Showing posts with label educational. Show all posts
Showing posts with label educational. Show all posts

Sunday, November 6, 2016

Johannes Gutenberg and the Printing Press by Diana Childress


Rating: WORTHY!

This book is a fine example of why print books are refusing to roll over and die in the face of ebooks. There is no ebook that can stand spine to spine with a book like this one! Ebooks are spineless! This one has heft and weight, and is a solid piece of work in more than one way. Convenience is really all ebooks have to offer, so you have to ask yourself, do you feel literary? Well do you, punk? Sorry! Sorry! Got carried away there. But ask yourself this: if you're having someone over for dinner, would you do your grocery shopping at a convenience store?

This book, despite being small, actually feels heavy. It's glossy and feels wonderful to hold in the hand. It's bright and clear, and flawlessly printed and illustrated. None of your crappy Kindle app disjointed images and choppy, mismatched text lurks here. With this book, you can feel its individuality and personality in your hand and display this on a shelf. You own this and you can give it away or bequeath it to a relative. It's a good solid book!

But what of its content? Well that stands up to scrutiny too. It's very well written, simply but not idiotically. It's knowledgeable and full of interesting sidebars with bits and pieces which round out and fill out the overall story. For all of his fame, surprisingly little is known about Gutenberg. By digging around in some very well-kept ancient records, it's possible to piece together a coherent and quite detailed story of what he was up to and how he went about his inventive business making leaps from one technology to another. He was able to see things in a new way and come up with something never before seen, and which had a huge, huge impact on the world.

It's a pity that there isn't more, but what is known is here, rest assured, and as far as budding writers go, I can't think of a better book to read or to give to someone than one which gives us a clear and educational history of how this man set us free and made possible what all we hopeful writers do today. I shall be looking for more books by this author.


Tuesday, November 1, 2016

Moo Knows Numbers by Kerry McQuaide


Rating: WORTHY!

I've been in love with Midge and Moo since I reviewed Lost in the Garden and A Day With Moo back in February 2016. In this one - another in a series of 'adventures', Moo helps children count from one through ten which is really easy route to find if you can just put your finger on it....

The illustrations are, as usual, adorable, and Moo's indispensable presence helps keep thing moo-ving. This is very much his book, starting right with number 1, the one and only Moo! there's color and action, and the pictures look great and the text is readily readable on my smart phone, so it will always be there to entertain your child even if the tablet is left at home. The print book is probably sweet, too, but I haven't seen it. If you're looking for a simple counting book for a young child, you can't do better than this one, especially int he adorability stakes (or steaks, if you want to get technical about Moo...).


Wednesday, October 26, 2016

My Book of Feelings by Tracey Ross


Rating: WORTHY!

Note that this was an advance review copy for which I thank the publisher! Note also not to confuse this one with My Book of Feelings by Desiree Kelley, which is evidently a book of poetry but which I have not read.

Here's a useful book for young children to have. The author explores and discusses what feelings are and how they might feel inside (fluffy or sharp), and what to do about them. I read this in the Adobe Digital Additions on a desktop computer, where it made me feel fluffy, and both on my smart phone and on an iPad. In both of those cases I used Amazon's crappy Kindle app and the book looked awful. My feelings about that were very sharp!

I haven't seen it as a Nook book, but my gut feeling about that is that it would be a lot better than what Kindle can do. But in absence of any real knowledge of that, I'd recommend buying this one as a print book to be safe. This kind of book is definitely not designed with the e-world in mind; they're designed for print, let's face it, and because of certain features in this particular one, a print book seems like the best way to go even if it's more expensive. Read on for more details!

The author begins by discussing what kinds of feelings you might have, and explains how you might get to feel that way. She also discusses the fact that you might have these feelings and not quite know why, or that you might have several mixed feelings. She then goes on to talk about what you might do to let feelings out in non-harmful ways. There's also lots of space to write down your own feelings and draw yourself experiencing them! That might be a bit hard on a tablet computer (unless your kid is unsupervised and has access to a Sharpie...), but in a print book it would be useful, and might even help a child to deal with those sharp feelings, too! I loved this book. It's a great idea, a useful tool, and is really good to look at except on the Kindle app!


