I'm a full-time mummy

As part of the BookSneeze Blogger Reviewer program, I'm always on the look out for good children's books, particularly good Christian books for children. When I received the early invitation to review the latest books from Max Lucado, I'm immediately jump at the chance and monitored the time when the opportunity is available. I requested this book along with 1 other (still waiting for it sigh...) and here is my review of the latest book from Max Lucado entitled "ONE HAND, TWO HANDS"

Author: Max Lucado
Illustrator: Gaby Hansen
Publisher:  Thomas Nelson (September 14, 2010)
ISBN: 978-1400316496
Jacketed Hardcover: 32 pages
Dimension: 10.1 x 9.9 x 0.4 inches

Excerpts taken from Booksneeze page:

"A delightful way to show little ones how their hands are a blessing from God that they can use to do help others. Written in rhyming text and illustrated with the charming art of Gaby Hansen, this simple message of God’s blessing of hands not only entertains . . . as it teaches what wonderful things our hands can do from scratching, latching, and petting a pup to washing dishes with mommy and putting toys in a box . . . but it also conveys the important message: We can use God’s gift of hands to show our love for Him by helping others. The book ends tenderly with a prayer of thanks to God for hands and asks Him to use them again:

One hand, two hands,
Five fingers, ten.
God, thanks, for my hands.
Please, use them again."

Firstly, I've almost given up hope on receiving this book.It has over a month already and just when I totally forgot about this book, it arrived and got me all excited and brings back my hope and faith in the delivery & custom services in Malaysia. I can clearly see the stamp on the parcel that the book has been shipped out on 5th September and was only approved for release by the Malaysian Custom on 4th October.

Anyway, that aside, my first impression of the book: They should do away with the French flap (or the jacketed cover for the book). I've never been the fan for flaps like this and I find it a waste of paper and annoying that I have to either tape it up or totally removed it away to prevent tearing from my 19 months old toddler.

I like the way they show us how we can make use of our hands, and the fact they incorporate how our little ones can help out with the cleaning, washing and all.  I would have preferred if they show both little boys and girls in the illustrations instead of only the little girl as the main character. That way, both little boys and girls can relate themselves with the story.

I do however find it a joy to see Ben showing me things he do on daily bases when he saw the similar actions from the book, like washing and cleaning up and combing hair. I'm not a fan of soft and blurry illustrations like this though I do enjoys the pastel and light toned colors used in the illustrations. Overall, I give this book a 7 out of 10.

You can get the One Hand, Two Hands from Amazon or from Max Lucado's website store itself.

I received no monetary compensation for this review, I was provided with a copy of the book by Book Sneeze 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"

Was supposed to post this on Monday which was the day when the good things all came rolling but could only write it up on Monday late night and scheduled for it to be published today. So here it goes:

The above was the first 9 toddler books which arrived on Monday morning. I was at the kitchen showing the books to my MIL when the 10th book (a parenting book) arrived via UPS delivery. If only you could see my non-stop grinning and happy face!

With this latest addition, I have on my hand now the following items to review:

* Hardcopy: 9 toddler books, 1 parenting book

* Softcopy: 2 cooking books

* 1 baby product, 1 household product

I need to mention there are some more books and products which are making their way to me... God is awfully good to us! God, thank you so much for all this opportunity! Keep em' coming!

Previously, I had this pain in the arse bug in my blog engine which disallow my blog readers to leave their sweet comments in my blog if they are using Internet Explorer. No matter how I tried and test, it just doesn't allow me to leave a comment. The screen just tried to submit the comment and hang after a while. It has been going on some time and I ended up installing the Google Comment widget as a temporary fix while waiting for miracle to happen the bug to be fix.

During the weekend, I took out some widget codes on my sidebar and next thing I know, I was browsing some websites using Internet Explorer and decided to post a test comment on my blog comment and voila! I couldn't believe it myself either and had to test a few rounds before finally accepting this great news! I'm going to let my Google Comment widget remain for a while longer before I take out the code as well (just in case...) so, please do drop me a comment if you're using IE to surf Net so that I know the bug is really gone for now!

My little man turns 19 months old on Monday, which also marks my 19th month of breastfeeding him!

Hubby and I do not wish to force Ben into potty training unless he's absolutely ready for it but one of the books which came on Monday is a potty training book for boys (I'm a sucker for childrens' books which geared towards each side of the gender) and I requested for this particular book so that I could read up and be prepared when the time comes one day.

Since I have 10 hardcopies of books waiting for my review, I was just flipping through the pages and making up my own version of the story as I go along the book with Ben.

When we're done, he walked to our bathroom with me trailing behind, and he sat on one of the potty! (We had two different potty for Ben to try which we just leave in the bathroom so that he gets familiar with seeing it) I was so excited with this sight cos' previously, no matter how we coaxed him into trying to sit on it, he would just shake his head and walked off. But on this memorable day, he walked towards one, sat on it, then walked to the other, sat on it. And walked off and continued playing. Leaving me dumbfounded and wishing I had taken my camera along to record that... never mind, I have not started the review for the book officially anyway, just want to note down that it's pretty amazing to have such a positive milestone!

To end this post, I would like to thank God again for blessing us with all these!

Read: John 1:16 (NIV)

This is my 3rd ebook I get to review, a children bible book by Phil A. Smouse called: "My Everyday Promise Bible".

Author: Phil A. Smouse
Publisher:  Barbour Books
ISBN: 978-1602604759
Paperback: 384 pages
Dimension: 7 x 5.3 x 1.1 inches

Product description from the Amazon page:
"How can parents teach their kids about God’s faithfulness? Give them My Everyday Promise Bible, from the creator of Jesus Wants All of Me! This brand-new book for kids ages 3 to 5 is packed with age-appropriate Bible promises, devotional thoughts, and fun, colorful illustrations. It features 365 daily readings on a promise of scripture, carefully written so that kids can understand. Author and illustrator Phil A. Smouse has created an engaging way to introduce youngsters to the unchanging goodness of God."

Excerpts from one of the editorial review:
"The Everyday Promise Book is a full year of daily devotionals for children.  Each day contains a Bible verse which is paraphrased by the author so that the child can fully understand God''s promises for that day.  Along with the Bible verse is a short paragraph of instruction and uplifting direction.  Everyday Promise Book is perfect for reading to a small child or for a young reader to read aloud. Both will find a perfect devotional for the day. The devotions cover a variety of subjects from salvation to behaviors, and the art work in the book is beautiful, colorful and soft.  The text is spaced well and readable."

I'm attracted to the cute cover page!

When I saw the page with a note to the parents, I smiled... There's a verse there (Read: Isaiah 40:8 (NIV)) which reminded me why I opted to review this book. I wanted us to have a closer relationship to God and hoping that this book can help.

I love the idea of a book with daily verses which we can flip through and read. Each pages is dedicated for each day in the calendar, with the daily verse and a very cute illustrations and a brief paragraph to accompany the verse.

I also love the index sections! It's categorized into sections such as "Anger", "Courage" and so on, followed by the days which is related to it, making it easy to look for the verses.

If you are planning to get a Christian gift book for a child, you should consider this book! I think this book is a good choice as it is written in simple and easy to understand words and even for Ben who is still young to be reading, at least I can show him the cute illustrations and make up my own version of story for each verses.

You can purchase My Everyday Promise Bible book from Amazon.

I received no monetary compensation for this review, I was provided with a galley proof  of the book via my association with netGalley as a reviewer 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"