Talking about children's books and films. Useful information for parents.
22 Aug 2011 1 Comment
in Books, books 4+ Tags: circus, Paris, strong girls
CALDECOTT MEDAL WINNER – 1993
by Emily Arnold McCully
New York: G.P. Putnam’s Sons, 1992
Age: 4+
Interests: Paris, circus performers, tightrope walkers, plucky heroines
Next: sequels Starring Mirette and Bellini, and Mirette and Bellini Cross Niagara Falls
22 Aug 2011 Leave a comment
in Books, books 3+ Tags: adventure, boats, ocean, pirates, soccer, treasure
by Melinda Long
illustrated by David Shannon
Orlando: Harcourt, 2003
34 pp.
Age: 3+
Interests: pirates!, ships, ocean, adventure, soccer
Also by this author and illustrator: Pirates Don’t Change Diapers
Also by this illustrator: No, David! (Diaper David series), A Bad Case of Stripes, Alice the Fairy
21 Aug 2011 Leave a comment
in Books
Don’t stop reading to your kids just because they’ve learned to read… an interesting Q & A with Diane Frankenstein, author of Reading Together.
20 Aug 2011 Leave a comment
in Books, Gender Differences, Issues, Television
I just read an interesting article from the New York Times entitled “Boys and Reading: Is There Any Hope?” by novelist Robert Lipsyte.
Strangely enough, the same “mostly true” cliché he cites (that girls will read books about boys but boys won’t read books with female main characters) exists in children’s television as well: girls will watch ‘boy shows’ but boys will not watch ‘girl shows’. But whereas in publishing this theory has led to fewer and fewer ‘boys’ books’, in television the result has been fewer and fewer girl characters.
Why? I think it’s because book publishers are wary about aiming product directly at a gender that doesn’t read so much, so as a result they hedge their bets. They add female characters to the boys books (as the author states) to hopefully entice the legions of girl readers.
In television-land – Hunter S. Thompson’s “long plastic hallway where thieves and pimps run free and good men die like dogs” ¹ – there is no such thing as a “reluctant boy tv-watcher”, so the impulse is instead to reduce the number of girls on all sides, because you can conceivably capture both genders as an audience for your show as long as you don’t scare off the boys with too many alpha females onscreen. So, more often than not, when you have an ensemble cast of 5… 3 will be boys. If there are 3 characters, 2 will be boys. Girls are to be kept in the pert and pretty minority.
But I digress. Interesting article, like I said.
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¹ Sigh. I never get tired of using that quote! Hunter S. Thompson, Generation of Swine: Tales of Shame and Degradation in the ’80s (New York: Summit Books, 1988), p. 43.
19 Aug 2011 Leave a comment
in Books, books 3+ Tags: artists, mice, poetry
by Leo Lionni
New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1967
28 pp.
Age: 3+
Interests: mice, poetry, the artist’s life
Also by this author: Swimmy, Inch by Inch, Alexander and the Wind-up Mouse
19 Aug 2011 Leave a comment
in Books, books 3+ Tags: Armenia, folktales, fox
CALDECOTT MEDAL WINNER – 1972
by Nonny Hogrogian
New York: Simon & Schuster, 1971
28 pp.
Age: 3 +
Interests: folktales, animals, foxes, Armenian folktales
17 Aug 2011 2 Comments
in Books, Quick Lists Tags: mice
Is there any storybook creature who can win our sympathy quicker than the humble mouse? This wee beastie, less objectionable than a rat and more cuddly than an insect, appears in countless stories as a stand-in for the weak and powerless. When a little mouse triumphs over overwhelming adversity, we all cheer.
And yet… the sympathy does not extend to real life, does it? I remember a time many years ago when my days were occupied with writing charming adventures for adorable mice, and my nights were dedicated to exterminating the rather less adorable mice that were running amok in my apartment.
Ah well… let’s just focus on those more charming, storybook rodents for the moment, shall we?
Here are 10 books featuring mice…
1. Frederick, by Leo Lionni
An artist mouse brings sunshine to his brethren during the long, cold winter.
2. The Gruffalo, by Julia Donaldson
Wee mousie outwits many predators, including a ferocious Gruffalo.
3. Amos & Boris, by William Steig
The story of an unusual friendship between a whale and a mouse.
4. Little Mouse’s Big Book of Fears, by Emily Gravett
Little Mouse is afraid of everything. A child’s primer on phobias.
5. The Church Mouse, by Graham Oakley
A church mouse is friends with a peaceable cat; together they foil a thief. First book in the very popular Church Mice series.
1. The Mouse and the Motorcycle, by Beverly Cleary
A mouse befriends a boy and rides about on a toy motorcycle.
2. The School Mouse, by Dick King-Smith
A mouse living in a school decides she’d like to learn how to read too.
3. Stuart Little, by E.B. White
Stuart’s adventures and mishaps in New York City.
4. The Tale of Despereaux: Being the Story of a Mouse, a Princess, Some Soup, and a Spool of Thread, by Kate DiCamillo
The story of a mouse’s quest to rescue a human princess.
A vast witch conspiracy is undone by a very determined little mouse.
11 Aug 2011 2 Comments
in Books, books 2+, Classics Tags: elves, forest, insects, Magic
by Elsa Beskow
first published in Swedish in 1901
English translation by Alison Sage, 1982
Edinburgh: Floris Books, 2001
32 pp.
Age: 2 +
Interests: magic, forest, little people
Also by this author: Tale of the Little Old Woman, Children of the Forest, Aunt Green Aunt Brown and Aunt Lavender More
11 Aug 2011 Leave a comment
in Books, books 2+ Tags: poetry
GREENAWAY MEDAL WINNER – 1980
by Quentin Blake
London: Jonathan Cape, 1980
30 pp.
Age: 2+
Interests: poetry, eccentric characters, footwear
Also by this Author: Clown, All Join In, Mrs. Armitage on Wheels More
11 Aug 2011 Leave a comment
in Books, books 6+ Tags: art, country life, history, puzzles, travel
by Mitsumasa Anno
originally published in Japan in 1977
New York: William Collins, 1978
42 pp.
Age: 6+
Interests: art, history, country life, travel, puzzles
Rarest Kind of Best 