I wrote before about how I signed up to be a Barefoot Books Ambassador. The starter kit takes 7-9 business days to arrive, and I’m not a very patient person! I signed up late on the Monday of one week, and the box arrived on the Friday of the next. Receiving boxes of books is one of my favourite things, so I was full of excitement when I checked online and saw that it was on its way.
The Barefoot Books starter kit comes in a lovely red and orange box that is made from strong cardboard. Mine already has dirt marks on it, in less than a week. That’s what happens when you have small children in a house! The red and orange box was packed in a brown box for delivery, so no address labels stuck to the pretty box. Yay!
When you open the box, it is packed pretty much to the brim. This is a staged photo, not the first time I actually opened it, but the letter was on the top and the contents are the same. My box had a couple of differences from the checklist of contents, but they were reasonable alternatives. The full list of expected products can be found in the Ambassador Reference Guide.
There are a bunch of ‘sales aids’, many of which are irrelevant to me because I don’t plan to do any parties. Having book parties appears to be the main point of the Ambassador programme and there is huge amounts of training based on this. I am not planning to be a sales leader or a team leader or to make any huge amounts of money with this; it just doesn’t fit my personality type. I do not know a single person who would be interested in a ‘party’. However I do know people who would look through a leaflet or catalogue and decide in their own time what to order. Leaflets, catalogues, lovely bookmarks (nice but not essential) and the carrier bags are all good though!
Then there are the products. I estimated that the ones in my box came to about £175 (the rest of the starter kit value being the sales aids which I didn’t add up) and I’m pleased with that for what I paid to join.
The bunny’s cute. The bunny’s very cute. But I ask you, who decided on a white rabbit as the example puppet? These are supposed to be your promo items, enough to take around to people’s houses and hand round so people can see how great everything is. How long will it take for the rabbit to get grubby? I really want the octopus (but it is more expensive – it’s on my children’s christmas list!)
Now for some pictures of the box contents in a bit more detail. Firstly, two paperback song books with enhanced CDs. We might just be singing Port-side Pirates constantly at Chez Chaos at the moment, it’s very catchy!
Four gorgeous chunky board books. We’ve borrowed several of the Claire Beaton board books from the library and although my children are technically too old for board books… Oh, you’re never too old! I am completely in love with I Took The Moon For A Walk, and might buy the paperback version. Alison Jay illustrated another of our recent loves, Little Red Riding Hood.
Four lovely story books. The Gigantic Turnip is one of our favourites already, and the only thing in the whole box that we already owned. I’ve not read The Snow Queen yet as it’s a longer read but the others have been going down well, The Story Tree especially.
Three lovely multi-cultural stories. I especially like books like this because we live in an area that’s not particularly diverse, culturally speaking.
Two lovely BIG books. The book of poetry is full of poems I remember from my childhood (and others) and I’m glad it substituted the fairy tales book as we have lots of those! I need to explore the Atlas.
Kids Kitchen and Yoga Pretzels. These are huge card packs (Kids’ Kitchen is enormous) with recipes or yoga poses. We’ve not tried either out yet but they look impressive! Sadly Kids’ Kitchen is showing as out of stock until next year.
Finally, a puzzle. We got Port-side Pirates and I’m so pleased with this substitution too as it suits us far more than the Bear on the Go one that it replaced. The puzzle pieces are good quality, with coloured backs so when you have the two puzzles mixed, they are easy to sort. The quality is comparable with Orchard Toys.
I hope I haven’t bored you too much with this tour through the Barefoot Books Ambassador Starter Kit! I’m not going to do any pushy sales thing at the end of this post, there’s a link in the side bar if you’re interested 😉