. . .when you're making blog posts. :-P
Like Amanda, I've been devoting a little more time to life than blogging, but I'm still alive. :-)
I missed Picture Book Thursday, but that doesn't mean I wasn't thinking about it. My earliest bookstore memories revolve around the hours I spent standing in Swindon's, reading the Mr. Men books. I'm sure a lot of you English types will remember those. :-) I remember looking repeatedly at the Tintin books and wanting to like them, but just not being able to get into them (though of course now we have almost all of them :-) ) I always ended up defaulting to the Mr. Mens. Yesterday I tried to buy one for Prawn at Borders, but they're out of print again. I think my favourites were Mr. Bump and Mr. Tickle. We have a pretty decent collection of the books, and some of the Little Misses as well, since they were available in bookstores up until last year, but several of them have fallen apart from too much love.
We're almost through the audio version of Peter Pan in Scarlet and in spite of my fear of hoping for too much from this book, it has turned out to be one that I wish I had written myself. It's fantastic! I can't believe something this delightful and imaginitive got published. I know that sounds snooty, but if you check it out for yourself and see some of the very nontraditional concepts and turns of phrase, I think you'll understand what I mean.
Speaking of scarlet, last night our Red Belt (and up) class consisted of forms, and Feats of Tae Kwon Do. My favourite kind of class. ^_^ For some reason, though, I could kick a bottle hanging from the ceiling when I ran and jumped off the floor, but not when I ran and jumped off a chair. Go figure.
I've been listening to the BBC radio dramatisation of Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency and loving it. And I took a bunch of pictures over the week that I'll try to post.
Have a great weekend!
Showing posts with label Picture Book Thursday. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Picture Book Thursday. Show all posts
Saturday, October 27, 2007
Thursday, October 18, 2007
"Mailman" or "Redundancy"; also "Panties"
It's Picture Book Thursday again!
Today I have 2 selections for your reading enjoyment. The first is called "Millie Waits For the Mail." This is one I grabbed as soon as I saw the third double page spread. OMG! Hilarious! This is a fun book, but I have to say that the story fizzles as it goes, and we are left with a nagging question. WHAT was in that package that got flattened by the tractor? The illustrations, however, are delightful, and it's worth checking out this book for that alone. I mean, a tiny little elphant on the farm? And what are those chickens up to? This makes for a great library book, and as soon as I finished reading it aloud, an immediate re-read was requested. It's very short -- a good book for when it's past bedtime and you still want to squeeze in a book or three, but it's going to take longer if you really want to examine the illustrations.
The second selection for today is an old favourite. Six-Dinner Sid lives at #1 Aristotle Street. (He's no beggar for the bottle though - just a cat who enjoys his dinners.) He also lives at numbers 2, 3, 4, 5 and 6 Aristotle Street. In order to get his six dinners, Sid has to have 6 different personas. (Catsonas?) And that works just great until a nasty cough brings everything crashing down around his kitty ears. This is a great book that I can read over, and over, and over again (and have done.) Enjoy!
In non-picture-book news, MuNKi and the kids and I went shopping with BG and her kids yesterday. We hit the Barnes & Noble at the "Circles of Death" because it's still Educator Appreciation Week, and then I introduced BG to Claire's. There, I found that I have a weakness for cell phone charms. BG says I ought to get a cell phone. Hmm, maybe one of those cheap toy ones just so I could buy charms to hang from it.
After that, MuNKi (on Her Majesty's right) made us stop in at Victoria's Secret (the Bigs entertained the Littles in one car just in front of the door) to check out their sports bras, which are supposed to be awesome. I tried one and did the Jumping Up and Down Test, but I was afraid of what the store people might think because my sandals were clapping so much, so I took them off and then jumped in a kind of wincy sort of way as I imagined all the loose straight pins that might be underfoot. I determined that the bra, though nice, was slightly ridy-uppy (that's an industry term) and no better than my C9 seamless Champion thinggy from Target for less than half the price. So the trip quickly degenerated into a panty-shopping spree for BG and me. My speculations on which ones might be good for kicking led to a discourse by BG on the joys of Commando TKD. We eventually determined that the best way to check which panty styles and colours we liked best was to look at them in the environment in which they were most likely to end up after about 30 seconds of wear - namely on our heads, a lampshade, or the floor. The store people must have thought we were moderately insane we were laughing so much, but they gladly took our money in return for barely enough fabric to dab away our tears of mirth.
Today I have 2 selections for your reading enjoyment. The first is called "Millie Waits For the Mail." This is one I grabbed as soon as I saw the third double page spread. OMG! Hilarious! This is a fun book, but I have to say that the story fizzles as it goes, and we are left with a nagging question. WHAT was in that package that got flattened by the tractor? The illustrations, however, are delightful, and it's worth checking out this book for that alone. I mean, a tiny little elphant on the farm? And what are those chickens up to? This makes for a great library book, and as soon as I finished reading it aloud, an immediate re-read was requested. It's very short -- a good book for when it's past bedtime and you still want to squeeze in a book or three, but it's going to take longer if you really want to examine the illustrations.
