2019: your year of reading?

 

Happy New Year! And welcome to 2019. This is a big week for us as we are celebrating our first birthday. Happy Birthday to us! This time last year we were packing up our very first subscription boxes for our very first cohort of subscribers, most of whom are still with us (thank you!). What a year it has been. We’re extremely proud of how far we’ve come. And we’ve been overwhelmed by the support of our friends, family, early adopters and the small business communities we’ve become part of in the last twelve months.

This week is also the first anniversary of our #SBS (Small Business Sunday) win, which earned us a Twitter shout-out from Theo Paphitis, entry into the amazing #SBS network of small businesses he has championed and an invitation to the annual #SBS event in Birmingham in February, where we got to meet the man himself.

And so, we are marching on into 2019. We’ve got some great books lined up for our subscribers already and lots of exciting plans for later in the year. Watch this space for things we’ve got planned to mark World Book Day, plus book festival dates when you’ll be able to come down and see us in person.

Make 2019 your year of reading

In the meantime, we thought we’d share with you one of our own New Year’s resolutions in the hope that it will inspire you to make 2019 your year of reading. We’ve decided to set our families a reading challenge – everyone can take part and we’re looking forward to swapping notes on the books we’ve each read.

The idea is very simple – every month we’ll pick a category from the list below and each member of the family will choose a book to read in that category. Some months we might read the same book together; some months we’ll choose different books to read independently. Why not start your own family book club and have a go too?

Here’s the list of categories (with some suggestions to help guide the kids, not that we think they’ll need them!):

1. A funny book: check out the Lollies shortlist for some great suggestions.

2. A book about a topic that fascinates you: a great opportunity to read some non-fiction, or a fictional story about something interesting.

3. A book by an author who is new to you: why not ask your local librarian or bookseller for a suggestion?

4. A historical book: we love the Horrible Histories books and can also recommend the Histronauts series of graphic novels for kids (published by b small publishing).

5. A book recommended by a friend with great taste: who will you ask?

6. A graphic novel: check out this list of some of our favourite graphic novels and series.

7. A book published before you were born: so many classics to choose from!

8. A book about science and technology: it doesn’t have to be non-fiction – two amazing science-inspired novels we read last year are The Matilda Effect and The Extraordinary Colours of Auden Dare.

9. A book in translation: Why not check out one of our favourite indie publishers, Gecko Press, which has a fantastic list that includes lots of children’s books in translation?

10. A book of poetry: we received this gorgeous poetry book for Christmas (published by Nosy Crow) and can’t wait to get stuck into it.

11. A book by one of your favourite authors: is there a David Walliams, Roald Dahl, Julia Donaldson or Jacqueline Wilson book you haven’t read yet?!

12. A biography: the Classic Football Heroes books are perfect for the sports-lovers in your family – but our favourite series of biographies for kids has to be Little People Big Dreams.

Good luck and happy reading!

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