Bookie Woogie

Review #114: The Hobbit

2012-01-26T08:00:00.000-05:00

Dad: What did you think about "The Hobbit"?
Isaac (age 13): "The Hobbit" is one of my favorite books.
Lily (age 8): It's the bestest book ever. Really good. It should win an award.
Isaac: I like it because it feels like it could have really happened thousands of years ago. I like how the author describes everything. It feels like you could go hiking around outside and find those places.
Lily: I like it because it's an adventure story. It's exciting.
Gracie (age 11): I like this book because it was funny. The characters are funny. I like fat old Bombur.
Elijah (age 6): Everyone should read the book because it's cool. The coolest book we've ever read.
Dad: Tell us what the story is about...
Gracie: There's this Bilbo. Bilbo Baggins. And he's a quiet little guy. He's a REALLY little guy. He's a hobbit. Hobbits are baby-sized people with big fuzzy feet.
Isaac: They're not the size of babies.
Gracie: Maybe the size of a baby cow. Bilbo's friend Gandalf -- who he just met -- is a wizard. He's cool, except he always keeps disappearing at the worst times. Gandalf tells Bilbo, "You need to go on an adventure."
Lily: Then a whole bunch of dwarves come. They want Bilbo to go on an adventure to be a burglar to get gold back from the dragon who stole all the gold from the dwarves.
Dad: They had lots of adventures along the way... What was your favorite one?
Isaac: The spiders.
Lily: I like spiders...
Gracie: You like spiders?
Isaac: The group got completely lost in Mirkwood Forest.
Lily: They went off the forest path. They fell asleep and the spiders wrapped them up in their spider webs. They are huuuuuuge spiders.
Isaac: I imagine the spiders to be the size of dining room chairs.
Gracie: Cows. I think they are as big as full grown cows.
Isaac: Yeah! Cows! That big.
Dad: Hmmm, spider-cows.... They could squirt webs from their udders.
Lily: Bilbo Baggins got out of his spider web and saved all the dwarves.
Isaac: He sees the other dwarves wrapped up in the trees, but there were tons of spiders. This is the first time Bilbo can't rely on anyone else. He has to do it himself. He becomes a hero.
Gracie: Normally they would all be like, "The wizard saved us." But Gandalf had disappeared again. So Bilbo was like "I'll have to stand up and save these dwarves, because apparently, they can't save themselves!"
Isaac: It's the first time the dwarves start appreciating him.
Elijah: Bilbo was a warrior. Bilbo killed practically all of the spiders.
Dad: Would you be brave enough to do that?
Elijah: If I was like Bilbo. But I think Bilbo is braver than me.
Dad: What if Dad was wrapped up in a spider web, about to be eaten? Would you come save me?
Elijah: Ummmmmmmmmmmmmmm......
Isaac: You'd better say yes!
Elijah: Yeah, I'd do it.
Dad: Thank-you!
Gracie: What about me?
Elijah: No. I would leave you there.
Gracie: My brother loves me.
Elijah: I'm just kidding.
Dad: Tell us about some of the characters and creatures they all met along the way. How about Elves?
Gracie: Sometimes elves are like solemn warriors. But in this book they were like, "Tra-la-la-la-loodle! Tra-da-doo-da-doodle!" They were jumping around, dancing in the trees, drinking wine.
Dad: How about Goblins?
Isaac: They escaped goblins more than once. Wolves chased everyone up into the trees. Then the goblins came and started setting the trees on fire so they were trapped. Then these eagles came and picked the dwarves and Bilbo up off the trees.
Gracie: The eagles are coming! The eagles are coming!
Dad: How about Dragons?
Elijah: Smaug is the name of a big dragon. He's cool.
Gracie: I like Smaug. Smaug is the bestest. He's my favorite besides Fili and Kili. He's the dragon who guards all the treasure. He's kind of funny and gruesome. He likes to kill things.
Dad: Anyone else?
Lily: My favorite character of the book was Gollum.
Gracie: What - are you serious?
Lily: I like Gollum.
Gracie: You like Gollum? And you like spiders? You're just creepy.
Dad: You didn't like Gollum, Gracie? I thought you loved that chapter.
Gracie: I did. I don't like him. But he makes a good villain. Gollum is yucky. He's evil! He's creepy!!! And he liked to eat people. He became invisible with a magic ring and he ate a baby goblin! A little squeaker!
Dad: That's one less goblin in the world.
Gracie: But it was just a baby squeaker!
Lily: Gollum is really mischievous. He likes riddles.
Gracie: His riddles were tricky. I don't know how Bilbo solved them. But I like people who can tell riddles. So maybe Gollum and I could be friends -- if he wasn't evil, and still had his grandma, and wasn't living down in the caves eating people and little baby squeakers. Then he might be my friend.

Bilbo and Gollum, by Lily

Bilbo and spiders, by Elijah

Smaug, by Gracie

eagles carrying dwarves and Bilbo, by Isaac

Author: J.R.R. Tolkien
Published, 1937: Allen & Unwin
Like it? Here it is

2011 was a great year for books

2012-01-16T08:00:00.006-05:00

Last year we Bookie Woogie'd many of our favorite brand new 2011 releases:

• Blue Chicken • Creepy Monsters Sleepy Monsters • Zita the Space Girl • Rain Brings Frogs • Sidekicks • Wonderstruck • Chuckling Ducklings • Bad Island • The Watcher • Ribbit Rabbit • Back to School Tortoise • All the Way to America • Fairly Fairy Tales • A Pet for Petunia • The Power of Cute • Ollie the Purple Elephant • Animals Home Alone •

Ahhh... if only we had more time for more reviews. Here are a dozen additional 2011 titles that our family loved just as much, and we think you should hunt down as well:

Grandpa Green

Stars

Follow Me

The Last Dragon

The Umbrella

This Plus That

My Name is Elizabeth

Sea of Dreams

Thunder Birds

Say What?

Buglette the Messy Sleeper

Hugs From Pearl

Review #113: Bad Island

2012-01-08T08:00:00.005-05:00

Gracie (age 11): "Bad Island" is a good book about a bad island. And it's a book about a good family with bad kids.
Dad: Hmmm... any resemblance to our family?
Gracie: NOOOOOOOOOOOO!
Lily (age 8): We kids aren't totally bad.
Dad: What was the family like at the beginning of the book?
Lily: They didn't spend much time together. They didn't like to be with each other. They were whining and they were yelling things like, "Don't touch my petunias!" and "I want Pickles!"
Gracie: Oh yeah - Pickles! The little girl in the book is obsessed with animals, and she carries around this dead snake named Pickles.
Dad: Would you carry around a dead snake?
Gracie: I wouldn't carry around a dead snake OR a live snake.
Isaac (age 13): I'd carry around a snake so I could make Gracie kiss it.
Gracie: And I'd bite your eyeball!
Dad: You'd bite Isaac's eyeball?
Gracie: No actually, I wouldn't bite his eyeball. That's just the first words that came out of my mouth.
Dad: So tell us what happens to this family...
Isaac: They go on a boat trip, and they get stuck in a really bad storm. Their boat smashes on this island, so they are trapped.
Lily: In the middle of the sea.
Gracie: It's a bad island that is really creepy. They have to survive.
Isaac: The island has lots of aliens and creatures on it.
Gracie: There are a whole bunch of creepy monsters... which is like, really cool.
Lily: "Creepy" plus "Islands" equals "Cool."
Isaac: Something starts tracking the family...
Gracie: It's a triangle-headed lizard guy.
Elijah (age 6): He's Gumby.
Gracie: He looks just like Gumby -- he's green, he's naked, and he has no buns. Only he's darker green than Gumby, and he's scaly and ugly.
Dad: Evil Gumby.
Gracie: The book switches back and forth between telling you about the time of the bad island and the time of the creepy-alien-space-guys.
Elijah: These big whisker-monster-creatures were fighting these flying-crab-octopuses.
Dad: Elijah, you love monsters. I bet your favorite part of the book was all the creatures.
Elijah: I didn't want you to stop reading, ever. My favorite creatures were probably those guys with the spear-staffs. They say "Mo." Or "Mo-Mo." Or "Mo-Mo-Mo."
Lily: The Mo-Mo's are evil.
Elijah: They look like pancake-pillow-people with horns.
Gracie: They are creepy little Poptart Men.
Isaac: Poptart Men?
Gracie: They remind me of chocolate poptarts with evil brains and spears. Someday I'm going to draw a Mo-Mo eating a poptart.
Dad: How about you, Isaac? Did you have a favorite monster?
Isaac: The Tree Monster is so cool... Its mouth is not on the front of the bark -- it rips out from inside the tree... the tree itself rips open in half to make its mouth. So cool.
Gracie: Creepsters. But the creatures aren't all bad. Not the baby rock creature.
Lily: The baby rock creature was the adorable of the adorables!
Gracie: I would want one for a pet. Then I would have a protector that had grown to love me. The rock monster can't help it if he looks scary when he grows up.
Dad: So you said the family had problems at the start of the book. How about after they went through all the adventures together on the island?
Lily: Then they felt happy with each other and loving toward each other.
Dad: So was it a good thing that they went to the bad island?
Gracie: It was a bad thing, but it happened for a good reason.
Dad: Isaac, you and I have read lots of other graphic novels by this author as well. Is there anything you can think of that is similar from book to book?
Isaac: They're all awesome.
Dad: Yeah, but are there any elements that you would say define Doug TenNapel's books?
Gracie: Tentacles??? His last name is Tentacles!?!
Isaac: "TenNapel."
Dad: Although "Tentacles" would be pretty appropriate for the kinds of books he makes.
Gracie: Because he's an octopus?
Dad: No - because he makes awesome creatures.
Isaac: That's one of the things I like most about his books. They all have really cool creatures and robots and aliens.
Dad: Well, any last words? Anything you want to say to Mr. TenNapel about his new book?
Gracie: Sorry I called you an octopus.

Janie, Pickles, and a Mo-Mo, by Lily

creatures, by Elijah

tree monster, by Isaac

the Bad Island bunch, by Gracie

Author/Illustrator: Doug TenNapel
Published, 2011: Scholastic
Like it? Here it is

Interview #14: Charise Mericle Harper

2011-12-22T08:00:00.001-05:00

Today we are happy to share our recent conversation with author/illustrator Charise Harper (portrait by Gracie). Charise is the creator of a gazillion books, including the "Fashion Kitty" series and the "Just Grace" series which we reviewed last year. She has 5 (yes 5!) new books which came out in just the last 4 months alone. We spoke with Mrs. Harper over Skype about one of these new releases "The Power of Cute." Thanks for taking the time to visit with us, Mrs. Harper!

Dad: Okay guys, tell us about "The Power of Cute."
Isaac (age 13): It's about this baby superhero guy.
Elijah (age 6): He's a little kid wearing a bear hat. He met this big monster. I love monsters. They look cool. The little kid wearing the hat was like "I'm not scared of you because I have a superpower!" Then the monster was like, "Ha, ha, ha, you don't have a super power."
Lily (age 8): The monster said, "Do you have super strength? Are you faster than a speeding train?"
Isaac: The little superhero says, "I've got the power of cute!" So he turned him into a baby monster.
Elijah: The power of cuteness turns monsters into cute people.
Gracie (age 11): After the monster gets shrunken and all cute, the kid takes him -- it doesn't say the kid's name, so I'm just going to call him "Bob" -- Bob takes the monster to a little house. Cute little monster house! There's a bunch of cute little monsters all over the place.
Elijah: They dance!
Gracie: This book has "lift the flaps." So when you lift the lid of the house, it makes the little baby monsters dance.
Isaac: You pull tabs and things happen.
Gracie: There are flaps and spinners. It's cute and interactive and funny. And she is one of my favorite authors and illustrators.
Dad: She's very diverse.
Gracie: Charise Harper does graphic novels, lift the flap books, picture books, fact books, fiction books, chapter books.
Isaac: I thought this book was funny. I'm probably the only teenager who likes this book.
Dad: I don't know... I like it, and I'm an old man.
Isaac: It's good for little sisters and brothers.
Gracie: It's super.