Monday, October 24, 2016

Abigail the Whale by Davide Cali


Rating: WORTHY!

This was a wonderful book which takes a positive-thinking approach to bullying. You can't control what other people do (although you can influence it for better or for worse!), but you can control how you see what they do and how you let it affect you.

Abigail is overweight and she loves swimming, and there, at the crux of these two contentions, is her problem: people make fun of her at the pool, and call her Abigail the Whale. She makes a big splash and it's not seen in a positive light by her classmates. I was tempted to wonder why the teacher didn't berate her classmates for their bullying and their mean 'fun-making', especially given that he's the one who turns around and introduces her to positive thinking, but I doubt young kids will be quite that analytical! It would have been nice had he said something to the other kids, though.

But this is about Abigail's problem, not the teacher's, and Abigail is smart and considers this new addition to her armory seriously. Once she tries it out and finds that it works, she embraces it whole-heartedly and starts to enjoy life again, and not just at the pool. I liked the way this book offered something for the child to do, and a way to think positively about herself. It's very simplified here, but maybe this will sow a seed or two which will grow, flourish, and blossom strongly later in children's lives. I love the illustrations by Sonja Bougaeva, and the book's overall tone.


I Am Josephine (and I Am a Living Thing) by Jan Thornhill


Rating: WORTHY!

Note that this was an advance review copy for which I thank the publisher.

"Inspired by science and nature writer Jan Thornhill's many classroom visits, this book is intended to help children recognize themselves as part of the natural world, with an emphasis on how all living things share similarities."

This was a great book which teaches a little taxonomy along with exhibiting a fun young girl who is the very embodiment of life. Josephine compares and contrasts herself with everything around her. Is she like this or different from that? In her comparisons and contrasts, we learn that she's a living thing (and definitely full of life!), and an animal, and a mammal, and a human being. We also learn what some other animals and plants are, as she skips and dances through her colorful world examining everything. The book is a joy to read and a delight to look at, and is educational to boot, with some interaction where young kids can search and count. All in all it's a great little book and I liked it very much.


Monday, October 17, 2016

Star Light Star Bright by Anna Prokos


Rating: WORTHY!

Note that this was an advance review copy for which I thank the publisher!

Illustrated nicely by Dave Clegg, this is one of an educational series for young kids. This particular volume is about planets in the solar system. Others in the series are about dinosaurs, Antarctica, volcanoes, seeds, and your own back yard!

Jackson and Wyatt wish upon a star, and find themselves in a cozy spacecraft with their dog pal and a license to explore the solar system. Starting with the baking heat of Mercury, they fly ever outwards, growing ever more chill, but learning some fun facts about each planet as they go. But don't worry, they return safely and get to bed on time!

The story is simple and straight forward, with brief interesting facts about each planet, snappy enough to command attention without overloading young brains. It's got adventure and a tiny bit of danger, and is a worthwhile read for young kinds to learn about how fascinating and alien our solar system is. There's a little index at the back, along with suggested further reading, and a short fact file. Great illustrations bring the planets home to young minds and hopefully stimulate a bit of a scientific interest for later in life.


A Gefilte Fishy Tale by Allison and Wayne Marks


Rating: WORTHY!

This might sound weird (then anyone who knows me will know this is par for the course), but a couple of days ago the term 'gefilte fish' was going through my brain. I know not from whence it came. Not on that day, but a few years back, I saw a greeting card in a store that featured 'gefilte fish' as part of a nonsense good wishes recital and I blame that for originally fixating it in my brain where it's been lodged comfortably ever since.

