down to the white fondant.

Working on the eye.

Working on the eye.

To get fondant that was really black, I used a pre-coloured fondant. From this, I made the goggles straps and the pupil of the eye. To make the goggles more realistic, I used the back of a knife to press a line down the centre of the straps, and I fashioned a hinge on one side from some of the left over grey fondant.

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Adding the overalls, section by section.

To make the minion’s overalls, I coloured the white fondant with blue gel food colouring. I prefer the gels to liquid, as I’ve found them to produce a more vibrant colour in the fondant. Once I was happy with the colour for the overalls, I rolled out the blue fondant. I made the overalls in sections, first the centre piece, using a rectangle of blue fondant, then the sides of the overalls, and finally the straps. Each piece was then fitted carefully against each other and then trimmed at the base of the cake. I added little black fondant buttons to the straps, and an extra blue patch for the centre pocket. The side pockets were created by pressing a line into the fondant using the back of a knife. Again, I used left-over butter cream to stick the fondant pieces down.

Minion arms.

Minion arms.

The arms and legs were pure fondant. Fondant is easy to use and shape, a lot like plasticine. I just made the shapes I wanted and added them to the rest of the cake.

The mouth is a thin line of black fondant, while the minion’s hair is pieces of cut up black pipe cleaners (chenille sticks). The symbol on the front of the overalls I made using cake decorating writing fudge.

This cake took me a couple of hours to make, but I was very happy with the results. My kids thought it was pretty awesome too!

Oct16

Punch Lines “Humerus” Art by George D. Wachob

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IMG_5450Punch Lines “Humerus” Art by George D. Wachob, paperback collection of artworks, 64 pages, published in 2015.

This is a collection of individual drawings. Each piece of art represents a pun, phrase or name. They are fairly simple coloured drawings, one to each page. The actual names of the artworks are located at the back of the book to give the reader a chance to work out the pun for themselves.

I looked at this book with my husband, as he is a big fan of puns. We went from page to page trying to work out what each picture represented. It was obvious what some of the art was, while others had us stumped. Even after reading the name of the artwork, there were a couple that I still didn’t get. I think it’s possible that some of the puns just don’t translate well across the seas. We laughed at some, and groaned at others, but there were only a few that I really really liked, such as brain waves and false teeth. My husband liked the pigeon ‘toad’ and the airplane hanger. I reckon some of these pictures would be awesome as printed t-shirts.

Punch Lines “Humerus” Art is good for some light entertainment with a bit of brain stretching too. Whilst there isn’t anything expressly unsuitable for children in the book, I thought that the artwork would be too complicated for many children, and would be better suited to teenagers and adults.

*I received this book from the author, who asked me for an honest review. I did not receive any other remuneration, and the review is composed entirely of my own opinions and those of my husband.

Oct15

Playdough

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Shapes cut out of the dough.

Shapes cut out of the dough.

My kids all love playing with playdough, it is fun and great for fine motor skills and creativity. The toddlers have even mostly stopped trying to eat it now! I prefer to make my own playdough as it is easy to make and cheaper than the store-bought products. I almost always have all the ingredients in the pantry too, so I can make it whenever we like.

Ingredients.

Ingredients.

I’ve always felt that the playdough recipe on the side of the cream of tartar tin makes the best playdough. It needs to be cooked, but it is smooth, soft and long lasting every time. We added blue food colouring for the colour and vanilla essence to make it smell nice. A helped me to stir it in the saucepan until it began to clump together, then we turned it out onto a cutting board and kneaded it for a couple of minutes to make sure it was nice and smooth.

Mixing all the ingredients in a saucepan.

Mixing all the ingredients in a saucepan.

Fresh blob of dough.

Fresh blob of dough.

Once the playdough was ready, the lids sat up at the table to use it. They moulded it with their hands, cut out shapes with cookie cutters, and rolled it into balls and snakes. T2 enjoyed just squishing it between his fingers, while L made people models. A and T1 made lots and lots of cut-outs. They also used some plastic scissors to cut the dough, rollings pins to flatten it, and plastic rollers to make patterns on the dough. Fun was had by all!

Making cut-outs.

Making cut-outs.

Squishing the dough.

Squishing the dough.

Using a roller in the dough.

Using a roller in the dough.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Once we were finished, I stored the playdough in an airtight container in the pantry for next time.

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Oct11

Horrible Histories: Horribly Hilarious Joke Book by Terry Deary

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IMG_5394Horrible Histories: Horribly Hilarious Joke Book by Terry Deary and illustrated by Martin Brown and Philip Reeve, paperback, 86 pages, published by Scholastic Ltd in 2009.

This is a collection of historical jokes, just right for middle to upper primary school students. The book is divided into sections based on the popular Horrible Histories books, such as jokes from the Groovy Greeks or the Incredible Incas. Many of the jokes were rather cringe-worthy and perfect for “Dad Jokes”, so I laughed a lot, and so did my kids. There are plenty of black and white illustrations to make you laugh too! It is a rather short book with only a few jokes on each page, so it was a quick read, but one that I thoroughly enjoyed. We quite like this sort of humour in our house!

