By Jo Middleton

It?s a good question, and you?d think, as a woman, I?d be perfectly placed to answer it. Unfortunately not. It seems that actually, most women haven?t a clue.

Some days I want to conquer the world, work in a stressful high-paid job, wear skyscraper heels and sleep my way around the world. Other days I want to stay in my pyjamas, lie on the sofa under a duvet with the curtains closed, and watch back to back Golden Girls. It can be pretty confusing. I blame the hormones.

What Women Want by Fanny Blake

I have similarly eclectic moods when it comes to reading. I?ve set myself a challenge this year of reading 25 classic novels (I?ve read two so far, so I probably need to step it up a bit?), but I also love a bit of well written chick-lit, something that you can escape into, and recognise your own life in.

This week I?ve been reading ?What Women Want?, the first novel from writer and journalist Fanny Blake. The book has all the ingredients for a bit of classic escapism. Picture three friends at turning points in their lives ? a recent divorce, a new boss, a marriage that?s lost its shine, a handful of kids, a splash of empty nest syndrome ? and then, to top it off, a new man.

Of course all these events and circumstances make them question exactly what they want from their lives, just like we, as women, question our priorities and our choices regularly. In my case often on a daily basis.

What Women Want is a great book ? easy to read, absorbing, and with something for everyone. I challenge you to read it and not find an element of one of the women?s lives that you identify with. I can?t promise it will provide all the answers, but it certainly will help give you an insight, and, more importantly, reassure you that you?re not alone.

What Women Want is published in April 14th. Read more from Jo at her own blog, Slummy single mummy.

Little Croc’s Purse by Lizzie Finlay

One hot day, Little Croc finds a lost purse.

“Finders keepers! tease his friends, imagining a treat of lemonade and a lovely cool swim.

But Little Croc is determined to find the purse’s owner…

Will his honesty be rewarded? Or will he be tempted to spend the money inside?

Littlemummy: A cute story promoting the ‘spending, sharing, saving’ ethos. Good for parent’s trying to teach kid’s about pocket money.

Erin: “I liked the purse and the money. I like money because you can spend it, and save it for riding horses”

Little Croc’s Purse ?3.99 on Amazon

Room on the Broom by Julia Donaldson and Axel Scheffler

This book is by the creators of The Gruffalo. I love children’s books that rhyme and flow, makes reading them so much less laborious and they seem to hold the children’s attention longer.

Littlemummy: I’m going to stick my neck out and say this is even better than The Gruffalo (which was excellent)

Erin: It’s amazing but the dragon is a bit scary!

Room on the Broom ?2.98 on Amazon

Katie Morag and the Grand Concert by Mairi Hedderwick

Every year on the Isle of Struay there is a Gran Concert, where the islanders play fiddles, recite poetry, and sing and dance for their friends and neighbours. Katie Morag can’t wait to sing her special song on stage – but just as the curtain rises, disaster strikes…

Littlemummy – I liked this one as it is set on a Scottish island and features the song ‘You cannae shove your granny off a bus’. The illustrations are also really interesting and quite elaborate with a map of the island etc..

Erin – “Well, I didn’t like the croaky voice but I liked the baby”

Katie Morag and the Grand Concert ?5.39 on Amazon

Dog Loves Books by Louise Yates

Dog loves books about dinosaurs, and Dog loves books about aliens: in fact Dog loves all books! Dog has his very own bookshop, although he doesn’t have many customers. But that’s all right, because when Dog is surrounded by books, he is never short of friends or fun.

And when someone does come into the shop, Dog knows just which books to recommend…

Littlemummy: This book has a nice story but it’s not very in depth and only takes about two minutes to read.

Erin: “I liked the books but not the dinosaurs”

I’m chilling back this afternoon, I bought a couple of final christmas presents online and bought the christmas paraphernalia (extra decorations, wrapping paper, ribbon, tags..). I’m hoping that I can now relax(!) and enjoy December, wrapping, decorating and doing crafts

Before I head off to dig the christmas tree out, I wanted to give you one little christmas present idea. My sister in law bought me Snow Flower and the Secret Fan a while back, it sat in my draw getting dusty, you know, one of those things you mean to get round too but never quite get there. I don’t know what made me pick it up, I guess I was just in a reading mood. It didn’t take me long to become completely absorbed by the story of Snow Flower, her childhood in a patriarchal household in rural China, born a girl she was considered worthless until a twist fate sent her on a path to fortune and privilege. This is a fictional novel but provides a rich and accurate picture of how life was, it covers foot-binding as well as the ancient women’s writing Nu Shu. I read the whole novel in two days and it brought tears to my eyes, more than once. I’d highly recommend you read this, or buy it for someone close to you this christmas (I recommend doing both!)

This is one of the best books I’ve ever read, I had that sinking feeling when it was finished.

Has anyonelse read Snowflower and the Secret Fan?

I was fortunate enough to receive a big pile of books from Hill and Knowlton a couple of weeks ago. I decided not to give them to Erin all at once but to spread them out over the summer (read: keep them as a secret stash for when I want half an hour to blog!), the first one doled out was Kipper’s Rainy Day, I should mention that all the books are from the Kipper series and were given in connection with Fairy’s “Make Story Time Special” initiative.