And now, here's our interview with Mrs. Charise Mericle Harper:

Dad: It's nice to meet you!
Charise Harper: Yeah, it's nice to meet you guys too! So you read a lot of books, huh?
Gracie: Oh yeah!
Dad: And we've read a lot of your books lately.
Gracie: All of them.
Isaac: We have all your books spread across the floor right now.
Charise Harper: That's great. So you know all about my brain then, right? It's a strange place.
Gracie: We noticed that in your books you have all these patterns and bright colors. You can't be like, "Here's a table... gonna color it brown." Nope! "Here's a table - it's got stripes on it!"
Charise Harper: Yeah, I can't leave stuff alone. That's the problem.
Isaac: I don't think it's a problem.
Charise Harper: I have to stop myself. When I'm drawing, I want to fill up every little space with something. It's really hard for me to leave white space.
Lily: How did you decide what the monster in "The Power of Cute" was going to look like?
Dad: Did you make a whole bunch of monsters and pick your favorite?
Charise Harper: I didn't. I had one monster that I drew over and over a bunch of times. I knew at the end of the story he had to be cute. So that determined how scary he was going to be at the beginning. I couldn't make him super horribly scary. Because then, even if he was small, he would still be just a small scary monster. But I wanted him to be cute, so even at the beginning he had to have parts of his face that would look cute later on.
Dad: So you work backwards sometimes.
Charise Harper: I worked backwards. And you know how the end of the book has all those other monsters, right? Well, I like to sew stuff, as you know.
Gracie: Oh yeah.
Charise Harper: I really wanted to sew some monsters. So I got some fabric, and made up all the monsters as I was sewing. I sewed them first, and afterwards I drew them into the book.
Gracie: The Power of Cute is a "flap" book. What came first? Did you think, "I want to make a flap book -- what should I make it about?" Or did you think, "I'm going to make a book about this little cute guy -- maybe it should be a flap book."
Charise Harper: That's a really good question. I thought of both of those things together. I wanted to do an interactive book because it's fun to figure out how all those pieces move. I like to do stuff that's fun -- who doesn't! And I did have a character that I had drawn a long, long time ago. After holding things in your brain for a long time, finally the pieces come together.
Isaac: That's a long process. Where did you get the inspiration in the first place? From seeing something? Or from another book?
Charise Harper: You know, I'd forgotten all about this story until just now when you asked that question! I was trying to sell a different book. I made this huge presentation to an editor who does lift the flap books. I always try to make my packages look really interesting... like, wrap them up with string or add little things to make them more colorful. I thought this package needed more color. So I ripped out a comic I had done for a kid's magazine and put it in front of my proposal as a little bonus. It was a one-page comic called "The Power of Cute." When the phone call came, the editor said, "I'm really sorry... I don't think this book idea is right for us." So I was disappointed. Then two weeks went by, and she called me again. She said, "You know that comic you sent me? I taped it to the outside of my door because I really like it. Everybody comes by and they really like it. How would you like to make a book about that comic?" And guess what I said?
Gracie: Yes!
Charise Harper: So that's the easiest book I ever sold! And I sold it by not selling another book.
Gracie: What was the other book you were trying to sell?
Charise Harper: My gosh, do I even remember? It was... a book about feelings. Maybe I'll have to rework that one.
Dad: Just put that in front of the submission for another presentation.
Charise Harper: Exactly! Just piggyback them all the time! There's an idea.
Gracie: In your different books, you have a whole bunch of superpowers.
Isaac: Yeah, in the Power of Cute, the kid can turn things cute. And Fashion Kitty has the Power of Fashion.
Gracie: And "Just Grace" has Empathy Powers.
Charise Harper: I'm obviously drawn to the superpower thing as a reoccurring theme, definitely.
Gracie: But they are all, like, not usual powers. Not like, "we can turn invisible" or "we have the power to fly."
Charise Harper: Right. They are unusual. Unexpected superpowers.
Isaac: Is there a special reason why you pick untypical superpowers to write about?
Charise Harper: I... I don't know. I could probably go to therapy, and they could tell me why I do that. I think I just like unusual things. I like things that are expected, but in unexpected places. Or things that are not expected, but in everyday places. I like that mix of things.
Dad: Do you have an example?
Charise Harper: Like, if somebody made something cool out of a plain old cardboard box. To me, that is as amazing as a fantastic painting. Things that anybody could do, but done in an unexpected way. So none of these superpowers in my books are huge. Maybe somebody could have the power of Fashion. It's just a little power... but it could change everything.
Lily: Do you have a superpower?
Charise Harper: Ha ha ha, no... not yet. I might! But I haven't found it yet.
Gracie: If you could have a not-so-typical superpower, what would you have?
Charise Harper: You guys are asking super hard questions! I think if I could have a power... a not-so-typical superpower... I would like to have the power to... be calm in situations that were emotionally stressful.
Dad: Ahhh.
Charise Harper: So, if someone came up to me and said something really mean... Or if I read a terrible review of my book - which does happen - and they say, "We don't like your book, and we don't think you can draw very well, and I don't even know why you made this book." If someone said that, I'd love the power to be like, "Huh. That's nice. That was their opinion..." and then be okay with it, and not get upset.
Gracie: WHY would somebody say that?!?!?
Charise Harper: People are allowed to say all sorts of things. They have different opinions. But I would like to have the superpower of not getting upset. Calmness.
Dad: So if you would like to get that power, does that mean you do not yet possess that ability currently?
Charise Harper: No, ha ha ha ha! I get kind of wound up. But that would be a nice thing to strive for.
Gracie: While I was reading your last Fashion Kitty book, I noticed it had fewer panels and pictures and has more words. It wasn't as much like a graphic novel. I was wondering why you made a switch?
Charise Harper: Two reasons. The first reason is because it takes a HUGE amount of time to make a graphic novel.
Isaac: You have to make alllll those pictures.
Charise Harper: Yes, and it takes forever to do. I like doing it, but it takes a really long time. Second, when I was looking back, I noticed that the first Fashion Kitty book was the skinniest and has the least amount of words. The second Fashion Kitty book has more words, and the third has even MORE words. So I thought... the first Fashion Kitty book would be pretty easy to read for someone just starting out. And wouldn't it be cool if by the time they got to the fourth Fashion Kitty book, having taken all those steps, they would feel really confident, and they could be reading sections of a book. So if I ever do a fifth Fashion Kitty, I wonder if I could make it into a whole chapter book without comics at all.
Dad: So the series grows with the reader.
Charise Harper: I think that might be kind of fun.
Dad: So the 20th book in the series will be like a big textbook.
Charise Harper: Yeah - like an encyclopedia, he he hah... Or probably by then, there will be technology to just wire the stories into our brain.
Gracie: I hope you don't mind me saying this, but I think I like the graphic novel Fashion Kitty best.
Charise Harper: Can you tell me why?
Gracie: It's not that I have trouble reading, but graphic novels are easier to read. And I like that they have more pictures.
Dad: These kids' favorite books are graphic novels anyway. It may just be the format.
Charise Harper: My daughter is exactly the same as you. Graphic novels are her favorites too.
Dad: When we go to the library, they head straight for the graphic novel section to see if there's anything new there.
Gracie: And unfortunately, the graphic novel section isn't that big.
Charise Harper: So you know what -- you guys asked me if I could have a superpower... Can I tell another one? If I could have a "job" superpower, it would be to draw graphic novels as fast as you guys can read them. That would be the most amazing superpower ever.
Gracie: You could be done with the whole book in an hour!
Charise Harper: I love comics and graphic novels too. They just take a long time to draw.
Dad: Gracie, is Fashion Kitty your favorite of Mrs. Harper's characters?
Gracie: My favorite is Just Grace.
Charise Harper: Because you are Gracie. Perfect.
Gracie: "Just Grace" and I have a lot of similarities. I have empathy powers like her.
Charise Harper: Those are good powers to have. And you are both very creative. She likes to draw.
Gracie: I like to sew too. We also knew that you liked to sew. So this morning I sewed something that I wanted to give to you.
Charise Harper: Oh, my goodness, you made that today?!
Gracie: Yeah.
Dad: She was very hard at work all morning.
Charise Harper: That's fabulous! That is the coolest Fashion Kitty ever!
Gracie: You can tell it's her?
Charise Harper: She's adorable. I can't believe you made that in one day! That is so great.
Gracie: I wanted to send it to you.
Charise Harper: Seriously? You are going to give it up?
Gracie: Yeah! I made it for you!
Charise Harper: I would love to have it! Thank-you. That's so nice of you! It's so good.
Dad: I think we hit all the questions we had prepared. Thanks for chatting with us!
Kids: Yes, thank-you!
Dad: We had fun talking with you!
Charise Harper: It was nice to meet you! Thank-you so much! It was great!

super baby and the big monster, by Elijah

super baby makes a cute monster, by Isaac

showing off the power of cute, by Gracie

cute monsters, by Lily

Author/Illustrator: Charise Mericle Harper
"The Power of Cute" published 2011: Robin Corey Books
Like it? Here it is

Sets of Three

2011-12-06T08:00:00.002-05:00

So far the Z-Kids have discussed 140 books through various reviews and interviews. Just for funsies, here are a few past Bookie Woogie reviews pulled out in themed sets:

3 Poetry Book Reviews:

The Cuckoo's Haiku
A Curious Collection of Cats
The Wonder Book

3 Wordless-Book Reviews:

The Arrival
Shadow
Chalk

3 Metafiction Reviews:

The Three Pigs
The Monster at the End of this Book
A Book

3 Non-Fiction Reviews:

Life-Size Zoo
We Are the Ship
Nugget on the Flight Deck

3 Graphic Novel Reviews:

Rapunzel's Revenge
Sidekicks
Zita the Space Girl

3 Chapter Book Reviews:

The Chronicles of Narnia
The Book of Three
Inkheart

3 Christian Book Reviews:

Adam Raccoon
You Are Special
Tales of the Kingdom

3 Series Reviews:

Elephant and Piggie
The Complete Peanuts
Bone

3 Caldecott Reviews:

Where the Wild Things Are
Black and White
The Invention of Hugo Cabret

3 Newbery Reviews:

Princess Academy
Where the Mountain Meets the Moon
The Black Cauldron

3 Christmas Reviews:

Through the Animals' Eyes
This is the Stable
The Little Drummer Boy

3 Family Book Reviews:

The Baby Sister
Mommy Poems
All the Way to America

3 Food Book Reviews:

How Are You Peeling
You Are What You Eat
Who Needs Donuts

3 Monster Book Reviews:

Monsterlicious
Mostly Monsterly
Jeremy Draws a Monster

3 Most Visited Reviews:

Holes
The Phantom Tollbooth
Chuckling Ducklings

3 Interviews:

Tony DiTerlizzi
Laurie Keller
Adam Rex

3 Audio Snippets:

Does Gracie remember the word Understudy? :

Does Gracie remember the word Parody? :

Isaac wonders why Lily hasn't contributed to the review yet:

(these 3 snippets were all recorded during the Babymouse review)

3 Non-Review Posts:

Lemon Tree
Reflections
Hanging Around

Review #112: Tales of the Kingdom

2011-11-21T08:00:00.004-05:00

Dad: What do you have to say about "Tales of the Kingdom"?
Isaac (age 13): It's a very good "family book." It's a good book for families to read together.
Gracie (age 11): It's for all ages.
Dad: It's one that people will want to read over the course of many days.
Gracie: There are many stories in this book.
Lily (age 8): But they are all about the same persons.
Gracie: "People."
Lily: The stories are kind of like parables of the Bible, only these are about now-a-day persons.
Gracie: "People."
Dad: Tell me what a parable is...
Lily: In the Bible, Jesus uses parables - like the Parable of the Lost Sheep. There was this shepherd who had 100 sheeps...
Gracie: "Sheep."
Lily: But he lost one. So he left the 99 sheeps...
Gracie: "Sheep."
Lily: ...to find the lost one.
Dad: Why did Jesus teach in parables? Was that necessarily a true story about a real shepherd?
Lily: No.
Dad: So what was the point?
Gracie: So we can learn that God cares about all his children. Or "childs." Lily would say "childs."
Dad: So the purpose of listening to a parable is...
Lily: To learn stuff.
Gracie: Learning through a story you can relate to.
Dad: So that was a biblical parable. Now let's talk about "Tales of the Kingdom." The first time we read through this, years ago, we read a chapter every night before bedtime.
Gracie: The second time we read it, you read it in front of our Sunday School class.
Dad: Yep. Every so often I spend some weeks reading through the book before our Bible lessons. I've read through the book 4 or 5 times now in Sunday School over the last 10 years. It's a book I would highly recommend to people looking for quality moral stories with great writing.
Gracie: And the pictures in this book are AMAZING. They have such cool borders and details.
Isaac: The stories are about this kid named Scarboy who lives in the Enchanted City. This evil ruler guy, the Enchanter, hates the sun -- so he makes everyone sleep in the daytime and wake up at night so he can use his fire and magic. Scarboy's parents die, so he's going to become the Enchanter's slave and he has to get branded. So he tries to run away with his little brother.
Gracie: What was the little brother's name?
Dad: Wasn't it "Little Brother"?
Lily: Small Child.
Dad: Little Child?
Isaac: Small Person.
Gracie: Teenie Weenie Little Boy.
Isaac: So Scarboy and his brother run away to this place called Great Park. I bet it's great.
Gracie: Great Park is a place for outcasts.
Lily: It's a good happy place.
Gracie: With trees. Enchanted City didn't have trees.
Lily: The good king is there, and he disguises himself as an old beggar.
Dad: Who is your favorite character in Great Park?
Isaac: Caretaker is awesome. He wears a tree-hat. He has all these cool little pockets and a hat with a tree on top of it.
Gracie: My favorite is Princess Amanda.
Dad: She's my favorite too.
Gracie: Princess Amanda is a girl who wears overalls and sneakers. Scarboy thinks she's crazy.
Lily: But she's not.
Isaac: She can spit with perfect aim. She can knock rocks off of fences.
Dad: We talked earlier about parables. Give me an example of one of the parables in this book.
Isaac: Every year these dragons come and lay eggs in Great Park. And every year the kids have to find the eggs like in an Easter egg hunt and give them to Caretaker.
Lily: They had a sign that said you are not allowed to keep the eggs.
Isaac: But this one year, Princess Amanda kept one. She figured, "What harm could a little tiny baby dragon do?" And she loved it. She never told Caretaker about it.
Lily: She wanted a nice pet. She had a little hideout in a tree-cave. But the dragon got too big for it, and she couldn't hide it there any more.
Isaac: Over a long time it grew bigger and bigger, and finally it got too big for her to control, and it burned down half of Great Park.
Lily: Princess Amanda almost died by the dragon.
Dad: Since these are "lesson stories," does that mean they are lame? Are they boring?
Lily: No - they are awesome! They are very adventurous.
Dad: That dragon one is so exciting. You don't know what is going to happen. And it doesn't wrap up nicely -- Amanda doesn't get out of it perfectly fine, does she?
Gracie: She becomes bitter.
Lily: She becomes evil. She has to go to Mercy because she gets all burned up.
Dad: So what could somebody learn from that parable?
Isaac: You could learn about lying. You might think that one little lie won't hurt. But it can lead to more and more until it gets too big to handle.
Dad: The book never comes out and says, "This teaches you about the dangers of sin..." Do you think it needs to? Do you think kids are smart enough to make the connections?
Gracie: Some kids are smart enough. But some kids are little dummies.