I know at some point - and assuming I live long enough - that it's going to come out in a story. All this, anyway, to indicate why I thought it was a good idea to read this young children's book beautifully illustrated by Renée Andriani, and rhymed to perfection by the Marks brothers, er, husband wife team! Although frankly, it might have been written by the Marx Brothers.

Bubba Judy buys a jar of gefilte fish, and all is well until they get it home and find they cannot get it open. This also turns out to be jar for the course as they resort to an assortment of friends to help undo it, and all of them fail. What's to become of it? Well you'll have an interesting time finding out. In addition to the story, you get recipe for gefilte fish mini muffins, which frankly sounds disgusting to me, but maybe they're nice. There's also an original song by Wayne Marks, Margie Blumberg, and Gavin Whelehan, and a very welcome glossary for the Yiddish-challenged, which includes me most of the time, although fans of Mel Brooks movies might recognize some of these words. I recommend this one for a fun read for kids and an educational experience!


Wednesday, September 7, 2016

Orangutan by Rita Goldner


Rating: WORTHY!

I really like this book. It's very colorful and well-researched. It's not only telling a plausible and non-anthropomorphized story of a day in the life of a young Orangutan, it's also imparting facts about the life the animal leads. The animal is cute and sure to invoke feelings of kinship and protectiveness, and the story is neither too short nor too long. And what a great name for an author writing about an bright orange animal: Goldner! LOL!

One thing that I particularly liked is that the text, though small, is readily readable because if you put your thumb and forefinger together on top of the text and slide them apart, a plain text-box appears with the same text in a large font. You can also call it up by lightly tapping it twice with a finger. You remove the pop-up box with the same motion. This works for the story and the "Fun Fact" section which is on each page. it works on the iPad and on a smart phone, which is really nice since the text is really small there. Adding a voice reading the text (preferably by the author!) would be an improvement, but I was pleased with this as is. It's a great little book for youngsters and I recommend it.


Tuesday, September 6, 2016

A Dog in the Fog by Tanja Russita


Rating: WORTHY!

This is a cute, catchy little book for young children focused on silly rhymes and oddball situations, and illustrated with line drawings, mostly of animals. The title story is about this odd little dog who is walking on a log by a bog, gets caught in the fog and weirded out by the perception that its body parts are disappearing! I think the last line ought to have been "No head, no paw, no tail, no me," but that's just me! It was fun and I could see how this would make a great bedtime story if you covered your kid with the sheet like a white fog, as various body parts start seeming to disappear.

The second story is about a boy and his fish, and each has a name which is a palindrome of the other: Aron and Nora, which I adored. The third and final story is of an elephant enduring disturbingly rapid weather changes and making a new friend. It was fun, silly, and no doubt entertaining for its intended age group. I recommend it.


Monday, September 5, 2016

Kylie Jean Gymnastics Queen by Marci Peschke


Rating: WORTHY!

This is part of a series about young Kylie Jean, who is a fellow Texan as well as a confident and self-possessed young woman who discovers an interest in Gymnastics while watching the Olympics. She takes a class and meets a new friend - one who is deaf, so she also learns sign language.

It was a fun romp with nicely-done illustrations supporting the chapter book style, by the oddly-named Tuesday Mourning, which sounds like a book title by Jasper Fforde, but is actually a real person. It was nice to see exercise as part of the story as well as bringing in someone who clearly wasn't handicapped despite being deaf. If I have two complaints it is that first of all, Kylie's father was conspicuous by his absence. He's mentioned here and there, but he never really seems to be around.

The other issue is that there were no people of color visible which was not a pleasant thing to experience. Texas is populated by a diversity of peoples including American Indians, Indian Indians, and people of Chinese, Vietnamese, Hispanic, and African ethnicity, yet apart from one illustration which featured an African American family as background decoration, this was an all-Caucasian occasion again.

