I love the idea of being the best at something

It’s not that I’m ambitious; or maybe I am.  But I love the idea of being the best at something.

I was always a ‘generalist’ at school.  A bit of a geek, good at everything, but not ‘the best’ at anything, so that’s probably where it comes from.

I think this is why I love the fun behind the Guinness World Records and the idea that anyone could be a record holder.

The lovely people at GWR (and they are amazingly lovely, full of enthusiasm for what they say is ‘the best job in the world’) invited the kids and me to a party to celebrate their new 2013 book.

Curly Headed Boy adores this book and got loads of brownie points at school for taking it in for show and tell.  It’s really clever, not only does it have the typical loads of records, but it BRINGS THEM TO LIFE literally using an app you can put on your phone so that the images appear in 3D or ‘augmented reality’ as they call it.  It’s seriously weird, it’s like beneath your phone is a great big dinosaur, scary shark or little dwarf.

With Curly Headed Boy’s reading really beginning to take off (he’s nearly 7), this is the perfect book to encourage him to take on more complicated pages with more information in them.

Plus it has the added bonus of encouraging him to think that there is always something that we can be the best at.  In fact the gorgeous Liz from Violet Posy’s hubby actually made a record on the day balancing cups!

Little Dimples is addicted to their cup balancing game and spookily good at it, despite being only 2.5yrs old.  I just need to explain to her that she must stop pouring her apple juice into the cups though.  You can nearly see her in the picture above, not daunted at all by the idea that a big shark was swimming over her head; bet she would scare a shark in real life!

Did you know that there are about 30-40,000 records in total?  They only manage to put about 4000 in the book, so each year there is a different theme, so it’s always worth looking at the new book each year.

So if you are looking for christmas or birthday presents for kids that don’t involve loads of plastic tat, and broaden their horizons about what they might achieve in their lives, then I can really recommend this book.

Disclosure: I was given a book a few months ago, and my expenses to go to the event were paid for, along with lunch and a voucher to spend at the Westfield Stratford Shopping Centre afterwards.  This in no way affects my opinions, although I have to say that they are really lovely people!