Book review: Panda's Rule by Maria Abid

Order here: paperback, £18.99; ebook, £3.95

I don't do a lot of product testing any more (I have to earn a living after all), but the press release for this book caught my eye. A book written by an 11 year old? As it happens I have an 11 year old daughter who is also keen on writing. We have a project in the pipeline for a children's book too... a collaboration.

When I told her about this book, she wanted to read it. We love pandas, although she prefers penguins a bit more. When she was tiny we used to play a panda game, I was mama panda, she was born paw first, she fed on mama panda, mama panda climbed a tree to get her a bamboo stick, mama panda took a nasty thorn off her paw... I invented this game so I could laze in bed for a few moments at weekends. She is and always was very mobile and I just wanted to lie down in bed early in the morning on a weekend.

So two panda lovers. She read the book straightaway and gave me this honest feedback:

• A good book with a good amount of drawings and images.
• I wanted more description of the days the panda lives through. It rushed on and I wanted to know more.
• The book is a bit big in size but I prefer the book to an ebook.
• This book is suitable from birth to age 8. I am too old for this book. However I enjoyed it.

This is my 11-year-old feedback. I then gave her mine and she agreed on some of the points I raised.

• The book could have benefited from editing by an adult. There are a few typos and a lot of adjectives are used, sometimes they are not necessary. The best use of adjectives is on page 32 at the very top.
• The book is charming and I felt it was too short, but maybe it's part of a series.
• I agree that this book is for young children. Parents can read it to babies and continue reading it until the child can read it herself/himself.
• Some of the images are of not enough high resolution for print. They will be fine on the ebook though.
• I would have liked a bit more of a connection between the story and the Chinese creative projects. 
• Page 46, the song is close to the Disney one, even if some words have been changed. I advise caution, copyright issues are very intricate. It's always wise to seek permission or at least credit the original inspiration, even with a tiny note at the bottom of the page.

I think this is a great effort and creativity should be encouraged in children as much as possible. I am a professional writer/editor so pardon me if I was a bit too precise in my comments.

I hope my feedback is not taken the wrong way, it is meant constructively not critically. I do wish the author success and recognition. Keep writing - we would love to read more stories!

Sugru will fix it!

I have a warm relationship with Sugru's PR. I get their products to test now and then. I have been very busy with work lately, but could not resist when they emailed me to suggest I should try their child-friendly range. Before they launched this range, Sugru was for adults only. 

So I got some Xmassy stuff and decided to make a start with the red Sugru to fix a few things. Spot my broken things and my daughter's broken things... We did not need to be precise with a few items but the whisk and the bag's zip fittings were done with care. Why change the zip when you can fix it so easily? It's my fave messenger-style bag, essential for a cyclist like me. We are hoping to do some Xmassy stuff, but in the meantime, you can see how useful Sugru can be!

If you like what you see, you might enjoy reading the Get started with Sugru page, with basic tips and a few ingenious projects to get you started. I am not being paid for this post, I just get the Sugru samples and try to fix something.

If you’ve already mastered the basics, they post weekly projects on sugru.com. They also have a newsletter. You can sign up if you click this link. There is a discount for your first order too.