Easy Breezy Reads…
Title: Mercy Watson Fights Crime
Author: Kate DiCamillo
I heard a rumor that Kate DiCamillo used to work for Half Price Books. With that being said, and me being an event coordinator for the company, I am bound and determined to get her in my store. So of course, I have to read everything she wrote aloud to my daughter in the interim.
And the kiddo loved Mercy Watson. It’s an easy reader chapter book with lots of pictures, and after sitting through countless Magic Tree House books, her attention span is right on par with these pig stories.
I highly recommend Mercy Watson books for toddlers on up to kiddos who can read this for themselves (8 years?). Mercy is highly entertaining as are her co-stars.
And for the Adults in the room…
Stay posted for future signings.
Title: Don’t Die By Your Own Hands
Author: Reeshemah Holmes
I booked nutrition coach Reeshemah Holmes for a book signing at Half Price Books in Humble. The signing was just last night and she was kind enough to give me a copy of her book to read and review.
It truly is a busy person’s guide. It’s just shy of 70 pages and depending on your reading speed could take anywhere from 30 minutes to an hour to conquer. I read it right before heading to bed after coming home from the signing.
It’s a great motivational tool for those who have already selected a diet plan; encouraging them not with a specific diet, but the tools to stick to the diet they’ve chosen as a lifestyle rather than a fad.
Don’t Die By Your Own Hands is definitely worth while for anyone wanting to change their life but uncertain of their power to do so… or someone who is convinced that they can change at any time, but haven’t changed yet.
For homeschooling parents who read my blog, this is also a good book to hand your teens as a lifestyle guide to follow their sports/ P.E. programs and rituals. There’s a lot of good advice about handling goals, nutrition, and staying healthy mentally in order to stay healthy physically.
Coach Reeshemah Holmes talking with customers at Half Price Books Humble book signing, May 2013.
Homeschooling / Life With a Toddler
Tea Time
We have tea parties with our geography lessons. She knows her southern states and can identify North America on a world map. No matter what, she can always find Texas, even when all its borders aren’t clearly drawn on… she looks for the Gulf of Mexico.
Card Games
She loves to play cards… these are first word matching puzzle cards. The nice, straight rows are all her doing. She’s quite the neat-nick.
Arts & Crafts
Painting is the best. Featured here is an acrylic on canvas piece.
Story Time
Story time at Half Price Books cannot be missed. It is an essential part of our weekly lives.
The Froggy Books
Weekly Low Down on Kids Books
Title: The Froggy Books
Author: Jonathan London
Illustrator: Frank Remkiewicz
If I never have to read another one of these books that would be fine by me! BUT, that’s not going to happen as the kiddo so kindly nominated these as the must read series for the last two weeks running.
I picked up ten titles in the series at the library and have not had a break from them since. She saw frogs on the cover, so frogs we had to have, and we checked out everything available in the series.
They aren’t bad, they’re very toddler friendly actually, I’m just tired. Any time Froggy goes somewhere he has to flop, flop, flop. When he puts on his clothes it’s with a lot of zips, zats, and znats. There are bonks and clangs, lots of “Froooooooogggggy!” and “Whaaaaaat!” exchanges between Froggy and his parents. Then of course, there’s that defining moment in each story when Froggy “more red in the face than green” discovers he’s doing something ridiculous.
The kiddo loves them and I cannot sit down to read a Froggy book without reading at least three Froggy books. This week, on multiple occasions, Froggy has gone to school, learned to swim, gone to bed, played T-ball, eaten out, gone to Hawaii, played in a band (kiddo’s favorite), gotten dressed (my least favorite), had the best babysitter, and had a sleepover.
They don’t have to be read in any particular order, but if you happen to find them in order you will definitely benefit. London does a good job of bouncing previous lines from previous stories into a later book. For instance, if we had not read Froggy Learns to Swim I would not have understood why in Froggy Goes to School the characters start chanting ‘bubble bubble toot toot chicken airplane soldier’ and think that it has anything to do with swimming. I guess I missed out on that swimming lesson as a child. But thankfully, I’d been to Froggy’s swimming lessons, so it wasn’t too weird.
There’s a lot of Froggy books and I’m sure we shall read more of them in the future as we come across them. As I said, great toddler titles… for the toddler. Parents: you’ll be longing for the days when you were reading Eric Carle twenty times instead.
