Showing up late with this week's book selections and link-up.
The garbage man gets an extra day after a holiday weekend, so that's my excuse too. Mmmkay?
Jill cannot get enough of fairy tales and folk tales these days. Yummy: Eight Favorite Fairy Tales by Lucy Cousins is a delightful if gory selection.
Look at how happy Grandmother and Little Red are!
Yes, the Big Bad Wolf gets his head chopped off by the huntsman, yes, all of Henny Penny's friends (Ducky Lucky, Goosey Poosey, Turkey Lurkey, and Cocky Locky) get eaten by another wolf. I believe these are accurate re-tellings. Fairy tales are not for the faint of heart.
The dentist in this book is Dr. Biteright. I wouldn't be surprised if that what Jill calls our dentist from now on.
Jill liked the bright images and realistic tasks (going potty, washing hands, etc.). I liked the simple text and the reasonable (short) length.
Here at St. Jude's School for Kids Who Want to Read Good and Do Other Things Good Too, we finished Story of the World Volume 1 some weeks ago. I told Edmund we were finished with history, and he exclaimed, "But we didn't do VIKINGS! You SAID we would do VIKINGS!"
I was familiar with some of Bulla's work from the Battle of the Books program that I helped with in previous years.
His historical fictional is well-told in an easy-to-read format. Translation: Edmund loves his books.
Edmund tore through Viking Adventure in just a few days. My heart is so happy when I see him engaged in a book. SPOILER: Today, he ran into the living room and said, "Halfred killed Gorm!" I acted totally interested as he went on and on
Recently, Patrick overheard me saying to Jill, "Come closer and speak louder," which everyone should recognize as the line the fox uses to get the gingerbread man close enough to eat..."with a snap and a snick, and a lap and a lick, the gingerbread man was gone!"
Jill recognized the quote and immediately took off, "Run, run as fast you can, you can't catch me, I'm the gingerbread man!"
These are longer stories, for an older toddler or pre-schooler. Jill loves the stories with their repetition, I relish the beautiful pictures.
We recently discovered some books that Barbara McClintock has written and illustrated all by her-own-self.
Adèle & Simon and Adèle & Simon in America both have the same plot. Older sister Adele warns younger brother Simon not to lose his many belongings. Boys will be boys, and while stopping at various Parisian events, Simon manages to lose every single thing. The same thing happens in America, when Adele and Simon travel by train with Aunt Cecile throughout America circa Teddy Roosevelt.
While I did not appreciate Adele's complete lack of patience and understanding as she chides Simon on every single page, I do appreciate the incredibly detailed Parisian street scenes and the American vistas.
IF you have Very Sharp Eyes, You might find Simon's things before they get returned to him at the end of each story.
Barbara McClintock has also written a charming re-telling of Cinderella. In this version of the tale, the older stepsister is especially mean and takes to calling Cinderella, Cinderbottom, which I have to say I have called Jill a time or two lately. When I play the role of evil stepsister or stepmother, and threaten her with the ball, she is far more likely to clean up her messes.
McClintock sets her version of Cinderella in France during the reign of King Louis XIV (a fact that I gathered from a savvy review on Goodreads), and the sets and costumes are simply exquisite.
BECKY HENSLER! C'mon on down! You just won a copy of A Little Book about Confession for Children! Happy St. Joseph's Day to you! I sent you an email asking for some info so I can send it to you. Hope you got it, let me know if you didn't.
Jill and I have been exploring fairy tales that do NOT involve princesses, mostly Jack and the Beanstalk and the Elves and the Shoemaker, because she was unfamiliar with those. We've covered Little Red, Goldilocks, and Hansel and Gretel.
Jack and the Beanstalk by Steven Kellogg is a faithful re-telling complete with a hideous boy-eating ogre (I'll crush his bones to make my bread.) and equally ugly yet merciful wife. Jack escapes with his life, a bag of coins, the hen that lays the golden eggs, and the singing harp. At the end of the story, he must rush to chop down the beanstalk with a hatchet, thus sending the ogre tumbling to his death, which is how I remember it. Yes, it's scary and violent, but aren't all faithful re-tellings of fairy tales scary and violent?