Oct11

Ten Terrible Dinosaurs by Paul Stickland

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IMG_5266Ten Terrible Dinosaurs by Paul Stickland, paperback picture book, first published by Ragged Bear Publishing Ltd. in 1997, this edition published by Picture Corgi in 2014.

This is a cute count-down book perfect for toddlers and preschoolers. It uses simple language and large text, making it easy for young children to follow the words. The illustrations are bright and colourful. The story is funny, it rhymes, and most importantly there are dinosaurs!

My toddlers have been asking me to read Ten Terrible Dinosaurs a lot lately. They like to make roaring sounds throughout as they pretend to be the dinosaurs in the story. The repetition of the numbers has been helping them to learn the numbers, and we like to count the dinosaurs together. Knowing that the number will rhyme with the previous line has encouraged them to try to predict the next number. They also laugh every time we get to the dinosaur whose silly trick goes wrong, and when one of the dinosaurs gets stuck in a tree!

 

Oct8

Eggs and Soldiers

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Eggs and soldiers made by L.

Eggs and soldiers made by L.

It’s been a busy year for us with a lot going on, including moving to a bigger house! When we purchased our new house, we inherited five lovely chickens who do a very good job of keeping us in an abundance of eggs. The kids love collecting the eggs, playing with the chooks, and feeding them, they are a wonderful addition to our family. The only problem is that my kids claim that they don’t like eggs (unless they are cooked in a cake, of course!). So I’ve been trying different methods of cooking with eggs in the hope of winning them over to the “eggs are yumtastic” camp. I have so far won over the younger three with scrambled eggs, hard-boiled eggs and quiche, but my eldest is still reluctant to even try eating eggs. In an attempt to remedy this, I got her involved in cooking eggs and soldiers this morning.

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Placing the eggs into the water.

I helped her get out a saucepan and start heating the water on the stove-top. Our eggs had been sitting on the bench and were at room temperature, so we brought the water up to boiling before adding the eggs to it. L used a dessert spoon to carefully place each egg into the saucepan without cracking them or burning herself.

Since these eggs were homegrown, they varied in size (one of our chooks is smaller than the others and lays smaller eggs), so even though we only boiled the eggs for around five minutes, the smallest of the eggs had already hard-boiled. The larger eggs were nicely soft-boiled.

Making buttered soldiers to dip in the eggs.

Making buttered soldiers to dip in the eggs.

L had a go at cracking the tops off the eggs using a spoon. As the eggs were very hot, she held the egg gently using a tea-towel to prevent burning her fingers while she removed the top. She also cooked the toast and cut it up into soldiers.

A took one look at the runny egg and refused to try it, while the toddlers hooked right in. L sort of gave the eggs a sniff then told me she didn’t want to try it after all. Oh well…. I had a lovely meal of eggs and soldiers prepared mostly by L, and now I’m back on my quest to convince her to eat eggs soon!

Oct7

Dino Shapes by Suse MacDonald

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IMG_5268Dino Shapes by Suse MacDonald, board book, published by First Little Simon in 2014, previously published as Shape by Shape in 2009.

My toddlers are obsessed with dinosaurs at the moment. As soon as they saw this cute little board book, they wanted it. It has been read over and over and over… They love it. I also like it, it has been helpful in teaching them some shapes.

Each page is a bold colour, the text is easy to read and simple. It starts with two black circles for eyes, and each page uses a new shape in the story, adding detail to the dinosaur. There are cut-outs on the pages for each shape the story uses. These accumulate to provide the final picture. It is quite clever really, though as far as I know, Brachiosaurus didn’t have big pointy triangular teeth!

Inside the front cover there are also different shapes printed in bright colours with the name of the shape beneath each one. I often ask my toddlers to point out certain shapes before we read the story. They like to repeat the names of the shapes after I read them out too.

Dino Shapes comes in a sturdy board book format and is perfect for babies and toddlers.

 

Sep30

Chained by Susanne Valenti

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chainedcoverChained by Susanne Valenti, e-book, 198 pages, published by Amazon Digital Services, Inc. in 2015.

Years before, humanity was afflicted by a contamination event, which left many dead, and others terribly mutated. Plants and animals were also affected, further endangering humans. The remaining people fled into the walled cities, and began living as part of the population, contributing to and being ruled by the strictures of the new society. Maya has grown up within the safety of the city, hidden behind The Wall, but when her life takes an unexpected course, she finds herself being led beyond the safety zone of the city. Suddenly her eyes are open to a whole other world, making her question everything she has ever been told.

Chained is a fast paced young adult novel suitable for high school students and up. It is packed with action, adventure and a little romance. Nothing explicit though! The story was rather violent with a lot of fighting and deaths, including the use of weaponry such as knives and guns. I enjoyed the action sequences, they were well written and exciting, perfect for getting the adrenaline pumping!

