What We Are Reading Right Now #25 – And A Must Have GiveAway…

And it is time to see what we have been reading… not to mention if you haven’t yet met Timmy Failure then you should have… you will find him lurking in this post and we are giving a cope of the latest Timmy Failure book to GiveAway… Leave a comment to enter and thank you so much to Pan Macmillan South Africa for the giving us the book to Give Away.

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The Hoods Are Reading…

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Hood #1:Where have we been, I spotted this gem in a local bookshop and we dived into it and read it from cover to cover. For the child that grew up building houses of every single possible shape and form this book is simply a dream come true. Green housing and building and how to do it… how to do just about everything to do with greening and building your home… first project a roof top garden, we seriously have to try this… this book is an absolute inspiration and the sort of book that should be left lying on the coffee table… there is a doable project for almost everyone in the family and nearly 700 pages of inspiration.

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Hood #2: The Finisher by David Baldacci published by PanMacMillan South Africa. None of my other kids would even dip into this, “dystopian young adult” not being a first choice in gendre around here. So I dipped into it myself to see what it was about… there is a slow start as you familiarise yourself with the lingo of the newly defined world of “Wormwood”… keep on going. It is the story of fourteen year old Vega Jane, she discovers a map that provides escape from the place that they didn’t realise they were “contained” in. It is dark, dangerous and really quite creepy in places… as she has to navigate her way through a series of clues, left in The Quag, a deep dark forest filled with wild and unpredictable beasts that surrounds their world. The reader follows her journey and and live her life as she discovers that her world is based entirely on lies. The heroine is and underdog, her life is miserable… you can’t help wanting her to succeed in her quest. This book is very dramatic and ticks all the boxes of fat (500+) teen read, packed with action. An interesting read and really worth pursuing to see how it turns out. It is touted as a read for 10-14 year olds, but this is light years away from my ten year old and and my avid thirteen year reader would not enjoy something this dark.

This book was given to us by Pan Macmillan South Africa for Review purposes. We were not paid to write the review and the opinions in it are as usual our own.

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Hood #3: Timmy Failure 2: Now Look What You have Done… by Stephen Pastis. A year ago we reviewed Timmy Failure #1: Mistakes were made… and I have to say my kids have a huge love for Timmy Failure… he is just fabulous. This is an easy-reader with mass appeal, a first chapter book… but it is the first book ALL my children grabbed when they saw the pile of review books arrive, and Hood #3 claimed it as her own. These books are divine, I love them myself. You can meet Timmy Failure at his website here… These books are great for beginner readers with really short chapters, that are easy to read and funny all the way. The writing is filled with illustrations, almost all pages have a cartoon on them, some of them hilarious, to keep the reader inspired to read on to find out exactly what is going on in the text. Timmy is the proud owner of a detective agency, he is also more than slightly “unaware” of everything that goes on around him. He is a delightful character with a lovely vocabulary, full of wit and fun. You cannot help laughing out loud, and when I hear endless snorts after lights out, then I know someone is taken Timmy Failure to bed. We so enjoyed Timmy Failure that we thought you all would too… We have a copy to GiveAway… leave a comment at the end of this post, you know you want too!!!
This book was given to us by Pan Macmillan South Africa for Review purposes and as a GiveAway. We were not paid to write the review and the opinions in it are as usual our own.

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Hood #4: Mr Gum arrived in our library last week, and we whipped the whole series out for a good read. Oh have you met Mr Gum… Another series of funny reads for “just slightly more than new to chapter book” readers. Mr Gum lives in the town of Lamonic Bibber, the town has it’s own newsaper… you can really read it here. These books are full of sillyness, Mr Gum is a grumpy old man, the main villain, and he dislikes children. And then there is Polly, a girl of about nine and her task is to put an end to Mr. Gum’s wicked plots. These books were obviously written by someone who loves interesting words, and there are lots of quirky, rollicking words to roll of your tongue while you are reading. Very fun books… the baddies are bad, the goodies persistent. If your kids are into extremely silly they will love these.

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Hood #5: The Fudge series has been updated and republished and they are just such a good read. I am reading them with Hood #5, for the first time and I know I would have enjoyed these as a child. These books have longer chapters than the previous books but they are a great read… about family life, and we are flying through them. The ups and downs a family living in an apartment in New York. The books are written from Peter, the oldest son’s very amusing perspective… Fudge is the younger brother… and full of all the tricks you can imagine a little brother getting up too. You will laugh at the antics, relate to family life and sigh in recognition as you wind yourself through these books.
This series of book were given to us by Pan Macmillan South Africa for Review purposes. We were not paid to write the review and the opinions in it are as usual our own.

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Hood #6: Mrs PepperPot by Alf Proysen is a classic and this girl loves a classic. Mrs Pepper Pot is a little old lady who at most inopportune moments finds herself shrinking into the size of a pepper pot. The stories are sweet and involve adventures that really would only be adventures if you are the size of a pepper pot. Suddenly a ride on the back of her cat becomes quite an event: to get past the neighbourhood dog, not to mention the neighbourhood boys. These have been re-issued as picture books… in the olden days when I was young (!) I remember these stories in a chapter book, a lovely fat hardcover with easy to read stories.

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Hood #7: What can be better than a huge Madeline Collection that you have had read to you for years and suddenly you can read it yourself… and when you get to words that are tricky – it’s no problem at all, because you know the stories off by heart anyway!!! Madeline of course needs no introduction, the sweetest little French girl in the world that everyone wants to meet.

And the se7en + 1th Books:

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Hood #8: Because we love Emily Gravett and dragons and clever stories within stories and beautiful illustrations and exhausted parents reading at bedtime… and stories that have to be read again and again – because the cover says so!!!

The GiveAway

We have a copy of Timmy Failure: Now Look What You Have Done to GiveAway to a lucky reader. This GiveAway works in the usual way, leave a comment before the end of 17 May, 2014. We will draw and publish the winners in the Friday fun Post after that. I won’t respond to your comments as I do on our other posts because I don’t want to be included in our own giveaway.

Our GiveAways are open to everyone: If you have won a GiveAway before never fear – enter away. If you live on the far side of the world – enter away. Postage takes forever from here but eventually it should get to you! Good luck and happy commenting!!!

We would really like to thank Pan Macmillan South Africa for providing us with a number of books to review for this post. Not to mention a GiveAway book. We would like to declare that we were not paid to do these reviews, just provided with books. All the opinions are as usual, entirely our own!!!

18 Replies to “What We Are Reading Right Now #25 – And A Must Have GiveAway…”

  1. We love books!!! And I admire you. These fall is going to be my first year of homeschooling two kids, u lala : )

  2. Sounds like a good recommendation. Thanks for your many book reviews

  3. it sounds like a good read – my little almost 2 year old is obsessed with books – constantly bringing us all sorts of books – going – Book Read Read – bless
    Luckily we have collected quite a few books over the 5 years the oldest has been around
    Fingers crossed I can get a copy – I am going to look out for the other one too

  4. Please enter me; I am battling to get my daughter to read and maybe Timmy Failure will be the key to unlocking the reading world for her.

  5. I need to check if our library has Timmy Failure books. I think my son would love them.

  6. I think our whole family would enjoy getting to know Timmy Failure.

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