Christmas Cracker product reviews

I haven't ever read a Jacqueline Wilson book before this one. I see them on shelves in libraries and bookshops and while the illustrations on the cover interest me, I haven't gone as far as to pick one up to buy or borrow it. I guess I wasn't sure my daughter would be into it. She is more into dinosaurs and super heroes. So when I saw this up for review, I thought it was time to give it a go.

One big plus is the illustrations, both on the cover and inside. These pictures are by Nick Sharratt. We own a lot of his books and we love his style. They are cartoony and fun, but always vibrant and full of life and humour.

The stories themselves were really neat too. I sat and read a new story to my daughter each night. We got introduced to Tracy Beaker who I don't think was a favourite. Though my daughter still related to a lot of what was happening in the stories. We also liked the activities and things throughout the book. She was excited to try making her own poems after reading about how.

We also found a couple of recipes inside this book. There is one for Christmas cake and one for gingerbread people. I didn't have a person cookie cutter! But I made hearts instead using the recipe in this book. My kids both took part in making the dough and cutting the cookies out. We all had fun decorating too.

The snippets of stories throughout this book did make me curious about what a full length story might be like. I think this book would make an excellent Christmas present for a Wilson fan. There is lots of neat stuff for holiday fun in between the pages. It could also be neat for kids not yet fans of Wilson's.