Can You Measure a Groundhog's Shadow?

We've been lucky to receive some great picture books lately from a variety of places. First, we were pleased to win a signed copy of Kathleen T. Pelley's Magnus Maximus, A Marvelous Measurer. Illustrated in a very detailed fashion by S.D. Schindler, this is the story of one Magnus Maximus. Just as the title reveals, he is an extraordinarily talented measurer and counter. The only problem is that Magnus spends more time looking at the details in his life than at the big picture. It will take a small accident and a friendly young boy to get Magnus to step back and enjoy life.

Z and I had a great time with this book. Magnus is quite talented and even manages to stop an escaped lion with his measuring skills. I like that even though Magnus learns to enjoy the immeasurables of life, he doesn't give up doing what he is good at. He just begins to do it in moderation. I think this is a great lesson for kids. There are very few things in life that are all or nothing. And for Z, who happens to have a very technical and organized mind, I think this book is an especially good fit. Of course, the first thing he wanted to do after we read this book was to start measuring things so we may have to work on absorbing the lessons of this book!

Next, we received a copy of Brownie Groundhog and the February Fox from the publisher. This is a beautiful new picture book written by Susan Blackaby from nearby Portland, OR and illustrated in wonderful contrasting colors by Carmen Segovia from our ancestral country of Spain. Brownie Groundhog is disappointed when she emerges from her den in February and sees her shadow. She starts grumbling and attracts the attention of a very hungry little fox. But luckily Brownie is a smart girl and she manages to avoid becoming lunch and actually makes a new friend.

This is a fun story about making the best of a situation, even while waiting for something better to come along -- like spring. I like that this is a Groundhog Day book that doesn't focus so much on the single event but on what lies ahead. Even if it's six more weeks of winter, there are still things to look forward to. I also appreciated that Blackaby is not afraid to introduce some new words in this picture book that might not be in a kid's vocabulary. Z really liked this book as well, especially when it gets to the part with hot cocoa and cinnamon toast!

Finally we won a signed copy of the renowned Shadow by Suzy Lee. This wordless adventure is nevertheless an engaging story. The top pane of each story shows a little girl in a storage room, with boxes and other items piled high. The bottom pane is the shadow version of the room. At first we see everything clearly -- the girl's shadow, the bicycle hanging from the ceiling, the ladder with boots on top. And then things start merging and shifting. The bicycle becomes a sun and moon, the girl's hand-shadow-bird takes off, the ladder becomes a palm tree. Eventually the shadow world takes over -- until mom calls "Dinner's Ready" anyway.

I think this book would make a wonderful animated short. As is, Z and I loved telling the story of what we were seeing to each other and then creating our own shadow world in our home. We won a poster of the book cover as well and Z has it up in his room. I'm not sure how this book would be for a kid who is afraid of the dark but it might help them to see that no matter what you see in the shadows when the lights are off, you can always turn them back on and everything is as normal as ever.

Appreciating the stories we've been given,
K and Z


Support our site and buy Magnus Maximus, A Marvelous Measurer, Brownie Groundhog and the February Fox and Shadow on Amazon or find them at your local library. We received one of these for review and won copies of the other two.

Starred Saturdays: Week of January 23

photo source

Welcome to Starred Saturdays! This is the amazingly voracious sunflower star, Pycnopodia. They can have from 16-24 arms and are the largest sea stars in the world. They come in a wide variety of colors and can eat spiny sea urchins. Just thought I would share!

Pictory Mag has a wonderful photo slideshow of New Zealand right now. If it inspires you to book a flight, be sure and visit Castle Hill, the Dalai Lama-designated "spiritual center of the universe".

If you're a fan of The Phantom Tollbooth, check out these concept drawings by artist Lizzie Nichols.

Recent Japanese volcano videos? Yes, please! There's one taken during the day and one at night. The night one has some awesome lightning strikes as red hot lava is shooting into the air.

Flavorwire collected some cute (and some strange) mitten designs. If anyone wants to make me a pair of the hedgehog ones, I would be eternally grateful. My sister-in-law would appreciate a pair of the shark mittens! I don't think anyone wants the "Handerpants".

