Sunday 17 February 2019

Storybook Corner Book Review: The Box (Children's Picture Book) + related children's craft


The Box
by 
Jo Linsdell


Publisher: Self published
Publication date: 25th March 2014
Pages: 44
Format Read: eBook
Source: own purchase

 

 "Because a box is just a box, except when it's not."
Join in the creative fun as a little boy explains why his box is his favourite toy.

 


The Box is a delightfully illustrated children’s book promoting imaginative play.
It’s time to put the electronic devices away and bring out a plain old cardboard box.
But what can you do with a box? ‘A box is just a box, except when it’s not.’

A young boy uses his imagination as he plays with a box in many different ways. A box can be a football goal, a pirate ship, a racing car, a bus, a rocket ship. The list goes on and on. The illustration shows the brown cardboard box with the imaginative pirate ship, bus etc in a black drawn outline.

The wording is simple as the illustrations speak for themselves and both Dot and Jay love looking over the pictures and seeing all the things your imagination can conjure. This is an excellent book for Jay as it encourages speech through illustrations he knows to make the sounds of a racing car, a fire engine and a robot. He will often go to my iPad and find the book himself and flick through the pages.

As an extension of the book Dot and I decided to make our own projects from boxes I had in the house. I like to keep craft projects simple and let the children direct the process. It’s always good to keep in mind that it should be fun and the end product doesn’t need to be perfect. We found all the items we needed in the craft box to make a fire engine and a puppet theatre.




The fire engine is simply made from an old box, red wrapping paper, some paper plates and the hose off the vacuum cleaner.




The puppet theatre is made from a shoe box, a piece of left over material, some knitting needles, ribbon, finger puppets and lots of sticky tape. 

I hope Jo's book inspires you to grab an old box and a few craft items and see what your imagination can build. We had a lot of fun with our box creations.

 

Photo credit: Goodreads
I've enjoyed writing since I could hold a pen in my hand but officially started my writing career in 2006. Since then I've worked for numerous clients around the world and won a few awards along the way too.

I've also published several books including the best selling children's picture story books 'Out and About at the Zoo', 'Fairy May' and 'The Box', plus non fiction books'Italian for Tourists', A Guide to Weddings in Italy', 'How to be Twittertastic' and the award winning best seller 'Virtual Book Tours: Effective Online Book Promotion From the Comfort of Your Own Home'. My serial fiction 'KOSMOS' was published in 2017.



 




4 comments:

  1. My nieces used to love making things with boxes. I'm glad you got inspiration from the book. I'll keep an eye out for it for my nephew.

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    1. Thanks for stopping by Claire. It’s a great way to get the children away from screens and using their imagination.

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  2. Thank you for such a lovely review 😊 I'm glad your kids enjoyed The Box. I love the crafts it inspired.

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    Replies
    1. I love the bright illustrations Jo. It's a book they keep coming back to again and again. Congratulations!

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