Whether you are stuck indoors or playing in the sun (or even in the car travelling to the seaside!), fill your family time with The Bumper Book of Family Games. This action-packed collection is the perfect accompaniment wherever you go as a family, with over 110 beloved and new activities to keep you all entertained. Remember the rules to classic family games like Hide and Seek, Charades and Old Maid, and create new traditions with modern games like Ultimate, Fizz-Buzz and Waving Chicken! For players of all ages, The Bumper Book of Family Games is your one-stop family shop for everything you need to keep the children from tearing the house down through boredom. So, turn off the TV, gather the whole family together and get ready to scream ‘You’re It!’ as loud as you can. Word count: 45,000
The Poetics of Empowerment in David Mitchell’s Novels combines the investigation of David Mitchell’s novels with the introduction of a new critical concept to literary studies: empowerment. Aiming to situate and establish empowerment firmly within the context of literary studies, it offers the first framework and definition for reading fictional texts with the lens of empowerment and applies it in the analysis of discourse, the fictional characters, and the role of the reader in Mitchell’s novels. Drawing on narratological analysis, cognitive approaches to literature, and reader-response theory, it features close readings of Cloud Atlas (2004), Black Swan Green (2006), and The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet (2010) and dissects the author’s strategies, poetics, and agenda of empowering fiction. This book argues for an inherent, indissoluble connection between empowerment and the telling of stories and demonstrates how literary studies can benefit from a serious engagement with empowerment—and how such an engagement can stimulate new responses to fiction and put literary studies in conversation with other disciplines.
A roadmap to integrating board gaming into family life, filled with inspiring ways to engage even the trickiest of teenagers and manage game nights with flair. In The Board Game Family: Reclaim your children from the screen, Ellie Dix offers a roadmap to integrating board gaming into family life and presents inspiring ways to engage even the trickiest of teenagers and manage game nights with flair. Many parents feel as if they are competing with screens for their children's attention. As their kids get older, they become more distant leading parents to worry about the quality of the already limited time they share. They yearn for tech-free time in which to reconnect, but don't know how to shift the balance. In The Board Game Family, teacher and educationalist Ellie Dix aims to help fellow parents by inviting them and their families into the unplugged and irresistible world of board games. The benefits of board gaming are far-reaching: playing games develops interpersonal skills, boosts confidence, improves memory formation and cognitive ability, and refines problem-solving and decision-making skills. With these rewards in mind, Ellie shares a wealth of top tips and stealthy strategies that parents can draw upon to unleash the potential of those dusty game boxes at the back of the cupboard and become teachers of outstanding gamesmanship equipped to navigate the unfolding drama of competition, thwart the common causes of arguments and bind together a happier, more socially cohesive family unit. The book contains useful tips on the practicalities of getting started and offers valuable guidance on how parents can build a consensus with their children around establishing a set of house rules that ensure fair play. Ellie also eloquently explains the 'metagame' and the key elements of gamification (the application of game-playing principles to everyday life), and describes how a healthy culture of competition and good gamesmanship can strengthen relationships. Furthermore, Ellie draws upon her vast knowledge to talk readers through the different types of board games available for example, time-bound or narrative-based games so that they can identify those that they feel would best suit their family's tastes. The book complements these insights with a comprehensive appendix of 100+ game descriptions, where each entry includes a brief overview of the game and provides key information about game length, player count and its mechanics. Ideal for all parents of 8 to 18-year-olds who want to breathe new life into their family time.
Stuck indoors? This book is your saviour. Turn to a bumper 501 simple and accessible games and activities to keep your whole family amused for hours, if not days. Inside, in the garden, in the car, for all family sizes and ages - this book covers all the best classics you might have forgotten how to play, like stuck in the mud and the alphabet game, and introduces brand new games too. No fancy equipment needed, just easy to follow instructions. This book has everything you need to keep everyone happy.
The Bumper Book of Slightly Forgotten British Olympians and Other Sporting Heroes is just that: a collection of stirring tales of pluck, grit, triumph, disaster and on occasion, ineptitude, featuring a host of former sportspeople who've been utterly forgotten by history. From Maude Waveney, the plucky servant girl who bravely took half a day off work scrubbing kitchen floors to win a gold medal folding bedsheets in the first London games, to Tom Drake, Dressage's first punk, who shocked the sport with his slashed jacket and swear words on his hat.There's the tale of the Lincolnshire javelin thrower who fell under the spell of a cult devoted to the eating of egg and chips; of the mascot of Bexhill-on-Sea's ill fated bid to host the Olympics and "Ample" Arthur Cartwright, whose football career was blighted by an obsession with archaeology. They, and many others, all have a story to tell.