I think I can manage making this Totoro origami.

Here's a collection of "33 Best Dramatic Animal Photos". If you want to see amazing photos of animals about to catch their prey, check it out. If you don't want to see this, it's hard to avoid them so you should probably skip the whole thing. Although, the last photo is a fox sniffing a daffodil and it's so beautiful it makes me want to cry.

Finally, the Woodland Park Zoo here in Seattle has the cutest baby Egyptian tortoises. How could I resist sharing their video of the two week old babies set to Walk Like an Egyptian? These guys are extinct in Egypt and endangered in Libya. So unfortunate.





Planning a tortoise-napping,K

A Dahl's House

Z got quite a few new books for Christmas and we've been having a great time reading them together. He got a couple of Roald Dahl books, ones that I had never read (or even heard of) before. The first was the absolutely delightful The Giraffe and the Pelly and Me. It's a little bit harder than an easy reader level but isn't broken into chapters. There are wonderful drawings throughout the book by Quentin Blake.

A young boy lives next door to an abandoned store front that used to house a candy store. One day renovations are started at the store -- things are chucked out the window, the door is made super tall and a sign appears announcing that it's a window washing firm. Eventually the members of their firm poke their heads out of the window -- a giraffe, a pelican and a monkey. The giraffe reaches the tall windows, the pelican uses its beak as a bucket and the monkey does the washing. All they need now are some clients and a rather wealthy one falls right into their laps. If they can just get through a few trials first, they may be set for life!

Z adored this book. I couldn't read it fast enough for him. He loved the characters, the situations and the drawings. I've honestly never seen him quite so excited about a book. I wouldn't be surprised if I catch him reading it again soon!

The second Dahl we read was George's Marvelous Medicine. Definitely for an older audience (both in length and tone), this is a strange and somewhat dangerous story. George is a young boy with an awful live-in grandma. She's verbally abusive and possibly a witch. George is left in charge of watching her one morning and giving her a daily dose of medicine. He decides that what she really needs is a medicine that will cure her nastiness, meanness and crotchetiness (which I'm fairly sure is not a word). He goes around the house and collects all sorts of household products to add to the mix--hairspray, toothpaste, face powder, motor oil, paint and more--to make a truly toxic blend. What happens when he puts a bit into Granny?

I was getting a bit worried as we were reading the two or three chapters of "ingredients" that Z was getting some bad ideas about what is safe to give someone to eat. This is definitely not a book for adventurous kids who may want to try concocting something on their own. Leave this one to the timid ones who will dream up crazy things but never act on them. This book was amusing but strange and had a rather awful ending. Z even seemed a bit shocked by what happened. Have you read this one before? What did you think?

Moving together past the standards,
K and Z


Support our site and buy The Giraffe and the Pelly and Me and George's Marvelous Medicine on Amazon or find them at your local library. We own our own copies.

"Miss Pettigrew pushed open the door of the employment agency and went in as the clock struck a quarter past nine."

Almost all of us seem to have experienced regret at leaving a book unread on our shelves for too long. And while Winifred Watson's charmer Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day has not actually been on my shelves for very long, it has certainly been on my TBR for a while and I wish I had picked it up sooner.

Miss Pettigrew is a forty year old governess who is out of work. She is at the brink of losing her lodging and hasn't eaten well in ages. When a choice assignment comes in at the agency, she heads right over -- with only the slightest reservation that a governess is being asked for by an unmarried woman. When the door is opened by Miss LaFosse, a beautiful young woman in an equally beautiful "foamy" robe, Miss Pettigrew is immediately swept up into the most unbelievable and life-changing day she has ever known.

I could have written up a book versus movie post on this one as I saw the wonderful film a while back. However, they are similar enough that I will just say that both are well worth your time. If it weren't for a couple brief racist comments made by the titular character, I might even call this a perfect book. Pettigrew is amusing and her transformation is a treat to read. LaFosse is nothing like what one would expect her to be and you quickly fall in love with her, just like everyone else in the book already has. The most fascinating thing about this novel is the breaking down of Pettigrew's preconceived notions of how she will be treated based on her prior experiences with the wealthy. Almost everyone in the story teaches Pettigrew something new about the human race and about herself. It's a well-crafted story that has hidden depth. I adored it and would love to hear if you have adored it too!