The second selection for today is an old favourite. Six-Dinner Sid lives at #1 Aristotle Street. (He's no beggar for the bottle though - just a cat who enjoys his dinners.) He also lives at numbers 2, 3, 4, 5 and 6 Aristotle Street. In order to get his six dinners, Sid has to have 6 different personas. (Catsonas?) And that works just great until a nasty cough brings everything crashing down around his kitty ears. This is a great book that I can read over, and over, and over again (and have done.) Enjoy!
In non-picture-book news, MuNKi and the kids and I went shopping with BG and her kids yesterday. We hit the Barnes & Noble at the "Circles of Death" because it's still Educator Appreciation Week, and then I introduced BG to Claire's. There, I found that I have a weakness for cell phone charms. BG says I ought to get a cell phone. Hmm, maybe one of those cheap toy ones just so I could buy charms to hang from it.
After that, MuNKi (on Her Majesty's right) made us stop in at Victoria's Secret (the Bigs entertained the Littles in one car just in front of the door) to check out their sports bras, which are supposed to be awesome. I tried one and did the Jumping Up and Down Test, but I was afraid of what the store people might think because my sandals were clapping so much, so I took them off and then jumped in a kind of wincy sort of way as I imagined all the loose straight pins that might be underfoot. I determined that the bra, though nice, was slightly ridy-uppy (that's an industry term) and no better than my C9 seamless Champion thinggy from Target for less than half the price. So the trip quickly degenerated into a panty-shopping spree for BG and me. My speculations on which ones might be good for kicking led to a discourse by BG on the joys of Commando TKD. We eventually determined that the best way to check which panty styles and colours we liked best was to look at them in the environment in which they were most likely to end up after about 30 seconds of wear - namely on our heads, a lampshade, or the floor. The store people must have thought we were moderately insane we were laughing so much, but they gladly took our money in return for barely enough fabric to dab away our tears of mirth.
Thursday, October 11, 2007
Picture Book Thursday
So yesterday I was at the library and I thought I'd snag some picture books for Prawn. How can I accurately describe the mood in which that put me? I'll try by saying that I would LOVE to find books that are real STORIES that I want to read to my five-year-old for the purpose of enjoyment, as opposed to thinly veiled MESSAGES. But I'm afraid that the Otts Children's Publishing Theme Song would be "We're Bringin' Didact Back." :-P
I can't tell you how unlikely it is that if you pull a random book out of the hundreds on our library's shelves it will be an actual story book. I'm fed up with "Little Johnny is Sad," and "Merwin Recycles a Can." I've had it with "Hattie's Grandma Got Diagnosed With Cancer and then Got Run Over by a Bus," and "Jory Ate a Day-Old Chicken Sandwich and Died." Enough, please of "Charles Was Petrified of Going to School, but it Turned Out not to Kill Him After All," and "The Dentist is My Friend in Spite of all the Horrifying Instruments of Torture He Keeps On Hand" and "Harry Finds a Dead Frog," and "My Fish Died, but He Makes Great Fertilizer."
Granted, there is a time and a place for some of these, but more often than not, parents are looking for something to read that will delight their little ones and feed their imaginations -- something that makes their kids giggle or "oooh" and "aah," and then run off to build castles and dance with fairies and paint pictures and pretend they can fly. And also preferably something they can read more than once without barfing. This is getting increasingly harder to do.
So I was delighted yesterday to find "I'm the Biggest Thing in the Ocean." It's a simple book with a great punchline and a couple of cute little gags for the visually observant. It made all my kids laugh, and BG and me, too. I found a few others that look Less Than Awful as well. I'll keep you posted.
I can't tell you how unlikely it is that if you pull a random book out of the hundreds on our library's shelves it will be an actual story book. I'm fed up with "Little Johnny is Sad," and "Merwin Recycles a Can." I've had it with "Hattie's Grandma Got Diagnosed With Cancer and then Got Run Over by a Bus," and "Jory Ate a Day-Old Chicken Sandwich and Died." Enough, please of "Charles Was Petrified of Going to School, but it Turned Out not to Kill Him After All," and "The Dentist is My Friend in Spite of all the Horrifying Instruments of Torture He Keeps On Hand" and "Harry Finds a Dead Frog," and "My Fish Died, but He Makes Great Fertilizer."
Granted, there is a time and a place for some of these, but more often than not, parents are looking for something to read that will delight their little ones and feed their imaginations -- something that makes their kids giggle or "oooh" and "aah," and then run off to build castles and dance with fairies and paint pictures and pretend they can fly. And also preferably something they can read more than once without barfing. This is getting increasingly harder to do.
So I was delighted yesterday to find "I'm the Biggest Thing in the Ocean." It's a simple book with a great punchline and a couple of cute little gags for the visually observant. It made all my kids laugh, and BG and me, too. I found a few others that look Less Than Awful as well. I'll keep you posted.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)