Despite that I'm prepared to recommend this as a worthy read because it has so much else going for it, and this is a positive review in the dire hope that if the author doesn't embrace diversity next time out, maybe the artist will do so on her behalf? I can't imagine she was explicitly instructed to draw only white folk, yet this is pretty much what she did!


Monday, August 22, 2016

Cedric the Shark Gets Toothache by Kay Carter


Rating: WARTY!

The cover has it right: there is no apostrophe in "Gets", but the interior of the book has the apostrophe throughout. That, coupled with the fact that sharks effectively have their teeth on a conveyor belt and routinely replace old ones which fall out, with brand new ones rolling to the fore, never would actually need a dentist, and the wrong number used when referring to "candy" as "them" on one page meant that this story started out badly in my view. It wasn't a disaster, but I just felt it could have been better written and offered a lot more than it did, and as such I can't recommend it.

Obviously you can’t lecture young kids or go into great detail about tooth decay and so on, but I think there are less simplistic ways you can tell a story like this which will resonate with young children and make a better case. The human body craves fat and sugar from a period in our distant past when such things were hard to come by. Now they're in everything and it’s much harder to direct your kids away from harm while still trying to let them feel that they're not pariahs amongst peers who get treats and drink sodas and so on.

As someone with a sweet-tooth bequeathed to him by rather irresponsible parents, I've fought this all my life, and I would have liked to have seen a more educational and better-nuanced story. I’d like to have seen the point made that copying what everyone else does isn’t necessarily smart, and that while too much candy is definitely harmful, a little bit here and there as a treat or a reward, alongside regular dental visits and routine dental hygiene is not the embodiment of evil!

The story was colorful and definitely made the point that brushing teeth is important, but I think it could have been much improved. That said, this is part of a series, and there are other stories in it which might tell a better tale on thier respective topics.


Sunday, August 7, 2016

Little Tails in the Jungle by Frédéric Brrémaud, Federico Bertolucci


Rating: WORTHY!

Note that this was an advance review copy for which I thank the publisher.

Yes, you read that right - it's tails, not tales! I liked that! I've been largely a fan of the Brrémaud/Bertolucci graphic novel series titled 'Love', a text-free set of stories about life in the wild. I was disappointed with volume three, but I really liked the first two volumes. It makes me happy, therefore, to report another win for them with this volume aimed at educating children about life on various continents.

Chipper and Squizzo are two little animal characters who take trips in their cardboard box airplane (something young children can readily emulate with any old cardboard box you have lying around). This part of the story is line drawings with a splash of monochrome color; it's refreshingly simple and will probably appeal to young readers, especially when its contrasted against the gorgeous full color images of the various animals they encounter.

As usual with this kind of children's book, I'm sorry to report that the animals featured are biased toward mammals, and largely situated on land (we humans are a very class conscious society aren't we, even when it comes down to biological classes!), but I'm happy to report we don't see exclusively those things. There does appear the occasional gastropod, arachnid, and other classes such as fish, bird, and reptile are represented. They writers even get the piranhas situated on the right continent this time - something I complained about in my review of the first volume of Love! Here I'd argue that the 'parrot' Chipper and Squizzo saw was actually a macaw, but that's just me being picky!

But I'm not going to let that get in the way of praising this as a charming and educational book. There's a couple (I'd have liked more) of pages at the end that give some detailed information about some of the animals featured - again heavily biased toward mammals, but it's better than nothing. Overall I recommend this as a worthy read for children.


Wednesday, July 27, 2016

Kid Artists by David Stabler, Doogie Horner


Rating: WORTHY!

Errata:
p114: 'permanent' should be 'permanent'.
"a magazine published an article about him entitled" There was no entitlement here. There was a title: the magazine published an article titled "Keith Haring"!

Note that this was an advance review copy I obtained from Net Galley. Thanks to the publisher for the chance to read it!