Waiting for my chance to live for a day,
K


Support our site and buy Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day (Persephone Classics) on Amazon or find it at your local library. We bought our own copy.

Book v. Movie: Nick & Norah's Infinite Playlist

I put off watching Nick & Norah's Infinite Playlist for the longest time because I was annoyed that they copied the names of my beloved Nick and Nora from The Thin Man movies. Then one night I was awake far too late, nothing else was on and so I stayed up for hours longer watching this movie. It's not an all-time favorite but there are things about it that I love (like Kat Dennings and the Yugo). It's a story of second chances, accidental love-at-first-sight and choosing your best future. I've watched it once or twice more in the wee hours of the night/morning (because I can't stomach the whole Caroline and her gum thing when I'm fully awake) and enjoyed it each time. Then, inevitably, I figured out it was a book.

In fact, I figured that it was probably the type of book that wasn't really for me -- me being stodgy and married and from the opposite coast and all. And then I saw the book for a dollar at Half Price Books and couldn't resist. I breezed through the short novel--written by Rachel Cohn and David Levithan as alternating chapters between the titular Nick and Norah--and have made it through relatively unscathed and of the opinion that this book was actually more for the adults than the kids. It's quite full of profanity and sexuality and was surprisingly lacking in music. The kids talk like they're in their twenties instead of like teenagers. Money keeps magically appearing for these kids who don't seem to have jobs. And yet, it made me a bit nostalgic for the problems of teens -- the wondering, the firsts, the fights, the friendships. That's why I think that adults might ultimately find it more interesting than teens.

The movie and the book turned out to have little in common and, though I appreciated the book, I have to say that I prefer the movie. I like the story line that they created, the different direction the characters took at times and the more dastardly exes. It was more of The Odyssey and less of The Breakfast Club.

Verdict: These are both decent stories about teen adventure and love. If you want more New York City landmarks, angst and f-bombs (hundreds of them), read the book. If you want more of a dramatic teen adventure comedy (yes, I'm having trouble classifying it!) with that special something that you always get from Michael Cera, watch the film.

Looking back on my relatively quiet teen years with relief,
K


Support our site and buy Nick & Norah's Infinite Playlist (the novel) and Nick & Norah's Infinite Playlist (the movie) on Amazon or find them at your local library. I watched the movie on cable and bought a copy of the book.

New Release: The Body at the Tower

Mary Quinn, first introduced in Y.S. Lee's The Agency: A Spy in the House (read my enthusiastic thoughts), is back in The Agency: The Body at the Tower. Second in a planned trilogy, this novel explores more of Mary's unique background and also her undetermined future.

I really don't want to give too much away about this series. The second book picks up about a year after the first but the secrets revealed and relationships fought for and established in the first book are the basis of this story as well. The "body at the tower" is that of a bricklayer, found one morning at the construction site of a large clock tower near London's Parliament -- in fact the one that houses the newly molded Big Ben bell. Did the man have an accident or was he pushed from the top of the tower?

In this story, the mystery is pretty simple but the writing certainly is not. My one complaint about the first book was that it felt like a YA book in that some things weren't fleshed out enough for my tastes. I'm happy to say that I did not feel that way at all during this book. In fact, when things started getting a bit dodgy for Mary, I was happy to remember that it was a YA book and so probably wouldn't go in as dark a direction as it could have. The period details were also wonderful, likely due to the author's PhD in Victorian lit and culture. I'm a bit sad that Lee will only be writing one more book in this series. I'll be getting it as soon as it comes out though!

Waiting for the bell to toll,
K


Support our site and buy The Agency 2: The Body at the Tower on Amazon or find it at your local library. We bought our own copy.

