I was browsing the board book shelf and I found a book that sounds perfect for my 23-month-old: Hands are Not For Hitting by Martine Agassi. And it is perfect. Every few pages, it says “Hands are not for hitting. What are hands for?” and then it illustrates all the things that hands can do: draw, hug,
My son (23 months) loved looking for the mouse hiding on pages of Goodnight, Moon, and that reminded me of searching for Goldbug in Cars and Truck and Things That Go by Richard Scarry, which has all sorts of wacky vehicles, animals, and situations. My son is in a cars and trains phase right now. Beyond that,
Did you realize that there is a consistency error in Goodnight Moon? If this were a movie on IMDB, there’d be a special note of it. Consider this an official note; it was discovered by my one-year-old. How many other one-year-olds have been disturbed by this? It would have been so easy for Clement Hurd
I wrote a “review” of Winnie-the-Pooh and The House at Pooh Corner by A.A. Milne in my pre-book blogging days (reposted on Rebecca Reads here) when I first read A.A. Milne to my son at age 4 months. I reread both books to him again over the last two months, now that he’s almost 2
Late one evening in 1849, art teacher Walter Hartwright walks from his mother’s home in suburban London into the city. He meets a mysterious woman wearing white on his path, and he helps her to the city. The next day, he travels to his new employment in Limmeridge House, the Lake District, to teach the
In Castle Waiting, Linda Medley delightfully tells some new fairy tales. Some of the tales are reminiscent of traditional fairy tales, but most of them are original in some clever way. Castle Waiting is a rundown castle that is a refuge for a small community of outcast creatures. It is a place for acceptance, and
After I finished reading Husain Haddawy’s translation of The Arabian Nights (reviewed here), I still felt unfulfilled. I turned to The Arabian Nights II to get Haddawy’s translation of some of the traditional stories. In the end, I now have a better appreciation for the first volume of stories: those first stories were by far
I am fascinated by Abraham Lincoln, and last month’s reread of Newbery-winner Lincoln: A Photobiography (reviewed here) only reinforced that. Anthologist and “historian of ideas” Joe Wheeler has also been fascinated by Lincoln, and he spent seventeen years studying the fascinating man and collecting stories about him. Abraham Lincoln: A Man of Faith and Courage
In The Eyre Affair by Jasper Fforde, Thursday Next is an agent for SO-27, working in the Literatec division in alternative 1985. Her job is to stop literary thieves from taking original manuscripts. This is a very important job, for people in Thursday’s world are able step in and out of books: if one were
Jane Addams was born shortly before the Civil War to a privileged family in rural Illinois. After graduating from Rockford College, Addams determined to “live with the poor” (page 44). In the coming decades and for the remainder of her life, Addams was an influential leader for Chicago social reform. Beyond her leadership, though, Addams
Like Water for Chocolate by Laura Esquivel is almost a genre by itself. The traditional Mexican recipes are provided in a novel format as it tells the story of Tita, Tita’s overbearing mother, and Tita’s lover, Pedro, who marries her sister. And yet, it’s not a cook book, and I don’t think it’s not an
I always love to pick up a slim volume of poetry, a volume that contains poems all by the same author, because it helps me to pick up on themes, it helps me get to know an author, and it lets me really feel the emotions the author celebrates. Margaret Atwood’s The Door was published
Page [tcb_pagination_current_page] of [tcb_pagination_total_pages]