What an amazing story. This is one of the reasons at Play Valley Kids that we believe participation in sports should for a part of every childs life. Take a minute to watch this short video and have a think about the impact that participating in sport has had not only on this family but on those this amazing story inspires.

Let the tennis begin in Melbourne at the 2013 Australian Open.  On Saturday before the start of the open it was Kids Day at the AO and what an awesome event.  Sarena Williams, Roger Federer, Djokovic, Songa, Azarenca, Sponge Bob, Dora the Explorer, Guy Sebastion.  Who'd have though that all those names would be on the one court at the same time?  Loads of fun for all.

The 2013 AAMI Kooyong Tennis Classic is one of the more popular lead-up events to the Australian Open and at this years Fan Day on the 8th of Jan Play Valley Kids was very excited to be involved in the festivities by hosting a colour-in competition.  Lots of entries and lots of fun on the day.

Clippings from local Leader Newspapers are helping get the sporting message out in to the community.  As Christmas comes about and families are considering gift ideas, a bike, some sporting equipment and also a great encouraging book make great gift ideas.

 

For those of you who missed Tuesday (4th Dec 2012) mornings interview with ABC Breakfast News, here it is in blog format. PVK founders Mike Griffin & Ben Day on the couch with Karina Carvalho & Paul Kennedy. 

Here at Play Valley Kids we love to get advance copies of new titles. And this week we took delivery of Ready set go: Harry goes cycling and Get ready: Zoe plays tennis.

These titles have been a long time in the making and we are very proud of them. Both have been developed in consultation with each sport's governing body.

Cycling Australia and AustCycle have been intergral in the development of Harry. While Tennis Australia and the Hot Shots program have had a long association with us, dating back to the publication of Max plays tennis. Their input, feedback and influence helps these titles be the best they can be and provides technical advice from the highest possible level.

Both titles will launch at Book Bonding, Niddrie, on Saturday 10  November with illustrator Benjamin Sullivan on hand to sign copies.

Play Valley Kids recent "discovery" of Good Reads demonstrated that, in the world of social media, it's difficult to keep pace.

As a children's book publisher, finding little gems like Good Reads can open up a world of possibilities. As we discovered, offering give aways of our new titles, and getting readers talking and interested about our new books helps us publicise and sell our fun kids titles.

So, get onto the Good Reads community now, and you can comment on our books, and rate them according to your own experience. It is a great community of readers, writers, and publishers.

Below is our first book for girls which has been a LONG time coming. This will be followed shortly by Sophie goes cycling.

Get ready has been a project we undertook nearly a year ago, and has involved Tennis Australia and the Hot Shots program. We think it's our best book yet, so Enter to Win!

Goodreads Book Giveaway

Get ready

by B.M. Harper

Giveaway ends October 27, 2012.

See the giveaway details at Goodreads.

Enter to win

OFTEN, as parents, we naturally allow our children to follow in our sporting footsteps. For some people, that means having your child play the sport you played (or still play).  For others, that means no sport at all.

At Play Valley Kids, our vision, or mantra even, is that kids love to play, so let them!

As we mention in the back of all our books, as parents, we have a great opportunity to encourage an active lifestyle for our kids. But not just active – healthy. We make choices for them all the time, from the food they eat, to the drinks they drink. But if we choose for them to play sport and promote an active and healthy lifestyle, they are on a winner for life.

Even simply buying a bicycle isn’t enough. We have to encourage them. But we have to set the example too and we find it heartening when we see families out for a cycle together.

For children, the skills learned in early sporting development can influence their entire lives. From confidence and fair play, to team work and team spirit – these essential human traits are all part of sporting endeavour.

Organised sports are a wonderful way to encourage them. But it can also discourage plenty of kids with a win-at-all costs mentality in junior sporting ranks.

At Play Valley Kids, we want kids to learn good technique, as well as enjoy the games they play. A kick about in the park with Dad or Mum is often the most fun for a child. But as they grow, the games they play become more serious and structured, as does their lives.

All of our books promote fun, fair play, and good technique without the tenant of super-competition. There’ll be plenty of that later in life.

Learning good technique as youngsters is very important for good development.

Get them involved as early as possible and encourage, listen and play with them just for the fun of it.

Play Valley Kids are publishing two new children’s books and for the first time they are launching a cycling series.

Ready set go: Harry goes cycling and Ready set go: Sophie goes cycling are fun learning to ride a bicycle stories that we can all relate to. And at Play Valley Kids, we are making them personalized via our new web tool, so parents can include their child’s name on the cover and throughout the book.

The two titles have been developed with the help of Cycling Australia and Aust Cycle, and they provide official safety guidance, and tips on how to learn to cycle, endorsed by the cycling governing body (Cycling Australia) and the safe cycling authority (Aust Cycle). All important safety messages and tips on how to ride a bicycle are incorporated into a fun children’s picture book that kids will love. 