New Release: The Death Instinct

The Death Instinct follows doctor and former Freudian psychoanalyst Stratham Younger and police captain James Littlemore through a harrowing time in U.S. history as they witness the September 1920 bombing of New York's Wall Street and subsequently delve into the seamy political underbelly of the city and the nation.  They also become entangled in the fate of a young Frenchwoman, Collette Rousseau, who is a student of the famous Marie Curie.  This novel explores a historical mystery that was never actually solved and expands it to truly dastardly proportions.

Almost a year and a half ago, I read Jed Rubenfeld's first book, The Interpretation of Murder which I fully expected to love and instead came away from with mixed feelings. I just looked back on my thoughts on the book and, not surprisingly, could easily copy a portion of that review and paste it here for his second book and sequel, The Death Instinct. I say "not surprisingly" because even though I had forgotten most of the first book, as I was reading the second book, I started remembering having the same feelings before.

"I was having trouble getting through it over the past few days and I decided to power through just to find out what happened. There are many good things about the book but it just wasn't quite there for me."

"This book had a few flaws that kept me from totally enjoying it, even as easy reading. First, the characters, on more than one occasion, use sarcasm. The problem with this is that it's hard to read sarcasm."

"Finally, I just felt that the book needed some more editing ..."

As The Death Instinct features the same main character as the first book--Stratham Younger--and he was the one who frequently employed sarcasm, this remained a problem for me. His awful opinions of women also made it impossible to care for his fate as the main character. Again, I thought that the book could have been edited down more and that the historical and plot elements didn't flow together well. There were large information dumps in various parts of the novel. I found the information quite interesting but the way it was presented took me out of the story too often. This was a fascinating historical event that I knew almost nothing about.

I definitely appreciated the amount of research that must have been done to craft this story and part of me wishes that Rubenfeld had written a non-fiction about this incident instead. I gave this author a second chance with this novel because I had mixed feelings on the first one and hoped for an improvement but I think this will be it for me. I love the settings and events that he chooses but not the novels themselves.

Reluctantly moving on,
K

This book is currently on a TLC Book Tour.  You can read reviews with a different opinion than mine at The Lost Entwife and Rundpinne.  Other reviews will be linked up at the tour page over the next month.

Support our site and buy The Death Instinct on Amazon or find it at your local library. We received a copy for review from the publisher and have posted this review as part of a blog tour.

Heads-Up: Recurring Early-Childhood Literacy Event (Seattle)

If you are in the Seattle area, have a toddler or preschooler in your care and are looking for a great new story time, you might want to try this one on Friday mornings!  The first Friday Family Story Hour will be this Friday at 2:00pm and then each Friday after that at 9:30am.  Guest readers from the community (including City Councilmember Jean Godden and Seattle Times columnist Nicole Brodeur) and the librarian from the host school, Hamlin Robinson, will be reading to your youngsters for free!

Here is the press announcement:


HAMLIN ROBINSON SCHOOL
ANNOUNCES FRIDAY FAMILY STORY HOUR
Free, open to the public and aimed at families with pre-kindergarten children, guest reader and
City Councilmember Jean Godden helps kick off this weekly series

SEATTLE—Jan. 5, 2011--Hamlin Robinson School, which relocated this school year into the former home of TT Minor Elementary at 1700 E. Union Street, extends its resources to families and caregivers of young children in the community with its new Friday Family Story Hour. The first event, featuring guest reader and City Councilmember Jean Godden, will be held Jan. 21, 2-3 p.m. at the School’s library.

“Story Hour can provide new learners kindergarten readiness skills that encompass physical, social and emotional learning, cognition, language and literacy,” Joan Beauregard said, Interim Head at Hamlin Robinson School. “Its engaging and family-oriented format includes storytelling that uses flannel boards, drama, music, and the vitality of storytellers and our talented librarian, Kris Dersch.”

The event also serves as a “thank you” from the School for the warm welcome it received from neighbors. Hamlin Robinson School staff aim to make story time accessible for small children (mainly ages two to five) and their parents/caregivers who reside in the Central District and Capitol Hill neighborhoods. Story Hour fosters community, relieves parent isolation, and promises to be fun. It also appeals to many styles of learning—a philosophy the School embodies in serving those with dyslexia and related language difficulties.

