Story Snug is 4 years old today and we’re still having lots of fun blogging, last month we published our 400th blogpost. We have read so many wonderful books, old and new, and I have enjoyed chatting with many lovely authors, illustrators and publishers in real life and on social media.
There are lots of people that I would like to thank for supporting Story Snug 🙂
The biggest THANK YOUs go to my husband, who deals with the technical side of Story Snug, and our daughter, who is now an avid reader in two languages. She is very actively involved in suggesting books and activities for Story Snug.
A huge THANK YOU to all of Story Snug’s followers and to all of you who leave such lovely comments on the blogposts. Your visits and comments are very much appreciated. Thank you for visiting!
THANK YOU to our followers on Twitter, Facebook, Pinterest, Google+ and Bloglovin’ and to everybody who shares the blogposts on social media and takes part in our giveaways.
THANK YOU to all the authors and illustrators who have written guest posts for Story Snug and very generously provided copies of your books for us to give away. Thank you for answering our interview questions and for giving us a fantastic insight into your work and creative processes. Thank you also to those of you who have invited us to be part of your blog tours.
THANK YOU to all the publishers and PR representatives who send us fantastic books to read and recommend. We are truly grateful to you and only wish we had the time to write about every single one of those that we love.
THANK YOU to my SCBWI (Society of Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators) friends who inspired me to create Story Snug and who continue to support me with my picture book writing. Thank you to those authors and illustrators that I have met during the year who have also given me so much encouragement for my own writing.
THANK YOU to the blogging community for supporting Story Snug and especially to our special book blogging friends who are listed on the blogroll.
This year we didn’t just recommend books on Story Snug. We took part in several blog tours, had several visitors and took part in book related events. These are some of the posts that I particularly enjoyed writing.
We’re now reading a mix of picture books and chapter books and some of of the stories that we most enjoyed reading over the last year include The Princess and the Giant, Nibbles the Book Monster, Happy Birthday Old Bear and one of my favourite picture books ever – Aaaarrgghh Spider! We also discovered Suzanne Barton’s beautiful books, The Dawn Chorus and Robin’s Winter Song and giggled our way through one of my childhood favourites, Paddington. I introduced my daughter to the first illustrated Harry Potter story and she particularly enjoyed reading Grandma Bendy, Mango and Bambang and Dotty Detective.
I had fun putting together a Book Cake for a friend of mine who had twins. The process of buying and collecting the books took several months and my daughter also added some of the books that she no longer wanted to read. Another fun activity was writing Book Spine poems, there were books everywhere as we created them!
We were very excited to be asked to reveal Jane Hissey’s new character, Elsie the Elephant, who appears in Jane Hissey’s, Happy Birthday Old Bear, which she wrote in celebration of thirty years of Old Bear stories.
It was also great to be involved in revealing the International Book Giving Day logo as well as being involved in the lead up to the event on February 14th. International Book Giving Day is a fantastic initiative that aims to put a book in the hands of as many children as possible worldwide.
We’ve taken part in several blog tours and I was particularly blown over by the response to my idea for a Story Snug Advent Calendar last December, it was definitely a highlight of this 4th year. The time that authors, illustrators and bloggers took to write their posts was very much appreciated and we enjoyed reading everybody’s Christmas and wintery book recommendations as well as hearing what they would like to find under their Christmas trees. All their fantastic Advent posts are on our Advent Pinterest board;
The five most viewed blogposts on Story Snug over the last four years are still books that are old favourites. Learning with Elmer, Learning with Eric Carle, On The Way Home, Kipper’s Birthday and Jasper’s Beanstalk. Interestingly they are all picture books by author / illustrators and are books which I have used regularly in the classroom to support children’s learning.
You can see most of Story Snug’s posts on our Pinterest Board which was started much later than Story Snug so there are still a few missing!
It’s unbelievable that we’re just starting our 5th year of blogging, something that I never imagined when I started Story Snug. Thank you again to all of you for your support and I look forward to seeing what the next year of blogging will bring!
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