Beauty and the Beast + The Complete Fairy Tales of Charles Perrault

The Once Upon a Time III Challenge has a “Short Story Weekend” mini-challenge, so I thought I’d visit some fairy tales. To my surprise, the copy of Charles Perrault’s Complete Fairy Tales that I found was less than 200 pages and written for children, so I breezed through all of them very quickly. Many of Perrault’s stories are retellings of other’s stories. My favorite was “Beauty and the Beast.” Continue reading »

The Adventures of Pinocchio by Carlo Collodi

The Adventures of Pinocchio by Carlo Collodi is almost a fairy tale. There is a magical fairy, there are talking animals, and of course, there is talking marionette who wants to be a real boy. And yet, Collodi’s tale fell just a little short of fairy tale status because of the obvious moralizing lessons: the lessons substantially subtracted from the fairy tale-like charm. Nonetheless, children may enjoy Pinocchio’s adventures, and they will probably also learn from Pinocchio’s mistakes and scold him for his foolish choices as they follow him along the path to becoming a real boy. Continue reading »

Baby’s Sunday Salon, April 5

(I know it’s not April 5 anymore. I wrote this post a few days ago and I was going to add pictures before I clicked “publish.” But I’ve been miserably sick since Saturday morning, so it’s going as it is!)

I haven’t reviewed my son’s reading since January. This is partly because I’ve been busy moving, but also because my son has been enjoying the books I’ve already mentioned. In fact, he loves all books at 18 months old. I can’t hold a book without him coming over and taking it away for his own perusal. This includes story time at bedtime. Most nights, I don’t actually get a word read because he’s turning the pages so fast! Continue reading »

A Caldecott Celebration by Leonard Marcus

In A Caldecott Celebration: Six Artists and Their Paths to the Caldecott Medal, Leonard Marcus illustrates the long road six Caldecott illustrators followed to produce to an award-winning book. This book is a combination of biography and art history as it looks at how six artists approached children’s book illustration over the last six decades.

I love the children’s books Marcus highlights, and it was truly fascinating to learn the stories behind them. The books he highlights are these (one for each decade).

• Make Way for Ducklings by Robert McCloskey (1942 Caldecott Medal winner)
• Cinderella by Marcia Brown (1955 winner)
• Where the Wild Things Are by Maurice Sendak (1964 winner)
• Sylvester and the Magic Pebble by William Steig (1970 winner)
• Jumanji by Chris Van Allsburg (1982 winner)
• Tuesday by David Weisner (1992 winner) Continue reading »

The Hobbit by J.R.R. Tolkein

I loved reading The Silmarillion by J.R.R. Tolkein (thoughts here), mostly for its beautiful and flowing language, so I thought I’d next pick up The Hobbit, which is a children’s story and takes place chronologically before The Lord of the Rings. Unfortunately, I didn’t like it. I found the story tedious and the writing stilted. Continue reading »

Pat the Bunny and Other Interactive Books for Kids

When I handed Pat the Bunny by Dorothy Kunhardt to my son after I read it to him in the library, he got a really big kid smile on his face and he held it close to him. It’s a small book, just right for little hands. But the pleasure comes from the interaction: my son can pet the fuzzy bunny, he can lift a cloth to play peek-a-boo with the main character, and he can scratch Daddy’s face. According to Wikipedia, Pat the Bunny is the number 6 all-time best-seller for children’s books, even 50 years after first publication. I’m not surprised, because the textures and the activities make this a book perfect for little kids. Continue reading »

Lincoln: A Photobiography by Russell Freedman

I was going to read Team of Rivals: The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln by Doris Kearns Goodwin for the US Presidents Reading Project. But then I started to be intimidated by its 800+ pages; I’m currently reading a 700+ page book and I have been for three months. So, while I do plan on reading Goodwin’s book at some point, I thought I’d start a little easier with President Lincoln by going for some of the children’s books about our 16^th president that have won the Caldecott or Newbery awards or honors.

Lincoln: A Photobiography by Russell Freedman, the Newbery Award winner for 1988, is absolutely fantastic. I learned a lot as I read the short 150 pages about the life Abraham Lincoln, complete with a brief introduction to the political turmoil surrounding him in the 1840s, 1850s and 1860s. I forgot I was reading a children’s book. Continue reading »

Golden Legacy by Leonard Marcus

When, in 1918, a clerk erroneously ordered twelve times the number of children’s books, Western Publishing Company may have faced ruin. Instead, the company persuaded Woolworth’s department stores to sell it, a practice unusual since children’s books were normally only sold during the holiday season.

Years later, in the 1930s, one publishing novice was inspired when his three-year-old tossed a picture book into the bathtub, which destroyed it, of course. He reflected at the time that

given the wear and tear to which children naturally subjected all their belongings, lower-priced books might be greatly appreciated by parents. (p 29)

Such are two very small stories illustrating how (and why) Golden Books roared to life in 1942. In Golden Legacy, Leonard Marcus shows how the development of Golden Books changed the face of children’s book publishing forever because of resourceful people who thought outside the box. For the first time, children’s books were 25 cents, and not $2 or $3. Instead of buying just one book, parents bought twelve. Children had many books at their disposal, and The Poky Little Puppy has since been the best-selling children’s picture book of all time. Continue reading »

Mary Poppins by P.L. Travers

Is there a movie from your childhood that you recall watching over and over and over again? One that you think of, still, with fondness?

For me, that movie was Mary Poppins.

In 2007, I read A.A. Milne’s Winnie-the-Pooh and loved it along with the movie; they both have their merits.

So this year, I thought that I might also come to love the original character of Mary Poppins, originally created by P.L. Travers in the novel Mary Poppins in 1933.

I was horribly disappointed.

Traver’s Mary Poppins was far from the lovingly-stern nanny Disney created. She seemed, basically, mean and unfeeling. The adventures she had with the children were odd, but they lacked the sense of fun that the movie created for me. Because my first exposure was the movie, this review will compare the book and the movie throughout. There are spoilers. Continue reading »

Listen to the Wind by Greg Mortenson and Susan L. Roth

I can finally recommend something related to the Three Cups of Tea story.

Remember how I hated listening to the audiobook of Three Cups of Tea, which felt like a journalistic report despite being called a memoir? My mother loved Three Cups of Tea and thought it was wonderful, so I enlisted her help in writing my post for Rebecca Reads: I shared a Counterpoint post, with each of us writing our thoughts of the book.

Long story short: The issue of my “hating” Three Cups of Tea was revived last week by someone who wasn’t so happy with my very scathing review. Hate, apparently, is too strong a word, considering Greg Mortenson is in the running for the Nobel Peace Prize. (FYI, apparently more than 100 people are nominated each year.) Despite that, I still thought that the character described in the book is not a likeable person: he’s a bit too flighty for me to trust with my money. Besides, the book dragged along with horribly unnecessary details. I had to reiterate to my visitor that I have no intention of rereading Three Cups of Tea, but if the story were completely rewritten I may revisit the issue. (I said, “If Greg’s story is rewritten by a different author in a completely revamped structure, I may consider revisiting it.”)

Well, it has been rewritten. Twice. Continue reading »