I also took a chance on a used copy of Jack and the Beanstalk (A Little Golden Book). In this slightly toned down version, the ogre is far less frightening, some of the more archaic text is modified (Fee-fi-fo-fum! I smell the blood of a little one!), and the ogre just happens to fall off the beanstalk at the end, minus any hatchet-ing by Jack.
The Elves and the Shoemaker by John Cech and illustrated by Kirill Chelushkin was the first to arrive from the library.
I had forgotten how beautiful the basic Elves and the Shoemaker storyline is, and I don't mean because the setting is a shoe store. Though I do love a nice shoe store.
The shoemaker (always poor through no fault of his own) is secretly helped out by elves at night. He and his wife decide to stay up to see who their benefactor is. Upon seeing, the ragged or sometimes naked elves, they decide to make clothing and shoes for the poor elves. When the elves get their gifts, they always run off happily, but the shoemaker is successful evermore.
Despite a sweet story, the illustrations in the Cech version were weird and confusing. Jill could not wrap her tiny brain around how the elf wearing a hat, was actually the table laden with shoemaking tools. I'm not sure I can either. Bizarre.
The Elves and the Shoemaker by Paul Galdone was again good story, but the pictures of the naked elves were odd. Apparently, these elves have nothing but smooth skin from neck to toes, like scuba suits of skin. I didn't say anything, but Jill brought it up. Galdone's version is perfectly (almost too) decent, but I think the next one is better.
Journey is a wordless picture book. A lonely girl in a gray world finds and red marker. (Or is it a crayon? Or chalk? Jill says marker.) She's draws a red door to a magical world where she has adventure after adventure and befriends a magnificent purple bird. The bird brings her full circle, back to the gray world, where she meets a boy with a purple marker.
Like most parents, I find that wordless picture books can be tedious if not downright exhausting. They demand so much of the reader. Upon "reading" Journey to Jill a few times, we discovered more and more interesting things throughout the story. I have no problem reading Journey to her, no matter how weary I am at the end of the day. It's that good.
Please feel free to grab the sweetest reading clip-art you ever did see and use it on your own posts. I paid real cash money for it, so it's legitified.
I do my best to read all of your posts and comment as well. I do notice and get my feelings hurt if you don't link back to me. insert pouty face here. I surely do love hearing from you in my combox as well!
Now for my own weekly review...
The cover art was dark, and the inside flap description was downright scary, but once I started reading Shelter by Harlan Coben, I couldn't put it down.
Mickey Bolitar, is the nephew of Myron Bolitar. Apparently Myron is a famous character from Coben's adult novels, which I've never read, so that whole relationship was lost on me, but maybe it matters to you?
Mickey is a likeable new-kid-at-school with a lot of problems at home. His dad was recently killed in a car accident. His girlfriend disappeared after the first week of school. His mom is in rehab. When a crazy old lady tells him that his dad is still alive, Mickey starts actively looking for solutions to his problems.
This is a one minute trailer for the book. It's the first book trailer I've ever seen, and I am very impressed! You can catch a glimpse of the crazy old lady in the video.
Shelter is extremely violent. Mickey gets badly beaten up when he frees his tortured girlfriend from the strip club where she is enslaved. Did I mention torture? Did you catch the part about strip club? And enslavement? He also witnesses a murder and has the typical bully problems at school.
Imagine a scene in a strip club where the high school kid notices that the older men are groping the women, despite the signs that discourage touching, and that the women all look sad. Honestly, I did not think it would be possible for a YA book to deal with such issues in an age-appropriate manner, but Coben walks a fine line and doesn't include any racy descriptions or gratuitous scenes. Actually, Coben's description of an audition for a dancer position at the club is downright funny. Mickey Bolitar rescues his girlfriend and embarks on a life dedicated to saving the helpless.
Of course, Shelter ends with developments on the overarching mystery, "what happened to his dad?" Nearly every YA book has to set up a series. While Shelter may not be great literature, it was a decent read with a decent message.
Rachel Isadora's The Princess and the Pea and Rapunzel are richly colored re-tellings of the original fairy tales. Isadora uses oil paint and collage as her medium and the effect is stunning. Africa is a beautiful setting for these oft-told tales.
In this version of Rapunzel, like many others, the Prince and Rapunzel exchange marriage vows in the tower. The witch discovers Rapunzel's "activities" when the girl complains that her dress is too tight. Rapunzel is thrown out into the wilderness. She and her twins are rescued at the end.
