Raising Girls by Steve Biddulph

If you are a parent to a girl of any age this is one of the best books I have ever read. My daughter is 9 nearly 10 and beginning to face the power of peer pressure to be whatever society means by being a girl which to my insinct has always been too much too young. Biddulph sees exactly the same trend and he renewed my hope in this book that I can raise a strong young woman who knows her own mind and does not believe what the media say she should be.

The book is divided into three parts

The first covers the five stages of girlhood: an overview, birth-2 years, 2-5 years, 5-10 years, 10-14 years and 14-18 years. In each chapter he covers the physcial, psychological and developmental changes a girl is undergoing at these ages and the challenges they face. And for girls it is social challenges that are of the most vital importance. It doesn't matter if, like me, you are coming in at some point along the spectrum, I found it useful to read the earlier chapters and understand what challenges my girl had already faced.

Part two is about risk areas and how to help girls navigate them: sexualisation at too early an age, bullying, body image and food, drugs including alcohol, and online risks. Biddulph lays out the risk in a clear concise way and empowers parents to address them.

Part three is about girls and their parents, taking a clear eyed look at the nature of a girl's relationship with her mother and father and what we can do as parents in these roles.

Just brilliant, one of the few library books that I will be buying and reading over and over again.

Raising Martians: From Crash Landing to Leaving Home: How to Help a Child With Asperger Syndrome or High Functioning Autism

This is an extremely brave book written by a boy with Aspergers syndrome (AS) about his experiences before and after diagnosis at the age of 15. He takes us through his personal life story and using that and evidence from psychology and scientific study speaks about the challenges children with AS face. He speaks about the bullying and difficulties he faced at school and how he learned to compensate for the areas in which he struggles, and also speaks about mental health issues and as an AS dealing with life in the larger world: friendships, shopping, living independently. For those on the outside this is a useful insight into the world inside the head of a boy with AS. However, for me with a girl with AS it was of limited use as the challenges girls face are subtly but vitally different and the ways that AS manifests are different. Highly recommended if you have a boy with AS.

Ten Things Every Child With Autism Wishes You Knew

For anyone short on time this is an excellent brief introduction to the challenges children with autism face in being misunderstood by neurotypicals, and I love that Notbohm begins with the first being that the child is first and foremost a child, a child with autism but not primarily autistic. My child has just been diagnosed with high functioning ASD, what would previously have been called Asperger's syndrome, and although some parts were not relevant the majority struck a real chord and spoke from her point of view.

I have tried three recipes from this and found them all excellent, I have been able to freeze them down and now have a stash of meals, of extra importance as I am gluten intolerant and can't eat many ready meals. Each recipe is well laid out with a beautiful photograph, and clear instructions are given for freezing and serving after freezing. There are also extensive sections on how to freeze various foods, from simple ideas such as cutting meat into strips so that it can go straight into a frying pan to tables showing how to prepare foods for the freezer, how to wrap and store them, how to use them and how long to keep them. Definately a book that will go in my small stash of recipe books I actually buy and return to time and time again

The Conquest of the Ocean: The Illustrated History of Seafaring by Brian Lavery

I know absolutely nothing about ships or sailing, and this book was entertaining, informative, well illustrated and nice to hold.  Lavery works chronologically through the history of sailing from the premodern times right up to the present day.

The book is divided into 5 sections:
The First Ocean Sailors to 1850 (Arabs, Vikings, Polynesians, Chinese, Pilgrims, Greeks and Romans);
The Age of Exploration 1450-1600 (European journeys to the Americas, first cirumnavigation of the Earth, Drake, Columbus, Amerigo and medieval ships);
The Age of Empire 1600-1815 (Colonialism, piracy, the slave trade, Cook, Trafalgar and whaling);
Steam and Emigration 1815-1915 (early steamships, American emigration, Chinese and Japanese trade, Clipper ships, submarines, liners and battleships);
The Wars on the Oceans 1914-1945 (World War I and World War II, Jutland, Midway, Atlantic, D-Day, U-boats)
The Global Ocean 1945-present (containers, Cuban Missile crisis, birth of oceanography, Falklands, ocean racing, oil spills, modern piracy)

Each section is illustrated with excellent maps showing the information such as main trade routes, winds, currents, shipwrecks, iceberg zones and battles although sometimes the colours are a hard to distinguish.  There are drawings of the ships spoken about in the text, and usefully page numbers given for cross references.  The maps are mostly accurate, although according to the Battle of the Atlantic one The Hood was sunk nearer Greenland than Scapa Flow!  However, in general the book is generously illustrated, ephermera, paintings, photographs, quotations and facts on almost every page that bring the subject alive.

Others read

Ben Aaronovitch - Broken Homes
Terry Pratchett and Stephen Baxter - The Long War
Laura Farson - Knitting Scandinavian Slipper and Socks
Shelia McGregor - Traditional Scandinavian Knitting

Freaky Sleepover (Monstrous Maud) by AB Saddlewick

Maud Montague is settling in to life at Rotwood Towers, a school for monsters.  She is human but loves everything that is not pink and girly, and fits right in.

Her oh so perfect pink and girly twin Milly is having a sleepover with her friends from her school Primrose Towers while their parents open the first night of Dracula at the local theatre.  After being taunted by Milly about having no friends of her own Maud ends up inviting her friends half vampire Paprika, the invisible girl Isabel and not so friendly witch Poisonous Penelope.  And she's also looking after the school hamster Violet who turns out to be a bit more than the fluffy creature she appears to be.

Can Maud survive this night without getting in trouble with her sister, friends and baby sitter?! Great fun, a good quick read.

Big Fright (Monstrous Maud) by A B Saddlewick

Maud Montague is the polar opposite to her oh so perfect twin Milly.  Milly likes pink, ballet and girly stuff and puts everything away perfectly in her lilac chest of drawers.  Maud loves her scruffy pet rat Quentin, is messy and disorganised and prefers black and bats.  And she's always in trouble at school at Primrose Towers. 

When Quentin escapes during show and tell perfectly tidy headmistress Mrs Fennel has had enough and orders for Maud to be transferred to Rotwood School.  There Maud finds herself surrounded by monsters, literally.  Can she hide the fact that she is only human, not vampire, invisible or werewolf like her new friends?  Can she scare her new teacher, vampire Mr von Bat?  And who is the scary headmistress everyone is so scared of?

Great fun for any girl who wants more than pink and fluffy, Maud is a wonderful alternative heroine