Caretaker, by Isaac

Enchanter's Burner chasing Scarboy, by Lily

Princess Amanda and the dragon, by Gracie

Authors: David and Karen Mains
Illustrator: Jack Stockman
Published, 1983: Lamplighter Publishing
Like it? Here it is

Review #111: Blue Chicken

2011-11-07T08:00:00.003-05:00

Dad: Today we're taking a look at "Blue Chicken" by Deborah Freedman.
Lily (age 8): I wonder if she lives on a farm?
Dad: So, tell us about this book.
Lily: Blue Chicken is about a chicken who wanted to help paint the barn.
Gracie (age 11): Never let a chicken help you paint. Never.
Isaac (age 13): They'll just mess it up.
Gracie: There is a drawing of a farm, and the little animals in the picture come to life.
Lily: The artist wasn't done with her painting yet. The barn hadn't been colored in. Then the chicken comes out of the picture and goes over to the blue paint. Then it splashed, and she got everything blue. Everybody in the painting got blue, all the cows, all the chickens, all the ducks.
Dad: Oh dear.
Lily: So the chicken runs over to a glass of water. She throws a duck, and he plops in the bucket, and the water splashes all over the place, and everybody got washed off, and I love this page. It's awesome.
Gracie: The picture looks so watery.
Isaac: Deborah Freedman is very good at watercolors. There's one page where it looks like actual water ripples. How would you do that?
Gracie: I like that page.
Isaac: (continuing to flip through the pages) And that's a really amazing picture too. See how she can make the water look like it's tipping over and starting to spill out...
Dad: There are so many different handlings of water in this book. She can make water look still, and she can make it look splashy.
Isaac: There's big splashes. And there's also little tiny drips seeping out.
Gracie: Dribbles.
Isaac: And puddles.
Dad: Characters wading in water. Characters swimming in the water.
Lily: And rain water.
Dad: Water is seen inside the full glass. And it looks different than the water seen behind, through the empty glass.
Isaac: Shadows in the water. And reflections in the water. She's really good at this.
Dad: What did you guys like besides all the paintings of water?
Lily: That duckling.
Dad: Ducks are your favorite.
Lily: I'm pretty sure the duck and the chicken are best friends. The duck follows her around. And the duck wasn't angry at the chicken. And he let the chicken throw him into the jar.
Dad: What if you left one of your pictures, and when you came back, more of it was finished?
Gracie: I did that once. One time I drew a picture of a boy running. And I came back later...
Isaac: Ohhhh ho ho...
Gracie: And there was a little monster shooting bullets everywhere, climbing on his shoulder!
Isaac: Ha ha ha hee hee ha ha hah!
Dad: Hmm - why is Isaac laughing so hard I wonder?
Lily: Oh yeah, that was Isaac.
Dad: Are you saying Isaac is a "Blue Chicken"?
Lily: Yes.
Isaac: I was trying to finish the picture.
Dad: Maybe that can be our new code word. Anytime something bad happens to one of our drawings... "You... Blue Chicken!"
Gracie: "Darn you, Blue Chicken, you!"
Dad: Would you like your pictures to come to life?
Lily: If I were going to draw a picture to come alive, I would draw a duck. A trained duck. A duck that is trained to eat warmed-up broccoli. Then we could eat it together.
Dad: You guys know who Deborah Freedman is, right?
Lily: She did "Scribble"!
Gracie: This book is so similar to "Scribble." They each have themes of color. They each have pictures of animals that come to life.
Lily: She takes a similar idea and twists it.
Gracie: She's creative. Who else would have thought of a Blue Chicken?
Lily: I love this book like the dickens. The dickens and the chickens.

blue chicken, by Isaac

chicken splashes duckling, by Lily

splash-off between blue duckling & orange chicken, by Gracie

Author/Illustrator: Deborah Freedman
Published, 2011: Viking
Like it? Here it is

Audio Snippets V

2011-11-02T15:00:00.009-04:00

This is our fifth batch of Audio Snippets... those memorable moments compiled from the recordings we make when reviewing books for Bookie Woogie. I think it will also be the final Audio Snippet post -- in the future, when worthy bits of audio review come along, I'll simply add them to this post here. So feel free to check back to this one from time to time...

If you've watched our video rendition of "Where the Mountain Meets the Moon" and stayed for the credits, then you've heard this first one already. But it's worth another listen!

We had a lot of fun making that video. Even 3-year-old sister Evie wanted to join in:

In the "Goose Girl," the main character can communicate with animals. Mom has a question that she would ask an opossum we saw. Isaac has the possum's possible answer:

Dan Yaccarino?

Here's a clip from our "Ribbit, Rabbit" review. Anyone who wants to create book reviews by interviewing children must be insane. Certifiably insane. Need evidence?

Of course at other times, it can be lots of fun. Gracie gets ready to review "The Complete Peanuts":

During our "Sidekicks" review, we exercised some self-censorship:

"The Watcher" tells about Jane Goodall's life observing chimps. Elijah would like to go back in time to study dinosaurs. Although, he already thinks he knows where baby dinosaurs come from:

Apparently, the whole time our family was reading "The Black Cauldron," Lily thought a "cauldron" was a type of book:

We also read "Wonderstuck." Maybe Lily knows what a "gutter" is:

Toward the end of our Skype interview with Jarrett Krosoczka, he started saying some really nice things about us. While that was going on, more and more of our kids began walking into view. I love the shock in his voice as he notices!

Review #110: Wonderstruck

2011-10-25T15:00:00.004-04:00

Dad: What did you think of "Wonderstruck"?
Isaac (age 13): It was.... wonderful. And striking.
Lily (age 8): Mysterious.
Gracie (age 11): There were a lot of mysteries.
Dad: What is one way this book is like Brian Selznick's other book "The Invention of Hugo Cabret"?
Lily: They are both big!!! Super big!
Gracie: They look like huge thick dictionaries.
Lily: But you can read them really, really fast. They are made out of mostly pictures.
Dad: Who can tell me what the story of "Wonderstruck" is about?
Isaac: You mean "stor-IES." There are two. There is one story with words, and there is one story with pictures. Then at the very end they combine together.
Lily: They cross paths.
Isaac: I'll tell you the story about the boy. I'll tell you the "word" story. There's a boy whose name is Ben. His mom died in a car accident, and he doesn't know his father. He found a bookmark and a locket in his mom's room. They had his father's name and phone number, and that led him on a big search.
Lily: Ben had a bad ear and a good ear, but then he became deaf in both.
Isaac: He had tried calling his dad's phone number, but it was raining and thundering outside...
Gracie: And lightning-ing!
Isaac: What do you think "raining and thundering" means?
Gracie: You didn't say "lightning-ing."
Isaac: There's going to be lightning if there's thunder.
Gracie: Lightning-ing...
Isaac: That's not even a word.
Gracie: Thundering and lightning-ing.
Isaac: Ben was talking on the phone, but then he got electrocuted by the... lightning-ing.
Lily: Lightning goes into his good ear, and he becomes deaf.
Isaac: Then he ran off to New York to find his dad.
Lily: Now I'm going to tell you about the girl's journey. That story is all in pictures. Her name is Rose and she is deaf. She felt like nobody could understand her because she was deaf. She was lonely. She ran away because she didn't like studying. She ran away to a museum.
Gracie: She needed someone to accept her, so she climbed out her window and ran away to New York to find someone to accept her.
Dad: I see some reoccurring themes here. People running away from home...
Gracie: Deaf people...
Dad: We did this same thing when we reviewed "Hugo Cabret." We found themes. Brian Selznick likes to write motifs, doesn't he. What are some of the reoccurring elements in "Wonderstruck"?
Lily: Deafness.
Dad: Stars.
Gracie: Oh yeah, I forgot Ben likes stars.
Isaac: New York City.
Gracie: Wolves. Ben has a special collecting box with wolves on it.
Lily: And there are wolves in his dreams.
Dad: And the museum has a wolf diorama.
Gracie: Collecting things is another theme. In his box Ben collected a bird skeleton, a smooth rock and a lumpy rock, a game piece, a turtle made out of seashells, and a locket.
Dad: Who else collects things?
Gracie: Curators.
Dad: Ooo... good word.
Gracie: A curator is pretty much anyone that collects things. Like a museum curator. But Ben learned that anyone can be a curator. You can collect memories. Curating is just collecting things and organizing them.
Isaac: His mom worked at a library, so she helped collect and organize books.
Dad: And she collected quotes and phrases.
Gracie: AWWW! They never told us what it meant! "We are all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars."
Isaac: Aww!
Gracie: It's a quote Ben's mom had saved, but they never told us what that meant!
Dad: Well, what do you guys think it means?
Gracie: I have no idea!!!
Dad: Ben's mom wanted Ben to figure it out for himself. Maybe the author wants us to figure it out for ourselves too.
Gracie: He never told us what it meant! That's going to drive me crazy!!!
Dad: Let's think about it. Do you know what a "gutter" is?
Lily: A punch... in the gut.
(chuckles from all)
Gracie: It's a thingie on the roof that collects leaves and junk.
Dad: But I don't think there are people in those kind of gutters.
Isaac: There are gutters on the road.
Dad: And who would be laying along the side of the road?
Gracie: A traveling musician. Or a hitchhiker. Or a poor person.
Lily: A poor person would be sitting in the gutter.
Dad: So what does it mean if "we are ALL sitting in the gutter"?
Gracie: We are all poor.
Dad: We all have similar problems. But what makes some people different? It's not that some people don't have any problems...
Lily: Some of them look at the stars. They "hope."
Dad: Remember what Ben did when he found something that came from the stars?
Lily: He made a wish.
Gracie: So it means "we all have things that make us sad, but some of us have hope."