I love a good picture book with lovely illustrations and not too much text. Jill has an amazing attention span, but I get easily bored. Twelve Dancing Princesses retold and illustrated by Brigette Barrager keeps us both entertained.
Amazon displays the following quote on the Twelve Dancing Princesses page:
"Barrager brings a fittingly soigné aesthetic to this retelling" - Publishers Weekly I haven't the foggiest idea what that means...unless it means "charming pictures and succinct but delightful prose."
Barrager and Isadora are both author-illustrators that I am going to seek out from now on.
I recently requested some Bobbi Brown beauty books from my local library, but I have not had a chance to read them as Susan and Lucy have absconded with them. Beauty Rules is written for women in their teens or twenties, so I can skip that one and jump right in with Bobbi Brown Makeup Manual.
Their take-away thoughts:
Bobbi says you shouldn't use make-up that's more than eighteen months old.
I should buy them all new make-up.
Bobbi says your under eye concealer should be two shades lighter than your skin tone and you shouldn't use under eye concealer to conceal anything else.
Bobbi uses real/normal people in the photos, not models.
I should buy Susan new foundation that is not a powder because she has dry skin.
Bobbi Brown likes Obama.
I am slightly grossed out that my girls didn't know about not using old make-up. Mothering fail. I have noticed an increase in the wearing of blush and a decrease in the wearing of eyeliner and I am seeing some lovely shimmery eye lids too.
So....if I check out some books on household organization and cleaning, what are the chances that Susan and Lucy will read up on those subjects and start organizing and cleaning things?
Maybe I'll start small and get some books about cupcakes and cake pops next.
It is a truth universally acknowledged that a Young Adult novel with over 500 pages, three happily-ever-after romances, one undead shape-shifter, a re-told fairy tale or two, a cast of dozens (many of whom have names and descriptions, but no active role in the plot), and a boatload of daddy issues, must be in want of an editor.
That being said, Entwined by Heather Dixon is a harmless if lengthy YA book.
If you would like to read a much, much better and briefer re-telling of the Twelve Dancing Princesses, check out Jessica Day George's Princess of the Midnight Ball.
Showing up late with this week's book selections and link-up.
The garbage man gets an extra day after a holiday weekend, so that's my excuse too. Mmmkay?
Jill cannot get enough of fairy tales and folk tales these days. Yummy: Eight Favorite Fairy Tales by Lucy Cousins is a delightful if gory selection.
Look at how happy Grandmother and Little Red are!
Yes, the Big Bad Wolf gets his head chopped off by the huntsman, yes, all of Henny Penny's friends (Ducky Lucky, Goosey Poosey, Turkey Lurkey, and Cocky Locky) get eaten by another wolf. I believe these are accurate re-tellings. Fairy tales are not for the faint of heart.
The dentist in this book is Dr. Biteright. I wouldn't be surprised if that what Jill calls our dentist from now on.
Jill liked the bright images and realistic tasks (going potty, washing hands, etc.). I liked the simple text and the reasonable (short) length.
Here at St. Jude's School for Kids Who Want to Read Good and Do Other Things Good Too, we finished Story of the World Volume 1 some weeks ago. I told Edmund we were finished with history, and he exclaimed, "But we didn't do VIKINGS! You SAID we would do VIKINGS!"
I was familiar with some of Bulla's work from the Battle of the Books program that I helped with in previous years.
His historical fictional is well-told in an easy-to-read format. Translation: Edmund loves his books.
Edmund tore through Viking Adventure in just a few days. My heart is so happy when I see him engaged in a book. SPOILER: Today, he ran into the living room and said, "Halfred killed Gorm!" I acted totally interested as he went on and on
Recently, Patrick overheard me saying to Jill, "Come closer and speak louder," which everyone should recognize as the line the fox uses to get the gingerbread man close enough to eat..."with a snap and a snick, and a lap and a lick, the gingerbread man was gone!"
Jill recognized the quote and immediately took off, "Run, run as fast you can, you can't catch me, I'm the gingerbread man!"
These are longer stories, for an older toddler or pre-schooler. Jill loves the stories with their repetition, I relish the beautiful pictures.
We recently discovered some books that Barbara McClintock has written and illustrated all by her-own-self.
