Blast Off with Space Dust by Eloise De Sousa #BlogTour

Hello all! Please join me in welcoming my dear friend Eloise De Sousa for the last day of her Blast Off blog tour for her newest book, Space Dust! For a little review by me, you just need to read down to the bottom!

Hello and thank you for joining me at Ritu’s beautiful page. This is our final stop on the amazing tour Blast Off with Space Dust. I’d just like to thank you all for joining me on this exciting trip through the blogosphere and for spending time visiting all these great bloggers who have been kind enough to host Space Dust.

Let’s get the party started with a final giveaway. How about 10 more free ebooks? Just click on the pic below to receive your free ebook copy of Space Dust.

Remember, there are only 10 available so you gotta be quick to get that winning click!

Click the Image!

It has been an incredible journey. Every stop has given us the opportunity to meet new blogging friends and readers, as well as learn more about Space Dust, its characters and the writing process behind it. I’d like to add a bit more to our last post about striking the right note for readers. When creating an event in the school library where I work, I enjoy adding a little extra by holding treasure hunts and giving away prizes such as word searches and book markers. That way, I know I am catering for my readers and rewarding their continued support. Since I haven’t thought of a way to add a treasure hunt to this tour (which would have been fun and something to think about for the next one), I do have some prizes for you taking part. Please find below a word search created just for Space Dust readers.

WORD SEARCH

Now a little music. We have travelled through space and found some pretty awesome creatures along the way. The only song I can think of that suits this trip is the famous song by Bob Sinclair’s ‘World Hold On’.

For our final celebration, here is a snippet of me reading the Space Dust to the Birch Hill library children who attended the Summer Reading Challenge over the summer holidays. As you know by now, Space Dust was created to help encourage children to participate in the Challenge, to read more about space and, of course, to enjoy the many activities available at their local library.

It’s now time to say good-bye…

Our canoe is packed away and so is the absolute favourite spoon.

Big Ox made sure Little One is asleep, and Mummy will be home soon.

Tomorrow is another day filled with adventure and fun.

Who knows where they might go – maybe the moon, or the sun!

I do know Big Ox won’t be around to play,

so who will help Little One fill the day?

Will Mummy be able to go on a trip to the moon,

steering Big Ox’s canoe with his absolute favourite spoon?

With that in mind, I will bid you farewell.

Let me know what you think of the book;

receiving pics or reviews of the book would be swell!

Find out more about my books or about me, please click on any of the links below:

Eloise De Sousa

Author Page

Amazon

Lulu

Facebook

And there you have it! Eloise’s tour is done… what with a giveaway and wordsearch, you guys are pretty lucky!

But wait… I haven’t finished yet! Here’s my review…

A children’s book needs imagery, and Space Dust has that in spadefuls. Imagine the mind of a little one who has been left at home, by mummy, with no explanation at all.

That’s what happens to Little One, but he’s lucky as he has Bix Ox with him, to take him on an adventure of his own, into space, on his canoe. They visit planets, and see amazing space creatures, collecting space dust on their shoes as they go.

Enjoy Eloise’s beautiful illustrations and poetic words that give the story a wonderful rhythm.

I read this book to the children in my reception class and it it was lovely to watch them react in different ways. The children with English as a second language were engaged by the striking illustrations and the children who had a better grasp of the English language, were awestruck at the thought of space lions and seahorses in space!

They enjoyed it immensely. ❤

Yes… No… Maybe…? I don’t know!

A friend posted on Facebook about the British Government’s decision to plan air strikes over Syria, and she just simply put  “no likes, no comments, other than agree or disagree…”

Made me think.

I’m so not into politics, but this whole war against ISIS affects us all.

My first thought was …

  
Of course we should get over there, bomb the terrorists and show them what we think! Yes!!!!! Agree!!

Then I thought, and I changed my reply…

  
What about all those innocents who will be killed in the midst of hoping that we are striking an ISIS stronghold? That is certainly not fair…

As I scrolled down other people’s views there was a lone ‘sitting on the fence’. I didn’t change mine but…

  
Do I really want to be sat in the midst of World War 3? After all this is where it’s all headed, isn’t it? I’m no politician, I can’t make these decisions, but when I see things on the news, and I see my son, Lil Man, an impressionable 10 year old, who is starting to understand the implications of these happenings, watching, with concern, then turning to me to ask ” Mummy, are we going to war?” I really don’t want all this fighting, killing and bombing.

