I Read, Therefore I Blog

The Blurb On The Back:

Dive into Puplantis!

Get ready to dive into a deep-sea rescue with the AQUA PUPS!

When Mayor Humdinger steals from the magical underwater city of Puplantis, it’s up to the PAW Patrol and their Mer-pup friend Coral to save the day.

( The Review (Cut For Spoilers): )

The Verdict:

This picture book (adapted by Matt Huntley from the episode ‘Aqua Pups Save A Merdinger’ by Jeffrey Duteil) has a lot of action but is very much for hardcore Paw Patrol fans as it assumes you know who the characters are and what the set-up is. There were times when I was confused as to who was who and the action is also a little confusing at times but if your young reader is a fan of the cartoon then it should pose them no problems.

PAW PATROL - DIVE INTO PUPLANTIS was released in the United Kingdom on 4th January 2024. Thanks to the Amazon Vine Programme for the review copy of this book.

The Blurb On The Back:

Stitch-by-Stitch

A beginner’s guide to needlecraft.

Stitch-by-Stitch focuses on crochet, patchwork, appliqué, embroidery, knitting, and needlepoint. It teaches the basic techniques, then shows you how to turn them into beautiful projects.

From felt flowers to a knitted scarf set, this book will get you designing, creating, and having fun!

( The Review (Cut For Spoilers): )

The Verdict:

Jane Bull is an experienced writer of crafting and activity books for children. This introductory book to embroidery, needlepoint, patchwork, appliqué, knitting and crochet is aimed at readers aged 7+ and is easy to follow with clear photographs and patterns to use. I came away feeling more confident with basic stitches and adult care-givers who are also looking to pick up these skills can do them alongside younger readers.

STITCH-BY-STICH was released in the United Kingdom on 2nd November 2023. Thanks to the Amazon Vine Programme for the review copy of this book.

The Blurb On The Back:

Arwel is having a fine day.

Yes, there’s a cloud above his head.

Yes, it’s growing.

But he is FINE, really he is …

But the cloud GROWS, LOOMS, and gets in his way, until Arwel has to admit that there’s a Storm-Cat outside - and it’s waiting for him!

After a spectacular storm comes the comforting calm, as Arwel learns that you CAN’T change your weather, but you CAN change what you make of it.

( The Review (Cut For Spoilers): )

The Verdict:

Magenta Fox’s self-illustrated picture book is beautifully drawn. Arwel, his grandmother, Tuft and the Storm-Cat are filled with character and great details that keep you absorbed and looking for more. However, I think that the overarching theme - that it’s okay for you to be overwhelmed by your emotions and best to let them out and acknowledge them - to be a little too sophisticated for the target audience and consequently didn’t work for me.

STORM-CAT was released in the United Kingdom on 7th March 2024. Thanks to the Amazon Vine Programme for the review copy of this book.

The Blurb On The Back:

If you’ve ever wanted to know how to find your creative style and build your brand but didn’t know who to ask, full-time artist Aurélia Durand’s got you covered!

Inside, discover Aurélia’s path from art school student to internationally recognised artist, inspired by questions she is regularly asked, Aurélia shares how she did it, the lessons she and her artist friends have learned along the way, and how you an start your creative journey.

( The Review (Cut For Spoilers): )

The Verdict:

Aurélia Durand is an illustrator and artist. She draws on her own career in this book for readers aged 12+ to provide guidance on how to start and sustain a creative career, including looking at how to get inspiration and how to build a brand. Although Durand’s autobiographical sections are too bland and lacking in detail to be useful, she is strong on branding and self-promotion and I liked how she focused on the business part of creativity.

YOU ARE AN ARTIST was released in the United Kingdom on 18th January 2024. Thanks to the Amazon Vine Programme for the review copy of this book.

The Blurb On The Back:

Do you want to make money while making the world a better place? Then this is the book for you.

After the bestselling success of Girls Just Wanna Have Funds, the founders of Female Invest are back, and this time they’re focusing on impact investing. Cutting through the noise and ditching the jargon, this book teaches you how to build wealth while creating positive change.

From understanding investment basics to identifying the ethics behind different assets, you’ll learn how to make money while supporting the issues you really care about. By introducing you to important concepts and strategies, and combining them with simple, actionable steps, aligning your investments with your values has never been easier. The good news? You don’t need to be rich or an expert to get started.

( The Review (Cut For Spoilers): )

The Verdict:

Female Invest is a learning platform aimed at helping women to make the most from their money. This informative follow-up to GIRLS JUST WANNA HAVE FUNDS focuses on impact (i.e. ethical) investing, explaining what it is and what to look for in a way that is easy to understand. However I wished it had been more explicit on the financial and environmental risks of crypto and the financial risks in crowd-investing as I found it a little cursory.

GIRLS JUST WANNA HAVE IMPACT FUNDS was released in the United Kingdom on 23rd November 2023. Thanks to the Amazon Vine Programme for the review copy of this book.

The Blurb On The Back:

KAMARA loves being SUPER STRONG - it makes her feel FIZZY and ZAPPY!

But negative words from her classmates make her doubt herself. With sports day looming, will Kamara find the confidence to be STRONG inside and out?

( The Review (Cut For Spoilers): )

The Verdict:

Kelechi Okafor and Michaela Dias-Hayes’s picture book combines the themes of retaining your confidence when you’re being criticised and celebrating the different kinds of strength that people have and what makes you special into an inspiring, beautifully illustrated story. I particularly liked the list of strong people at the end of the book, which is a good way of having a follow-up conversation with your young reader about the book’s themes.