These stories take a fun approach to two popular Bible stories for toddlers. In the first tale, Bumper's great, great Grandpa is among the animals in the Garden of Eden that Adam names. In the second story, Bumper comes along to help Noah finish building the ark and is one of the animals saved from the flood.
When was the last time you climbed a tree? Picked blackberries? Held a snail race? Made maple syrup candy, an old-fashioned quill pen from a bird feather you found, or a plaster cast of an animal track? If the answer is "can't remember" or quite possibly "never," The Bumper Book of Nature will inspire you to get outdoors and enjoy the very best kind of free entertainment for you and your family. Who wouldn't love to discover a colorful butterfly hibernating in a woodshed for the winter or look at a snowflake under a magnifying lens? In warmer weather, why not explore rock pools by the seaside, pick wild meadow flowers (and then fry up elderflower fritters!), or go on a city safari? Whether you live in the heart of the city, the suburbs, or the deepest countryside, The Bumper Book of Nature will bring out the child in you with its treasure trove of offbeat, playful nature activities arranged by season. With lovely full-color illustrations as well as related trivia, quotes, and bits of poetry, it's a wonderful keepsake as well as a one-of-a-kind field guide.
When Mitchell Symons wrote his extraordinary bestsellers This Book, That Book and The Other Book - all neatly combined in one sensational volume, The Ultimate Loo Book - he was judged by many to be the King of Trivia. Now, inThe Bumper Book for the Loo, this supremo of weird and wonderful, astonishing and inexplicable facts, figures, stats and stories returns with a super selection of trivialistic treats - each one more remarkable and, yes, even more trivial than anything he's compiled before. For example, did you know that... ·The first alarm clock could only ring at 4 a.m... ·There was once an internet rumour that Belgium doesn't exist... ·In 1830, King Louis XIX ruled France for just 15 minutes... ·All mammals have jaws but only humans have chins... ·Peru has more pyramids than Egypt... Packed to the rafters with all manner of useful and useless information, lists of the biggest, the smallest, the best and the worst, The Bumper Book for the Loo is a hilarious compendium of endless delights - and a hugely entertaining, unputdownable feat of nonsense!
What Is Smart? There's evidence of so much more than "reading, writing, and 'rithmetic" in every child -- at least seven distinct intelligences, according to the theory of multiple intelligences, developed by Harvard's Dr. Howard Gardner. In Seven Times Smarter, veteran educator Laurel Schmidt offers a parent-friendly explanation of this theory and of the ways that kids are -- simply put -- word smart, picture smart, music smart, body smart, logic smart, people smart, and self-smart. These intelligences aren't fixed at birth. They can be nurtured and strengthened, meaning that in the right environment, kids get smarter. Seven Times Smarter, an invaluable resource for parents, teachers, and caregivers, provides the perfect way to create this environment. Unlike other craft or activity books that just fill time and keep kids busy, Seven Times Smarter prompts kids aged six to fourteen to work their brains and cultivate new skills using recycled or low-cost materials found in every home -- and enjoy it! It offers an exploration of what it means to be smart, checklists to recognize the seven intelligences in your child, book lists to develop and celebrate all the ways your child is smart, and fifty creative, constructive activities that are good for kids playing alone or in a group, supervised or independently, including: * Memory Tours -- If a memory book is too straightforward for your artistic child, try an un-book, a memory box, or a calendar. * Hanging Gardens -- Indoors or out, even the smallest garden plot can yield a bumper crop of mathematical, linguistic, scientific, and kinesthetic skills. * The Boredom Brigade -- Boredom is a springboard for imagination; imaginary structures, identities, occupations, and friends are just some of the ways kids develop their inter- and intra-personal intelligences. * Junk Yard Genius -- There's an education in junk; in fact, it's easy to turn your broken radio, alarm clock, fan, blow-dryer, or scale into a project that could fascinate kids for days.