What a great idea for a book: talk about the adventurous, mischievous, slightly scary and unusual lives of renowned artists and maybe it will put modern kids' lives into perspective and even inspire some of them to go for it! This is part of a series featuring books on Kid Athletes and on Kid Presidents. I haven't read any of the others, so I can't speak to them, but I'd sure like to see one on Kid Scientists or Kid Engineers. We need a lot more of those than we ever do presidents and athletes.

This one was fine, though. Here we learn of Leonardo da Vinci and the scary shield he painted when he was fourteen, and of Vincent van Gogh who shared Leonardo's love of solitude and nature when he was a kid. We meet the young Beatrix Potter, who had a grisly adventure in Scotland, who kept a coded diary, and who once again, turned her love of nature into her art. Perhaps a love of nature is a defining characteristic, because eccentric Emily Carr shared it, to the chagrin of her sisters, and she got no credit at all for decorative fingernails which are now quite popular! A fellow nature lover was rebel Georgia O'Keeffe, a contemporary of Beatrix Potter. Leah Berliawski not only changed countries but also her name, before she changed her life and became an artist!

The book is replete with such stories: Ted Geisel, Jackson Pollack, Charles Schulz, Yoko Ono, Jean-Michel Basquiat, Claude Monet, Frida Kahlo, Jacob Lawrence, Andy Warhol, Keith Haring, and last but certainly not least: Pablo Diego José Francisco de Paula Juan Nepomuceno María de los Remedios Cipriano de la Santísima Trinidad Ruiz y Picasso! There are interesting stories for each of them, and many of them led lives which were problematic for one reason or another, but none of them let this interfere with their vision and their dedication. The book is inspirational.

The only error I found (short of researching every story for inaccuracies which I'm not about to do!) was the idea that snakes are poisonous? Venomous? yes! But I'm not aware of any snake which, if eaten, will poison you! Not that I've eaten many snakes. Or any for that matter! But that's a common error and shouldn't get in the way of enjoying a book that will, hopefully, encourage many kids to pursue their own vision whether it's in art, literature, or any other field of endeavor. Don't let difficulties wear you down - go for your vision! I recommend this.


Tuesday, July 26, 2016

The STEM Club Goes exploring by Lois Melbourne, Jomike Tejido


Rating: WORTHY!

With some nice artwork by Jomike Tejido, and enthusiastic writing by Lois Melbourne , this story offers a much-needed glimpse into the world of science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM), which are important and useful fields of endeavor and which need smart people, particularly females, who are under-represented in these fields. We are quickly introduced to Betik, Fran (who has ambitions to become a science and technology reporter), Jenny, Jesse, Nixie, Sara, and Winston, who is interested in marine biology.

Fran is narrating this report as the children are taken by a teacher to interview people in various fields and learn about them. They look at software development, medical care, mining, and several other fields. I'm not sure we got the best perspectives on everything, and it felt to me like there ought to have been more emphasis on the environment, and perhaps on robotics (and it would have been nice to have it made clear that software engineering has applications in fields other than game development!), but on the other hand, you have to deliver something which will keep a child's interest, so as long as we have something focusing on STEM, I'm not going to worry too much about the minutiae.

If I had 'complaints' - other than that the traffic lights didn't seem to be working on page 36! Either that or the cab is going through on red and going straight into a head-on collision with a bus! - they would be very minor. There are some enlarged initial caps used here, which are a pale blue and hard to see. On one page I thought the letter was missing until I looked more closely. Also the double pages don't work in the e-version because you see them in sequence, not as a spread like you would in the print version. But other than that, the layout and general looks of the book were great, and I think it's a worthy read. Its heart is certainly in the right place.


Sunday, April 17, 2016

Oxford Portraits Mary Wollstonecraft: Mother of Women's Rights by Miriam Brody


Rating: WORTHY!