Subsequent story hours will be held Friday mornings from 9:30 to10:30 a.m., including Jan 28, Feb. 4, 11, and 18. Guest readers will be announced as they are known. For further information, please contact 206-763-1167.

The Hamlin Robinson School is an independent K-8 school in Seattle offering a specialized program specifically for students with dyslexia and related language difficulties. The school is affiliated with the International Dyslexia Association, the National Association of Independent Schools, the Pacific Northwest Association of Independent Schools, and the Washington Federation of Independent Schools. Contact the Hamlin Robinson School at 206-763-1167 or visit www.hamlinrobinson.org.

We hope you will take advantage of this great resource for literacy.

Reading along,
K and Z

Children's Author Showcase: Julia Donaldson

Last month, we recorded a cute little animated television special called The Gruffalo.  Z watched it quite often and thought it was great.  Then I accidentally deleted it from the DVR.  After a bit of panicking when I found that it was not available on DVD, I realized that it was just an animation straight from a picture book -- The Gruffalo, written by Julia Donaldson and illustrated by Axel Scheffler.  Of course we quickly put a hold on the book at the library and decided to grab the sequel, The Gruffalo's Child, as well.  And while I was looking for The Gruffalo, I came across another title by Donaldson/Scheffler that I thought Z would love, The Snail and the Whale.  He ended up getting that one for Christmas from his aunt and uncle!  So now we had three books in the house that Z was reading all of the time and so on our last library trip we couldn't resist grabbing two more books by this author/illustrator duo -- Charlie Cook's Favorite Book and The Fish Who Cried Wolf.  All written in verse, these stories present such great topics as self-esteem, quick thinking, literacy and honesty.

The Gruffalo is the story of a little mouse who goes walking through the woods one day.  He is soon approached by a fox who wants to eat him.  He thinks quickly and says that he is on his way to meet a gruffalo, a scary creature with terrible claws, teeth and tusks whose favorite food is "roasted fox".  The terrified fox heads for the hills and the mouse continues on his way.  His ruse saves him from an owl and a snake as well and he feels confident in his intelligence until he runs into the very creature that he thought he had invented -- a gruffalo!  The mouse is going to have to think of something quick to avoid being eaten by the gruffalo.

The verse in this book is great for reading aloud and there's an element of suspense which most children love.  The illustrations are fantastic as well.

The Gruffalo's Child stars the daughter of the gruffalo who has been told the story of the scary mouse by her parent.  One night, she decides to set out and track down this mouse.  She also comes across the snake, owl and fox before finding the mouse.  How will the mouse keep from getting eaten by this new gruffalo?

The Snail and the Whale is a predictable but cute story.  A snail with a bit of wanderlust feels stuck in his own small place in the world.  She doesn't know how to break out of her shell (so to speak) until a whale comes by and offers to take her on a tour of the world.  The snail gets to see icebergs and penguins, beaches and mountains, waves and the depths of the sea.  She is amazed because all of these things are so marvelous and she starts feeling quite small and insignificant.  But then one day a bunch of people in speedboats confuse the whale and he ends up beaching.  Now is the snail's chance to prove her worth by finding a solution to this urgent problem.

Though the humpback whale would probably not have survived the beaching in real life, this is thankfully a children's story that is not preaching the evils of personal watercraft but instead teaching about finding your own strengths and putting them to good use.  I love the colors in this story and Z loves all of the animals.

My favorite might be Charlie Cook's Favorite Book.  It's a sort of endless chain of literature.  Charlie is sitting and reading his favorite book about a pirate who finds a treasure chest.  In it is a book about Goldilocks, who is found in Baby Bear's bed, reading his favorite book about a knight.  The knight is able to defeat the dragon by telling a great joke from his favorite book.  This joke happens to be about a frog at a library and so on.

I love the idea that every story can lead to another one and maybe not in obvious ways.  Z likes this one quite a bit as well though I haven't asked him what draws him in to it.

