WELCOME TO
The ‘Bookmark This’ Blog
Read about my favourite books, teaching, reading for pleasure and other things that interest me, like Icelandic traditions and honesty boxes in the Scottish Highlands. Be warned, I have been known to ramble.
February: Valentine’s, Palentine’s, Galentine’s, Shmalentine’s.
I am not the world's biggest fan of Valentine's Day but I need no excuse to highlight some books, and books about love no less! I do tend to buy my own children a book for Valentine’s mind you, (I know this must come as a shocking revelation!) so I have put together a little list of books all about love.
Post Book Festival Blues and the C-word (no, not that one!)
Feeling a bit blue post book festival but there’s some early Christmas cheer in here too!
Brain is feeling overwhelmed
Lacking motivation to write blog posts as my brain (and heart) are feeling overwhelmed!
Story props and small shops!
Showing some small business love for two UK based shops - Babi Pur and Conscious Craft. No, this isn't an ad or sponsored, just two companies that I love and a bit of inspiration for making up a book gift set with story props
Sand, sea and some book suggestions
After weeks of the most unScottish weather (it’s been consecutive weeks of blue sky sunshine!), the rain has returned. My garden is happy about this. I just hope this is not now the rain back for the rest of summer! (Never bloody happy!) As I try to remain optimistic that we’ve not just experienced summer for the year, I’ve decided to do a wee blog post on some of my favourite Scottish locations to visit in the sun (and rain, to be honest they’re all year round loveliness) and also recommend some sunshiney beachy themed books.
Blog-Block & Back to Basics
Life is busy. My brain is busy. Website traffic is not busy. Going back to basics with some book recommendations. I hope you enjoy!
Reading for enjoyment & reluctant readers
Reading for enjoyment is at “crisis point” according to recent National Literacy Trust research. My advice in this blog post will not have any children swapping their PlayStations and phones for poetry and prose, but it does offer some genre suggestions and strategies that I have seen success with in terms of engaging some very disengaged readers in my (nearly 18 years of) experience of supporting young people with literacy difficulties.
Take your “man up” nonsense and get it in the bin!
With most difficult topics or questions I turn to a book. Even just for a starting off point. There’s so much nuance in relationships and feelings, I find myself getting into a brain fankle trying to explain it all to a 3…4…5…6 year old! Picture books are the answer. In fact, they are almost always the answer! So I hope adding to our section on feelings and including those trickier topics like death, family separation & racism will be useful for you too.
Reading for pleasure, buy a book, donate a book and then what?
I have been asking myself/the internet/my husband/my colleagues (I’m a lot of fun at parties, I know!) but what happens once kids get these books? Don’t misunderstand me, I am so excited to be able to celebrate World Book Day as a bookseller as well as a parent this year and truly believe what they do is phenomenal. But once these kids have their book - is it just gathering dust? Especially for those young people who are classed as growing up in “disadvantage and inequality”? (I promise it gets more positive soon…)
The Book Hibernacle
I am a sucker for an honesty box - the north of Scotland’s mainland and beyond into the Orkney and Shetland islands are littered with them. In Crail, there’s a very lovely honesty box at the little beach with buckets and sandcastle tools to borrow. I mean, come on. There must be an equation about the number of honesty boxes and handwritten signs an area has, the greater my love is for that place. Little Free Libraries fall into the same category. There’s something so wholesome about them. Open to everyone.
Hello!
Moonlight Rainbow Books is a one woman show (with some help from loved ones - you know who you are!) I’m Sheila. I’ve recently entered the “middle age” phase of life. I turned 40 and gave birth to our second child a month later. A wee chill dude. That classes me as a mother of “advanced maternal age” which, let’s face it, doesn’t sound much better than the out of date “geriatric mother” terminology! My husband and I also have a daughter who is outrageously creative, curious and fiery. She and I share a love for picture books (and having the last word)