I found this walking through the library in the entrance to the children's section, but this is way too dense and involved for young children - unless they're exceptionally precocious readers. It's more of a late middle-grade to young adult read. It details the life of Mary Wollstonecraft, mother of Mary Shelley, who was a pioneer in women's rights at a time when women were held in Biblical-style ownership, giving up all rights to their husband upon marriage. They had no rights to property, no right to vote, and no money. If they were even lucky enough to get a divorce from a bad husband they were out of home and gave up their children, and probably would have been shunned by their parents, too,. for "bringing disgrace" upon the family name.

Wollstonecraft had an at best unhappy, and at worst miserable childhood. Her father was a drunk who squandered the family fortune. her mother was unsupportive, and it became obvious to Wollstonecraft that she was going to have to make her own way in life - something she had no problem with as it happened. She tried to start a school with her two sisters but realized quickly that while she loved her sisters, she could not stand to be in that close of a proximity to them for very long!

She eventually became known for her writing and became famous after she published A Vindication of the Rights of Woman: with Strictures on Political and Moral Subjects in 1792, but her life was never destined to be a completely happy one. She traveled in France during the French revolution and "married" Gilbert Imlay - an American. They were never actually married (she had written strongly against it in Vindication), and they were merely posing as married. He treated her poorly and abandoned her when she became pregnant. She raised her daughter Fanny, alone, but had the help of a servant/nurse whom she hired with her earnings

She traveled in Scandinavia and wrote a series of letters which were also published and won her more fans. It was after her return to England after this that she met (actually, re-met!) the man she would finally feel was her true match: William Godwin. Despite the fact that both of them has written treatises which derided marriage, they married and Wollstonecraft became pregnant with the girl who would grow to be Mary Shelley. But she died a few days after giving birth to Mary at the sadly youthful age of thirty eight.

This biography gives plenty of detail and commentary, and it pulls no punches. It's well researched and includes quotes from letters both written by Wollstonecraft, and written about her. I loved it and recommend it for both adults and young readers - but not too young!


Monday, March 14, 2016

The Tiniest Tumbleweed by Kathy Peach


Rating: WORTHY!

This is a delight. It's a well-written story, charmingly illustrated by Alex Lopez, about a tiny tumbleweed and a tiny sparrow who learn that they don't have to be 'all that' to be everything they really need to be.

Growing up on the diminutive side of the family tree, Tiny Tumbleweed isn't sure she'll ever grow big, and baby sparrow is sure he won't, but they don't give up, they give all and work hard, and soon they're growing and feeling useful. They'll never be as big as their brothers and sisters, but they will be big and they will be useful. The tumbleweed shelters the sparrows, the sparrows distribute the seeds, and it all works for both of them.

This little book was very readable on my phone, and so will undoubtedly work well on a tablet computer or in a print version. The illustrations are fun and compliment the text well, and the colors are bright and appealing. There are several pages of useful text at the end aimed at educational use. These pages don't reveal the scientific names of the species, which is FYI, Passer domesticus for the house sparrow.

There are many species of tumbleweed, including invasive species, and they really don't depend on sparrows to distribute the seeds - hence the 'tumble weed' part of their life cycle - the tumbling is a form of wind dispersal in a way, because the weed is blown by the wind, and the seeds (or propagules) drop off as it rolls. Sparrows really have very little to do with it, but it makes for a nice story, so I'm not going to discredit if for that because birds do play a roll in seed dispersal with many other plants. As it is, this is a great children's story and I recommend it.


Saturday, March 12, 2016

Counting to Ten and Sharing My Easter Eggs by David Chuka


Rating: WORTHY!

Okay, so I lied! Here's another book about Easter. The print version evidently comes with a free coloring book, which is always great whether you're a kid or not. Come on, don't tell me you've never colored a page in a kids book somewhere or other. It's been a while since I did one, so I'll get right on that as soon as I'm done here. Unfortunately there is nothing extra with the ebook, not even an Easter egg.

This is the third of David Chuka's books for kids that I've reviewed. I didn't like I Love my Dog which I reviewed in decmeber of 2015, but I did like I Love Baby Animals which I reviewed in August of that year, so now he's batting a .666, which is an interesting number with Easter on the horizon!