Ben's collection box, by Isaac

Rose escapes out her window, by Gracie

wolf diorama, by Lily

Author/Illustrator: Brian Selznick
Published, 2011: Scholastic
Like it? Here it is

Interview #13: Jarrett J. Krosoczka

2011-10-13T08:00:00.007-04:00

The Z-Kids are excited to bring you another Interview this week! Jarrett J. Krosoczka is the author/illustrator of 10 picture books. He also has 6 volumes (so far) in the "Lunch Lady" graphic novel series. (You may remember we Bookie Woogie'd the first couple of Lunch Lady books here.) After focusing on his graphic novels for a few years, Jarrett is back with a new picture book called "Ollie the Purple Elephant," which hits stores this week. The kids and I recently had a great time chatting over Skype with Jarrett about his work. Thanks Jarrett! (Portrait by Gracie)

Dad: Okay Z-Kids, tell us about "Ollie"
Isaac (age 13): Ollie is about an elephant who sits in a park alone because he's lost and doesn't have a home. The McLaughlin family finds him.
Lily (age 8): Their dad said, "If you ever come across a purple elephant, you may have it." And there sat a purple elephant. So they took him home.
Gracie (age 11): Daddy, will you make us a strange promise?
Dad: If you ever... come across... a cheese-eating gorilla...
Isaac: I'm going to feed a gorilla some cheese tomorrow!
Dad: ...then you may ...give him a kiss on the lips.
Gracie: Oh no. I mean, can we HAVE something?
Dad: If you ever find a cuddly griffin, you may bring it home.
Lily: Yea!!!!
Dad: Now, back to Ollie....
Isaac: Every day the family has dance parties.
Gracie: But the downstairs neighbor and this evil cat don't like it when Ollie dances. He is very, very, very loud.
Isaac: So the cat and the neighbor get rid of Ollie by tricking him and sending him to the circus. But he comes back for a happy ending.
Gracie: I wonder why the cat never got caught? Ollie could have tattled. I guess Ollie is so nice and lovey that he thought, "I'll let it slide."
Dad: How would you describe the illustrations in this book?
Gracie: The illustrations in this one are painted sharp and shapey. His other books are painted looser and more carefree. My favorite picture is of Ollie in a tutu. Because -- a giant purple elephant in a tutu? That just makes everybody smile.
Dad: How else is this book a little different than Jarrett's other picture books?
Lily: The story is longer. It has more words.
Gracie: Plus it has villains and schemes, that sort of stuff.
Dad: Anything else to say?
Gracie: I'm wondering why Jarrett J. Krosoczka -- I love that last name! Krosoczzzzzzkaaaaaa! I'm wondering why he didn't make the lion and the monkey strange colors. Ollie is the only one that is a strange color.
Lily: Maybe Ollie fell into a giant bucket of toxic purple waste.
Dad: How would you sum up the book?
Gracie: It is an ele-fantasy.

And now for the interview!

Jarrett Krosoczka: Hi, guys -- it's nice to see you!
Dad: Jarrett and I have sent notes back and forth over the years. But it's nice to finally be able to chat face to face!
Jarrett Krosoczka: For sure, man, for sure.
Dad: Who has a question to start us off?
Isaac: I've got one. What's your middle name? You always put it as "J."
Gracie: Yeah! Jarret J. Krosoczka.
Jarrett Krosoczka: My middle name is Joseph. It's a family name. It goes back to my great-grandfather, and I'm sure beyond that as well.
Dad: Is there a reason you always include the J on your books?
Jarrett Krosoczka: My grandfather was Joseph D. Krosocska. He always went by "JDK," and he would always call me "JJK." So it's a tribute to him more than anything else.
Gracie: You dedicated your first book to your grandparents, the best parents you ever had. I was wondering about that.
Jarrett Krosoczka: My grandparents raised me. They adopted me when I was about 3 years old. So they WERE my parents. It was only fair to dedicate the first book to them, because they worked really hard on raising me.
Gracie: We were looking through your books -- and we couldn't find any books dedicated to your wife! At all! I was like, What?
Jarrett Krosoczka: Didn't you read the first 2 Lunch Lady books?
Gracie: We didn't check those. We were just looking at your picture books.
Jarrett Krosoczka: I didn't know her back when I made the other picture books.
Gracie: Oh.
Jarrett Krosoczka: But did you read "Punk Farm on Tour"?
Isaac: We did. Yep.
Jarrett Krosoczka: You can see my wife in the scene where Farmer Joe is flying home on an airplane. I started painting that book when we started dating. And by the time I was finishing up the art for that book it was pretty clear she was going to end up being my wife, so I painted her on the airplane.
Isaac: Which person is she?
Dad: I'm assuming she's not the one with the fuzzy goatee.
Jarrett Krosoczka: No, ha ha... She's the one listening to the ipod.
Gracie: Cool! Your Ollie book is dedicated to your little girl Zoe. And in the book there's a monkey named Zoe.
Jarrett Krosoczka: Yes, but I came up with the idea for Ollie before my daughter was born. I named the monkey that before I even knew I would end up with a Zoe.
Lily: Is Zoe old enough to like Ollie yet? Did she help you? Or watch you work?
Jarrett Krosoczka: Yes to all of the above. I came up with the idea for Ollie when my wife and I were on the flight home from our honeymoon. I started writing the book shortly after. I was designing the characters when Zoe was in her mother's belly. And just as my wife was about to give birth, my publisher picked up the story. So Zoe has known these characters her entire life. She's seen me painting the characters for the book in my studio. And I painted the baby room with Ollie and all the other characters from the story, so she's woken up every day to see them in her room. She doesn't really understand that it's a new story. She thinks Ollie was always here!
Gracie: We watched the painting demonstration video on your website. I was wondering why you go to all the trouble of painting the background a solid color when you are just going to paint over it?

Jarrett Krosoczka: I like to paint off of a color instead of the white of the page. It's a technique I learned in art school. We had to copy famous paintings, and I copied one by Greco and one by John Singer Sargent. They would put down a ground color before they put down the colors for the painting. So I do that too because that will improve all the colors I put on top. It will make them stronger.
Gracie: Did you paint that way in Ollie?
Jarrett Krosoczka: I did. I put down burnt sienna before I painted the purples and other colors in the Ollie book.
Isaac: The paintings are really good. They are a lot sharper than some of your other books, and the paint is not as thick. I think it looks nice like that.
Jarrett Krosoczka: Thank-you. Ollie is a little different. It's not as painterly as my other books. The colors are flatter -- I was more focused on shapes and designs.
Dad: Was there a reason for that?
Jarrett Krosoczka: Going back to picture books after a short break from them, I wanted to push myself with something different. I wanted to challenge myself.
Gracie: When you paint, do you have to wait for all those colors to dry? Because you do layers and layers and layers over and over on top of each other.
Dad: We didn't know if you edited out the time in between each color in that demo.
Jarrett Krosoczka: Sometimes I paint wet on wet. But more often than not, I'll make sure the paint is dry first. I keep a hairdryer next to my desk. I can blow the hot air onto the paint and that will make it dry more quickly.
Isaac: Which takes longer? Making a picture book like Ollie or making a Lunch Lady graphic novel?
Dad: We were trying to guess over here, but everyone had different ideas.
Jarrett Krosoczka: The answer is both. Lunch Lady poses a challenge because the stories are longer. But, I know the art is going to be black and white line drawings, colored in with yellow on the computer. Sometimes the most difficult decision for an artist is what colors you are going to use. So with Ollie, I would just sit there and look at the page, going back and forth on what color to use. The scene where the characters are dancing in the kitchen - I painted that same picture over again and again and again. That can take a long time.
Gracie: It's easier with just yellow.
Jarrett Krosoczka: Exactly. You already know what it's going to be.
Gracie: Do you ever get sick of the color yellow?
Jarrett Krosoczka: I don't get sick of it. Now that I'm doing picture books again, it IS really fun to go back to a full palette and chose any color I want. But then again, after the challenge of trying to figure out what colors to use, it is also pretty exciting to go back to just the yellow too.
Dad: (to the kids) Do you guys ever have trouble with worrying about colors while making pictures?
Gracie: No.
Dad: Because I do. Is that more of an adult problem?
Gracie: I don't have that problem with my pictures.
Isaac: I don't either.
Jarrett Krosoczka: They haven't grown up to be cripplingly insecure like we have yet.
Dad: Any last questions about Ollie?
Isaac: How did that elephant fit through the apartment door?
Jarrett Krosoczka: That's a good question! You know what's awesome about making books? You can get away with not explaining those things.
Gracie: He ha ha hah HA!
Jarrett Krosoczka: If this were a movie set, there would be 20 people having a discussion about how he could fit through the door, and they'd have to answer that question. But with books, you just make things up and you can get away it.
Dad: Of course Isaac has no problems with the talking cat or the dancing elephant... No, it's... "I can't believe he'd fit through the door!"
Jarrett Krosoczka: Ha ha ha ha... I love it. I imagine they would just get shoehorns on either side of him to squeeze him in.
Dad: I know Gracie has one other question for you - It's not Ollie related, but it ties into one of our obsessions right now...
Gracie: Oh yeah. A couple months ago, we watched Exit Through the Gift Shop...
Jarrett Krosoczka: Cool -- I love that movie...
Gracie: And I got totally obsessed with street art. And we saw in Punk Farm that you had some Shepherd Fairey art. In the animal's dressing room you had an "obey" thingie, and one of the characters wore an "obey" hat. Do you like Shepherd Fairey or something?
Jarrett Krosoczka: I've always been a fan of Shepherd Fairey's work. I was able to reference his Obey Giant campaign in Punk Farm. I also made these stickers to pass out at book signings -- but instead of saying "obey," it said "oink." I did that before I ever got to meet Shepherd...
Gracie: GAAAAAAASP!
Jarrett Krosoczka: ... I've since gotten to meet him and befriend him. I gave him a bunch of those stickers, and it was really cool.
Gracie: YOU GOT TO MEET HIM?!
Jarrett Krosoczka: I did.
Gracie: Does he know Banksy?!
Jarrett Krosoczka: I believe they do know each other.
(Gracie sits with giant eyes and gaping mouth)
Dad: Ha ha ha ha.... I think the kids' level of admiration for you has skyrocketed now.
Jarrett Krosoczka: I've also been to his art studio in Los Angeles. It's really, really cool.
Gracie: Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh....
Dad: We're odd. What other 11 year old in the world knows who Shepherd Fairey is?
Jarrett Krosoczka: That's pretty awesome. You guys get huge cool-points for that. And also for that really cool project you guys did! I saw that project where you made happy little rocks and put them all over your town. That's super cool.
Lily: We're going to do that again soon - this time with sticks!
(Side note: as Jarrett talks, more and more siblings begin wandering into our room...)
Jarrett Krosoczka: I think you guys are doing the coolest things out there. And you guys have the best dad to help foster your creativity. I love logging on to your website and seeing the art that you guys make - it's just the best. -- How many kids---?!? Do you have more kids over there than when we started???
(Laughter by all)
Lily: Six! There are six of us!
Gracie: We've been multiplying during the conversation.
Jarrett Krosoczka: Now there's another kid crawling on the couch... Now there's a baby on Aaron's head...!
Lily: Hee hee hee heeee!
Dad: At last count there were six of them.
Jarrett Krosoczka: Someone has to keep all that content on your blog going. You guys have to get more kids.
Dad: We are building up our backup.
(By this point the girls are bouncing all over the place)
Jarrett Krosoczka: Ha ha! I like how Isaac stays perfectly still... There's a storm swirling all around him, and he just stays still. He just sits there and waits it out.
Dad: Ha ha ha... That's what our life looks like most of the time! Isaac is our solid rock. Everything else is a whirlwind around us.
Kids: Thank-you for the interview!
Dad: Yes! We had a lot of fun!
Jarrett Krosoczka: Thank-you guys! See you soon!

dance party/hole in the floor, by Lily

stuck in the door, by Isaac

Ollie in a tutu, by Gracie

Author/Illustrator: Jarret J. Krosoczka
Published, 2011: Knopf
Like it? Here it is

Review #109: The Black Cauldron

2011-10-02T08:00:00.007-04:00

We have another video review for you today!

Earlier this year we reviewed "The Book of Three" by Lloyd Alexander. Afterward, our family continued reading through the rest of the Prydain Chronicles. The second book in the series, "The Black Cauldron," was a Newbery Honor... so we figured we'd work up another submission for the 90-Second Newbery Film Festival...

This time, the review is a solo effort by Lily! She summarized the book all on her own and later did all the pictures. The movie does run over 90 seconds, but I didn't have the heart to cut a single precious second from it.

Here's Lily's take on "The Black Cauldron" -- enjoy! And feel free to share :)

Author: Lloyd Alexander
Published, 1965: Henry Holt
Like them? Here they are

Interview #12: Kelly Murphy

2011-09-22T08:00:00.002-04:00

Last week we were delighted to have a conversation over Skype with illustrator Kelly Murphy! Kelly has created art for many books that we've enjoyed over the years, including "Hush Little Dragon" (one of our early reviews). We are so happy that she took the time to visit with us -- we had a great time talking art and monsters... two of our favorite things!