Adèle & Simon and Adèle & Simon in America both have the same plot. Older sister Adele warns younger brother Simon not to lose his many belongings. Boys will be boys, and while stopping at various Parisian events, Simon manages to lose every single thing. The same thing happens in America, when Adele and Simon travel by train with Aunt Cecile throughout America circa Teddy Roosevelt.
While I did not appreciate Adele's complete lack of patience and understanding as she chides Simon on every single page, I do appreciate the incredibly detailed Parisian street scenes and the American vistas.
IF you have Very Sharp Eyes, You might find Simon's things before they get returned to him at the end of each story.
Barbara McClintock has also written a charming re-telling of Cinderella. In this version of the tale, the older stepsister is especially mean and takes to calling Cinderella, Cinderbottom, which I have to say I have called Jill a time or two lately. When I play the role of evil stepsister or stepmother, and threaten her with the ball, she is far more likely to clean up her messes.
McClintock sets her version of Cinderella in France during the reign of King Louis XIV (a fact that I gathered from a savvy review on Goodreads), and the sets and costumes are simply exquisite.
BECKY HENSLER! C'mon on down! You just won a copy of A Little Book about Confession for Children! Happy St. Joseph's Day to you! I sent you an email asking for some info so I can send it to you. Hope you got it, let me know if you didn't.
Jill and I have been exploring fairy tales that do NOT involve princesses, mostly Jack and the Beanstalk and the Elves and the Shoemaker, because she was unfamiliar with those. We've covered Little Red, Goldilocks, and Hansel and Gretel.
Jack and the Beanstalk by Steven Kellogg is a faithful re-telling complete with a hideous boy-eating ogre (I'll crush his bones to make my bread.) and equally ugly yet merciful wife. Jack escapes with his life, a bag of coins, the hen that lays the golden eggs, and the singing harp. At the end of the story, he must rush to chop down the beanstalk with a hatchet, thus sending the ogre tumbling to his death, which is how I remember it. Yes, it's scary and violent, but aren't all faithful re-tellings of fairy tales scary and violent?
I also took a chance on a used copy of Jack and the Beanstalk (A Little Golden Book). In this slightly toned down version, the ogre is far less frightening, some of the more archaic text is modified (Fee-fi-fo-fum! I smell the blood of a little one!), and the ogre just happens to fall off the beanstalk at the end, minus any hatchet-ing by Jack.
The Elves and the Shoemaker by John Cech and illustrated by Kirill Chelushkin was the first to arrive from the library.
I had forgotten how beautiful the basic Elves and the Shoemaker storyline is, and I don't mean because the setting is a shoe store. Though I do love a nice shoe store.
The shoemaker (always poor through no fault of his own) is secretly helped out by elves at night. He and his wife decide to stay up to see who their benefactor is. Upon seeing, the ragged or sometimes naked elves, they decide to make clothing and shoes for the poor elves. When the elves get their gifts, they always run off happily, but the shoemaker is successful evermore.
Despite a sweet story, the illustrations in the Cech version were weird and confusing. Jill could not wrap her tiny brain around how the elf wearing a hat, was actually the table laden with shoemaking tools. I'm not sure I can either. Bizarre.
The Elves and the Shoemaker by Paul Galdone was again good story, but the pictures of the naked elves were odd. Apparently, these elves have nothing but smooth skin from neck to toes, like scuba suits of skin. I didn't say anything, but Jill brought it up. Galdone's version is perfectly (almost too) decent, but I think the next one is better.
Journey is a wordless picture book. A lonely girl in a gray world finds and red marker. (Or is it a crayon? Or chalk? Jill says marker.) She's draws a red door to a magical world where she has adventure after adventure and befriends a magnificent purple bird. The bird brings her full circle, back to the gray world, where she meets a boy with a purple marker.
Like most parents, I find that wordless picture books can be tedious if not downright exhausting. They demand so much of the reader. Upon "reading" Journey to Jill a few times, we discovered more and more interesting things throughout the story. I have no problem reading Journey to her, no matter how weary I am at the end of the day. It's that good.
Please feel free to grab the sweetest reading clip-art you ever did see and use it on your own posts. I paid real cash money for it, so it's legitified.
I do my best to read all of your posts and comment as well. I do notice and get my feelings hurt if you don't link back to me. insert pouty face here. I surely do love hearing from you in my combox as well!