With two new titles, one for boys and one for girls, Harry and Sophie get new bicycles for their birthday and are excited to join their Play Valley Kid friends for a cycle in the park. Helmets on, ready to go, our stars are eager to join in the fun but not before dad gives a few pointers and safety tips. It doesn’t all go to plan, with a few crashed and more lessons before Harry and Sophie are on their way with their friends, enjoying a fun day out in the park.

These two new books are available VERY SOON as personalized children's books, and are not YET even in book stores.

Lionel Messi - PVK Favourite #2
Football



Simply the best.
World player of the year three years running, fair, fast and sublimely talented, Messi is genuinely one of the greats of club football playing for the world’ biggest club, Barcelona. Known for their passing carousel, they play the game in the most awe-inspiring way: pass, move, present.

Messi is the embodiment of the club, raised through the youth system having been identified from a young age as a genuine talent, he made the first team young and has never looked back.  While Messi is considered one of the worlds best, at PVK he is a favourite because of the fair way he plays and the way that his chosen sport helped him develop through a youth system into the professional ranks.

At PVK we love pretty much all sports.  We focus on the many benefits, physical and social, that sports offer in the development of kids.  Play Valley Kids - Favourites is what we like to call some of the sporting personalities on the world stage that we think epitomise the philosophies of PVK.  We thought we would launch this idea with...

Kim Clijsters - PVK Favourite #1
Tennis



In January we blogged about Kim and the fantastic way she was not only promoting physical activity and sport within tennis but sports in general.  She had a great run in this years Australian Open and after bowing out in the Semi Finals in an amazing match, there she was watching and supporting the Men's semi's later in the tournament.

Congratulations Kim Clijsters your are the first PVK Favourite.

If you would like to suggest a PVK Favourite - email us at info@griffindaypublishing.com.

Melbourne Child, Sydney Child & Brisbane Child Magazine's review Let's Have a Hit: Max Plays Tennis in their March issues of their magazines.  Circulation of over 250k should help spread the wonderful word of Play Valley Kids and these great kids sports books.

An advanced copy of the March issue of Australian FourFourTwo has just arrived at GriffinDay Publishing. 100 Best Players in the World, A-League Founding Fathers and many more great articles inside.  Buy your copy and turn to page 69 to check out our great little advert.  Better still grab your kids soccer books right here on our site ;)  We can even do personalised kids books with your childs name placed right into the story.

This weeks Leader Newspaper (pg.11) features a great little story behind GriffinDay Publishing and the Play Valley Kids book series.  Click the image below to link to the online article.

With only a few days to go until the 2012 Australian Tennis Open, we are pretty excited to see this book review of Let's Have a Hit: Max Plays Tennis.  Australian Tennis Magazine is the premier national tennis publication and this special Aus Open issue has a great feature on Aussie favorite Sam Stosur.  Grab a copy of the magazine at your local newsagent and make sure you check out our book review on page 88.  Enter their competition to try and win a free copy of this great children's tennis book.

     

There is a lot of social media avenues out there and the Play Valley Kids philosophy aspires to support these platforms as we believe they help to create and develop communities that can support the development of children.  Find us on Facebook www.facebook.com/playvalleykids follow us on twitter www.twitter.com/playvalleykids and we are now on Google+  click on the icon to find out more.

We had the Leader Newspaper drop around today to do a photo shoot and an interview.  They were very interested in the QR Codes and mini videos for the books.  The idea of taking a fun story and using a scan code to bring the skills and tips to life was something they thought was really unique to children book.  They were also impressed with the quality of the books and how well they were selling.  We will post a copy of the article when its published.

Dymocks Watergardens in Taylors Hill Victoria is the first store to get the special Play Valley Kids book stand. Designed to look like a soccer goal, this stand holds the three main titles of the Play Valley Kids series.  With the 2012 Australian Tennis Open almost here there has been a lot of interest in our children's tennis book.

We could not have said it any better ourselves.  Check out this video of the Kids Tennis Day at this years Brisbane International.  We love Kim Clijsters comments the most... "In general just to get kids play sports..." this is what Play Valley Kids is all about.  Well done to the Brisbane International organisers.  We hope this is the first of many Kids Tennis Days.

Play Valley Kids had a great night handing out promotional cards for our kids soccer books.  Working the area outside Docklands Stadium in Melbourne resulted in a lot of interest and a stack of our promo cards making it into the hands of young and old soccer fans.  It was great feeling the buzz before a big game as the crowd flocked in - one of the many positive social elements that Play Valley Kids seeks to promote... participation in sport.