BLOG TOUR: REVIEW + GIVEAWAY! Tilda Pinkerton's Magical Hats: By the Red Tractor Mailbox (Book 1), by Angela Shelton (illustrated by James Murray)

UPDATE: The giveaway is now closed. Thank-you to everyone who entered and congratulations to our winner, Madeline!!

Hooray! It's time for another BLOG TOUR! I don't always love these, because a lot of times the organizers want you to promote all kinds of books on your blog, sight unseen, without giving you a review copy or any promotional materials to work with. What if the book sucks? I always wonder. Anyway, that's not how I roll. I never promote a book on my blog without reading it first, and I never give a book a positive review if I don't truly love the book. Which means I don't participate in many blog tours (it could get a little awkward if I interview an author and all my questions are, "Why did you book suck so much?" and "Did you know your book sucks?"). Luckily, when there's a book I really like and a virtual tour organizer who's really keen, BLOG TOURS CAN BE AWESOME. They can usually mean interviews or guest posts by the author and GIVEAWAYS!

In this case, it's ALL OF THE ABOVE.

I received a copy of Tilda Pinkerton's Magical Hats By the Red Tractor Mailbox (Book 1), by Angela Shelton (illustrated by James Murray) from Teddy Rose at Virtual Author Book Tours. The book is fantastic (you can read my review and my daughter's input below) AND the author is doing a guest post tomorrow AND the publisher is sponsoring a giveaway (scroll down to the bottom of this post to enter the giveaway).

The Book

Tilda Pinkerton's Magical Hats:
Book One: By the Red Tractor Mailbox
Author: Angela Shelton
Illustrator: James Murray
Publisher: Quiet Owl Books
Publication Date: April 1, 2013

Disclaimer: I received a review copy of this book from Teddy Rose at Virtual Author Book Tours so I could review it and participate in this blog tour. I was not required to write a favourable review, nor was I otherwise compensated for my participation. All opinions expressed are strictly my own (with a little help from my three-year-old, Magda). The book giveaway will be sponsored by the publisher and will be open to U.S. residents only.

Tilda Pinkerton is the magical owner of a VERY magical hat shop (a magical milliner, if you will). She has thousands of hats of all shapes and sizes (even small enough for woodchucks and gnats!) which she gives away for free to anyone who wants or needs one. The catch is you have to use your magical hat to create something "wonderful, beautiful in the world." For Madison Mae and Albert it's an easy choice: they need hats that will help them come up with ways to save their grandparents' failing farm.

Tilda Pinkerton's Magical Hats is described as appropriate for Read-Aloud K-2, and Reading Level 3, but I was able to read it to my three-year-old with no problem (though Magda has a pretty high attention span for books and has been listening to chapter books for over a year already). The text is large and the story is relatively simple, but each chapter contains "bigger" words that are a little above the intended reading level. These words are then listed at the end of each chapter and explained in a glossary at the back. Most of the words were ones that Magda was able to pick up from context, but it was fantastic that Ms. Shelton included them to encourage children to expand their vocabulary. And Magda felt very clever when there were "bigger" words that she already knew ("taken aback," according to Magda, means "so startled, like you have to jump back and go Whoa!").

There are other nice touches about the book as well. The large line drawings are left intentionally simple so that children can colour them in themselves (if they own the book, of course!), and there are some blank pages on which readers are encouraged to draw their own favourite hats.

Here's what Magda had to say:

Magda's Take

Me: Did you like this book?

Magda: Yes! It was perfect. I liked Tilda Pinkerton's Magical Hats because I really like saying "Pinkerton." I like "Tilda" too, but I REALLY like the name "Pinkerton."

Me: What happened in the book?

Magda: Well there was a flood. I liked the part about the flood because it was like the real flood that happened on the news, except nobody got hurt and drowned because it was just imaginary characters. So Tilda Pinkerton couldn't drowned.

Me: Would you like to have a magical hat from Tilda Pinkerton?

Magda: Yes. I think I would want a Magda-Mag hat.

Me: What's that?

Magda: It's a hat with a little kid on it who has hair but not hair on her skin and no beard. Just hair on her head. And you could have a Mommy-Mom hat, and Daddy could have a Daddy-Dad hat. The Mommy-Mom hat would have a mommy on it, with hair and glasses, and the Daddy-Dad hat would have a dad on it with a bald head and a beard.

Me: What would our hats help us do?

Magda: They would support our bodies when we did flips, so we could all practice flips and backflips together.

Me: Wow. Wouldn't you want an astronaut helmet or a farmer's hat so you could be an astronaut or a farmer [her two biggest career goals right now]?

Magda: No, because I want to do those things when I'm older, but I want to learn how to do flips and somersaults NOW.

Me: That makes total sense to me.

The Author

Come back tomorrow for a guest post by author Angela Shelton!

Not only is she an actor, a filmmaker and an author, she also has one of the most engaging author photos I've seen in a while. That's her on the right and also in the banner picture at the top of this post. It just makes me want to know her and hang out with her!

The Blog Tour

You can follow Tilda Pinkerton around the interweb:

So Many Precious Book July 2 Review & Giveaway
Books, Books & More Books  July 3 Review
Books, Books & More Books  July 5 Guest Post
Haunting of Orchid Forsythia July 8 Review
Sweeps4Bloggers July 9 Review & Giveaway
Sincerely Stacie July 10 Review
Library of Clean Reads July 11 Review
Cozy Little Book Journal & The Bookish Elf July 15 Review
Cozy Little Book Journal & The Bookish Elf July 16 G & Guest Post
Carole Rae’s Ramblings July 17 Review
Reading Novels Online  July 18 Review
Sisterhood of the Sensible Moms July 19 Review
Saving for 6 July 22 Review
Saving for 6 July 23 Guest Post
Thoughts in Progress July 23 Review & Giveaway
Joy Story July 25 Review
Haunting of Orchid Forsythia July 26 Interview
From L.A. to LA July 29 Review
Heck of a Bunch July 30 Review & Giveaway
Second Bookshelf July 31 Interview
Pragmatic Mom Aug 5 Review
Sweet Southern Home Aug 6 Review
VW Stitcher Aug 7 Review
Musing with Crayolakym Aug 8 Review    
DWED Blog Aug 9 Review
DWED Blog Aug 9 Interview
City Book Review Aug 12 Review
Giveaways & Glitter Aug 13 Review         

The Giveaway

I'm feeling pretty lazy this summer so this giveaway is (hopefully) super easy. All you have to do is either:

(a) like Cozy Little Book Journal on Facebook;
(b) follow @CozyBookJournal on Twitter;
(c) leave a blog post (either on The Bookish Elf or Cozy Little Book Journal) or Facebook comment telling me your favourite way to play dress up with your kids; or
(d) Tweet about the giveaway.

That's it. You can do any or all of those things. It doesn't matter. Just use the Rafflecopter widget below to let me know you entered.

The giveaway is for a print copy of the book to be sent by the publisher to one winner, so I'm not in charge of the shipping on this one. Unfortunately, that also means the contest is open to U.S. residents only (sorry everyone else...you can still enter my other giveaways though...check the sidewalk on the right for more info). Contest is only open from July 15-31, 2013 so get your entries in early!

a Rafflecopter giveaway

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