Looking back on Bryns first year at school one of the highlights for me was seeing his reading develop.

By the end of the year his reading was good enough to take part in the Summer Reading challenge at the library & read the 6 books all by himself, which he then enjoyed telling the staff at the library all about before collecting his smelly stickers & other goodies.

We’ve been very lucky in the sense that it feels as if Bryn is a natural reader. His love of books combined with his great memory seemed to have helped him master reading without too many difficulties.

He was given one reading book from school each week, not fantastic storybooks but the ones which helped him practice digraphs, ‘tricky words’ & some punctuation. Alongside this he picked books from the library, continued having stories read to him & would practice his reading with picture books.I remember one morning when he read us a Meg & Mog story all by himself, we were pretty amazed.

When reading picture books to Bryn he was always keen to pick out additional sound effects or text in speech bubbles to read to us.

The books he seemed to enjoy most from the school reading books were the non fiction ones. I was a happy librarian the day he asked me to explain the contents & index page. With the non fiction books he enjoyed the ability to take control & select the pages that interested him.

He galloped through whatever reading scheme they followed at school & the his proudest day was when he was allowed to move onto Turquoise level books.

Since then there has been no stopping him. He reads anything he sees in the street, is willing to have a go with most books ranging from picture books to chapter books & so far is really enjoying reading, long may it last.

Little mouse is back armed with a little paint set & ready to battle his fears. Wielding his paintbrush he cleverly vandalises the book covering the lions sharp claws with boxing gloves, tying up the crabs claws etc. generally making all the animals a lot less scary. One of the animals however receives a slightly different treatment but I won’t spoil the surprise.

This is a beautifully constructed book with plenty of flaps & pull outs bursting with humour & creativity.

Bryn found the book very funny & enjoyed looking at all the changes Little Mouse has made, only after he’d come to terms with the fact that Little Mouse had not only written in a book but also cut up some pages. He was fascinated with how little mouse had transformed the book & especially liked the page where he got to swat the wasp.

Disclaimer: I received this book from the publisher. I was not asked to write this post, nor was I given any money for doing so, and the review represents my own honest opinion.

Am sure it’s not escaped your notice that we have a lot of books, as well as a regular healthy stash from the local library I also have a large shopping habit.

Book storage especially for picture books is something I am always on the look out for so was pleased when I got the chance to buy some ex-library journal shelves.

The shelves then became a start to a much larger project, Bryn’s den. Bryn & his dad worked on turning some storage space in his room into his own little den, providing an escape from his sister (not possible), a place to read, a place to play or even to house his own dinosaur museum. The shelves were then added to the door to his new den.

Once Owen had boxed up the pipes, added a few shelves, put in the lights & added the flooring then the real work started the painting (my contribution)

This project spanned a number of months during which Bryn went through an array of ideas of how we would decorate, he eventually decided on ‘sealife’. While Owen painted the walls blue, Bryn & I planned what sea creatures we wanted to paint. I convinced Bryn to add a couple of seamonkeys, having spotted a ‘How to draw Seamonkeys’ guide on Sarah McIntrye’s blog. (Seamonkeys feature in her recent collaboration with Philip Reeve ‘Oliver & the Seawigs‘ which looks like an amazing read)

Bryn drew some of his creations onto the wall which I then went over with paint. I also took inspiration from a favourite bedtime read, Clara Vulliamy’s Martha & Bunny Brothers I Heart Bedtime, by using a fishy font from the book to add a ‘Bryn’s Aquaruim’ sign.

Bryn now has his own little space, perfect for checking out the glow in the dark double page spread from his favourite Octonaut book.