Another fable told by Demi. I believe this is one of her first works and it shows. The artwork is very inspired in this one and doesn't really show ofAnother fable told by Demi. I believe this is one of her first works and it shows. The artwork is very inspired in this one and doesn't really show off her skill.
The is the 12 fables about the Chinese Zodiac tales. Each animal gets their own story told on one page and some artwork.
I think the rats tale is probably the best. The little rat wants to be powerful and gets to turn into thing after thing and ends up back as a rat. A great tale. The dragons tale is good too. I'm a tiger and the poor tiger is outwitted by a fox.
I believe each tale shows a bit of the character of a person born in the year or hour.
Hey, this is a new telling of Little Black Sambo. Jerry Pinkney is the artist and I like his work. Jerry and Julius came together to give an updated tHey, this is a new telling of Little Black Sambo. Jerry Pinkney is the artist and I like his work. Jerry and Julius came together to give an updated telling of this story.
As a child, we had a version of Little Black Sambo. I had no clue there were so many tellings of that book. Jerry Pinkney did research and he found more than 50 versions of this story in libraries he researched. The story has been around. I don't remember the book. I always loved the story as a kid, this child fools the powerful tigers and they melt into butter. It was a wild and amazing story.
Julius took out all the colonial language they used and recreated the village for the story. Some choices I think were silly. All the people are named Sam. It is the most annoying storytelling blunder ever. Other choices, like the town is integrated with animals is very cool. It gives it more of a magic vibe. The main part of the story that every kid loves is still there. The tigers steal little Sam's clothes and then run around and melt into butter. It ends with the whole village of Sam's and animals eating pancakes together.
I think this story works. It keeps the part we all love and rewrites the problematic language. I'm so glad this story is out there. It was written in 1996. Thanks for the update....more
I was expecting a Autumn story with Cider apples, but this is set around Christmas and New Years. It's a little holiday story. A girl lives on an ApplI was expecting a Autumn story with Cider apples, but this is set around Christmas and New Years. It's a little holiday story. A girl lives on an Apple orchard and the trees are old and dying. Between the old and new years, a wise cat and horse say there is an evening of magic and if they take a potion they give them, it can save the trees.
Guess what, there are dancing fairies in this story. Yoohoo. I mean, at one point there are a ton of dancing fairies. So, needless to say, I loved this part of the story.
The artwork is nice. It has one page of words on like a script and then the other page is all illustrations and drawings. The story is fast and the plot is wish fullfillment.
Someone recommended this book to me. I got it ILL from the library. Goodreads used to tell you at the bottom if someone recommended it to you and I miss that feature. They have removed some good features over time. Anyway, thanks for the rec. I appreciate it, even if I don't remember you. ...more
Back when I lived in Ann Arbor, I dear book friend gave me a copy of this. I haven't gotten around to reading it until now.
This story is written like Back when I lived in Ann Arbor, I dear book friend gave me a copy of this. I haven't gotten around to reading it until now.
This story is written like a dream. It's like this whole huge kingdom in a dream.
The usurper stole the kingdom from the royal family. The daughter of the king survived. She is now about to retake her kingdom. She is writing a letter from her room about the whole experience.
The world is a world of ice and snow, or set in winter. It reminded me or Russia for some reason. The writing is middle grade and nothing seems to have much consequences. The royal attitude that is natural to the girl is grating. They put a whole lot of importance on being royal. Like only royals can be brave, good people and fight for others.
The language is beautiful and the artwork that Chris Van Allsburg does is beautiful. An interesting little quick story. Different from what I've been reading. I'm glad I read it, but it's not a book I would encourage someone to put at the top of their TBR....more
Here is another review from 2020 that I held over until this year. I was able to read this to the nephew back then, so his opinion of the story is in Here is another review from 2020 that I held over until this year. I was able to read this to the nephew back then, so his opinion of the story is in here.
This Valentine’s story is set at school during the holiday when the kids are giving out Valentine’s cards. Gilbert is writing 15 poems on cards for his classmates. He finds it’s fun to make up little ditties. Then, the last 2 cards to write are about Lewis, who tweaked his nose and Margaret who made fun of his glasses. He doesn’t want to write them a nice Valentines. He writes them nasty poems and then signs them either Lewis or Margaret.
The one to Margaret says: “Roses are red, you wet your bed, I think that you have rocks in your head”.
You can imagine at school that Margaret and Lewis get upset by this and they are both smart and they figure out that it was Gilbert who sent them. I thought that was a decent twist. Gilbert then re-writes some other Valentines and things turn out fine. There was a whole day of fall-out and Gilbert got some comeuppance.
