The Little Book Club June 2013 Review

I have a 2 year old daughter and I can’t have her missing out on the subscription box fun, so one of the boxes she gets (she gets 3 total – 2 I’m deciding between and this is the third) is The Little Book Club. For $24.95 a month, your child gets 3 age-appropriate books fitting that month’s theme (I think different ages get different themes each month based on other reviews I’ve seen). It’s designed for kids 0-6, so my 2 year old has plenty of time to grow with this club! I love this subscription because I’ve always loved reading, so that’s something I really want to instill a love for in my daughter. Reading is a great hobby that really lets your imagination explode.
Emily usually comes out with me to get the mail, so when there’s something for her inside, she gets so excited (“A box! It’s for you!!” – we’re still working on pronouns). This month’s theme for my daughter was Food!

“It says Emiwy!” Inside the envelope is the info card which shows the theme and lists the 3 books and authors.

The first book is Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs by Judi Barrett. This is the only one we haven’t read yet (the box just came yesterday). It looks really cute (I think there was a movie based on it a few years ago, but we never saw it, so I still don’t really know what it’s about yet) but definitely has more words on each page than the other 2 books. Emily loves books, and can easily sit through 5-6 short books, but one with lots of words per page seems to still push her attention span a bit. We’ll keep trying, but she may need to grow into this one a bit. I do like the illustration style though – different and cute! This one has an Amazon value of $6.29.

The second book is The Little Mouse, the Red Ripe Strawberry, and the Big Hungry Bear by Don Wood. Emily really enjoyed this book. The mouse was adorable and she loved pointing him out in each picture and noticing the face he was making. She also loves strawberries, so that was a big plus for the book for her. The length was perfect and the story wasn’t bad – I was a bit nervous Emily would get a bit worried for the mouse since he looked scared in quite a few of the pictures (she’s pretty sensitive to others’ moods), but she liked it. The Amazon value for this book is $7.19.

The final book this month was Jamberry by Bruce Degen. I very nearly bought the board book version of this book at Target last week, so it’s awesome to get the paperback in her box! This was the first book Emily reached for to start “reading” after opening the box. The pictures are really colorful and full of fruit, which Emily loves. This is a more basic book, more focused on rhyming and imagery, but still cute all the same. Emily loved it. The amazon value of this book is $7.99.

All together, this month’s value (all paperback versions) was $21.47, a bit under the monthly price, but last month’s value (all hardcover versions) was $37.32, so it looks like it kind of varies month to month, but evens out overall. I’m certainly not disappointed. Emily loved at least 2 of these books (so far) and I think she’ll like the 3rd when she has the attention span to sit for the whole story. Sure, I could go to the book store or buy these on Amazon myself, but I love that these are all picked and sent to Emily with a theme in mind.
My only minor complaint with The Little Book Club is their shipping. They ship via Media Mail which is super sloooow. I can’t complain too much, since I know that keeps costs down. The problem, for me, is you get billed on the anniversary day that you signed up (I get billed the 27th of each month), but they shipped to me this past month on the 20th, so I didn’t have the package yet for June before I was billed for July. I’d just prefer to pay, get a package, pay, get a package. I kind of wish I could tell them to bill me earlier in the month to avoid that. Oh well. I still like the subscription and Emily loves getting new books, so it doesn’t matter too much.

Reading Jamberry

New books!

Hug the books!

Do your kids get The Little Book Club? What was their theme this month? If you don’t get it yet and are interested, head over to The Little Book Club’s website!

EDIT (10/2013): I feel the need to add in some new information. The Little Book Club went out of business a couple months ago. Their site, for some reason, still appears to be functional. I'm not sure if it takes your money, but it is indeed closed. Please DO NOT sign up. At first, the closure seemed to be a combination of some inventory theft and the business becoming too much for the owner to deal with, as communicated to us via email. A final shipment for June was promised, as well as a refund for anyone who had already paid for July. Nothing ever came. After a few weeks and several emails, I got a refund for July, but June's shipment was never sent or acknowledged. As the owner NEVER responded to my emails, I ended up having to file a claim with my credit card to get a refund for June, which only this past week became settled. Again, they are no longer in business and are non-responsive, so please DO NOT SIGN UP.

(And just a disclaimer: I bought this box myself and was not compensated for this review in any way. All opinions are my own.)