The plot was well developed and logical. I found the story to be engrossing, in fact I had a difficult time stopping myself from reading the next chapter when it was time for bed! Maya and all the residents of the city were being kept in the dark about so many things, and the Guardians used their fear of contamination to control them, a bit like a large cult. As Maya and Laurie began to discover some of the secrets, it made me wonder just what else was being hidden or controlled and why.

The world that has been created in this dystopian novel has the massive enclosed cities, but the rest of the land is similar to that of today, except that everything is exaggerated in size, speed and cognitive functionality. In some ways this makes it scarier, the animals and plants are familiar, yet like nothing we’ve ever experienced, it made me think of what the world might have been like in prehistoric times.

The SubWar area of the city really brought out the worst in people, who were not only condemned to fight for their lives, but appeared to enjoy the killing of others. This might be a comment on the nature of humanity laid bare. The whole situation with the serial killer Grey was a bit odd though. He was completely unhinged, but the way that he looked at Maya, I thought there would be some prior connection between them. The concept of going to fight in SubWar as a punishment is very scary, but Grey and his cronies were just terrifying.

Maya is the main character, and the narration mostly follows her throughout the book. She is petite with a tendency towards anger when frustrated, and has a habit of being somewhat clumsy. Overall I liked Maya, though I thought she should have been straight with Taylor about how she feels about their relationship. However, I think many teenagers could relate to her situation with Taylor, growing up friends, and then puberty changing things.

All of the characters were well written and likable, though I felt a bit sorry for Taylor, with his unrequited love interest in Maya. He seemed like a nice guy, loyal, caring, playful. I thought he would play more of a role in the story than he did, and I would have liked to get to know him a bit better. It could have been an interesting sub-plot with both Taylor and Coal lusting after Maya! Coal was more of a dark horse than Taylor. He has experienced a hard life that has sculpted him into a more mature and serious character than his years would normally lead to. Coal’s sister, Alicia, is tough, but also cheery and cheeky. She often has something snide on the tip of her tongue, but she genuinely embraces life and the people she shares it with. She was a big personality that I really liked. Laurie was more reserved, yet still strong and tough when required.

Susanne Valenti is an emerging author, and Chained is her first book in a five book series called Cage of Lies. This is the start of a great series for fans of dystopian fiction and I am very excited that there is more to come!

 

*I received this book as a digital copy from the author, who asked me for an honest review of this book. I did not receive any other remuneration, and the review is composed entirely of my own opinions.

Sep24

The Secret of Sinbad’s Cave by Brydie Walker Bain

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The Secret of Sinbads Cave CoverThe Secret of Sinbad’s Cave by Brydie Walker Bain, e-book, 128 pages, published in 2015.

Nat, Jack and Kathleen Sheppard arrive at their Dad’s farm for the holidays only to be told that the farm in not profitable and must be sold. They are devastated, the farm has been in the family for generations and they love it. While they are still digesting this news, young Kathleen discovers a hidden room alongside the attic. Inside is a set of extraordinary items that will lead the Sheppards on an exciting treasure hunt. This might just be what they need to save the farm, but all adventures have obstacles. They are not the only ones searching for this particular treasure, and their rivals won’t let a few kids stand in the way of success.

The Secret of Sinbad’s Cave is a wonderful fantasy adventure set on the North Island of New Zealand  amidst stunning landscapes and caves carved into the mountains and valleys thousands of years before. The story is fast paced and engaging. I read it fairly quickly and enjoyed every moment of it. It combines mystery and fantasy with drama and adventure to create the perfect hunt for an ancient treasure. It made me think of books such as King Solomon’s Mines, Treasure Island, and The Famous Five books, that I read as a child, and still love today.

The characters are well developed and written. I feel that I got to know the kids rather well through the story, especially Nat. Though I like all the kids, my favourite character is Abraham. He is an amazing leader and protector with a few tricks up his sleeve. As I read about him, my mind conjured an older, yet fairly spry Maori man with the whole wisdom of New Zealand’s history, spirits, legends and myths, as well as an extraordinary insight into human nature. What a beautiful character to guide the young heroes of the story safely through their adventure. The villains were equally well written, and quite dislikable in all respects!

The cover of this book is beautiful. It caught my attention, though it took me a little while to realise what the lights on the roof of the cave are! It would be such an amazing experience to see a cave formation like that, and it is the perfect setting for such a wonderful treasure hunting expedition.

While The Secret of Sinbad’s Cave is suitable for middle to upper primary school children, it is also an exciting read for adults. I look forward to reading Nat’s next adventure in The Ship of Sight and the Hand of Shadow, the second book in The Natnat Adventures series.

 

*I received this book as a digital copy from the author, who asked me for an honest review of this book. I did not receive any other remuneration, and the review is composed entirely of my own opinions.