Reviewed by
Mary
Reading is essential for children! It is never too early to share books and stories, to fire their imagination and foster a love for reading.
Story Glow is a monthly subscription to support reading, creativity, and education, all based around a monthly book with a different theme each month. As well as a book, there are crafts, activities, and puzzles. It’s aimed at Key Stage 1 and Early Years kids. It costs £9.99 per month, with reductions for longer subscriptions.
The box is beautifully designed. it’s a reasonable size, so unless you have a large letterbox you might need a trip to the sorting office if you’re not in to receive it.
The little character on the box is Glowy, who features as your guide through the activities.
More beautiful presentation! Children will love opening this up, the bright confetti and sparkly paper is a fantastic start.
The lucky recipient gets a personal note from Glowy to introduce the month’s theme. Either the child can read this themselves, or a parent can read it for them, but children will be able to recognize their own name, which gives it a lovely familiar touch. Everyone enjoys getting mail!
In that lovely wrrapped package on top is the book.
This is a lovely fun book about the adventures of a pirate boy and his talkative parrot.
The illustrations are bright and fun, and the story is very entertaining. It’s a lovely book for children and parents to read together, and of course children at the older end of the scale can manage it themselves.
Now there’s not just the book in the box, there’s lots more!
Here’s the card that tell you everything inside.
This is a lovely craft. A little wooden boat to paint! It even comes with its own stand so it can be displayed when it’s finished. There are paints and brushes included, and you’ll also need the paint pots for another of the craft activities.
More crafting here, and Glowy’s Challenge, to make your own parrot! Story Glow run a competition every month, so you can upload you child’s creation and be in with a chance to win a prize.
The porthole craft will need some adult assistance and supervision, but there’s plenty of scope for creativity.
As well as your crafts, there are lovely excellent educational activities, literacy and maths, which can all be adjusted according to the child’s age.There’s even a Mindfulness exercise!
There is also reading and comprehension guidance for parents, such as things to think about whilst reading with your child and questions to ask afterwards.
You’ve also got more free creativity such as colouring and a stencil.
I am hugely impressed with this box.
There is a huge amount of things to do, lots of creativity and engagement, and the educational activities are well thought out and fun. The colour coding acts as an excellent guide for age-appropriate activities, and can be adapted to suit individual children.
This is a real participation and sharing selection for adults and children, from reading together to figuring out puzzles to doing art and crafts.
I love the theme; pirates always seem to be very popular with children, so this is a great book to choose. I’m happy that there the box themes are neutral, no boy or girl versions! I’ve only seen this one box, but I’m assuming that other boxes will have a mix of girl and boy characters. Pirates are brilliant, but it’s a little frustrating that pirate stories tend to be very heavy on the male characters. However there’s absolutely no reason why this shouldn’t be enjoyed by all children!
It’s extremely good value, for the book and a ton of wonderfully engaging activities, lots of learning, creativity and entertainment for all!
By Evelyn 
