Book Review: Lost My Name

If you have access to the internet (and if you’re reading this, I think the chances of that are high) you will probably have already heard of the children’s picture book ‘Lost My Name’. Lost My Name is a personalised book where the little boy or girl in the story has lost their name and goes on a magical adventure to rediscover it.

Along the way they meet a series of creatures – magical or otherwise, who one by one help the child to find their name again. The small boy (spoiler alert) is called BENJAMIN so it took some searching to find all the letters of his name, but by meeting B for Bear, E for Elephant and N for Narwhal (and so on) we discovered his name.

It is a beautifully illustrated book, with lots going on. Printed on nice thick paper with a matt finish (something I enjoy, yes I know I’m weird). The ‘Benjamin’ book was 42 pages long.

It was an enjoyable adventure story which kept my four and a half year old interested throughout; he encountered creatures he already knew (bear, elephant etc) and new magical and mysterious creatures such as the narwhal, the nabarlek and an imp, as well as a jester and a mermaid. There was lots for us to talk about after we’d finished reading which is always the mark of a good children’s book I find.

He particularly enjoyed finding the letters in his name and got very excited each time we turned a page and there was another letter he recognised, which was lovely to see!

Over the last few years we’ve had quite a few personalised books, all of which have been extra special and he’s gone back to them over and over again because they are personalised and personal to him. Because having a personalised book is slightly more expensive than an off the shelf book, it is the kind of thing I’d buy him or another child as a present rather than an everyday book.

It is incredibly simple to create and order your own personalised book, simply type in the name you want and select the gender of the child and then head to checkout. You can even preview a copy online before you buy to make sure it’s exactly what you want.

Lost My Name costs £18.99 and can be ordered from their website. It is a beautiful book and I think well worth the money, especially as I know that he will choose it again and again and probably want to take it into school to show his teacher and his friends.

Lost My Name is a real magical story book, really well thought out, each one is unique and special and that’s the really great thing about personalised books. Lost My Name is a real gem. There’s nothing I don’t love about it.

Note: We were sent a copy of Lost My Name for review purposes. All images and opinions are our own.

Memories Photo Book for Kids from love2read

Each year we make up photo books for various relatives, they’re a great present, especially in these days of digital photography. It occurred to me that we do wonderful things with the small boy every week; normal family things, like trips to the park, or holidays, or just baking a cake at home on a rainy day. I’m always there clicking away, capturing the moment and he deserves a little photo book too!

Love2Read have a great little photo book, which we think makes a lovely personalised Christmas present for children. We ordered one as a little pre-Christmas gift for the small boy.

It was really easy to set up. There is a huge selection of books to choose from, all different titles and styles, but we went for Memories of 2014. I recommend that before you start you choose 11 pictures which you want in your book, have them in a file ready to upload, then you’re not searching for them.

All you do is personalise the book by dropping your pictures on each page and writing a caption. Once you’ve done, check it through so it reads well and the pictures are positioned how you want them, then simply order. Each books costs £14.99 but I think that’s good value for the quality of the product.

Our love2read book was delivered very quickly, within a couple of days of ordering. It’s a good quality, soft-back book, the pages are pretty thick, so they won’t tear or crease easily. The book is colourful and the type is the perfect size for emerging readers.

We sat down to read it together. The small boy has recently turned four and we’re mastering our letters and sounds at the moment, so although the only word he could read/recognise was his name, he did point at the individual letters and tell me what they were, a game which we enjoyed enormously.

We read it through a few times, then he “read” it to me, more from memory if truth be known, but he loved to point at the pictures and tell me the story of the day and what we were doing, which was one of the reasons why we ordered the book in the first place.

We’ve read the book every day and he’s taken it into school for “show and tell”, so he’s obviously very pleased with it. It’s a lovely little keepsake of his year, something he can look at alone, or with an adult, something that will help to encourage his love of reading. I’d really recommend it.

Note: We were sent the Love2Read book free of charge for review purposes. All images and opinions are our own.

Book Review: Personalised Peppa Pig Book from Penwizard

Toddlers, like most humans, develop obsessions. We’ve had Curious George, Chuggington, In The Night Garden and more recently, Peppa Pig. It’s not that we don’t embrace his obsessions, we do with some gusto; it’s just that his repeated and rather adorable requests to watch “the piggins” do become a little wearing. I’d much rather snuggle up with him and read a book than plonk him in front of the telly. But sometimes the telly wins.

I was asked by Penwizard if I wanted to create a personalised Peppa Pig book for him, my first thought was that if he was frolicking around on the pages of a Peppa Pig book he might let me turn the telly off. I was right.

Creating the book was easy. I went to the Penwizard website, selected which story we’d like, in this case “Peppa Pig and Benjamin Go Swimming”. You then choose from a selection of facial features to create a likeness of your child, throw in a few words of personalised text and away you go.