Above, Gracie has drawn Kelly Murphy for us, joined by a couple of her furry friends whom we also met. More about that soon! But first a review:

Dad: Here is the new book that Kelly Murphy illustrated...
Lily (age 8): Creepy Monsters, Sleepy Monsters!
Dad: What is it about?
Lily: It's about monsters.
Isaac (age 13): Hundreds of different monsters.
Lily: There are these little pig-things flying around in almost every page.
Gracie (age 11): Not pigs. Little floaty-marshmallow blobs.
Elijah (age 5): The monsters are all awesome and weird.
Gracie: There's a guy with three eyes. And a guy with eyes on stalks. Guys with beards and eyelashes.
Isaac: Bearded Weirdie! I like the Bearded Weirdie!
Gracie: Kelly Murphy is very imaginative. Who else in the world would think of that. Or even that.
Dad: Tell everybody what you are pointing at.
Gracie: A little chicken dude! This little weird chicken guy with hair.
Isaac: Where's the Bearded Weirdie? Bearded Weirdie! Bearded Weirdie!
Gracie: And the swing set -- even the swing set is a monster.
Evangeline (age 3): That bag is a monster bag.
Lily: And their bathtub is made out of a monster.
Isaac: I'd hate to be that bathtub guy. It wouldn't be fun.
Gracie: Because a bunch of naked monsters would be jumping around inside you.
Isaac: Exactly.
Dad: What kinds of things do the monsters do in this book?
Gracie: They are things that all real kids do too.
Lily: But with a monsterly twist.
Gracie: Because monsters are awesomer. I'm kind of sad... I'm not as awesome as a monster.
Lily: But they eat worms.
Evangeline: And bugs. I don't like bug salad.
Gracie: I wonder if she named any of these monsters?
Isaac: What should the Bearded Weirdie's name be?
Dad: I think you just gave him a name.
Isaac: It would be really fun to draw this book.
Dad: I've always thought there's no greater illustration assignment than getting to draw monsters. I doubt there were many rules with this book - they probably just let Kelly Murphy go crazy.
Elijah: Drawing monsters is fun because you can make any kind of monster you want. The first time I made a monster, it came out really cool. So then I turned into the King-of-Making-Monsters.
Dad: Anything else you want to say about the illustrations?
Isaac: The pictures are at cool angles. Some are far away, some are close up. There are cool perspectives.
Dad: The author of this book, Jane Yolen, is very well-known. Last year she came out with her 300th book.
Isaac: 300th!!!
Dad: Yeah! Isn't that nuts! I don't know how long she's been making books, but let's say it's 60 years. She'd have to come out with 5 books a year, every year, for 6o years to hit 300.
Gracie: Jane Yolen did all those dinosaur books. Like, "How Do Dinosaurs Say Goodnight." I love those books.
Dad: How do you think Kelly Murphy felt when she found out she was going to illustrate a Jane Yolen book?
Gracie: "Oh... My... Pickles! This is going to be radical!"
Dad: I bet those were her exact words.
Gracie: Hey, this could be Jane Yolen's next book series! Just like she had "How Do Dinosaurs Go to School"... there could be "How Monsters Go to School" and stuff.
Elijah: I wish I could read this book again right now. I'm going to read this book forever.

Later that day, we fired up Skype and had ourselves a little conversation with Kelly Murphy!

Kelly Murphy: Here we go... da-ta-da!
Dad: Thank-you for taking time to talk with us!
Gracie: Yeah, thank-you!
Kelly Murphy: This is an honor and a privilege. I really enjoy reading your reviews and seeing everybody's drawings.
Dad: Do you have a question to start us off, Gracie?
Gracie: Yeah. What's your cat's name?
Kelly Murphy: Oh, can you see her?
Gracie: She is crawling behind you while you are talking!
Kelly Murphy: This is Mama.
Lily: Hi Mama!
Gracie: She's so pretty.
Kelly Murphy: She's a bit of a pain because she likes to walk on anything that I'm working on. She's ruined a few paintings before.
Gracie: Uh-oh!
Kelly Murphy: And I have a very bizarre looking dog too. (Holds up bizarre looking dog)
Gracie: Oh! She's so cute! What's her name?
Kelly Murphy: This is... Lily!
Lily: (Gasp)
Kelly Murphy: Lily, meet Lily!
Gracie: They are practically twins!
Kelly Murphy: You have a really big family, right?
Lily: We have 6 kids.
Kelly Murphy: You just need one more, and you can be Murphy-size. I'm one of 7 kids.
Dad: Really, wow!
Kelly Murphy: I was the baby.
Lily: We have a baby.
Kelly Murphy: I hope you treat her nice.
Gracie: Most of us do.
Kelly Murphy: Sometimes my brothers would pick on me... I'd be drawing a unicorn, and then all of a sudden they'd be putting smell lines coming from it, or they'd be putting arrows through it. So I'd start crying.
Dad: Poor little sister!
Gracie: Isaac is the big brother who picks on us.
Isaac: What did I do?
Lily: You know that little cat head I made... you drew a big muscle body on it.
Dad: Actually, that was me.
Lily: Aaaaahrp!
All: Ha hah ha...
Dad: Who has a real question for Kelly Murphy?
Isaac: When did you start illustrating?
Kelly Murphy: Professionally, I would say 1999. You guys might not have even been born then. Ha ha...
Dad: Isaac was born in '98. So he was around.
Kelly Murphy: That's when I professionally started. But ever since I could hold a pencil, I've liked to draw pictures. Always. It's my happy place.
Elijah: Did you start making monsters when you were 5 like me?
Kelly Murphy: Not exactly like the kind of monsters that are in this book. But I drew mythological-creature monsters. Like centaurs. I used to read a lot of those kind of stories.
Gracie: Elijah really, really likes monsters. He draws the coolest monsters ever.
Kelly Murphy: I see kids' drawings and they are so much more imaginative than mine. Kids are confident. Kids aren't saying, "maybe I should get a reference for this before I draw it." You guys just draw it instinctually, and it comes out so unique and perfect.
Lily: Where do you get the ideas for all your monsters? Do they just pop into your head?
Kelly Murphy: Creating the monsters was almost entirely imaginative, but then it was a fun challenge bringing them back into the observed world, so that we as humans could identify with them. I also tried to remember the things and shapes that I liked when I was little. Do you notice that all the monsters have big googly eyes?
Gracie: Yeah! We were talking about that.
Kelly Murphy: A lot of my characters have big googly eyes because that's how I drew when I was little. Here's another thing I did for this book so that my characters wouldn't all look the same... I drew a bunch of different squiggles and shapes on a piece of paper. Then based from those squiggles, I'd start to put on eyes and legs and mouths... then I could make sure each of my monsters was a little different from the other ones.
Dad: Almost like playing a game for inspiration.
Lily: We do that sometimes. Dad draws a little squiggle and then we make them into monsters.
Dad: We play that game at-- well, should I say this? We play that game at church sometimes.
Kelly Murphy: Ha ha! Uh oh! It's so much fun though.
Dad: Sometimes we need to keep the little ones quiet. So on the back of the bulletin I'll draw a whole mess of shapes, and they'll turn them into things.
Kelly Murphy: Super fun!
Dad: Now the whole world is going to know that we doodle during church.
Kelly Murphy: As long as you keep your ears open, you're solid.
Gracie: I take "picture" notes during church.
Dad: She records the sermon message in pictures instead of words. It's amazing how much more she retains that way.
Kelly Murphy: In school I was always doing little drawings of things the teacher was saying.
Dad: Who has another question?
Gracie: How did you feel when you found out you were getting to illustrate a book by someone so famous? Jane Yolen has 300 books!
Kelly Murphy: I know! I was like, Holy Cow! I was excited but overwhelmed too. Jane Yolen has worked with amazing illustrators before. So I wanted to make sure that the caliber of work I was dedicating to the book was high. I was really excited once I got to actually see the story. If you noticed, the words are pretty minimal. So that meant... (Gasp) I can do almost anything I want! Which is a dream for an illustrator!
Dad: Especially with monsters on top of that!
Kelly Murphy: Yes, it's even monsters! The whole story was so open. It's just talking about the monsters' day and the noises they're making. But it didn't talk about where they lived or what they ate for dinner. So I really went back to what it was like when I was little.
Dad: Is that challenging or is it fun?
Kelly Murphy: It was fun. I'm a teacher now for college students, and sometimes when I give open projects they say, "I don't know what to do!" And my advice is to go back to what you know, what you love. That way you'll have good ideas.
Lily: Do you like teaching or does it take up your time from illustrating?
Kelly Murphy: I love teaching. When I'm illustrating - in busy, busy months - sometimes I don't leave the house for 5 days straight. I go out to the mailbox. I look out the window. But other than that, I'm working. Teaching allows me to get out of my studio and talk. Not just talking to a grocer or someone at the post office. I'm talking to students that love making art as much as I do. That fuels me, which then fuels them. It's a lot of fun.
Gracie: We were looking at all of your books, and we noticed that you make a lot of shadows and night scenes in your pictures. Is there a reason for that? Do you do that on purpose?
Kelly Murphy: You guys are super observant! Whenever I talk about certain illustrators or see certain pictures, I get instant goosebumps. So when I was a student in art school, I had to really look inside myself to figure out what kind of pictures I liked. Then I had to figure out how to make those things a part of my own artwork. And the pictures I'd always liked were nighttime pictures or pictures that had soft light. They were simple paintings with analogous colors -- and it sets a mood. And mood is so important in the pictures I make -- I try to make sure that every one of my books creates a mood or a feeling.
Dad: We definitely noticed that.
Isaac: How do you do that? Sometimes a picture is all blueish, and even when yellow and red are in there they seem blueish.
Kelly Murphy: I wasn't always able to paint that way. In school my painting was a big messy rainbow. But the way I paint now makes me able to create these moods and atmospheres. The first step is to separate my picture into darks and lights. The blue you are seeing is a tonal wash. I get those darks and lights first with blues and whites... Or for a brownish picture I use browns and whites. Then I put the color over that with a slow layering effect to build those colors up.
Gracie: You do picture books, and you also do chapter books like the Beastologist books -- and I LOVE the Beastologist books!
Kelly Murphy: Yea!
Gracie: What are the different challenges between picture books and chapter books? Which do you like more?
Kelly Murphy: It depends on when you talk to me. If I've just finished a picture book, then I don't like picture books very much.
Gracie: Ha ha!
Kelly Murphy: They take me soooo long. Just the paintings on "Monsters" took me 6 months, painting every day. I do like picture books because they allow me to do color. But I guess I like the chapter novels better. They are usually for older kids, so you can do more sophisticated things. I'm working on a book now called "Behind the Bookcase," and this thing is really weird! It's such a strange story. A girl goes behind a secret bookcase in her grandmother's house, and it leads into the land where shadows are born. Crazy stuff happens from there. There's some creepy imagery in it.
Lily: Do you like creepy things?
Kelly Murphy: Oh, I love creepy things.
Dad: We wondered... We've seen some of your personal work on your website...
Gracie: Shadows and monsters and dragons.
Kelly Murphy: Spooky. I love spooky things. You guys might know Tim Burton. Or Arthur Rackham. Or Edward Gorey.
Dad: They might not know the names, but they've all seen their work.
Gracie: What about Jim Henson! Your little monsters and dragons look like Muppets or Sesame Street. Or the Dark Crystal.
Kelly Murphy: "HhmmMMMmmmm...." The Skeksis? I love that stuff.
Gracie: "HhhmmMMMmmmmmm...."
Kelly Murphy: I'm a huge fan of Jim Henson.
Gracie: So are we.
Kelly Murphy: It's good stuff.
Dad: Well, thank-you so much for talking with us today! We love your work, and we're honored that you took time to talk with us. Do you kids have any final, pressing questions?
Gracie: "Whaaat.... is your favorite color!"
Dad: Ha ha - We just watched Monty Python and the Holy Grail last night.
Gracie: Whaat... is your name? Whaat... is your book? Whaat... is your favorite color?
Kelly Murphy: Ha ha!
Dad: Well, thank-you again!
Kelly Murphy: Thanks so much guys! Keep drawing and keep reviewing! Everything you are doing is perfect.
Lily: Thank-you! Bye!
Kelly Murphy: Say hi to the other kids for me.
Dad: We will! (Closes down Skype)
Gracie: She didn't answer my question.
Dad: Huh?
Gracie: I was serious. I want to know her favorite color!

monsters, by Elijah

bathtub monster, by Lily

monster name tags, by Isaac

monsters and friends, by Gracie

Author: Jane Yolen
Illustrator: Kelly Murphy
Published, 2011: Candlewick Press
Like it? Here it is