Little Monster Friends Part Two
Awhile back I did a Weekly Low Down on Kids Books that I titled Little Monster Friends. It was about Eleanor Taylor’s picture book My Friend the Monster. Then the other night I was recommending one of my kiddo’s favorite books to a friend who has a little girl kiddo’s age and when I went to link to my review of it, I discovered there was none. Or, I just can’t find it. So it’s about time I tell you (or remind you) of my little toddler’s new favorite monster book. It’s one I’ve enjoyed reading to her for quite sometime, but has recently become the most exciting thing in the world to her… at least a few times a day when something else isn’t more exciting. You know two year olds – maybe.
So here’s to our newest little monster friends…
Title: Jumpy Jack and Googily
Author: Meg Rosoff
Illustrator: Sophie Blackall
Jumpy Jack is a delightfully nervous little snail who is terrified of pretty much everything, completely convinced there is a monster lurking around every corner. Googily is his adorably huge friend who checks for monsters everywhere they go, just to be safe. The catch? The terrifying monsters of Jumpy Jack’s imagination are always exact descriptions of his best friend and neither one of them know it.
This is a fantastic little picture book about imagination and friendship. The illustrations are fantastic and the story and the images both give the kiddo and I the giggles before bed at night.
Now that kiddo is chattering up a storm all the time, intelligibly, she does the cutest things and it’s even clearer than before what things resonate with her. Now she jumps around the house in the day time saying, “No monsters here,” and waggles her finger at me. Sometimes she brings me a sock and waves it at me and mimics the last page “Boo! Said the sock!”
Click the front cover to hear a little girl named Sarah on youtube read the book, check out all the pages. Then come back and click the title link to amazon. Just like Sarah says herself, if you don’t already own the book you’re gonna wish you did.
Weekly Low Down on Kids Books – Dinosaurs!
I read Magic Tree House #1: Dinosaurs Before Dark 
We had to stop a few times to draw a rhinoceros onto our ‘R’ page, check out whales and their sizes in relation to dinosaurs in our encyclopedia, and to correct behavior as she climbed in my living room window sill that is about three and half feet off the ground. We even had a brief whistling lesson after reading how the wind was whistling around the tree house. Overall, she enjoyed it, so we moved onto the Research Guide
Mary Pope Osborne and her husband Will Osborne joined forces and started writing nonfiction companion books to the fictional Magic Tree House adventures. When I first discovered this, I started purchasing them in pairs, vowing to use them as fun assignments while home schooling. I’d like for kiddo to grow up in the habit of reading a nonfiction title that somehow relates to every fiction title that she devours, expanding both her facts and her imagination. What better way than to start with research guides to her first chapter books?
Why am I reading these to her so early? Frankly, it’s quite hilarious to watch a two year old run circles in your living room chanting, “Fossils! Minerals! Dinosaurs!” at the top of her lungs, while her dog (who happens to be the biggest one we own) lays in the center rolling his eyes.
Chapter three of the research guide Dinosaurs talks about iguanas and how Gideon Mantell though the dinosaur teeth he and his wife found were giant iguana teeth. Of course, we had to stop to re-read I Wanna Iguana
All in all, we had a good ‘school day’ this morning, something we have been working on being more diligent about now that kiddo is two and it has actually managed to get too cold to venture out as much.
Weekly Low Down on Kids Books – Math Adventures
Title: Sir Cumference and the First Round Table
Author: Cindy Neuschwander
Illustrator: Wayne Geehan
I think everyone who has talked to me for longer than a minute and a half about children’s books knows how much I adore Brian P. Cleary
So a two year old who still stumbles through her ABC song, can only manage some really intense stripes when writing, and can only identify circles and triangles isn’t really ready for a book about circumferences, diameters, the concept of a radius, parallelograms, diamonds, and all that, but that’s when it is perfect to start reading these stories. By the time she needs the information, I want the stories thoroughly engrained in her mind.
Sir Cumference is a knight, married to Lady Di of Ameter, father of a short-stack son named Radius. With their help, King Arthur is able to come up with a plan to keep his knights on their best behavior as they discuss the well-being of Camelot. Add to the cast of characters a carpenter named Geo of Metry, the books instill all the basic concepts of geometry in the disguise of some exciting fake King Arthur folklore. Start reading the books to your kid from birth through early elementary school and you’ve got one math savvy child without even trying. As a home school mom with a serious distaste for math, I want my kid to enjoy it and make her life a lot easier than mine was by the time her high school curriculum comes along.
For slightly older kids, I’d say ages 5-10, the book easily lends itself to hands on activities. Paper projects, baking projects, even wood working if you were bold and wanted to make an actual play table, the story takes you step by step through cutting a rectangle down into all the various shapes. And, of course, it’s a series. Click the Sir Cumference link to purchase from Amazon. Click the collection image to go to another blogger’s reviews.
