Peter's Cross Station

Brighter Minds Media

For my first solicited product review, I give you Brighter Minds Media. Last week, they Nat a box full of books. We like books around here, so it was fun pulling them all out, one-by-one and piling them up to see what was good. I won't bother with the ones I didn't like, and here's why: as a reviewer, I figure it's my job to help readers choose good products and avoid bad ones. The ones we didn't like weren't "bad" they just weren't our taste. But someone else might like them fine, so I see no need to warn you against them.

Here's what I, Nat, and/or both of us liked:

This book had two things Nat loves between its covers: soft-touch pictures and a number theme. Make that three things, because she also loves cute, cuddly animals and she really enjoyed the polar bears. For a nice, basic first book about numbers, this one is a good choice.

To be perfectly honest, I hated this one. I just don't like books with "mechanical" features. I am a purist, who thinks books should be books and children should develop a love of books for their own sake, not for their bells and whistles and proximity to video games. That said, Nat loved it. So I had to put it in the thumbs up category. I suppose a few bells-and-whistles books won't hurt her any. And she loves clapping and making dolls and stuffed animals clap, and this book speaks its story aloud, verse by verse, when you clap the finger puppet's hands together. By the way, Nat is also in a major puppet-loving phase, so how could she not love this book?

This is one of a series of cloth pop-up books for babies. We love the format. It's soft and colorful and full of fun pop-ups. I have read that children don't identify cloth books as books, but whatever she might think it is, Nat really liked this one.

Brighter Minds Media also has a series of PBS Kids Books and they have good content. I am not all that fond of the illustrations, but that's a matter of taste, as I said above. The content is nice to have in a well-stocked children's library.

And there you have my first solicited review.

Thanks to Dawn for the opportunity to become a reviewer!

How to Get Free Stuff

Ever the comer-upper with great ideas, Dawn has started a little business in which she collects bloggers' information and puts it in a database and then PR people from companies that make kids' stuff pay her to go through her database and select blogs they like to send free stuff to in exchange for product reviews on the blogs in question.

I know it works because I already got an email from a company that said if I'd just tell them Nat's precise age and my address, they'd send me some free products for her demographic and I could keep them in return for a blog review. Mind you, the review doesn't have to be good.

I am starting a new category called "Solicited Product Reviews" for doing these. They will be distinguished from the "Baby Stuff We Love" category (unless we happen to love them enough to cross-list them) so you'll know what I love enough to recommend by myself and you'll know what was sent to me to judge.

Meanwhile, please sign up at Get Them Blogging!. Dawn is not going to give your info out to anyone but interested companies, of course. You can sign up and change your mind later and un-sign up, and you need not have a "big" zillion-hit blog to register. What will happen is that a company who has access to the database will decide to send you a pitch about their product at the email address you have given Dawn. Then you can decide whether or not you're interested. You don't have to do anything at all if you don't like the pitch. And when I signed up, minimum real-life information was required. You can use your blogging name instead of your real name (if they're different) for example.

I think it's a terrific idea and I can't wait to see the free stuff winging its way to me as we all type...