Book Review: Personalised Peppa Pig Book from Penwizard

The book arrived quickly and was well packaged. It comes with a little letter to your child which has a picture of them and Peppa on the reverse for them to colour in. We thought that was a nice touch.

The book itself was soft back and A4 sized (though hard backs are available). It’s a colourful, beautiful book. The illustrations are simple and engaging, much like the cartoon series. The little cartoon Benjamin (my boy) was pretty accurate and he recognised himself immediately.

I loved that there was real attention to detail with the book, such as the personalised message from Mummy and Daddy. The story itself – Peppa and Benjamin Go Swimming was fun-packed and engaging, as I read it to him he listened carefully and pointed things out on the page. He enjoyed it so much he demanded I read it several times before he went to bed. It’s a real winner.

Book Review: Personalised Peppa Pig Book from Penwizard

It’s a lovely book and a great way to encourage reading with your little one. It is a Ladybird book, a brand who I remember with great fondness from my childhood. The soft back book is just £14.99, I think it’d be a lovely present for any little one. They have a few characters to choose from too, like Noddy, Ben & Holly and Roary the Racing Car.

I can see this being a bedtime favourite and I’m sure that we’ll be ordering others from the series. He loved his bedtime adventure with Peppa and I did get to turn the telly off for a change.

Click here to read more of our book reviews.

Disclaimer: I was sent the Penwizard Peppa Pig book for review purposes. It’s worth £14.99 and it’s just lovely.

Review: A Personalised Book for Toddlers from love2read

We’ve always felt it was important to read to and with our boy. When he was nought but a bump we’d regale him with a host of stories in the hope he’d pop out reciting the works of Shakespeare, or at the very least The Gruffalo. That surprisingly enough didn’t happen, but he has always, always loved books and bedtime stories are something we all look forward to.

He’s three now and although he can’t read yet, he is starting to recognise some letters; it’s time we stepped up our bedtime story routine and got him joining in a bit more.

The other night I happened across love2read on Twitter. They create personalised photo books around your child’s family and life. The idea being that if they’re matching words to pictures of things they love and recognise, then that will enhance their love of reading, make it more relevant to them and ultimately more enjoyable.

You select from a pretty wide range of titles including – I love…, All About Me…, When It Snowed… and Where I Live. We plumped for I Love… because Valentine’s Day is fast approaching and we’ve been talking a lot recently about the people and things we love.

The whole process is incredibly easy. Once you’ve chosen which book you want, you need to select and upload your pictures. Generally you’ll need about 10 digital photographs of fairly decent quality. You can drop your pictures in and swap them around on the pages until you are happy. Then enter the text you’d like, for example “I love Daddy”, check you’re happy and then order your book. Easy-peasy.

We ordered our personalised book on Wednesday morning and it was sat in my hot little hand by Friday lunchtime. Delivery time depends on when you order in relation to their print runs, but delivery was fast and it was well packaged.

personalised book

Now my delightful husband has his own printing business, so the first thing I did was hand it to him for his professional opinion. He thought the print quality was good, with the inside pages being of a decent weight (which means good quality paper). He was pretty impressed (and in terms of print he’s the most critical man in the world). His one criticism was that the staples were too small, but that’s something only printers and the overly fastidious would notice, and let’s face facts, that’s not going to massively impact on your enjoyment of the book.

Bedtime rolled around and ta-dah, I revealed his new bedtime story. He wanted to examine every page carefully, delighting in the pictures and describing what was in them. One of the pictures was him on the beach, which sparked a lovely conversation about what we did that day and what he liked about it. We then sat and read the personalised book properly, cover to cover, several times.

The wording is very simple. In the “I love…” book we put things like “I love the playground”, which he does. He instinctively repeated the words after I read them out and I pointed at the individual words as I read along so he’d start to get the idea of reading left to right. It was all good and we read it several times over. He loved it so much he’s taken it to bed with him.

personalised book

We’re impressed. The process was simple and the product of good quality with clear educational value. What I liked about it was it is also a lovely photo book which you can use to record special days, such as birthdays, holidays, Christmas and Valentines.

At just £14.99 a book I think it represents good value for money, given it’s not only an unusual but lovely learning tool, but a photo book of memories. My top tip would be to sort out 10 or so photographs before you sit down and create your book.

I think these are really lovely gifts for toddlers. I like that the range of titles you can choose from is pretty vast so you can personalise books to be read with Grandad or Auntie Lisa or whoever. If there isn’t a title which matches what you want there’s the option to create your own. It’s flexible and honestly it took very little time to create. As I said, sort your pictures out first, that’s always the hard bit.

Would I recommend? Absolutely yes. Will I be buying more, absolutely yes. Does he love it? Oh my goodness yes. Just don’t show it to someone fastidious about staple length.

Disclaimer: I was sent a copy of the personalised book “I Love…” for review purposes, but my reviews are always honest, especially regarding staple length.