Review #108: The Penderwicks

2011-09-13T08:00:00.001-04:00

Lily (age 8): "The Penderwicks" is about a family. A nice family. But sometimes they get into trouble.
Dad: Who is in the Penderwick family?
Gracie (age 11): Rosalind, Skye, Jane, and Batty are the kids. And there is Mr. Penderwick. And their dog Hound. But their mommy died.
Isaac (age 12): On their vacation they go to this cottage by this mansion where Mrs. Tifton and her son Jeffrey live.
Gracie: Jeffrey is nice.
Isaac: But Mrs. Tifton wants to marry this guy named Mr. Dupree who is evil.
Gracie: Dexter!
Lily: Dexter Dupree!
Isaac: He wants to send Jeffrey to the war academy...
Dad: Military school?
Isaac: Yeah, military school... They draw Mr. Dupree's face on a cardboard box, and they shoot arrows at it. Also when they play soccer, they call one of the balls "Dexter" when they kick it.
Dad: What did we find interesting about the Penderwick kids?
Gracie: They are exactly like us!
Dad: The Penderwick kid personalities match up with the Zenz kids pretty closely! In the same order too. Who is the oldest Penderwick?
Gracie: Rosalind. And she's good at being in charge and helps out a lot. So she's just like Isaac.
Dad: Isaac is like another little parent in our family. Isaac, did you think Rosalind was like you?
Isaac: Yes, but not at the end. She got weird.
Gracie: She fell in love.
Dad: Love makes people turn weird, huh?
Isaac: Yeah, and she did weird things, like falling off a rock into a pond.
Dad: But when she had her head on straight, she was like Isaac. Who's the next oldest Penderwick?
Gracie: Skye. And she was like me. She couldn't keep her mouth shut.
Lily: "I'm going to kill you."
Gracie: "I'm going to murder you!"
Dad: She was feisty.
Gracie: She got in trouble a lot.
Lily: And every time she baked something it went wrong.
Gracie: Just like me. She burnt brownies.
Isaac: She's the hyper one.
Gracie: There was one way she's not like me. She likes Math.
Dad: Who's the next Penderwick.
Gracie: Jane.
Lily: Jane is me.
Gracie: She's imaginative like Lily. They both have their heads in the clouds.
Lily: She's creative. She's an imaginary-ist. And I'm an imaginary-ist. I like to make stuff up, and I get carried away. I go to Lily Land -- it's up in a cloud in my head. I go there, and then I have no idea what people are saying to me.
Dad: And who is the littlest Penderwick?
Lily: Batty. And she's kind of like our sister Evie.
Dad: Evie is the little cutie of the family.
Lily: Batty likes flowers.
Gracie: She always had her butterfly wings on.
Dad: What about Elijah? Was there anyone like our brother Elijah?
Gracie: Hound is like Elijah.
Dad: Because he's brave. And he's loud. And he doesn't like to be tethered down.
Gracie: Or told what to do.
Lily: Or maybe baby Maggie is like Hound. Because she eats everything she finds.
Isaac: Hound is a mixture between Maggie and Elijah.
Dad: My favorite thing about the book was how well the author, Jeanne Birdsall, wrote the personalities. They felt like real people. Even the way the kids talked... If Jane said something, she wouldn't say it the same way Skye would.
Gracie: If they had to check on Jeffery, Jane would probably say, "This is 'Sabrina Star' going to save the poor boy in the window from his evil mother!"
Dad: And how would Rosalind say the same thing?
Gracie: She would say, "We can ask Churchie to cover for us, and then we can go up the rope ladder that Cagney built for us..."
Dad: She would come up with a whole plan. And how would Skye talk?
Gracie: "Be quiet or I'll murder you!"
Mom: (half-listening in) I suspect that's the character you thought was like Gracie?
Dad: Ha ha ha ha... Yup. And what about Batty?
Isaac: "Where's Hound?"
Lily: "I want to see the bunnies!"
Gracie: I was freaking out when Batty went into the bull pen. She wanted to see horsies in the barn.
Lily: But she didn't suspect a bull was in there!
Gracie: She was picking flowers, and when the doors opened, a bull was there. Then they had to save Batty from the bull.
Lily: I thought the bull was going to get her. I was like, "Eeek! Eeeek!"
Gracie: The book has a lot of exciting parts.
Dad: What else did you like about this story?
Gracie: It made me laugh. It was funny.
Isaac: It's just a nice, good book.
Dad: It's simple, right? It's not a huge adventure. Just a normal, real, life-size adventure.
Lily: I like it because I want to have that life.
Dad: I think we do... It was about a nice family that loves each other.
Lily: Yes. And we all love each other too.
Dad: Are you glad there are some sequels we can look for now?
Gracie: The book doesn't leave you hanging. But it does leave you wanting more. Everyone is left in a good situation at the end... but there's got to be more!

Rosalind, Skye, Jane, and Batty, by Gracie

Batty and the bull, by Lily

target practice on Dexter Dupree, by Isaac

Author: Jeanne Birdsall
Published 2005: Knopf
Like it? Here it is

Review #107: Back to School Tortoise

2011-09-05T08:00:00.010-04:00

Lily (age 8): "Back to School Tortoise." Lucy M. George and Merel Eyckerman -- they wrote it and illustrated it, you know.
Elijah (age 5): It is the cutest book in the world.
Lily: And he is the cutest tortoise of all.
Gracie (age 11): He's got awesome little shoes.
Lily: Cutie-cutie-cutie land.
Gracie: The illustrator even makes GRASS cute! I mean, who can make grass cute?
Lily: She can!
Dad: What's the premise of the story? I guess the title kind of explains that, huh?
Lily: Well, everyone is finishing up their summer stuff. And Tortoise gets ready to go back to school. Then he starts thinking... What if the kids are mean? What if I really don't like the lunches?
Gracie: He doesn't want to go to school because he thinks something awful might happen. But then he starts thinking of all the good things that might happen. And after that, he wants to go to school again. And it's okay. He has a fun time.
Dad: We talked about the cuteness of the pictures already. How was the writing?
Gracie: I thought the writing was cute too. It's not very complicated -- it's not like Shakespeare. But it's also not like "Jack is a boy. Jack likes red." It's in the middle.
Dad: And the book has a clever little twist at the end.
Gracie: It's funny. I was surprised.
Elijah: I still don't get it.
Dad: Elijah doesn't get the joke. But we can't explain it here because we don't want to give away the funny ending to everyone else.
Gracie: I'll explain it to you later, Elijah.
Elijah: My favorite part of the book is the cuteness of the turtle.
Dad: Is it a turtle or a tortoise?
Elijah: A tortoise. And a turtle. It's a "turtle-slash-tortoise."
Dad: This is a perfect book for you. Turtles are your favorite animal!
Elijah: The turtle in this book is my favorite turtle ever.
Dad: AND it's also a great book because you are starting school this year! Kindergarten!
Elijah: Yeah!
Dad: Do you think you are going to have slurpies and cupcakes for lunch like Tortoise did?
Elijah: I hope so!
Dad: Or maybe you will have a big bowl of peas.
Elijah: Nooo!
Gracie: We always have good lunches.
Lily: We'll probably have applesauce, and a sandwich, and an apple.
Dad: That's a lot of apple. Why not wash it down with some apple juice too?
Gracie: My teacher is the best. I have the best teacher in the whole entire universe! I'm home schooled.
Lily: When we walk to school, honestly all we have to do is go up the stairs.
Gracie: Those are good things about being home schooled. And you never have to worry about mean teachers.
Lily: Unless you have a mean mom.
Dad: You guys lucked out in the mom department.
Lily: Mm-hmm.
Dad: Now, the school situation in the book might not apply. But have you ever felt like Tortoise before? Worried about something new?
Lily: Yes. The first year I went to Family Camp classes. I was scared about kids being mean to me. But then I met one of my best friends.
Gracie: I'm still worried about that every year I go. Sometimes boys can be mean.
Dad: Did you notice Tortoise had a choice to make in the book?
Gracie: Either be grumpy and worried about school all day... or be happy and excited and confident.
Lily: That takes practice.
Dad: Did anything about the school change? Or did his attitude change?
Gracie: His attitude changed.
Dad: You always have a choice. You can look on either the negative side or the bright side.
Lily: You should look on the bright side. Unless you are going to boarding school.
Dad: Any last words to sum up the book?
Elijah: It's all cuteness and turtle pictures.
Lily: Dad, at the beginning it says "Tortoise gets dressed." But all he is wearing is a hat and scarf and shoes.
Dad: It doesn't take him very long to get dressed does it?
Gracie: He's not wearing any pants.
Lily: (addressing Tortoise) Are you wearing any pants, sir?
Gracie: Nope.
Dad: Maybe THAT'S why he didn't want to go to school.
Gracie: I can't go to school! I'm not wearing any pants!

Tortoise eats lunch, by Elijah

Tortoise eats ice cream, by Lily

worry vs. bright side, by Gracie

Author: Lucy M. George
Illustrator: Merel Eyckerman
Published, 2011: Albert Whitman and Company
Like it? Here it is

A Few Changes...

2011-08-29T08:00:00.013-04:00

It has been such fun, but I've come to realize Bookie Woogie will not last forever. Oh, we'll keep posting for a good while. But eventually, someday, we'll have to wind down. Running Bookie Woogie really is a part time job for me. I easily commit over 10 hours a week to the site, and it's an activity that doesn't put food on the table.

Bookie Woogie has been a labor of love. Love for books. Love for art. But above all, love for my kids. And those things won't ever change. We'll always love books. We'll always love art. I'll always love, love, love my kids. But... I may not have the ability to share all that with the public week to week.

I'm incredibly proud that up to this point, as long as Bookie Woogie has been running, we've updated with new content *every *single *week without missing once! Of course there was that planned hiatus (the hiatus was planned... the length of the hiatus was not foreseen). But for the 135 weeks on either side of that, we've had new content each and every week. 135 weeks! Hip, hip!

But... that's the main thing that's going to change. I've loved providing a blog with a reliable schedule. Every Monday. Like clockwork. But I can't keep that up. So moving forward, our posts will start showing up randomly. It's not ideal, but it will enable us to carry on.

The mix of kids may be different too. Isaac's starting to get all teenager-y... he still reads a ton, but he's off with friends a lot more, has a fuller schedule... reviewing has become trickier. So for some reviews we might have 4 kids weighing in, other reviews 3 or 2 or 1.

Hopefully there are fun things to do on the site if ever there's a long stretch between reviews. We've got a big Archive over there to the right. And there's a huge post compiling 200 of my personal favorite books... almost 150 of which we haven't reviewed yet. And I'm updating this Fan Art post on an ongoing basis. And I plan to keep adding to this Wall Art one as well.

We're still excited about Bookie Woogie and hope you are too! I've got at least 12 books that come to mind immediately that we're committed to reviewing. And we have 2 Author Interviews already scheduled. And we are always discovering more and more favorites. So we've still got a good long ride ahead of us. I just wanted to give a heads up about the changes coming:

Bookie Woogie is going to be less about having a review every Monday for Monday's sake, and more about sharing the very best books we discover when they cross our paths.

Thanks for sharing the journey with us!

Review #106: Fablehaven

2011-08-22T13:00:00.006-04:00

From time to time we'll break from our regular group review format and check in with the kiddos One-on-One to see what they've been reading on their own. Today we hear from Isaac!

Dad: What have you been reading dude?
Isaac (age 12): The Fablehaven series. By Brandon Mull.
Dad: You are flying through them.
Isaac: I usually get through each book in a day or two.
Dad: You've been wanting to read these forever. How are you liking them?
Isaac: They are great. I like the action and the adventure.
Dad: Do tell...
Isaac: These kids named Seth and Kendra go to their grandpa's house. At first they are bored. But then they find out that their grandpa works on a preserve for magical creatures.
Dad: Are they new made-up creatures, or are they creatures from mythology?
Isaac: Mostly creatures from mythology, but there are a few new things. Like nipsies. Those are kind of like brownies, but they are the size of flies. There are goblins and hobgoblins - which are very different from each other. There are giants that are 30 feet high and eat yaks. There are centaurs which are really cool, but they are kind of stuck-up. There are a lot of dryads - water dryads, tree dryads, everything dryads. There's a dragon that is really awesome.
Dad: It sounds like a lot of the same creatures as in the Spiderwick books.
Isaac: It's a lot like Spiderwick. You even need special abilities to see the creatures.
Dad: Really?
Isaac: The creatures are always invisible to people, which is what helps them stay preserved. They are invisible unless you have this special milk from a giant 30 foot cow.
Dad: Yikes. Milk?
Isaac: Or if you have walrus butter.
Dad: Walrus? Butter?
Isaac: Yeah.
Dad: Does it feel like the series copies Spiderwick?
Isaac: No. It has a different storyline. The "invisible" part is the only thing that's really the same.
Dad: So, why do you like books with fantasy creatures so much?
Isaac: It's good inspiration for stuff I make. I love the creatures. I like the designs. It gives me ideas for stories and pictures and for building little creatures.
Dad: Could Brandon Mull tell the same kind of stories using all zoo animals instead?
Isaac: It wouldn't be as good. Stories with zoo animals would have to be more realistic. But with made up creatures, anything can happen. A dragon can breathe fire.
Dad: You could get away with featuring a talking polar bear, but it probably wouldn't breathe fire. With real creatures, to some degree you're stuck with things that make sense according to science.
Isaac: But you can do anything with fantasy creatures.
Dad: No limitations.
Isaac: Like, there are these balls that live in caves. Little yellow fluffy pompom things that float around in caves, hundreds of them. They explode into gasses and disintegrate people.
Dad: Now, are these things a mix of good creatures and bad creatures? Or are they all neutral like animals?
Isaac: There technically aren't good creatures and bad creatures. But they might seem that way to people. Like... a bear or a man-eating lion or a killer bee. A bear would attack you if you got to close to its cubs. People don't like some animals because they will attack you or bother you, but they are not "evil."
Dad: But there are some bad guys in the books, right?
Isaac: Some characters are pure evil. But the books don't make them too freaky... not like wet-your-pants-freaky.
Dad: What kind of creatures are those?
Isaac: Werewolves and vampires and a genie who is evil. Under the house they have a jail for all the bad creatures - creatures that have been transformed purposefully for the point of evil. There are these goblins who run the jail. And they made this stuff called glop that they feed everyone. Glop is a mixture of any junk they can find.
Dad: Now, you haven't finished the series yet. You are taking a little break?
Isaac: Yeah, I'm on book 4. But there are a couple other books I want to read, so I'm taking a break.
Dad: What are you reading now?
Isaac: "This Present Darkness." Our youth pastor told us about it.
Dad: I read that when I was right around your age. I was probably a year or two older.
Isaac: Did you like it?
Dad: Oh yeah. Quite a lot. But, back to Fablehaven... I'm wondering, would girls like these books as much as boys?
Isaac: Girls would like them too. Especially the first book. Because there are fairies, and the main character is a girl.
Dad: How about me?
Isaac: Oh yeah, you would really like them. You would love Fablehaven.

