I'm a full-time mummy

As a busy mum with 5 kiddos between 6 months old to 10-years old, I have started cutting down on doing product reviews to focus on my childcare and family life, home cooking, education, helping with hubby's administration site of the business and sharing informational articles on my FB fan page so I am only accepting and prioritizing products that can fit into our family dynamics (especially books on parenting or educational stuff, family products, something along those genre)! Reading is my passion and coupled with books that are of parenting, children, family or religion or educational genre, all the more I gotta say yes!

Title: The Brilliant Deep: Rebuilding the World's Coral Reefs: The Story of Ken Nedimyer and the Coral Restoration Foundation
Author: Kate Messner,‎ Matthew Forsythe (Illustrator)
Publisher: Chronicle Books (May 8, 2018)
ISBN-13: 978-1452133508
Paperback: 48 pages  

Description from the product page:

"All it takes is one: one coral gamete to start a colony, one person to make a difference, one idea to change the world. The ongoing efforts to save and rebuild the world's coral reefs—with hammer and glue, and grafts of newly grown coral—are the living legacy of Ken Nedimyer, founder of the Coral Restoration Foundation. Kate Messner and Matthew Forsythe tell the true story of the coral restoration pioneer in this brilliant tribute to the wonders of nature and the power of human hope."

We received the "The Brilliant Deep" book for our review, coincidentally a day after I saw this video on Facebook highlighting an an accidental discovery which is giving new hope for coral reefs. The book was packed nicely in a cardboard which you can recycle further for doodling, crafts, and more.

This book tells of the story of a boy who fell in love with the ocean and grows up learning and researching as much as he could and trying his best to save it from further damage. The illustrations are beautifully done and eye catching as well.

There are so many ways to use this book! You can use it to educate your child(ren) on science (habitat, life cycle, cause-effect), nature preservation, volunteerism and much more. At the end of the book, there are some key points to take note on how we (or our children) can help. I think this is good as it tells us no matter how big or small we are, how we think we might not impact anything, in the end, every little bit of contribution does help towards the big picture in conservation and preservation.

Overall, a very gorgeous and insightful book to have!

You can find out more about this book from https://www.store.mebooks.asia/

I received no monetary compensation for this review, I was provided with a copy of the book in order to facilitate my review. All opinions expressed in this post are my own. Please do your own research when purchasing products, as your opinions may differ from mine. And if you'd like to read my previous book reviews, you can do so by reading this post of mine called "My Book Reviews"

** Note: I have disabled the commenting feature on my blog engine thanks to all the spammers who happily spam my blog every day. If you wish to ask me any questions, you can find me at my Facebook page (I'm there almost every day) or just drop me an email if you wish to maintain some anonymity.

As a busy mum with 5 kiddos between 6 months old to 10-years old, I have started cutting down on doing product reviews to focus on my childcare and family life, home cooking, education, helping with hubby's administration site of the business and sharing informational articles on my FB fan page so I am only accepting and prioritizing products that can fit into our family dynamics (especially books on parenting or educational stuff, family products, something along those genre)! Reading is my passion and coupled with books that are of parenting, children, family or religion or educational genre, all the more I gotta say yes!

Book 1: Kid Normal
ISBN: 9781408884539
Pages: 400

Description from the product page for book 1:

"Murph Cooper has a problem. His new school is top secret, and super weird. His classmates can all fly or control the weather or conjure tiny horses from thin air. And what's Murph's extraordinary skill? Um, oh yeah - he hasn't got one. Just as well there are no revolting supervillains lurking nearby, their minds abuzz with evil plans. There are!? Right. Ok, then... It's time for Kid Normal to become a hero!" 

Book 2: Kid Normal and the Rogue Heroes
ISBN: 978-1408884553
Pages: 416

Description from the product page for book 2:

"The second, epically funny adventure starring Murph Cooper and the Super Zeroes from Greg James and Chris Smith. Not all heroes have superpowers. Don't believe us? Well Murph Cooper is living proof. Since becoming Kid Normal, he and the Super Zeroes have been catching baddies all over the place. But being a hero is about to get a whole lot harder ... Far away in a top-secret prison, the world's most feared supervillain has broken a thirty year silence. His first words? 'Bring Kid Normal to me!'"

Book 3: Kid Normal and the Shadow Machine
ISBN: 978-1408898901
Pages: 400

Description from the product page for book 3:

"YOU DON'T NEED SUPERPOWERS TO BE A HERO ... Or do you? Despite having no powers, Murph Cooper is part of the best team in the Heroes' Alliance. So when supervillain Magpie declares all-out war, Kid Normal and the Super Zeroes lead the charge. But Magpie believes that a powerless hero is no hero at all. And he's building a dastardly device to prove it. When Kid Normal enters the Shadow Machine, THE WORLD WILL NEVER BE THE SAME ...'"

We received the "Kid Normal" books which I had intended for our 10-year-old boy to read as he is into books like this nowadays. I could see the similarity of the theme in the "Kid Normal" books with the Wimpy Kid series and Big Nate series in the sense that the fonts are easy on the eyes with the occasional contrasting font types when there is excitement, surprises and shocking sentences by the characters or in the storyline and the wacky illustrations all over the books which caught my boy's attention.

I like the unique storyline that a normal child could also be special. That it doesn't take any superpower abilities to stand out or to save the day. That as common as we feel we are, we do contribute and could help out no matter how big or small our contributions it seems.

Overall, a fun book series to own especially if your child likes to read and/or they are venturing into chapter books!

The book is available at all major bookstores in Malaysia. Btw, do note that if you purchase any Kid Normal book(s) at the participating bookstores exclusive to Malaysia and Singapore, you will receive an A4 character folder (*while stock lasts of course).

I received no monetary compensation for this review, I was provided with a copy of the book in order to facilitate my review. All opinions expressed in this post are my own. Please do your own research when purchasing products, as your opinions may differ from mine. And if you'd like to read my previous book reviews, you can do so by reading this post of mine called "My Book Reviews"

** Note: I have disabled the commenting feature on my blog engine thanks to all the spammers who happily spam my blog every day. If you wish to ask me any questions, you can find me at my Facebook page (I'm there almost every day) or just drop me an email if you wish to maintain some anonymity.

I have been sharing some of my favorite angpow pieces on an angpow collectors group in Facebook and some members have been telling me to continue sharing my memorable stories and so I thought, why not write it down, that way, our kiddos can read about it when they grow up next time, eh?

For those of you who are not familiar or never heard of the words 'Angpow' (also known as 'ang pau', 'ang pao', 'angpau'), here is a quick definition:

Angpow = Red Packet (filled with cash inside) given during festivals

So for today's angpow story, it comes from this piece of lovely angpow:

Today's story is about this KitKat angpow which has the Tetris design look.

I remembered when I was in my early teens (mid 90s), my late dad bought a video game console and it came with hundreds of games. One of my favourite games to play is of course the Tetris game. I would sit and try to crack the game, trying to score higher and higher and break each record every time.

What's more memorable was the option for dual player mode and I remembered playing this game with my late mum as well. I remembered watching my late mum sitting engrossed with the game, trying to BREAK my high score lol. So so memorable sight to cherish forever.

Looking at this angpow reminded me of these childhood times...

** Note: I have disabled the commenting feature on my blog engine thanks to all the spammers who happily spam my blog every day. If you wish to ask me any questions, you can find me at my Facebook page (I'm there almost every day) or just drop me an email if you wish to maintain some anonymity.