A Peter Rabbit Inspired #TimeToRead With BookTrust ♥

*This is a charity post in collaboration with BookTrust, however, as always, all thoughts and opinions expressed in this post are 100% my own.

Books are something which since I even became a parent I have wanted my children to love. I envisioned myself having lovely little libraries for my kids and to be honest, we're not far off that dream with a plethora of books for them to choose from in their bedrooms and a whole cupboard in the sitting room.

Books and reading are something which I think every child should enjoy and I have fond memories from my own childhood of visiting the library every Saturday, picking out two books and having them read quite quickly, then looking forward to visiting the library again the following weekend.

Books open children up to whole new worlds. They allow their imaginations to run wild and explore places and scenarios that they may only be able to ever dream of. These are the reasons which I love books and which I'm proud to be a mother who has read to her children from a very young age and who will never stop buying books for them.

These are the reasons for which I'm happy to be supporting BookTrust again this year with their #TimeToRead campaign. This is an annual campaign which champions the value of shared reading, the importance of children's reading for pleasure and the impact of both on a child's life chances.

This year, the #TimeToRead campaign is taking place between September 17th and 23rd and there are some exciting activities going on to highlight the campaign, including - a free copy of Little Monkey by Marta Altes being given out to every reception aged child in England. That's 700,000 children with their very own book parcel! There's also the campaign website to help families make the most of bedtime storytime with book lists, tips and fun, downloadable activities, such as making banana bread and paper plate monkeys! Beau loves monkeys, who he calls "momo", so I know he'll be a big fan of Little Monkey.

A Twitter party will also be taking place tomorrow, Thursday September 20th between 8-9p.m. and people can join in for a chance to win book vouchers - helping us all to keep story time exciting for the little ones in our lives with new books to explore and read! Pop over to @BookTrust and use the hashtag #TimeToRead to join in.

My favourite book as a child, and still my favourite children's book to this day, is The Tale of Peter Rabbit by Beatrix Potter. I love the story, I love the setting, I love the mischievous little Peter (who my own mischievous little boys remind me of!) and I absolutely love the classic illustrations.

So, in the spirit of #TimeToRead I decided to recreate my own little Peter Rabbit tale, with Beau as my little Peter Rabbit.

I of course had to bring The Tale of Peter Rabbit along on our little outing and Beau took great delight in sitting down to flick through it in the walled garden - in between running about and skipping everywhere, much like a very famous little rabbit we all know and love!

Beau is a total book lover and if he every goes missing you can bet that you will find him in his bedroom flicking through all the picture books. Illustrated books are so important and are a great way of bringing the story to life for little ones. Illustrations bring the words to life beyond the page and can help children relate to characters (Tyler has formed a very lovely fondness for the little girl illustrated by Tarsila Kruse in the lovely Sadhbh Devlin's first book Bí ag Spraoí Liom!).

So these pictures tell the tale of how I brought The Tale of Peter Rabbit to life with my very own little bunny, dressed all in his Peter Rabbit finery - including a blue hand-knit cardigan from his great-grandma (because I like to assume that Peter Rabbit's blue coat was made by Mrs. Rabbit).

My little bunny Beau is just as lively as Peter Rabbit himself and it was quite hard to capture pictures with him running and hopping about the place. He took the words - "Now run along and don't get into mischief" not so seriously at all, stealing the heads off of innocent flowers and running towards the big green gate to get into the greenhouse - much like Peter Rabbit stealing vegetables from Mr. McGregor's garden! Two boys much too curious for their own good it seems!

In the end though, after all his adventuring, mischievous ways and fun and games, Beau came back to me for cuddles and to go home - much like Peter Rabbit retreating safely back to the burrow to Mrs. Rabbit.

It was such much fun capturing my own little 'Peter' images. Bringing a book character to life, especially one who means so much to me since I was a child, was especially special and even though these photos are far from perfect, I love how they turned out.

The lovely people at BookTrust have very kindly offered one lucky read the chance to win a book bundle of their very own! To enter, simply do so via the Gleam widget below. Please read the terms and conditions before entering and best of luck to all who do!

Terms & conditions:
1. This giveaway is open to residents of the U.K. and Ireland only.
2. This giveaway will run for two weeks, beginning on September 19th and ending on October 3rd at 11.59p.m.
3. The prize will consist of the 4 books pictured above.
4. Invalid entries will be deleted without notice.
5. The prize is being sent directly by BookTrust, therefore, by entering, you are giving permission for your details to be passed on to the person sending your prize.

BookTrust Book Bundle