goblin jailer serving glop, by Isaac

Author: Brandon Mull
Published 2006-2010: Shadow Mountain
Like them? Here they are

Review #105: The Watcher

2011-08-15T14:00:00.009-04:00

Gracie (age 11): Oh wow, this book is amazing.
Isaac (age 12): It is called "The Watcher." It's about Jane Goodall.
Elijah (age 5): Her job was to watch the chimpanzees.
Dad: Did you know about Jane Goodall before we read this?
Isaac: I knew that she liked monkeys. But now I know a lot more.
Dad: She's a pretty famous scientist.
Lily (age 8): Then why didn't I know about her?
Dad: Well, now you do.
Gracie: She's amazing. I can't believe that Jane Goodall went out there and studied the chimps and worked to save them. She even got Fever and she wouldn't go home. Jan Goodall is all good.
Lily: When she was a kid, she sat in a hen house.
Gracie: She sat in there for hours and hours watching chickens until they laid eggs. She liked to watch and learn about animals.
Lily: When she grew up, she saved her money to buy a ticket to go to Africa. And she got a job watching monkeys.
Elijah: At first... no chimpanzees for her. They were hiding from her. But she didn't give up, so then she got to see them. One hundred chimps.
Lily: And she named them. One she named David Greybeard.
Isaac: She learned that chimps use tools. Nobody knew that before her.
Elijah: It's not exactly like tools that we use. It was a "stick" tool.
Dad: They don't go buy tools at a store.
Elijah: Noooooo. Because they're just chimpanzees.
Dad: What else did she learn?
Elijah: She learned that chimps eat meat. I thought they only eat bananas. But now I know they also eat plants and meat. She learned they hit each other. And kiss.
Lily: Now I don't want a pet chimpanzee anymore.
Dad: Because you learned that they are endangered?
Lily: But I would still kind of want David Greybeard.
Evangeline (age 3): Lily, if you take a pet monkey, then you don't get a fishy.
Dad: She can only pick one pet?
Lily: Mommy hates monkeys, so it will have to be a fish.
Dad: Now, how old was Jane at the beginning of the book?
Gracie: Five.
Dad: How old was she when the book ended?
Lily: Old enough to have gray hair. Like, "Grammy" old.
Dad: So the author of this book, Jeanette Winter, had a challenge. She had to pick and choose events from out of a whole lifetime and fit them into just 40 pages. If someone else was writing this book, they could have chosen completely different details.
Gracie: There was another person who wrote one.
Dad: That's right, you remember. We got "Me... Jane" from the library a few months ago.
Lily: Yeah, it was about Jane as a kid.
Dad: One author, Patrick McDonnell, chose to focus on Jane's childhood. This author, Jeanette Winter, decided to pick stories from throughout her life. That's the cool thing about writing. A writer is a chooser. Their stories are shaped by both what they say AND what they don't say. It gives even more importance to what is included when we think about how many choices had to be made.
Lily: If both authors picked the same things, they would practically have the same book.
Dad: But can you see how that would be almost impossible? Jeanette Winter is a completely unique person. She's going to be drawn to specific things that interest her.
Isaac: I think her art is awesome. It's full of big patterns... the monkeys' fur... the trees on the hills. I love this style.
Dad: Would you guys like to go out and watch animals?
Elijah: Not animals that are dangerous. Hyenas? No. Lions? No. I would watch dogs. And cats.
Dad: Well, what did Jane start out with when she was 5 years old like you?
Elijah: Chickens.
Dad: Maybe you could start by watching a chicken.
Elijah: I don't want to. I'll start out with birds. I mean bird birds. Like robins. Then I'll move to chimps. And THEN chickens. And then, even though they are dangerous, I'll do dinosaurs. I'll build something that can go back then, and I can watch dinosaurs.
Dad: Did this book inspire you in any ways?
Isaac: It makes me want to be more patient when I go deer scouting.
Lily: It made me excited to learn more about Jane Goodall. It's kind of like when a commercial makes you want to watch a movie. This book is like a commercial for Jane Goodall's life.

chimpanzees, by Lily

David Greybeard, by Elijah

Jane Goodall, by Gracie

Author/Illustrator: Jeanette Winter
Published 2011: Schwartz & Wade Books
Like it? Here it is

5 Year CNLT Celebration

2011-08-08T08:00:00.009-04:00

Illustrator friends: I'd like to let you know about a fun little celebration going on right now at the kids' other blog Chicken Nugget Lemon Tooty! The month of August marks 5 years (wow!) that I've been archiving the kiddos' art over there. To celebrate, we are hosting an open call for artists to dip into the big archive (over 650 drawings) and create a piece of Fan Art for the Z-Kids. It's kind of like what we've been doing with Fan Art for years here on Bookie Woogie, only this time the roles are reversed! I did a few pictures myself, and it was a blast. If you enjoy what the the Z-Kids have been doing and want to give them a little treat, I invite you to play along! You can check out the fun Here.

Since I'm over here on Bookie Woogie, I should mention that many of the participants so far are children's book illustrators: J.C. Phillipps, Nina Crittenden, Deborah Freedman, Joost Haakman, Z-Dad, Chris Kennett, Charise Harper, and Jarrett Krosoczka:

The post will be continually updated, so be sure to stop back over there every once in a while to see what's been added!

Review #104: The Complete Peanuts

2011-08-01T08:00:00.004-04:00

From time to time we'll break from our regular group review format and check in with the kiddos One-on-One to see what they've been reading on their own. Today we hear from Gracie!

Dad: Hello Gracie.
Gracie (age 11): Hi Daddy.
Dad: What have you been reading?
Gracie: Peanuts! The Complete Peanuts collection. With good ol' Charlie Brown.
Dad: The complete collection! Do you know how long that comic strip ran?
Gracie: Forever. Ha ha ha!
Dad: Where are we finding these books?
Gracie: You are getting them for me from the library.
Dad: We are so lucky that our library has been collecting these. They're really expensive books, and we'd probably never see them otherwise. How many volumes have you read?
Gracie: All 15 books that they have so far.
Dad: The publisher is working their way through the series, and so far they've released all the comics from 1950 through 1980. That's 31 years worth! That's over 11,000 individual episodes!
Gracie: Ho ho ho hah! My goal is to read all of the Peanuts comics ever made. That's my dream.
Dad: So, would you consider yourself a Charlie Brown expert with 11,000 episodes under your belt?
Gracie: Oh yeah. You could ask me anything.
Dad: Tell us how the strip was different at the beginning than it turned out later on.
Gracie: Well, a few characters were deleted, and a ton of new ones were added. Violet, Patty, and Shermy went away. Also, at the beginning Snoopy just ate and slept and didn't think at all. It was two or three books before he started having thought bubbles. Now he likes to play tennis and go to Woodstock's New Year's parties.
Dad: Lots of new characters get introduced as babies, don't they?
Gracie: Lucy was a little baby. Schroeder was a baby. Linus was a baby. Sally was a baby. When Sally was born, Charlie Brown ran out of the house... "Guys! I'm a father! No wait - my dad is a father! Again!"
Dad: Do you have a favorite character?
Gracie: Lucy. Because Baby Lucy was just like Baby Me. But now she's the bossy person who has to have her way all the time.
Dad: A great role model...
Gracie: Then there's Linus who has a blanket and sucks his thumb. He's babyish, but he's really, really smart. And he always quotes from the Bible.
Dad: Who else?
Gracie: Charlie Brown! He's the one who thinks, "Life is going bad... I'm an awful person... Nothing good ever happens to me..."
Dad: Would you be friends with him?
Gracie: I would. I love him. My love for him goes to the ceiling of a skyscraper. But nothing good ever happens to him ever. Once he won a race -- that's probably the only thing he's ever won. And the prize was 5 free haircuts...
Dad: Ha!
Gracie: He's only got a twist of hair in front. And he's like, "Five free haircuts? I don't have much hair to cut! And even if I did... my dad is a barber!"
Dad: Poor Charlie Brown.
Gracie: Yeah, nothing good ever happens to him. He's always getting teased for his perfectly round head.
Dad: Tell me about Snoopy.
Gracie: Snoopy! He's the dog, and he doesn't know Charlie Brown's name. He's always like, "Who? You mean that round headed kid that feeds me..."
Dad: Ha ha -- I read the one when Charlie Brown comes back from the hospital...
Gracie: Yeah! And he's like, "Snoopy! I'm finally here! I missed you so bad that whole time! I'm so glad to see you again!" Then after he leaves, Snoopy thinks, "Now I remember... He's that round headed kid that used to feed me."
Dad: Poor, poor Charlie Brown.
Gracie: Snoopy has a lot of identities: Joe Cool, Joe Sporty, Joe Astronaut, World War I Flying Ace... He's got thousands of disguises.
Dad: Out of all 11,000 comics you've read, do you have a favorite? Or is it too hard to pick one?
Gracie: Well, I have a favorite book.
Dad: Oh? Which one?
Gracie: Actually, it's one where all these bad things happen. Charlie Brown gets hit by a car. And he almost got fired from being a crossing guard. Then Linus and Lucy move away. And Woodstock has to fly South so Snoopy might not see him again ever.
Dad: Goodness, why so many sad things?
Gracie: Apparently a lot of bad things were going on in the author's life. Schulz.
Something Schulz.
Dad: Charles.
Gracie: Yeah. A lot of bad things were going on in his life, so he expressed them in his drawings.
Dad: Why did you like that book so much if so many awful things happened?
Gracie: I don't know. Because every time the terrible things ended, he'd have one of the funniest comics in history.
Dad: Now... "Charles." Charles Schulz... Charlie Brown... Do you think it's significant that they have the same name?
Gracie: Maybe things didn't go well in his life. Or maybe he was bald. Or maybe Charles Schulz had a round head.
Dad: These were made a long time ago -- some of them 60 years ago. Why do you think you dig something so old? Does it say something about you? Or does it say something about the timelessness of these comics?
Gracie: I live for the classics.
Dad: Do you think other kids would like them too, or do you think you're an oddball?
Gracie: Out of my friends, half of them don't even know who Charlie Brown is. They know Snoopy and Woodstock. But I had to explain Charlie Brown.
Dad: Poor Charlie Brown.
Gracie: But my friends would love them too if they could read the books.
Dad: Is this your favorite comic? Do you know any other comic strips?
Gracie: This is the order of my favorite comic strips: I like the "Peanuts" comics, "Little Nemo in Slumberland," and "Calvin and Hobbes."
Dad: I think you have good taste. Now, are you going to try to draw a new Peanuts episode for your Fan Art this week?
Gracie: No, I'm afraid I might come up with an idea, and not realize it is actually one that I've already read. And plus, Charles Schulz doesn't want anyone else making his comic.
Dad: Tell everybody about your birthday party last week...
Gracie: The theme was Charlie Brown! We decorated things like Charlie Brown. I drew faces on balloons. Isaac decorated with streamers that were zigzags like on Charlie Brown's shirt. And we had Charlie Brown games that I made up, like "Pin the Frown on Charlie Brown." And you made a Snoopy cake.
Dad: Do you want to say anything to the people compiling these books? Because that's a BIG undertaking for the publisher... committing to every Peanuts comic ever made, coming out with another volume every few months.
Gracie: I don't know how many people read these books... but one girl LOVES them. Thank you for making these!
Dad: Real quick... What are you reading in the meantime while you wait for them to release the next volume?
Gracie: I'm reading the books you got me for my birthday. "Year of the Dog" and "Year of the Rat" by Grace Lin. They're good.
Dad: Thanks for the one-on-one chat, Gracie! I love you!
Gracie: And I love Charlie Brown!
Dad: What? Thanks a lot...
Gracie: Ha ha ha!
Dad: You make me feel like poor ol' Charlie Brown.
Gracie: Hee hee hee!
Dad: I'm certainly never going to kick a football that you're holding.
Gracie: Ha ha! I love Charlie Brown AND you!

