I'm a full-time mummy

(** Article first published as Book Review: Phillipa Knickerbocker Glory & the Ice Cream Castle by Sarahjane Funnell on Blogcritics.)

I came across a Tweet message by the author asking for bloggers to review her upcoming book and as usual, I will first check out what the book is about and then browse around the website and author's info. The first thing that struck me when I landed on her website was:

Purple

I LOVE ALL THINGS PURPLE!

And seriously... ICE CREAM?!

How can I say no to purple colored things and ice cream?! And look at that adorable and cute little girl? I immediately replied the Tweet message with my interest to review it and to my surprise, the author was prompt and soon enough, the book arrived at my doorstep oozing with cuteness and oh my, oh my.... just read my review for the "Phillipa Knickerbocker Glory and the Ice Cream Castle" book below, OK?

Title: Phillipa Knickerbocker Glory and the Ice Cream Castle
Author: Sarahjane Funnell (Author), Amie Bilsby (Illustrator)
Publisher: Gibson Publishing (26 Mar 2012)
ISBN-13/-10:  978-0957081130 / 0957081138
Paperback:  32 pages
Dimension:  27.4 x 20.4 x 0.4 cm

Description from the product page:
"Phillipa loves ice cream. She loves ice cream almost as much as she loves her pet cat Little Miss Whiskers. Little Miss Whiskers is her fluffy white cat with a purple collar and bell. She doesn’t like ice cream at all but loves nothing more than to curl up into a ball and fall fast asleep on the end of Phillipa’s bed.

One day Phillipa Knickerbocker Glory and Little Miss Whiskers embark on a deliciously exciting journey. Through a secret tunnel, they enter a magical dreamland where they find the Ice Cream Castle and discover every flavour of ice cream imaginable. The Ice Cream Castle seems like a dream come true but will it be just how Phillipa imagined? With all that ice cream, will she and Little Miss Whiskers ever want to go home? Find out just what happens in this deliciously delightful adventure… "

'Fun, fun, fun!' is all I can think of as I flipped through this book! Each page that I turned just got me more excited and anxious to see what's coming up next and boy oh boy, the pictures included in this book is just gorgeous and droolworthy! 

Although Ben is into boyish stuff (robots, trucks, cars, soldiers, ninja those sort) this book manages to capture his attention because of:

ICE CREAM!!

He sticks around long enough for me to read the book and we oohs and aahhs over the gorgeous pictures. My girl on the other hand is still too young to understand the storyline but I'll definitely be keeping this book and introduce it to her again later.

The book is not too thick and I love the paper quality and as for the storyline, it is about a girl named Phillipa who loves to eat ice cream and enjoys looking forward to Saturday which is a special treats day where her mum will make her the Knickerbocker Glory ice cream which is made of all different kinds of ice cream and toppings.

One day as Phillipa was having a hard time deciding which colors and flavours to try on her Knickerbocker Glory ice cream, she decided to close her eyes and when she opened her eyes, she was in this magical place with all kinds of colors and flavours and she found herself standing in front of the Ice Cream Castle.

I'll not explain more of this book, you should go get it and find out yourself what happened to Phillipa at the Ice Cream Castle!

In summary, this is an easy to read book with beautiful illustrations that will capture your child's heart (Ok, ok, even mine!)

You can get this book from Amazon or at http://www.phillipaknickerbockerglory.com/shop/.

I am so excited to be able to hold this giveaway for my lucky blog followers and readers! TWO of you lucky people are going to win this awesome book! SIGNED! You will absolutely love it! Now, let's read below for the giveaway terms and conditions OK?

To enter the giveaway, kindly read and follow the instructions as stated in the Rafflecopter form below.

• You can enter either via login through your Facebook account or just key in your name and your valid email address.
  
• Please also leave your valid email address in the post comment so that I can contact you if you win this giveaway.

a Rafflecopter giveaway

I received no monetary compensation for this review, I was provided with a copy of the book by the author in order to facilitate my review. All opinions expressed in this post are my own. Please do your own research when purchasing products, as your opinions may differ from mine. And if you'd like to read my previous book reviews, you can do so by reading this post of mine called "My Book Reviews"

I have received a number of emails and comments from my followers asking how I get to review products and apps so I decided to list down my tips and post it (maybe weekly?) to share my experience and tips. Feel free to drop me an email or comment if you want to find out more or anything else.

Here goes my first tip:

JUST ASK!

Now what you need to do:

• Browse around the Internet - look out for websites of the genre you are comfortable with - family friendly, fashion, IT etc etc

• Imagine you are cyber shopping for a product you wanted for yourself, children, family etc.
  

• If you see any products you would like to try, look out for a way to contact the company. Find their 'Contact Us' link and drop them an email

• If there's no way to email (quite rare), see whether the company have other social medias such as Facebook page or Twitter accounts and try to contact them from there.
  

• Make sure you have a professionally written pitch email when requesting for products to review!
  

It doesn't hurt to try,

the worse thing you can get is an email from them saying 'No'.

Just move on from there, you will surely get one awesome company who is eager to share their products with you!

There you go, my 1st blog tips on getting products to review.

Try it yourself and let me know the outcome!

Stay tuned for my next blog tips next week!

** P.S: Please note that it is always better if your blog has good following and good PR rank as these factors help a lot when you request for a product to review.

When I saw the press release of this app from Oceanhouse Media, I immediately check out the app further. I go crazy at the thought of Ben going berserk with a new vehicle/transportation app, so I quickly request for a promo code to review it. Anyway, my review as below...

* Title: Planes
* Price: $0.99
* Category: Books
* Released: Mar 14, 2012
* Version: 1.08
* Size: 10.3 MB
* Language: English
* Seller: Oceanhouse Media, Inc.
* Rated: 4+
* Requirements: Compatible with iPhone, iPod touch, and iPad.Requires iOS 3.2 or later

Description from the product page:

"Children can interact with the many different ways we use airplanes in this exciting new omBook! From crop dusters to seaplanes, passengers and clouds, many objects can be moved around with the touch of a finger. Realistic sound effects and brightly colored illustrations will delight young readers and keep them coming back for more!""

What's good?

* It is engaging and interactive and I love that we can also touch the objects in each page on the screen and the words pop out to tell you what it is!

* I like that we can move the objects on each page! It gives you a sense of control and being imaginative to move the objects around!

* The illustrations are beautiful and the narration is great!

Ben showing Alyson how to use the app!

Room for Improvement?

* IMO, it would be better if the app can just focus entirely on the jet plane as the first few pages touches on other types of planes.

You can purchase the " Planes " app from the iTunes App Store.

I received no monetary compensation for this review, I was provided with the promo code by the sponsor to redeem the application for free from iTunes Store in order to facilitate my review. All opinions expressed in this post are my own. Please do your own research when purchasing products, as your opinions may differ from mine. And if you'd like to read my previous iPad Apps reviews, you can do so by reading this post of mine called "My iPad App Reviews"