April Events 2014!
The month of April is full of Earth Day celebrations. More specifically, S. Smith, author of a dystopian young adult series that I can’t seem to rave enough about, has planned a trip to Texas from Oregon! I’m so excited!
She will also be at the Montrose HPB (hpb.com/011) on Saturday, April 19th, 6pm-9pm.
Then she’ll be making rounds in San Antonio, Austin, and finally Dallas! Check out her website for more details on events in those cities: http://authorssmith.com/book-news-and-events/
Also, although I am based out of Houston, this is a Dallas event that I support with all my heart and would love to attend if I were able:
Happy Birthday Dr. Seuss!
This is an annual event at most Half Price Books stores. If you missed it this year, keep your eyes peeled for signage in your favorite store next year.
Oh The Places You’ll Go!
One Fish, Two Fish, Red Fish, Blue Fish
There was also had a bowl of colored Gold Fish at the table with a pretty nifty sign of the book cover. Each kid got a party bag with an HPB cup inside so they could scoop goldfish from the bowl.
My kiddo with The Cat in the Hat (Kevin Pickle)
I think we were just as excited as the kids to take a picture with a real, live Cat in the Hat.
I got the idea for Truffula Tree Cupcakes on Pinterest. It’s chocolate cupcake mix, icing dyed green with food coloring, I added dark green sprinkles for fun, and cotton candy on a kebob stick. Do the cotton candy last minute, I tried to do it too soon and the humidity of Houston caused the cotton candy to crystallize and shrink. We had to buy a second batch of cotton candy and redo it right before the party.
February 2014 Events!
Stores and coordinators take a little bit of a break from extra events around the winter solstice holidays and let the holidays be the holidays. But it’s a new year! Here’s to February 2014.
Hold Your Breath, Make a Wish…
Title: Storyteller
Author: Donald Sturrock
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Genre: Biography/ Literature
Length: 656 pages
“…Count to three…
Come with me and you’ll be in a world of pure imagination.
Take a look and you’ll see into your imagination.
We’ll begin with a spin…
Traveling in a world of my creation.
What we’ll see will defy explanation!”
I don’t know anyone who didn’t grow up enthralled with Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory (the movie). I know many who were equally amazed by the books below, though obviously less because after all there aren’t as many book-nerds as there are movie goers.
I dreamed of writing books like these as a child. As an adult, though I am an aspiring novelist with a novella recently published, however, I find myself longing to be a biographer. That’s where the real talent lies.
Donald Sturrock’s Storyteller: The Authorized Biography of Roald Dahl is fascinating. You wouldn’t think reading a biography on a man who hated biographies would be so riveting, but it is. I also never expected the man who had such a vivid imagination to have such an involved life. For some reason I usually expect people who imagine much to live little. I am constantly being proven wrong.
When reading the opening pages, I was at first struck with how much I previously didn’t know about Dahl at all. Little things, like his height. I didn’t know that Dahl was so tall, six foot five! Then describe his personality: a witty bit of a curmudgeon… an entertainer, someone always intrigued by the best of things… in those early pages I thought I might fall in love with him! Too bad he was married, would be far too old if he were living, and by the way is also dead.
Further into the biography, the magic wears off as he becomes more and more a real person. Everyone has flaws. I find his attachment to celebrity and his name-dropping a huge turn off as a human, but I still adore him. However, rather than continue to adore Dahl the way I did from the start of the book, I find myself completely compelled to discover more about this biographer.
The life of researchers ever pique my interest. I am an amateur. I read and read and read, take notes, and then hop and skip over to a new topic. I rarely develop ideas as thoroughly as I should, and though I never become bored with a topic I quite frequently find myself distracted by the shiny newness of others. A biographer – a good biographer – can’t be so willy-nilly. I respect that. I am envious of that.
In regards to Roald Dahl, all I can say is that you should read Sturrock’s biography. I don’t like giving away spoilers, but I think the year 2014 will be full of Dahl titles, both because I am newly inspired to read them and my kiddo is ready to hear me read the children’s titles aloud, I think.
Dahl died November 23, 1990. In honor of his Death-aversary, Good Books in the Woods held a chocolate tasting (compliments of Schaokolad in The Woodlands). One of the patrons had actually met Dahl in person before his death so the discussion, as all discussion at Good Books, was exciting and rather involved.
Introducing the Octopus… and Tolkien Week
Weekly Low Down on Kids Books and Adventures in Homeschooling with an Octopus and Tolkien…
Title: Squishy the Octopus
Author: Mary Reason Theriot
Illustrations: Zoie Mahaffey
The last few weeks have been exciting. With the start of fall and the new school year and kiddo turning three in October, we’ve been diving more heavily into “school time.” There was a video floating around on facebook, courtesy of the Libertarian Homeschooler or maybe Practical Homeschooling – not sure which, dealing with the camouflage abilities of the octopus.
The video we watched (Where is the Octopus?) is here: http://www.sciencefriday.com/video/08/05/2011/where-s-the-octopus.html.
Add in discussions of legs, all things regarding the prefix “oct,” and an a event where Mary Reason Theriot debuted her children’s books, we’ve had quite a big week!
Authors Mary Reason Theriot & Jennifer Theriot
Theriot is quite a popular novelist on Amazon. Living in Louisiana with her husband and daughter, she avidly writes spooky thrillers with a southern twist that only the home of the Cajun seem to be able to offer. But most recently, with the aid of her extremely enterprising daughter, she’s branched out and started writing children’s stories as well.
In Squishy the Octopus, a little octopus with a big anger management problem learns to control his temper with the help of his other sea creature friends. On various pages, like in the video above, Squishy changes color. My own little kiddo got really excited when this happened, “Let me see the picture!” she’d exclaim, “What color is he now?”
Unrelated to sea creatures, but highly related to our homeschooling life, is the fact that this week is Tolkien week. September 21st was the 76th anniversary of the publication of The Hobbit by J.R.R. Tolkien. An day that was celebrated with the first annual Fall Festival at
Archie Rocks Acoustic, little Theriot and my own kiddo in the garden at GBITW.
Good Books in the Woods. There was a costume contest, a toast to Tolkien, Mary Reason Theriot doing a book signing, Aoristos portraits being drawn and more. It was a pretty neat event, which we wrapped up at home with the kiddo indulging in a long time favorite The Lord of the Rings cartoon (the 1978 one, we have it on VHS… and yes, we still use our VCR).
September 22nd (yesterday) was Bilbo and Frodo Baggins’ birthday! They were born in different years, but on the same day! Something, I suppose, only truly geeky Tolkien fans care about. So this week is Tolkien week.
I may work for Half Price Books, a company I absolutely adore for so many reasons, but I spend a good chunk of my spare time at Good Books in the Woods. It is definitely my home away from home these days. My kid plays in the garden and with the toybox set up in the kids section while I absorb the ambiance of a house taken over by books. If my husband ever let me, the inside of my house would look exactly like Good Books…
Anakalian Whims 