The final book is The Fish Who Cried Wolf which has awkward verse and a strange story and neither Z or I have connected with it very well.  It's the story of a fish who is a bit of a fibber so when he tells a whopper, the other little fish don't believe him.  The strange thing though is that his story-telling actually helps him out at one point so I'm not sure the moral is quite clear.  The one thing Z did like in this book is that Scheffler snuck in a "gruffalo fish" on one page!

We're glad to have finally discovered Donaldson, who appears to be quite popular in the UK.  She has other books with Scheffler and some with other illustrators as well so we will have to keep exploring this fun new-to-us author.

Enjoying some gruffalo crumble,
K and Z


Support our site and buy The Gruffalo, The Gruffalo's Child, The Snail and the Whale, Charlie Cook's Favorite Book and Fish Who Cried Wolf on Amazon or find them at your local library.  We borrowed some of these from the library and own one of them.

A Gift That Keeps on Giving

What is the true gift that keeps on giving?  A cookbook, of course!  When I was placing an order of Christmas gifts from Chronicle Books, I decided to buy a cookbook for myself.  I was tempted by many of them but ultimately decided on one that I thought I would use regularly and that would make part of my home duties easier.  Slow Cooker: The Best Cookbook Ever by Diane Phillips might not actually be the best cookbook ever but it's a very useful book with easy to follow recipes for one of the most underused appliances in the kitchen.

I don't think I've ever reviewed a cookbook before and I have to admit that it's because I rarely make recipes from them so I don't feel I can review them.  I buy cookbooks, spend an afternoon or two looking through them and daydreaming about better meals, and then promptly put them in the kitchen cupboard and forget that I even own them.  The only two that sit out on the counter are The Joy of Cooking (which I use to check on baking temperatures for sweet potatoes and trivial things like that) and Martha Stewart's Baking Handbook which I have actually used a good number of times.  But now I will need to find an accessible spot for this slow cooker book because I've used it twice and had great results so far!

The first recipe I tried was for Christmas and was the "Not-Your-Mom's Cranberry Orange Sauce".  Well, any homemade cranberry sauce is not my mom's because she's an Ocean Spray canned sauce devotee.  When she wants to class it up above and beyond the gel log, she buys the variety with whole berries in it!  So, this was a big experiment for me.  It was very easy to throw everything in the crock (berries, orange zest, sugar, orange juice and spices) and three hours later I had a beautiful sauce.  We ended up serving it both at Christmas dinner (the Ocean Spray can is still in the pantry) and at Christmas dessert where we spooned it over a vanilla bean bundt cake.  It was a bit tart for my taste because I'm a flavor wuss but Z and the husband loved it.  It was something that I would have never stood over the stove to make but putting the ingredients together and then walking away made it worth the experiment.

(my bread and the cookbook)

Then last night I made the cover recipe, "Old-Fashioned Beef Stew with Vegetables".  One of the true tests of any recipe is if your finished product looks like the picture in the cookbook.  I frequently fail that with my Martha Stewart baking book (although the flavor of the lopsided cakes is always exceptional) so I was very pleased to serve up my first bowl of this stew, hold it up next to the book and rejoice in their identicalness.  It tasted great too!  And because I didn't have to spend a lot of time watching the pot, I decided to make bread to go with the stew.  I made this oatmeal bread from the recipe on the King Arthur bread flour bag and it was absolutely delicious.  I will be making that more often now too!  The only issue I had with the stew recipe was that I didn't know the size of my slow cooker and even though I made a reduced-size recipe (because we didn't need 8 servings), it still barely fit in the pot and there was not really room to move things around in it.  That's my fault though and not the fault of the book.  Each recipe actually says what size cooker you should use.  When I buy a new one (which I want to do now), I will choose based on what size the recipes that I want to make are.

Next, I think I will probably try making a pork loin or tenderloin (I never make pork except for faux-Kalua pork roast) or maybe my own baked beans.  Do you have a favorite slow cooker dish?

Stuffing some bellies,
K


Support our site and buy Slow Cooker: The Best Cookbook Ever with More Than 400 Easy-to-Make Recipes on Amazon or find it at your local library.  We bought our own copy.