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Tales from a Travelling Mum by Alice Griffin out now

TALES from a Travelling Mum: Navigating Europe with a Babe-in-Arms is Alice Griffin's story of adventures across Europe with her baby daughter.

Alice has also included contributions from fellow travelling mums.

Havealovelytime's Linda is one of them.

Alice, who blogs at Fanciful Alice, says in her marketing material for the book: "Although essentially it is a travelogue, running throughout the book you will find a healthy amount of advice related to feeding, sleeping, playing and pacifying a baby or toddler on the plane, boat, train, bus, as well as in the car.

"Hopefully this makes the book both an interesting and a practical read for new parents looking to travel with their own children.

Book giveaway: The Kingdom of the Deep by Frank Hicks

MAGICKED to the Kingdom of the Deep by the witch Griselda, the boys meet stingrays,  octopus and squid (who only want a little squeeze and a cuddle) and then a mermaid (whose mother has lost her tail) but fortunately, the cat Snuggle comes to the rescue.

So goes a snippet of an introduction to The Kingdom of the Deep, a charmingly illustrated adventure for children aged five and over.

This is the latest in the Ramion series, published to acclaim by Perronet Press.

Do check out the wonderful website accompanying the series which tells you all about the author, his inspiration and his books so far.

In The Kingdom of the Deep, Boris the skull convinces witch Griselda she needs a holiday. But before she sets off to her Pembrokeshire castle destination, she casts a dangerous spell...

Summer holiday reads for kids by Joanne Mallon at Parentdish

HERE'S a great post from Joanne Mallon at the excellent Parendish rounding up some thoughtful and cracking examples of books your kids will love this summer.

In our house, one daughter is currently reading The Magic Faraway Tree by Enid Blyton while the other is into Best Friends by Jacqueline Wilson.

Which all sounds very nice and clever. So it's a shame what they are really more interested in is trying to convince me that Big Brother is required viewing when you are 10.

You can share what your ideas for great summer reads are over on Joanne's post.

Happy reading! Here's hoping your kids are more open to the ideas on the list than my two...It's Day Five of the summer holidays and things are getting a little fraught...

Book review: Frommer's Guide to Brittany with your Family

I WAS really impressed with this book, which is one of a series published by Frommer's,writes Becky from Englishmum

We chose to visit the Côtes d’Armor and were pleased to find an individual map of the area as well as advice on how to get to this specific area, not just Brittany as a whole.

We based our stay around the beautiful Côte d’Emeraude on the eastern coast of the area, and although the airport of Dinard is just short of an hour’s drive away, we were pleased that we took the guide’s advice and took the car, arriving via the Eurostar and driving down to the area.

Our beautiful gîte (booked via Gîtes de France ) on a small working dairy farm and was less than a ten minute drive from some beautiful beaches, and lovely little towns.

Theatre Review: Don't Let the Pigeon Stay Up Late

OKAY, I admit it. I bought my four-year-old son Harry Mo Willems' The Pigeon Wants A Puppy because I liked the illustrations and I thought it was cool. Fortunately Harry liked it too. Unfortunately he then became completely Pigeon-possessed. So when I saw that there was a stage show of Don't Let the Pigeon Stay Up Late I just had to buy tickets.

At just an hour long (an ideal length for this age group), the Big Wooden Horse Theatre Company production actually covers three of the four Pigeon books: Don't Let the Pigeon Drive the Bus and The Pigeon Finds a Hot Dog as well as Don't Let the Pigeon Stay Up Late.

Before the lights went down, the two actors came on stage and introduced themselves and some props to the audience. Out of the box came first the Pigeon books and then the costumes. I thought this was a really clever way of starting the show, serving both to remind the children of what they were there to see and to prevent any 5'10" tall pigeon-inspired meltdowns!