I have to say this book really set the standard, we spent a really pleasant half an hour reading and re-reading the story (which I won’t spoil for you…), although I can tell you it threw up discussions about the weather, animals and the noises they make. It’s a lift the flap book which adds to the enjoyment, for Erin not me (there so rough with them…!). I’d highly recommend this book for a toddler aged child, it’s definitely up there as one of the best books we have.

I’ve been sent a few copies of Harper Collins The Brilliant Book of Baby Names. At £6.99 this book is choc full of name suggestions, no less than 592 pages of them!

The introduction includes a ten tip guide to choosing your baby’s name and a simple ‘how to use this book section. It is nicely laid out in alphabetical order, girls names first followed by boys. Each name includes a brief meaning along will several derivative names, everyone likes to be original these days so that part is particularly helpful.

For ease of browsing there also seperated lists of names that appear on the outer edge of pages, these seperated sections include ‘high-energy names’, ‘names that are trendier than you’d guess’, ‘Margaret’s international variations’ and so on.

I love this book and would have loved to receive a copy when I was pregnant, it would make a lovely gift, mother to daughter, husband to pregnant wife, for a baby shower or even a christmas gift.

The good news is that I have three brand new copies to giveaway. The first of which I’m giving away right now. All you need to do is tell me of the most unusual baby naming you ever heard of in the comments!

One lucky winner will be chosen at random on Wednesday 7th November.

I finally got around to reading Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows last week, it took me about five days, and I thoroughly enjoyed it. In fact I got to the last few chapters and felt an odd sense of sorrow that it was all about to end, seven books, thousands of pages, no new harry potter’s to look forward to.

This one was very different as there was very little about Hogwarts, and if I’m to be ultra critical the middle part of the story wasn’t as packed with action as some of the other books. That being said I liked the change of pace that not being at Hogwarts brung. The plot was excellent and the ending could have gone several ways, in fact that would be a great exercise for someone’s high school english class – rewrite the end of the last Harry Potter!

I can’t wait to read this series back to back to Erin, I wish Harry Potter was written when I was having bedtime stories!

What did you think of the final potter instalment?

I have mentioned my love of the Usborne Touch & Feel books before.

That’s Not My Snowman is the most recent title to have caught my eye and has expanded our collection to about seven books. Like the others the book includes a touchy feely spot on each page that demonstrates a different texture. Erin still loves these books! A great and cheap gift for a toddler.

You Want To Do What?: Instant answers to your parenting dilemmas is written by Karen Sullivan and is aimed at parents with children between ages 8-18.

I have written a series of short discursive posts based on the book and the following topics;

Abortion

Babysitting

Clothing Allowances

Criminal Responsibility

ADHD

Morals

The books covers a lot of topics, which range from babysitting to bedtimes, exercise to ear-piercing, the index really is quite exhaustive to anything you may be faced with as a parenting. Most of the topics are covered in a balanced and widely acceptable way ie don’t encourage smoking, don’t sweat the small stuff like fashion choices.

Parenting being a very personal thing there are bound to be areas where you will disagree, mine were the sections on boyfriends/girlfriends, fizzy drinks, magazines and pornography, all of which I felt were either to strict or the dangers outlined were a little far fetched, and in one case, very far-fetched. Can you guess which one?

Overall I think this book makes an excellent read from the point that it forces you to think about issues (hopefully) before they happen and thus have your ideas/standards/expectations/reactions planned ahead so that you aren’t caught out. I also think as a point of reference, especially on legalities, it is good, however as a direct guide to be followed word for word, probably not. As I mentioned above, parenting is a personal thing and what will be acceptable in one family will not be acceptable in another, and to be fair the book does acknowledge that.

**I will be giving two brand new copies of You Want To Do What? away over the coming weeks. Subscribe now so you don’t miss out!**

Paula (a fellow british parent blogger and sponsor of littlemummy.com) sent us a sample barefoot book called ‘Bear About Town‘.

The first thing I noticed about the book was the vibrant colours, the cover is green, orange and pink, and they aren’t sickly shades, they look natural, which fits with the barefoot ethos. The books are designed to present “strong artwork”, “strong stories”, and be “multi-cultural in the best way”. You can see from the other titles at barefoot especially for the older kids that they stick to their word.

The second thing I noticed was the quality. This book feels solid, it is a board book and the pages are glossed, and talking of pages, for a book aimed at toddlers there are more pages than your average equivalent.

The story follows bear on the various destinations he visits during the week – the bakery, the swimming pool, the cinema, the gym, the toyshop, the park, and the playground. This book would make a great and even more unique gift if you were to wrap it with the promise of doing the same as bear did for the week!

You can buy barefoot books direct from their website, which I found to be very user friendly. You can view a few of the pages of each book as a taster to see if you like it.

Just a quick post to let you know I completed the above titled book. I’ve been reading a lot of non-fiction recently and this was a welcome change of pace. As good as the previous shopaholic instalments, it covers the story of Becky Bloomwood pregnant and ready for life as a mother, many twists, turns and ‘laugh out louds’ later the story ends happily (as always). This is a coffee and slice of cake read…you know, that twice yearly event when you miraculously get five minutes to yourself.

Shopaholic and Baby by Sophie Kinsella

………………………………………………………………………………………..

Michelle recently awarded me this Rockin Blogger award, which I am now obliged to award to a few others.

So here we go – The Silent I, Mother at Large and An Ordinary Mom. Thanks for some great reading ladies.