This book is refreshingly diverse, although there are so many people of color that you can scarcely see any pale faces in there, which is overdoing it a bit. The way to set things straight isn't to swing the pendulum way over to the other side, but to stop it in the middle and leave it there, otherwise it's only going to swing right back and hit you in the face! That said, this book was a delight.

Mom has, perhaps unwisely, given this little girl a basket of Easter eggs to share with her friends, but bless her little cotton Easter bunny, she does indeed share them, and counts them out as she goes. There is a math formula for adding sequential numbers:


Sum from 1 to n =  

n(n + 1)

2
but this may be a bit advanced for this audience! Substituting 10 for n above though, gives us 55. FIFTY FIVE EGGS?!!! I want some!

The story pursues her distribution of all of those yummy eggs, with colorful pictures and simple rhymes, encouraging children to read it over and count along. If you have some eggs to hand - plastic, hard boiled, or even small toys or Lego's or something, you can distribute then the same way among your kid's plush teddy bears and other cuddly toys. I think this is a charming way to teach counting. But for goodness sake, don't forget to brush afterwards!


Tuesday, March 1, 2016

The Perfect Shade of Green by Brian Barlics


Rating: WORTHY!

From the same team which brought us Brady Needs a Nightlight, which I favorably reviewed in January 2016, this young childrens poetry/picture book is another charmer.

Illustrated charmingly and very colorfully by Gregory Burgess Jones, this is a poetic story about a chameleon who refuses to change her spots – or…well, you know what I mean – is a delight. Cami is so at ease in her own skin, she feels no need to change to match her surroundings. In real life this would be a disaster, but for a children’s story, this is a fun lesson in how to be yourself and not let others tell you who you are. I wish more teenagers would learn that lesson! Unfortunately for them, this is aimed at a much younger audience.

There are some dangers in trying to write the write children’s story to match your teaching aim. For example, this one risks being identified solely as a story about race or specifically about skin color, but it’s about much more than that: it’s about the whole person, regardless of race or color. Cami strolls around at her own pace and is proud of her green glow, so she doesn’t try to hide it, not by dark or by light, not by day or by night, not by flower or by tree, not by bird or by bee! She had very little respect for the chameleon which tries to match the colors of the rainbow, but she had no problem sporting a pink tutu on her travels. That’s her individual choice, too.

I’m not sure that Cami fully realizes that it’s her individuality that shines out far more than her green skin does, but I don’t doubt she’ll realize it as she grows up, strong as she is. I liked this story and the gentle, easy poetry and I recommend it as a worthy read.


Friday, February 19, 2016

Magical Beasts Jigsaw Book: Four Jigsaws From the Land of Magick


Rating: WORTHY!

There's no author listed for this book. It's a big, heavy, fat, sturdy book which has only four leaves, each of which is very thick and which contains a jigsaw which you can pop out and take your time rebuilding. The puzzles are quite simple, with few (~20 or so), quite large pieces so young children (not too young, mind, the pieces are undoubtedly very tasty!) can have a blast. I would have loved a book like this when I was a kid.

The pieces are brightly colored, and each jigsaw is cut exactly the same way, so that you could even mix up all the pieces and make some wonderfully psychedelic art work. On the back of each jigsaw puzzle page is a bit of a story about magical adventures, so there's reading to be had, too. The new book is rather expensive however, so I'd recommend finding this used somewhere. I recommend it for fun, and let's face it, that's all you really need!



Sunday, February 14, 2016

Stand Up and Whistle by Phyllis Perry


Rating: WORTHY!

This is a very short (less than 90 pages!), well-written and educational story about two young girls who embark upon a quest to save some local wildlife. I had some issues with the story, but overall, I consider it a worthy read for the age group, which is middle grade.