The nephew thought the Valentines cards were funny. He likes the title of the book. Your feet really stink. He wants to write some cards like that. OH boy. He gave this 3 stars....more
William makes a dramatic fantasy out of an old ladies backyard garden with an evil queen spider and brave and valiant bugs. This fits in with this SanWilliam makes a dramatic fantasy out of an old ladies backyard garden with an evil queen spider and brave and valiant bugs. This fits in with this Sandman books, I think. It has the same feel.
An old woman loves her garden, but she and her rosebush get sick. It looks like both of them are going to not pull through. The bugs in the garden get worried and so they have to call the Leaf Men to help them. The Spider Queen tries to stop them and there is a battle. The Leaf Men are warriors and they can win the day. There are some nice surprises in the story I won't give away, but rest assured, everyone pulls through.
The artwork is lovely and of course it is. I do love William Joyce. Maybe it's the uncertainty of the election or maybe it's my mood, but some little bit of magic seemed to be missing from this story that others have. I'm not sure. It's still worth reading. It's got plenty of action in it. ...more
You can always count on a Jan Brett book to entertain and engage the reader. This is a beginner book for kids so the way Comet loses his nine lives isYou can always count on a Jan Brett book to entertain and engage the reader. This is a beginner book for kids so the way Comet loses his nine lives is very kid friendly and not traumatic at all. Poor Comet, he loses his life falling into a vat of ice cream. That's a delicate life to lose it so easily, or simply walking through a storm or swimming in the sea. I missed the first life and went back, but each time the cat loses a life, you see the angel cat going off into the sky.
Jan uses her famous window panes to show another scene where a lighthouse owner and his cat is looking for another cat and the reader wants Comet to find the messages before he runs out of lives. The artwork is amazing and she was on Nantucket Island to draw this story and the scenery is beautiful. I love it. Now, I want to visit the island again. I have been interested in it, but it looks amazing. I hear it's a fairly expensive place, so maybe this book is enough.
I now have my own place, yes, I am no longer in the basement. I'm close to the niece and nephew, but I'm not reading to them like I was. The nephew would be interested in the cat and our family enjoys a Jan Brett story. I will recommend it to Nephew and see what he thinks. ...more
Stephanie is a trend setter at her school. She shows up with a ponytail in the back and everyone tells her it's ugly and the next day they are all doiStephanie is a trend setter at her school. She shows up with a ponytail in the back and everyone tells her it's ugly and the next day they are all doing the same thing. So Stephanie then has it come out of the side with the same result. She doesn't like brainless copycats. She keeps moving her pony around until she blows a lid and tells everyone she is coming to school the next day with her head shaved.
Spoiler: Everyone shows up with their head shaved the next day, but Stephanie. It's funny, all those bald heads, even the boys.
Nephew laughed and laughed at that. He has a shaggy moptop right now and he loves it. He doesn't want to cut it. He would never shave his head, but he does think this was funny. He wants to grow his hair out enough so he can have a pull it back out of his face, but not because of this book. He looks cool. He gave this 4 stars for the laugh. ...more
Not nearly as amazing as the original, but still cute and fun. It's a great story for young readers. It builds good anticipation while knowing what itNot nearly as amazing as the original, but still cute and fun. It's a great story for young readers. It builds good anticipation while knowing what it's ultimately going to be. It's still a good book, but be sure and read the first one first.
I found this story at the Openlibrary. They have a decent selection of older titles that has fallen out of print. ...more
This story is set in the time of the Alchemist and looks vaguely medieval Europe. A mom and pop leave to go to a wedding leaving their 2 sons behind aThis story is set in the time of the Alchemist and looks vaguely medieval Europe. A mom and pop leave to go to a wedding leaving their 2 sons behind and a stern warning to stay out of his laboratory. Yorick wants to prove how good he is at alchemy and the first thing he does is go in and make a potion. Charles finds his older brother about the size of a roach. He loves this and he makes him a house and he enjoys having a toy brother. The father, finally figures out how to undo the potion at the end, certainly.
The best line is the last line of the story. It rings of truth: “The 2 brothers sincerely appreciated each other now. Except when they were having a fight.” That about sums up siblings.
The nephew thought it would be cool to shrink his sister for a day. Then he could boss her around and she could live in her doll house. He thought that would be fun. He loved this idea and he gave it 4 stars....more
The illustrations are beautiful. The set-up of the book isn’t my cup of tea and it doesn’t work for younger kids either. This is going to be more for The illustrations are beautiful. The set-up of the book isn’t my cup of tea and it doesn’t work for younger kids either. This is going to be more for middle grade readers who have a higher developed sense of humor.
