I feel like this week is a week for books I’ve read that I recognize I need to reread: first Blake, and now Dante. But isn’t that point of reading the classic masterpieces by magnificent writers like Blake and Dante, that you know you miss something magnificent and will enjoy it all the more on
William Blake has always fascinated me as a poet and also as a man. He was quite strange, but his writing is incredible: it’s powerful, it has a message, and yet it sounds so good. That said, I haven’t read much Blake poetry since my years in college and I’m certainly out of practice in
Summer by Edith Wharton (published 1917) is a short novella about a young woman searching for her place. In some places, it’s been cited as Wharton’s most “erotic” work1. Charity Royall does come to her own sexual awakening over the course of a summer, but Wharton writes about Charity’s choices without too much sexual reference.
We loved Jan Thomas’s books a few months ago, so we have been looking for more. My four-year-old loves Rhyming Dust Bunnies. The pages are very simple and easily readable by a young kid because they contain, for the most part, rhyming words. Friends Ed, Ned, Ted, and Bob (who are dust bunnies) are quite silly,
Brownie Groundhog and the February Fox by Susan Blackaby and illustrated by Carmen Segovia (Sterling, January 2011) is partly a Groundhog Day book and partly a most unusual story about a groundhog and a fox becoming friends. When Brownie appears on February 2, she’s welcomed by a deep snow. She’s of course bothered by the residual winter,
Mudkin by Stephen Gammell (Carolrhoda, April 2011) is an clever book about an imaginary friend, in this case, one that comes from playing in the mud. A little girl discovers a mud creature called Mudkin who invites her to his castle where she will be queen. Although there is little text (Mudkin does not speak English but
Perfect Soup by Lisa Moser and illustrated by Ben Mantle (Random House, October 2010) tells the simple story of Murray the mouse that wants to make “perfect soup.” When he finds himself short a carrot, he tries to borrow one from someone else but the farmer wants him to help in order to “earn” the carrot. One thing
Willow and the Snow Day Dance by Denise Brennan-Nelson and illustrated by Cyd Moore (Sleeping Bear Press, November 2010) tells of a bright and pleasant girl who organizes community events to bring people together, including the grouchy Mr. Larch. When Willow dreams about snow, Mr. Larch tells her how to do a snow day dance. When it
In You Will Be My Friend! by Peter Brown (Little, Brown, September 2011), Lucy (a brown bear) has decided that today she will make a new friend. However, as she approaches potential friends with that demand, she finds it much harder than she anticipated. Never fear, Lucy finds friendship when she least expects it. Peter Brown’s illustrations are
I Must Have Bobo! by Ellen Rosenthal and illustrated by Marc Rosenthal (Atheneum, January 2011) tells of a child’s connection with his an imaginary friend stuffed animal! Young Willy wakes up only to find that his dear sock monkey Bobo is missing! He is found, much to Willy’s relief, as the boy cannot get through
This week’s short stories were fantastic. One was hilarious (bet you can guess which one) and two (the Wodehouse and the Hartley) seemed directly related to each other since they were both about writers of fiction. (Unfortunately, the stories I read this week are not in the public domain, so I can’t link to them
When I first picked up Press Here by Herve Tullet (Handprint Books, March 2011), I was unimpressed. It is a book with dots on every page. What’s so creative about that? I scratched my head, wondering why this picture book got such raving reviews. Then I introduced it to my four-year-old. He loved it, and
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