Out to photograph prairie dogs for a school research paper, Jeannie and Mary Joe discover that the place they are photographing is going to be leveled and the prairie dogs (which are of course not dogs, but a form of burrowing ground squirrel related to squirrels and ground hogs) are scheduled to be exterminated. They decide to do something about it. I liked that the author evidently knows what she's talking about when she describes the prairie dogs, so it's very educational in that regard, and also in how to make a an official and grown-up protest about a problem.

This story was realistic in many ways. I would have expected no less given that the author is a resident of Colorado and there was a scandalous business from which this novel is no doubt taken, regarding the wanton slaughtering of prairie dogs, and the building of malls and the shameless, but predictable behavior of degenerate local government officials.

The evidently Nazi-trained City officials of Castle Rock in Colorado aided and abetted the extermination of a large prairie dog colony with poison gas pellets, but it's not only prairie dogs which suffer from this chemical warfare. The annihilation was done in spite of offers to relocate the animals and the city officials lied about it, as though they could not wait to see the animals bleed out.

This story seems to be heavily-based on that real life massacre, but it has a happier ending - although it's not always roses, and so is more realistic than pure fiction in how it plays out. There is also a side story about confidence building in Jeannie's best friend Mary Jo. That came with some baggage as I shall discuss, but I liked that the story showed the girls, particularly Jeannie, the main protagonist, to be thoughtful, smart, capable, and willing to work and research. Jeannie was brave in facing the "bad guys" - the property developers. She was a commendable protagonist.

I think this will be enjoyable for age-appropriate readers, but I have to add as an adult that there were some problems with the story which some kids might pick up on. I know my kids would have. The first is the rather hypocritical stance of the girls, who are not vegetarians (as judged by their consuming sloppy joes!), yet here are fussing and cooing over these cute prairie dogs. it's not just cute mammals which are threatened by humans. I felt the girls were hypocritical in that they give not a thought to the daily and routine slaughter of the cows, pigs, turkeys, chickens and fish that they themselves eat! I'm not going to fuss over this because the story has other virtues, but this kind of thing is worth keeping in mind from a writer's point of view.

Another thing which bothered me was when Jeannie went to protest the poisoning along with some other people, her parents did not accompany her! I felt that was wrong, and implausible. Either that, or it portrayed her parents as callously hands-off. Maybe kids will not notice this, and I know on the one hand it showed that Jeannie was strong and willing to go it alone, which was commendable, but it made her parents look really bad and uncaring, to me. If they'd had some important function they had to attend and could not get away from, then it would have been more realistic than just simply abandoning their daughter to her fate!

One last thing is nothing to do with the author, and everything to do with Big Publishing's longstanding cluelessness when it comes to book covers and illustrations. It's long been my theory that very nearly all book cover designers have no clue what's in the book they are photographing or illustrating for, and this one was a prime example. In the story, it's made quite clear that Mary Jo is overweight, and she's outright described as "fat" at one point. This is commendable, not that she's overweight, but that we're not being fed a trope diet of runway models for characters in a story! So far so good.

There is the trope 'let's ditch the eyeglasses and give you a quick makeover, and you'll be beautiful and popular', which I didn't like at all. I think it's the wrong message to send to young people, and especially to send to young girls, who are already bombarded with those shameless messages from the cosmetic industry. The right message to send is that if you're eating healthily and exercising some, then you're just fine as you are. We should not be sending messages saying you need to be pretty to be worth anything. On this occasion, I was willing to overlook that because it was a minor portion of a story which had other important messages in abundance.

That said, neither the cover nor any of the books interior illustrations gave any indication whatsoever that Mary Jo was even mildly overweight, which was disgraceful. I don't hold this against the author. She had done her job in this story. It was the artists and illustrators who sold out to popular norms. This is why I will never let anyone other than myself publish anything I write!

But that's a personal peeve. Aside from the illustrations, and with a nod to the issues I raised, I think this novel is a worthy read for the readership it's aimed at, and I recommend it.