Other Sir Cumference
Sir Cumference and the Dragon of Pi
Sir Cumference and All the King’s Tens
Sir Cumference and the Viking’s Map
Sir Cumference and the Isle of Immeter
Sir Cumference and the Great Knight of Angleland
Sir Cumference and the Sword in the Cone
(As an Amazon affiliate I earn from qualifying purchases.)
I Like Old Clothes, too!
Title: I Like Old Clothes
Author: Mary Ann Hoberman
Illustrations: Patrice Barton
Publisher: Knopf
Genre: Children’s Picture Book
I Like Old Clothes is genius. Growing up with hand-me-downs from my sister who is 6 years older and rarely more than 6 months ahead of me in size, hand-me-downs were a pretty exciting part of life. As an adult, I’m a huge fan of thrift stores and passing things amongst friends. I like the worn in feel, I like the faded colors, I like the history.
I Like Old Clothes is a great book to have on hand to help indoctrinate your child with that appreciation. Indoctrinate may be a scary word that doesn’t really say what I mean… Instead, let me say, I Like Old Clothes is a great book to unveil the magic of used things that is usually shrouded in distaste by consumerism, greed, and the false ideals of what is cool.
Clearly, I was not cool growing up. But for the most part, I didn’t really care.
I still wear my dad’s 1960’s sweaters, I get compliments on them all the time, although it wasn’t so awesome to wear them when I was 14. I grew up wearing t-shirts, shorts, and skirts of my sister’s. Among other sisterly items, I wore her prom dress for a show choir performance in 8th grade and I remember feeling so bold and empowered knowing that I was in my sister’s dress. A girl I grew up with used to pass me all her old jeans, as she was six inches too tall for them by the time I needed them, it was a perfect arrangement.
I think it’s important for kids to grow up knowing that 1. They aren’t the only one wearing hand-me-downs and 2. Enjoy them! They’re awesome, not shameful.
This book is absolutely a must have. On top of the fabulous poetry singing the praises of used clothes are the beautiful illustrations. In the spirit of the content, the pictures have a soft, cozy feel. There’s kind of a Holly Hobby look to Barton’s work that I love, like a 20 year old patchwork quilt gone through the wash too many times. You look at the page and see the softness of a really soft t-shirt circa 1975, organic cotton, or even a fuzzy flannel. I want to wrap myself in the images, the little button flowers and all.
I checked this book out from the Harris County Public Library, but I can’t wait to purchase a copy of our very own.
The Long-Awaited Lily
Well, it felt like a long time, because I was so anxious for it. In reality, Smith is quite the efficient authoress.
Title: Seed Savers
Author: S. Smith
I read the first installment of Seed Savers early this last summer. I loved it. I was so excited to find a new “undiscovered” young adult author and immediately blogged about it. Illegal gardening, fresh produce, dystopian society, kids on the run… how much more exciting could it possibly get? Way more, that’s how much.
With the arrival of Lily, I expected to get “the further adventures of Clare and Dante,” but what I got was much more. Lily, a side character in the first book, Treasure, tries to continue the mission of saving seeds in her hometown after the disappearance of Clare and Dante. Rather than getting “Treasure” all over again, a common fault in sequels in general, Lily is a book all its own and full of secrets, secrets, and more secrets. Not only was Lily hiding plants from Dante and Clare, she has a past she wasn’t even aware of, a past that could change everything.
Smith succeeded, again, in writing a fantastic and educational adventure that I cannot wait to share with my nieces and nephews, and later with my daughter. It is so fun and refreshing to read something new, something real, that doesn’t have anything to do with vampires, werewolves, or zombies. Although there is a time and place for such fantasy fiction for young adults, it’s nice to know that there are authors out there that have something more on the brain than the latest (recurring) fad that has swept the nation and the world.
Seed Savers is about using your brain, questioning the world around you and how it should be, becoming a better person, and making the world a better place. These are things every kid should be encouraged to do. And for the adults reading these books, it reminds us that many kids want to when they are given the chance.
While the Net was Sleeping…
Too many Sandra Bullock allusions for one heading? I think so, but I don’t feel like Starting from Scratch. Heehee, see what happens when I go without my internet for 3 whole days. The cheesy humor that only I find funny gets out of control. And this post isn’t even about Sandra Bullock.
It’s about the fact that my internet was down for 3 days and in that time the Kiddo and I went on a bit of a young adult binge. If you follow my blog, or my life, you know we read a lot of picture books. This last weekend, however, we just couldn’t help ourselves. After finishing Pippi Longstockings, the kiddo seemed more and more interested in sitting through me reading chapter books, and there were two in particular calling my name.
