Christmas is Coming! What do I get the children?

School breaks up in just over two weeks (less for some schools) so if you are looking for some gift ideas for the children, here are a few suggestions:

For the under sixes:

How cute is the Wonkey Donkey. The store has both the book and CD set as well as a gift pack which comes with book, CD and cute cuddly toy.

All Through the Year, a picture book by Jane Goodwin and Anna Walker, is a delightful story which tells the story of a year in the life of an Australian family so all the seasons are perfect for us downunder.

For the girls, we have a range of Fancy Nancy books complete with glitter covers, some beautiful fairy pop up books, as well as Precious Little about a little girl in a circus, and Angelina Ballerina’s Sleepover Party and Musical Theatre pop up books.

For the boys there is Graeme Base’s new book The Legend of the Golden Snail, Roadworks featuring all sorts of machinery as well as our pop up book, Amazing Big Marchines featured in the big photo above.

For everyone, there’s Nic Bland’s wonderful stories Twinkle, The Wrong Book, and The Very Itchy Bear, and I hope to have a gift set of The Very Cranky Bear in soon.

For the Older Children:

For our beginner and newly confident readers, the Billie B Brown series is a great introduction to chapter books for girls (well priced stocking filler!), the Great Big Enormous Book of Tashi with all 31 stories, Zac Power Spy Camp pack of five books and a stacker game for the budding spy. Also available are the Zac Power compilation books Extreme Missions and Mega Missions that feature 4 books in one.

Seen the movie, now read the books: In stock are the The Legend of Ga’hoole series both as individual books and a collection, The Diary of a Wimpy Kid series, and coming soon, the latest in the Narnia series to be made into a movie, The Voyage of the Dawn Treader. Also on the shelves is the Lemony Snicket series of books that was made into the movie, A Series of Unfortunate Events, and of course, the Harry Potter books.

Other books that are popular with our younger people are Heroes of Olympus: The Lost Hero where we return to the world of Percy Jackson, and the latest in the Ranger’s Apprentice series, The Emperor of Nihon-Ja

We have a range of beautiful gift versions of the classic Roald Dahl books, The Wind in the Willows, The Secret Garden, The Muddle Headed Wombat, and Snugglepot and Cuddlepie to name a few.

Stuck for Ideas for Teens and Young Adults:

A common theme in books for this age group is where children have to take over the decision making. John Marsden’s Tomorrow, When the War Began is one such book as is Gone by Michael Grant. I really liked Genesis, the first book in a new science fiction series for 13 plus girls called Rosie Black Chronicles, which is an adventure set 500 years in the future and features strong female characters. For the older teens, If I Stay is a compelling read (for my review click here).

In the magical and supernatural genre for this age group, there is The Laws of Magic series by Michael Pryor, combining both magic and history and for older readers, Cassandra Clare’s Mortal Instruments series features a war between vampires and werewolves. For the girls, Torment is Lauren Kate’s follow up to Fallen described as a gothic love story. For more information go to the author’s website here.

Don’t forget the children’s non fiction section in the store with books on a range of subjects such as: Whittakers World of Facts 2011, Ripley’s Believe It or Not: 2011, Richard Hammond Blast Lab: Bright Ideas, Dinosaur Diorama, Greek Myths, Big Book of Science Things to Make and Do and Double Daring Book for Girls to name a few.

Hope we see you soon.