Glitterbelle: Doodle, Dazzle Create! and Glitterbelle, Me and You

Illustrated by: Harriet Muncaster

Series: Glitterbelle: The Sparkliest Princess Ever!

Published: January 2015

Edition: Paperback/Hardback

Print Length: 48 pages/48 pages

Narrated By: N/A

Genre: Children’s Fiction, Activity Books

Where Did I Get It? I have kindly received a copy of each book to review as part of the Parragon Book Buddies Scheme

Blurb (from Doodle, Dazzle, Create!): Introducing Glitterbelle, a fun and funky, shimmery and glittery, inspirational and creative princess starring in her own range of books for ages 6 and up. Glitterbelle and her two best friends are hosting a slumber party at the palace: everyone is going to be a princess for the night! Read the story, make your own tiara and add doodles, designs and colour as you go along. Get involved and get creative in this gorgeous fill-in book. With a cute mini tin notepad for extra creativity!

Opening Line(s):

Once upon our time, Princess Glitterbelle and her best friends, Dazzlina and Angel, were planning a sparkle-tastic sleepover party at Glitterbelle’s palace.

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My Review: Tori LOVES these books. She couldn’t wait to get stuck in when I showed them to her, choosing to start off with the Doodle, Dazzle, Create! book. She started by taking the super cute little tin-covered notebook off the front and writing some ‘notes’ about her day in them. (Whilst she was busy with this, I carefully removed the plastic casing that had kept it attached to the book so that the cover would lie flat when she wanted to draw/write on that side of the book later on.)

After a while she put the notebook down and came back to the book itself, very carefully writing her name in the space on the front page – she even asked me to spell out her middle name for her to write it properly!

I helped her to read the short passages of ‘story’ and she then set about the activities on each page – they vary from colouring in parts of the illustrations yourself to craft ideas, recipes, cut-out-and-stick activities and puzzles. There is loads to do and we are saving some of the craft ideas and recipes for a rainy weekend where we can have a little party of our own, just because!

The books are amazingly illustrated – there is such depth to them thanks to the way they are created. There are a couple of pages at the back of both books showing how Harriet Muncaster starts out with sketches on card and then builds up the rooms of the pictures with carefully drawn, cut out and folded props and other bits and pieces (and obviously lots of glitter) before setting up lights and taking the photographs that become the pictures in the books. They are gorgeously rich and entice you in to the books, making Glitterbelle and her friends seem that little bit more ‘real’ than I imagine they would as flat illustrations.

The second book, Glitterbelle Me and You, is a diary style book gorgeously presented in slightly squishy hardback format with a sparkly purple elastic band to hold it shut. It feels luxurious, especially to Tori who has never had a diary before and thinks it is the most exciting thing EVER.

Perfect for the age range, the diary roughly follows the format of Glitterbelle filling in a page and then a page left for you to fill in about yourself in a similar way, with space for pictures as well as writing. There are also fun little personality quizzes based on Glitterbelle and her friends to find out what sort of princess you are, pages about family, friends and pets, daydream pages where you can make up your own film ideas and think about what you want to be when you grow up.

Tori is just below the target audience age for the Glitterbelle series so she needs a little help with some of the reading but she really enjoys all the activities and her reading is coming along really well so I’m sure it won’t be long before she is losing herself in the world of Glitterbelle and her friends without needing any help from me!

My Rating: 5/5*

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