The Magician’s Elephant
With The Magician’s Elephant I was moved first by all the deep blue hues. Rich blues and grays give the impression of a romantic gloom I find fascinating. Of course, after it was off the shelf and in my hands, the elephant sealed the deal. I adore elephants and half our lives consists of elephant art and books with elephants on the covers.
The fonts, the illustrations, the beautiful fairy tale… what is not to like about this wonderful book? Everyone should have a copy of Kate DiCamillo’s tale of family and keeping promises. It makes for a great Thanksgiving and Christmas season read, and I highly recommend sharing it with your children by the fire.
Kate DiCamillo is famous for Because of Winn Dixie, The Tale of Despereaux, and countless others. She has made quite a name for herself in the book-world as a trustworthy storyteller, but this is the first I’ve actually read of her work, and what a testament it was! My two year old sat through the whole book in one morning.
Of course, author Kate DiCamillo can’t take credit for the art, that is the fine work of Yoko Tanaka. She has quite a bit of published work and still manages to stay in the non-book art scene at galleries and group shows and such, according to her online bio which is actually more of a resume. I’m excited about keeping track of her future ventures as well, because I’ve really fallen in love with what she did for The Magician’s Elephant.
Tony DiTerlizzi became a part of our lives when I first grabbed a copy of The Spider and the Fly picture book. Of course, I was familiar with the dark tale, but DiTerlizzi’s art really sucked me in. It was not until later that I discovered he was the same DiTerlizzi who wrote and illustrated The Spiderwick Chronicles. What a clever, talented man! Where I previously lamented over whether the kiddo was ready for such a gothic tale as Spider and the Fly, Kenny & the Dragon is a story of friendship and book-love for any age. Again, everyone needs a copy. We will probably re-read this in the Spring or Summer.
Side note: I totally want a bicycle like Kenny’s, it’s so cool.
Oh Miss Langstrump, you’re a hot mess
Title: Pippi Longstocking
Author: Astrid Lindgren
Growing up, I always loved Pippi Longstocking. As of some time around 1993, I’m sure I had read all the books and probably seen all the movie adaptations to date. I’d even won a costume contest dressed as her with my long hair braided around a coat hanger shaped to my head to keep the braids up and out. I was one of the few kids that didn’t have to add big black dots to my face with Mom’s eyeliner when wearing costumes, because I was completely covered in huge distinct freckles anyway. There was even one dead center on my nose, that I often imagined could be considered ‘potato shaped.’
Re-reading Astrid Lindgren’s stories to my daughter, however, I’m surprised that my own mother liked Pippi so much. The girl is a hot mess. All I keep thinking is what a rotten un-educated hooligan this child is… with absolutely no impulse control! There’s been more than a few times I’ve thought about reaching through the pages and giving the fictitious rug rat a good old-fashioned spanking. It makes sense, though, having only an absentee, pirate-like father who is supposedly king of cannibals and a mischievous little monkey as your only family, that you’d be outlandish and absurd; but sometimes while reading, I just want Pippi to calm down for two seconds and think while I catch my breath.
Lindgren had a lot of people feel that way when the book was first released. I didn’t know this before this last week, but a lot of people in Sweden were not very happen about Pippi Longstocking being the latest craze. Take the mentality of the parents of Junie B. Jones readers, and you’ve got a good idea of the Pippi drama back in 1945-1948.
Of course, in the end, I still like Pippi a lot – I can’t say the same for what I’ve read of Junie B. I adore her red hair, her freckles, her fearlessness, the fact that she can lift a horse above her head, the fact that she has a horse to lift above her head. She has circus talents to rival the world’s best, she’s spunky, and lives in an awesome house called Villa Vellekulla. She saves children from bullies and burning buildings, and is all around pretty good-natured, even if she does unintentionally mouth off to everyone all the time and plan to be a full-fledged pirate when she grows up.
Pippi Longstocking is the first of a series and is perfect for beginning of the school year. The story starts at the mid to tail end of summer and ends in November just in time for Pippi’s Birthday Party; so, if you read seasonally like I do sometimes, keep it in mind next school year if you have a kiddo starting kindergarten or returning for first, second, or third grade. Pippi starts the story as a nine-year old and kids tend to enjoy reading about kids their own age or bigger.
I was a little late in introducing my kiddo to Pippi Longstocking this year, but not in the grand scheme of life. She’s only two and very familiar, but we had a Pippi Longstocking and Pirates themed birthday party a few weeks before the concept and the character really sunk in for her. She was still wrapped up in Babar at the time of the party and I didn’t know how to go about dressing my kid up as an elephant and getting her friends to do so too. But we had a grand ol’ time wearing pirate clothes and pigtails…
Sister, Niece, & Kiddo
Anakalian Whims 