Of course we want peace. We want any religious extremists to not be there, killing in the name of God, a God who has never condoned the taking of lives. We want these people to either change, or not be there. 

But we don’t want bloodshed. 

Who wants their children to be brought up in a time of war, fearing everything, because we don’t know when they are going to retaliate, and when they do, because you know they will, where these retaliations will take place?

God only knows the right decision… I, for one, really don’t.

Books And Authors Who Coloured My Childhood – Part 6 – Dr Seuss

I think we must all know about Dr Seuss, the Cat in the Hat, Thing 1 and Thing 2, The Grinch, Green Eggs and Ham…

The writer who may have introduced rhyme to a lot of us, even though we didn’t know it at the time!

I don’t remember having many of the Dr Seuss books at home, but I remember searching for them in the bookshelves at school and bringing them home, to devour in one sitting!

As I got to the age of impending parenthood, as you may have noticed already, I made sure that these were one set of books (among many others!) that I must get for my children to be, and even for use in school, reading to my class!

My mini set!

My mini set!

Again another bundle of books my kids loved to read!

And I was so happy to find these to help them with their literacy and numeracy too!

Learning books!

Learning books!

Again Dr Seuss is another author whose books have inspired people to make movies!  How The Grinch Stole Christmas was a cartoon version made in 1966, which I only watched recently, in Film Club that I run in school! Now you have the Jim Carrey version, and there is the Lorax too, The Cat in the Hat, and Horton Hears a Hoo!

A couple of years ago, I also found this compilation of ‘lost’ Dr Seuse stories, which I had to get…obviously!

Lost stories

Lost stories

What is your favourite Dr Seuss book?

Read part 1 here.
Read part 2 here
Read part 3 here
Read part 4 here
Read part 5 here
But I Smile Anyway...

Books And Authors Who Coloured My Childhood – Part 5 – Ann Jungman

Vlad The Drac.

Have you heard of Vlad The Drac?

I was amazed to find out that not many people had! I read and reread these books as I really enjoyed them!

Ann Jungman wrote a series of books about Vlad the Drac, a vegetarian vampire who manages to come home with two English children after a holiday they went on in Romania!  I only ever read 3 of them, in a lovely set which my Mum had got for me, but now, with the advent of the internet, and search engines, I find there were 6 books! (My fingers itch to find them on ebay or amazon, but I am trying to be good, I am running out of space on the bookshelves! Actually there is no space, the floor in front of the kids bookshelf is now getting covered with books too!)

My original books

My original books

Again, I managed to retain my original books, thanks to my Mum, who’s hoarding habit can be a really good thing sometimes!

And I read these to the kids too, who loved them.  Lil Man has just finished reading all three himself, and actually dressed up as Vlad at World Book Day!

Hands up anyone else who has heard of Vlad the Drac?!

Read part 1 here.
Read part 2 here
Read part 3 here
Read part 4 here
But I Smile Anyway...

Books And Authors Who Coloured My Childhood – Part 4 – A. A. Milne

Winnie the Pooh
Winnie the Pooh
Fuzzy little wuzzy
All stuffed with fluff
He’s Winnie the Pooh
Fuzzy little wuzzy old bear!

How many of you have a Winnie the Pooh cuddly? Go on, admit it! You must have one! At least!

I was, and still am, totally in LOVE with Winnie the Pooh!

A.A.Milne, you were, and still are, in my eyes, wonderful!

I read, and reread the Pooh Bear books as a young girl, I even read from one as part of a reading examination!

And I still have my original book set from when I was a wee lass!

They're falling to bits! Well Loved!

They’re falling to bits! Well loved!

My boxed set

My boxed set!

I enjoyed the poems, as well as the, stories, and would sit with my cuddly Walt Disney-fied Winnie the Pooh, reading happily!

The kids like to see old Pooh Bear on the TV, it’s not the same, but that voice, and look, is what has stuck, rather than the original versions of him. When they were born, they were gifted soft toy versions of the various characters, Tigger being just like Lil Man, as he was a jumper from the off!

Bouncy trouncy

Trouncy bouncy

Fun fun fun fun fun!

I still managed to collect more books associated with Pooh Bear over the last few years, when they come via our discounted book club at work!

More collections

More collections

A pop un Hundred Acre Woods book!

A pop un Hundred Acre Woods book!

An Anthology of stories and poems

An Anthology of stories and poems

A sequel of sorts!

A sequel of sorts!

Were you an A.A.Milne fan?

Read part 1 here.
Read part 2 here
Read part 3 here

But I Smile Anyway...

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