STRONG LIKE ME was released in the United Kingdom on 1st February 2024. Thanks to the Amazon Vine Programme for the review copy of this book.

The Blurb On The Back:

Queerness is everywhere.
It always has been, and it always will be.

Queer people have been finding ways to fly their flags for centuries. Only problem is, it hasn’t always been from the rooftops for everyone to see.

Queerbook is here to help you discover the bits of gay culture you never knew you’d missed. It’s here to tell forgotten LGBTQ+ stories. It’s here to set you straight (ahem) on the LGBTQ+ terms you’ve seen lying around but might not have pinned down yet. It’s here to lead you through the magical portals of queer film, books, music, art and much, much more.

Wherever you are on your journey of discovery, this book is for you.

Are you ready?
Queer we go …

( The Review (Cut For Spoilers): )

The Verdict:

Malcolm Mackenzie is an award-winning author, editor and journalist. This entertaining and informative YA book is a good summary of LGBTQ+ history and culture with lively illustrations by Emily A Foster. Despite being broad in scope there’s inevitably a personal element to the choices here and I wondered if there could have been more contemporary LGBTQ+ people/culture but it’s still a great introduction for any teens interested in queer culture.

QUEERBOOK was released in the United Kingdom on 1st February 2024. Thanks to the Amazon Vine Programme for the review copy of this book.

The Blurb On The Back:

Little Experts is an unmissable non-fiction series that will empower and inspire a new generation of experts.

Get designing and building with architect and TV presenter George Clarke. From marvellous materials to future technology - discover the stories behind our homes.

( The Review (Cut For Spoilers): )

The Verdict:

George Clarke is an architect, writer and TV presenter. This book for readers aged 6+ (part of the LITTLE EXPERTS series and strongly illustrated by Robert Sae-Heng) is intended to inspire young readers to become architects, builders and designers of the future but despite Clarke’s enthusiasm for the subject, the book lacks focus, darting between different subjects like materials, sustainability and 3D printing.

LITTLE EXPERTS - HOW TO BUILD A HOME was released in the United Kingdom on 1st February 2024. Thanks to the Amazon Vine Programme for the review copy of this book.

The Blurb On The Back:

On 27 October 2018 the synagogue where Bari Weiss became a bat mitzvah was the site of the deadliest attack on Jews in American history. For most of us, the massacre in Pittsburgh came as a total shock. But to those who have been paying attention, it was only a more violent, extreme expression of the broader trend that has been sweeping Europe and the US for the past two decades.

No longer the exclusive province of the far right and far left, anti-semitism finds a home in identity politics and the reaction against identity politics, in the renewal of ‘America first’ isolationism and the rise of one-world socialism. An ancient hatred increasingly allowed into modern political discussion, anti-semitism has been migrating toward the mainstream in dangerous ways, amplified by social media and a culture of conspiracy that threatens us all.

This timely book is a powerful case for renewing Jewish and liberal values to guide us through this uncertain moment.

( The Review (Cut For Spoilers): )

The Verdict:

Bari Weiss is a journalist, writer and editor. This thought-provoking polemic was written in the aftermath of the 2018 terrorist shooting at the Pittsburgh synagogue where she had her bat mitzvah and her anger at that atrocity permeates it. Unfortunately the valid points she makes about anti-semitism on both the left and the right get lost as she bangs her anti-liberal drum and she ignores completely the role of her own free speech movement.

Thanks to the Amazon Vine Programme for the review copy of this book.

The Blurb On The Back:

This book tells the human story of one of man’s greatest intellectual adventures - how it came to be understood that light travels at a finite speed, so that when we look up at the stars, we are looking back in time. And how the search for an absolute frame of reference in the universe led so improbably to Einstein’s famous equation E = mc2,, which represents the energy that powers the stars and unclear weapons. From the ancient Greeks measuring the distance to the Sun, to today’s satellite navigation, the book takes the reader on a gripping historical journey. We see how Galileo with his new telescope discovered the moons of Jupiter and used their eclipses as a global clock, allowing travellers to find their Longitude. And how Ole Roemer, noticing that the eclipses were a little late, used this to obtain the first measurement of the speed of light, which takes eight minutes to get to us from the Sun. We then move from the remarkable international collaborations to observe the Transits of Venus, including Cook’s voyage to Australia, to the extraordinary achievements of Young and Fresnel, whose discoveries eventually taught us that light travels as a wave but arrives as a particle, and all the quantum weirdness which follows. In the nineteenth century, we find Faraday and Maxwell, struggling to understand how light can propagate through the vacuum of space unless space is filled with a ghostly vortex Aether foam. We follow the brilliantly gifted experimentalists Hertz, discoverer of radio, Michelson with his search for the Aether wind, and Foucault and Fizeau with their spinning mirrors and light beams across the rooftops of Paris. Messaging faster than light, Einstein’s theory, quantum entanglement, and the reality of the quantum world, conclude this saga.

( The Review (Cut For Spoilers): )

The Verdict:

John C H. Spence teaches physics at Arizona State University and is Snell Professor and Director of Science for the National Science Foundation’s BioXFEL Consortium. This is an absorbing historical account of how scientists learned to measure the speed of light but although I enjoyed the personal details Spence gives on the scientists and he does try to simplify the complicated mathematical formulae, some of the book was above my skill level.

Thanks to the Amazon Vine Programme for the review copy of this book.