This isn’t a story, that’s the first problem with the book, it’s 3 different stories of explorers who discovered dragons and they are like letters to a colleague written in a funny style. There is humor, but it’s not your typical picture book humor. I didn’t think it worked all that well. There was a lot of words on the page and it’s like adults might talk and not all relevant.
The nephew loved seeing the 3 types of dragons: European, Asiatic, Tropical, but all the letters bored him. The last few, he told me not to read them, they aren’t funny and little has to do with the dragon. He wanted to simply look at the pictures. The pictures were only of dragons and it was even hard for him to make up a story. He gave this 1 star.
I read this in 1996. That was the time of the Oprah book club and Oprah likes the drama.
I appreciated the story from what I remember. I wanted to likI read this in 1996. That was the time of the Oprah book club and Oprah likes the drama.
I appreciated the story from what I remember. I wanted to like it because Oprah did, but looking back it was an Okay story. It's about a woman who goes through divorce and a life change. It's well done, but not my favorite kind of story.
I haven't read it since, but I saw someone talk about it and I was like, hey, I read that so I put it in my list.
I did own this book, but I got rid of it along the way. ...more
We meet Rebecca who loves to garden. She grows a little of everything accept pumpkins; she hates pumpkins. (How dare she.) One day a pumpkin truck driWe meet Rebecca who loves to garden. She grows a little of everything accept pumpkins; she hates pumpkins. (How dare she.) One day a pumpkin truck driving by has a pumpkin role off the truck. Well, Rebecca hates them so much she doesn’t want to touch them. So she buries it. The next spring vines begin to come up and she hacks it to pieces once and then she simply ignores it.
I do like the story in how the pumpkins become something that Rebecca loves and they bring community together. I thought this was a fantastic story. It really was. Any story with pumpkins starts out in the plus column for me.
The nephew didn’t think this was as good as I did. There were no monsters, blah blah. He didn’t relate to the old lady and he didn’t care. What does snot nose know anyway. haha, just kidding. Yeah, he didn’t like it and he gave this 1 star. I tickled him for a good 30 seconds after he said that - the little stinker. He still didn’t change his rating....more
What a fun book about sunflowers. A family plant sunflower seeds in a circle and they grow all summer long. It makes a nice house for the boy of the hWhat a fun book about sunflowers. A family plant sunflower seeds in a circle and they grow all summer long. It makes a nice house for the boy of the house to play in with his friends. It’s the perfect house until the flowers start to fall over heavy with seeds.
I love the artwork here and I love that this is about living with a garden or plants. The kid created a new little world. Next to our fence, we have a plot where we grow Paul Bunyon Sunflowers and the kids love this. They sit on my brothers shoulders and still the plants are taller than them. They have done it for years and the kids love it. This reminded them of that. The book also has a lovely rhyme scheme. It’s a delightful beginning book.
The niece gave this 5 stars. We never thought of sowing them in a circle. She loved that idea, even if we can’t do that. The nephew thought, yeah sunflowers grow, big deal. He did like the idea of having a fort area. Still, he said, he would rather have a treehouse than a ring of sunflowers. He gave this 3 stars. ...more
This book encourages me to stay in bed. We see that early morning time it’s still dark and the paperboy gets up out of bed and starts work. It looks bThis book encourages me to stay in bed. We see that early morning time it’s still dark and the paperboy gets up out of bed and starts work. It looks brutal. He gets home when the sun is coming up and goes back to bed for some ‘z’s.
Dav does a wonderful job at showing what it’s like in the early morning playing with light and shadow and that feeling of the cold and wanting to be in bed. Where I grew up, they had a delivery van that brought the papers to each house. There was no paper boy or girl. I don’t think they have one in Baltimore either. I think this is mostly a bygone era job. Still, it’s nice to see their experience. I also like that the boy’s dog went with him everywhere. It’s good he had a companion in this early morning endeavor. It’s a real job they had. I guess the plus side of it is that you get to see the sun come up each day.
The nephew is up early every morning, so I could see him doing this rather easily when he gets older, if that job existed. He was shocked that the boy got to go do this all on his own. They let him go alone? He wouldn’t want to do something alone like this. He gave this 2 stars. The niece thought this was interesting. She thought it looked lonely also. She gave this 3 stars....more
A beginning alphabet book with each letter somehow using a graphic representation of a word that starts with that letter. Like ’S’ had steps carved inA beginning alphabet book with each letter somehow using a graphic representation of a word that starts with that letter. Like ’S’ had steps carved into the letter, or ’T’ was tripping over a dot. Some letters you can see more and some letters are more abstract like C in a circle.