Now for my own weekly review...
The cover art was dark, and the inside flap description was downright scary, but once I started reading Shelter by Harlan Coben, I couldn't put it down.
Mickey Bolitar, is the nephew of Myron Bolitar. Apparently Myron is a famous character from Coben's adult novels, which I've never read, so that whole relationship was lost on me, but maybe it matters to you?
Mickey is a likeable new-kid-at-school with a lot of problems at home. His dad was recently killed in a car accident. His girlfriend disappeared after the first week of school. His mom is in rehab. When a crazy old lady tells him that his dad is still alive, Mickey starts actively looking for solutions to his problems.
This is a one minute trailer for the book. It's the first book trailer I've ever seen, and I am very impressed! You can catch a glimpse of the crazy old lady in the video.
Shelter is extremely violent. Mickey gets badly beaten up when he frees his tortured girlfriend from the strip club where she is enslaved. Did I mention torture? Did you catch the part about strip club? And enslavement? He also witnesses a murder and has the typical bully problems at school.
Imagine a scene in a strip club where the high school kid notices that the older men are groping the women, despite the signs that discourage touching, and that the women all look sad. Honestly, I did not think it would be possible for a YA book to deal with such issues in an age-appropriate manner, but Coben walks a fine line and doesn't include any racy descriptions or gratuitous scenes. Actually, Coben's description of an audition for a dancer position at the club is downright funny. Mickey Bolitar rescues his girlfriend and embarks on a life dedicated to saving the helpless.
Of course, Shelter ends with developments on the overarching mystery, "what happened to his dad?" Nearly every YA book has to set up a series. While Shelter may not be great literature, it was a decent read with a decent message.
Rachel Isadora's The Princess and the Pea and Rapunzel are richly colored re-tellings of the original fairy tales. Isadora uses oil paint and collage as her medium and the effect is stunning. Africa is a beautiful setting for these oft-told tales.
In this version of Rapunzel, like many others, the Prince and Rapunzel exchange marriage vows in the tower. The witch discovers Rapunzel's "activities" when the girl complains that her dress is too tight. Rapunzel is thrown out into the wilderness. She and her twins are rescued at the end.
I love a good picture book with lovely illustrations and not too much text. Jill has an amazing attention span, but I get easily bored. Twelve Dancing Princesses retold and illustrated by Brigette Barrager keeps us both entertained.
Amazon displays the following quote on the Twelve Dancing Princesses page:
"Barrager brings a fittingly soigné aesthetic to this retelling" - Publishers Weekly I haven't the foggiest idea what that means...unless it means "charming pictures and succinct but delightful prose."
Barrager and Isadora are both author-illustrators that I am going to seek out from now on.
I recently requested some Bobbi Brown beauty books from my local library, but I have not had a chance to read them as Susan and Lucy have absconded with them. Beauty Rules is written for women in their teens or twenties, so I can skip that one and jump right in with Bobbi Brown Makeup Manual.
Their take-away thoughts:
Bobbi says you shouldn't use make-up that's more than eighteen months old.
I should buy them all new make-up.
Bobbi says your under eye concealer should be two shades lighter than your skin tone and you shouldn't use under eye concealer to conceal anything else.
Bobbi uses real/normal people in the photos, not models.
I should buy Susan new foundation that is not a powder because she has dry skin.
Bobbi Brown likes Obama.
I am slightly grossed out that my girls didn't know about not using old make-up. Mothering fail. I have noticed an increase in the wearing of blush and a decrease in the wearing of eyeliner and I am seeing some lovely shimmery eye lids too.
So....if I check out some books on household organization and cleaning, what are the chances that Susan and Lucy will read up on those subjects and start organizing and cleaning things?
Maybe I'll start small and get some books about cupcakes and cake pops next.
It is a truth universally acknowledged that a Young Adult novel with over 500 pages, three happily-ever-after romances, one undead shape-shifter, a re-told fairy tale or two, a cast of dozens (many of whom have names and descriptions, but no active role in the plot), and a boatload of daddy issues, must be in want of an editor.
That being said, Entwined by Heather Dixon is a harmless if lengthy YA book.
If you would like to read a much, much better and briefer re-telling of the Twelve Dancing Princesses, check out Jessica Day George's Princess of the Midnight Ball.