The Caldecott Honor does love it’s Alphabet books. They have chosen many of them. It’s a good bet that if you do a creative Alphabet book you might be nominated for it.
The nephew thought this was kind of cool. It’s a wordless book and there is only one word per page, so he could mostly read this. He could figure out most of the words with the pictures. He thought this was an ok book. He gave it 3 stars. The niece didn’t want to read an alphabet book even if it was a Caldecott, so she didn’t read this. ...more
The nephew picked out this board book for counting. He is working on his numbers. This is a simple beginner book. Each page is a different number of ‘The nephew picked out this board book for counting. He is working on his numbers. This is a simple beginner book. Each page is a different number of ‘Pooh’ things. It’s a great numbers books for anyone who is a Winnie the Pooh fan.
Very sweet. He thought it was simple, but he gave it 3 stars too. ...more
Wow! The artwork is amazing in this book! It is a great story as well.
The artwork is detailed paper cut-outs that are layered and have a 3D look to thWow! The artwork is amazing in this book! It is a great story as well.
The artwork is detailed paper cut-outs that are layered and have a 3D look to them. Some of the spreads are incredible and his cuts are so fine and detailed with all kinds of little pieces of grass and people all over the place or little nicks in the paper just right. Absolutely beautiful.
The story is said to be a possibility for the idea of Mary Shelley’s ‘Frankenstein’. The story is set in the 1500s in Prague where the jews are being persecuted. False lies are being spread against them and they fear for their lives. A rabbi has a dream. To protect his people, he needs to build a Golem. So, with his sons, that is what he does. It is made from clay. It loves all the beauty in the world and it does not want to be destroyed. The story is very clever and it is a great legend. I love it. The ending is wonderful. The jews are promised safety.
Both kids enjoyed the story. The niece gave this 4 stars. She loved the artwork and thought the word used on the golem’s forehead was very clever. The nephew thought this was an awesome story of magic. He wanted to form a robot in clay to bring alive. I told him that no one here knows the Cabala, so we couldn’t make it work. He gave it 4 stars also.
My niece said she is ready to read the middle grade books. She has been reading graphic novels lately like ‘Smile’, and ‘Roller Girl’ and loving them. She is about ready to stop reading picture book stories. I have been expecting that. I convinced her to hang in there with me until we finish up all the Caldecott Books. We are getting close to finishing them all. She agreed. So, if I can keep them rolling, I have her ear for about 100 more days of books or so before she grows up a bit. It will then be me and the nephew. It won’t be long before he follows his sisters example. He is into the issues of comics like Ducktails and Mario bros.
Don’t think I’ll stop reading these books. I’ve had fun, so it will just be what I think. Hopefully I can read to the nephew for at least another year. We’ll see. ...more
The nephew does like Franklin, but he is really into monsters right now. So, he did enjoy all the costumes in this story, but he says they weren't scaThe nephew does like Franklin, but he is really into monsters right now. So, he did enjoy all the costumes in this story, but he says they weren't scary enough. He likes scary right now. The niece enjoyed the story and gave it 4 stars while the nephew gave it 3 stars.
It's a beautiful Franklin Book. The cover has little to do with the story. It's all about Franklin going Trick or Treating. He tries on many costumes and I love the one he decides to go as. It's perfect. Franklin is trying to guess who his friends are under their costumes and Bear is always a ghost. Franklin finds out ears is sick this year so how is the ghost? It's a cute reveal and the kids loved it.
A nice and bright beginner book for young kids. ...more
James got real with this little story about bullying. Pinky is teased for liking pink and being called Pinky. He struggles with who he is. The bully lJames got real with this little story about bullying. Pinky is teased for liking pink and being called Pinky. He struggles with who he is. The bully language is pretty harsh and there is a lot of pressure. The book deals with who are you as a person? Will you change to fit in, or will you honor who you are and be a bit different. The truth is there is usually something that we are all different about. We are all given our own path and our own Dao to follow. Learning this lesson is not easy.
The last Pinky and Rex I read was a little boring, but this is so relevant now as we have a bully in the white house and he is spreading so much chaos. Who are we is an important question to ask as we go through life.
I thought this was a great book and one of the best Pinky and Rex's. ...more
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