the Peanuts gang, by Gracie

Author/Illustrator: Charles Schulz
Comics Published: 1950-2000
Books Published, 2004-present: Fantagraphics Books
Like them? Here they are

Review #103: Sidekicks

2011-07-25T08:00:00.006-04:00

Lily (age 8): This is a book called Sidekicks, and I'm gonna tell you about it.
Gracie (age 11): It's a graphic novel.
Lily: It's about Captain Amazing.
Gracie: He is a superhero.
Lily: He has a whole bunch of pets. They love him. And they always want to be with him, but he's always gone on his missions.
Isaac (age 12): Captain Amazing thinks he's getting too old, and he wants to get a sidekick to help him.
Gracie: So he's going to hold sidekick auditions. All of his pets have superpowers.
Isaac: They each want to become his sidekick so they can spend more time with him. They fight crime. And there are EXPLOSIONS!
Dad: Is it ever like that with kids and their dads too? Sometimes you want to be with me, but I have to work?
Gracie: YES. All the time.
Dad: Maybe you guys can be my sidekicks. You can sharpen my pencils for me.
Gracie: (sarcastically) That sounds... exciting...
Dad: Tell me about the four pets...
Gracie: I'll tell you about Shifty. Shifty is a chameleon. He changes colors to match his surroundings so you can't see him. His skin is his suit.
Isaac: The hamster's name is Fluffy. He thinks he doesn't have superpowers. But he still wants to be the sidekick so he can be closer to his dude.
Lily: The cat has electricity and can electrocute. The dog can turn into metal. His name is Metal Mutt.
Dad: Did you have a favorite part?
Gracie: Inside the penguin's igloo at the zoo there is a secret nightclub.
Lily: I like that place.
Isaac: Not that we go to nightclubs.
Dad: What was eating all the food... a hippo?
Gracie: Yeah. He had big fat butt cheeks.
Dad: We're not going to put "butt cheeks" in the review.
Gracie: "Bottom... cushions..."
Dad: If you could have a superpower what would you pick?
Lily: I would have night vision. I would go out at night and get all the bad guys while they are sleeping.
Dad: You would hate night vision. You already say that it's too bright for you to go to sleep at night. It would be like having the lights on all the time.
Isaac: I would have the power to go back in time. So if a bad guy punched me in the nose, I would go back in time and dodge it.
Dad: What would your snazzy superhero name be?
Isaac: (pause) Back-in-Time-Guy.
Dad: Pbbbbb.
Gracie: I would have shape shifting powers. I would catch a bad guy, and shape shift my hand into a big club. After I shoved him into a dumpster, I would shape shift into him, and then I would get the other guys. Wow! Pow! Pow! Shickapoo!
Dad: Do you know who made this book?
Gracie: Dan Santat.
Lily: This book is so cool that I am speechless.
Gracie: I loved your book, Dan Santat. It is definitely a good one. It was very action filled and funny too.
Lily: Everybody will like your book because it is, like, the awesomest book ever.
Isaac: You could so make another one. It's perfect for a sequel. Or a t.v. show - that would be awesome!
Dad: Any last words? Do you have a blurb?
Gracie: It is a fun fantasy about furry fighters of fury.
Dad: Wow... FFFantastic!
Gracie: It's Dan Santastic!

Metal Mutt stopping a rocket, by Isaac

the Chameleon and HIS sidekick? by Gracie

sidekicks, by Lily

Author/Illustrator: Dan Santat
Published, 2011: Arthur A. Levine Books
Like it? Here it is

The fun's not over yet!

I almost never buy new books. Of the 3000+ children's books in our personal collection, I'm certain that less than 1% of them I purchased new. As a "starving artist," I'm content to wait for birthday gifts, and I make dedicated rounds to used book sources... 10 cents here, 50 cents there.

But I was so excited about Sidekicks, that I bought it the week it came out. My first new-release purchase in years. Then... the VERY next day... we received a review copy in the mail from the publisher. So we've got 2 copies! And I decided that, rather than return one, we'd give this great book to one of our readers.

To be entered in the Giveaway, all you have to do is leave a comment below. It's that easy!

And while it's not necessary, if you'd like to turn it into 2 entries, include within your comment a favorite Bookie Woogie memory. The kids recently hit their 100th review (yea!) and it would be fun to celebrate that. So if you've been with us for a while, share a favorite moment from a Bookie Woogie review or interview, and you'll get two entries in the Giveaway.

We'll announce a winner on August 1st. Good luck!

200 Great Books

2011-07-18T08:00:00.013-04:00

I have always wanted to compile a list like this, and now is as good a time as any!

It would be great to catalog ten times as many titles someday, but in the meantime, for your enjoyment, I would like to present 200 books that I love and think are well worth hunting down... Hope you find some treasures in here!

1. "Black and White" by David Macaulay (review)
2. "Shadow" by Suzy Lee (review)
3. "The Cinder-Eyed Cats" by Eric Rohmann (review)
4. "The Arrival" by Shaun Tan (review)

5. "The Adventures of Marco and Polo"
by Dieter Wiesmuller" (review)
6. "The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe" by CS Lewis (review)
7. "Wave" by Suzy Lee (review)
8. "Leonardo the Terrible Monster" by Mo Willems

9. "Shark and Lobster's Amazing Undersea Adventure"
by Viviane Schwarz (review)
10. "The Invention of Hugo Cabret" by Brian Selznick (review)
11. "Who Needs Donuts?" by Mark Alan Stamaty (review)

12. "The Three Pigs" by David Wiesner (review)
13. "My Friend Rabbit" by Eric Rohmann
14. "Would You Like to Play Hide and Seek"
by Jon Stone & Mike Smollin (review)

15. "The Monster at the End of This Book"
by Jon Stone & Mike Smollin (review)
16. "Holes" by Louis Sachar (review)
17. "The Spooky Old Tree" by Stan & Jan Berenstain
18. "Peter Pan" by JM Barrie

19. "The Book of Three" by Lloyd Alxander (review)
20. "Adam Raccoon at Forever Falls" by Glen Keane (review)
21. "Ignis" by Gina Wilson & P.J Lynch (review)
22. "Kidogo" by Anik McGrory (review)

23. "The Lion and the Mouse" by Jerry Pinkney (review)
24. "How Are You Peeling"
by Saxton Freymann & Joost Elffers (review)
25. "Frog and Toad Are Friends" by Arnold Lobel
26. "Saint George and the Dragon"
by Margaret Hodges & Trina Schart Hyman

27. "Perelandra" by CS Lewis
28. "Toot and Puddle" by Holly Hobbie
29. "Bestiary" by Jonathan Hunt
30. "Jamberry" by Bruce Degen

31. "Oliver Finds His Way"
by Phyllis Root & Christopher Denise (review)
32. "Museum Trip" by Barbara Lehman (review)
33. "T is for Terrible" by Peter McCarty

34. "Blueberries For Sal" by Robert McCloskey
35. "Otters Under Water" by Jim Arnosky
36. "The Animal Atlas" by Kenneth Lilly
37. "The Sound of Colors" by Jimmy Liao

38. "There Are Cats in This Book" by Viviane Schwarz
39. "A Little Bit of Winter" by Chris Riddell
40. "Roman Numerals I to MM" by Arthur Geisert

41. "Scribble" by Deborah Freedman (review)
42. "Winnie-the-Pooh" by AA Milne
43. "The Book That Eats People"
by John Perry & Mark Fearing (review)
44. "Winsor McCay's Little Nemo in Slumberland Vol. 1"
by Winsor McCay

45. "The Big Hungry Bear" by Don & Audrey Wood
46. "The Snowy Day" by Ezra Jack Keats
46. "A Wrinkle in Time" by Madeleine L'Engle (review)
48. "Hotel Deep" by Kurt Cyrus

49. "The Story of Ferdinand" by Munro Leaf & Robert Lawson
50. "Aesop's Fables" by Charles Santore
51. "The Hiccupotamus" by Aaron Zenz (review)
52. "Piggies" by Audrey & Don Wood

53. "Arnie the Doughnut" by Laurie Keller (review)
54. "Little Panda" by Renata Liwska (review)
55. "You Are Special" by Max Lucado & Sergio Martinez (review)

56. "Snow" by Uri Shulevitz
57. "On My Island" by Marie-LouiseGay
58. "Harold and the Purple Crayon" by Crockett Johnson

59. "Noah's Ark" by Peter Spier
60. "Chuckling Ducklings" by Aaron Zenz (review)
61. "Platypus and the Lucky Day" by Chris Riddell

62. "Sector 7" by David Wiesner
63. "The Mysteries of Harris Burdick" by Chris Van Allsburg
64. "Augustus and His Smile" by Catherine Rayner
65. "Tales of the Kingdom"
by David and Karen Mains & Jack Stockman

66. "Bear Wants More" by Karma Wilson & Jane Chapman
67. "Tree Ring Circus" by Adam Rex
68. "Old Black Fly" by Jim Aylesworth & Stephen Gammell
69. "A Porcupine Named Fluffy"
by Helen Lester & Lynn Munsinger

70. "How Animals Live" by Bernard Stonehouse & John Francis
71. "The Salamander Room"
by Anne Mazer & Steve Johnson and Lou Fancher
72. "Bagel's Lucky Hat" by Hector Mumbly

73. "The Gunniwolf" by Wilhelmina Harper & Barbara Upton
74. "The Camel's Lament" by Charles Santore
75. "Little Red Riding Hood" by Trina Schart Hyman
76. "Alphabet Soup" by Scott Gustafson

77. "Moosey Moose" by Chris Raschka
78. "Bunny Days" by Tao Nyeu (review)
79. "Little Owl Lost" by Chris Haughton

80. "Hey, Al" by Arthur Yorinks & Richard Egielski
81. "The Princess and the Kiss"
by Jennie Bishop & Preston McDaniels
82. "Hymns for a Kid's Heart"
by Bobbie Wolgemuth, Joni Eareckson Tada, & Sergio Martinez
83. "The Circus is Coming" by Hilary Knight

84. "Favorite Nursery Rhymes from Mother Goose"
by Scott Gustafson
85. "Arthur Spiderwick's Field Guide" by Tony DiTerlizzi (review)
86. "This is the Stable" by Cynthia Cotten & Delana Bettoli (review)
87. "Hondo and Fabian" by Peter McCarty

88. "The Happy Hocky Family" by Lane Smith (review)
89. "The Cuckoo's Haiku"
by Michael J. Rosen & Stan Fellows (review)
90. "Pssst!" by Adam Rex (review)
91. "The Lost Thing" by Shaun Tan

92. "Hand, Hand, Fingers, Thumb" by Al Perkins and Eric Gurney
93. "Tuesday" by David Wiesner
94. "Daddy Hug" by Tim Warnes & Jane Chapman

95. "Ten in the Den" by John Butler
96. "I Believe, the Nicene Creed" by Pauline Baynes
97. "Dawn Watch" by Jean Pendziwol & Nicolas Debon
98. "The Quiet Book"
by Deborah Underwood and Renata Liwska (review)

99. "Little Boat" by Thomas Docherty
100. "Moses" by Carole Weatherford & Kadir Nelson
101. "Big Wolf and Little Wolf"
by Nadine Brun-Cosme & Oliver Tallec
102. "There is a Bird on Your Head" by Mo Willems

103. "Zin! Zin! Zin! a Violin" by Lloyd Moss & Marjorie Priceman
104. "East O' the Sun and West O' the Moon" by PJ Lynch
105. "Our Tree Named Steve" by Alan Zweibel and David Catrow
106. "Mirror" by Suzy Lee (review)

107. "A Curious Collection of Cats"
by Betsy Franco and Michael Wertz (review)
108. "Hush Little Dragon" by Boni Ashburn & Kelly Murphy (review)
109. "Big Sister, Little Sister" by LeUyen Pham
110. "A Book" by Mordicai Gerstein (review)

111. "Old Bear" by Kevin Henkes (review)
112. "Jimmy Zangwow's Out-of-this-World
Moon Pie Adventure" by Tony DiTerlizzi (review)
113. "The Scrambled States of America" by Laurie Keller

114. "June 29, 1999" by David Wiesner
115. "The Baby Sister" by Tomie dePaola (review)
116. "Chicken Cheeks" by Michael Ian Black & Kevin Hawkes
117. "How Robin Saved Spring"
by Debbie Ouellet & Nicoletta Ceccoli

118. "Magic Box" by Katie Cleminson
119. "Blue Hat, Green Hat" by Sandra Boynton
120. "Achoo! Bang! Crash!" by Ross MacDonald

121. "Monsterlicious"
by Erik Jon Slangerup & John Sandford (review)
122. "Song and Dance Man"
by Karen Ackerman & Stephen Gammell
123. "The Princess Bride" by William Goldman
124. "The Phantom Tollbooth" by Norton Juster (review)

125. "No Jumping on the Bed" by Tedd Arnold
126. "The Big Pets" by Lane Smith
127. "I Ain't Gonna Paint No More"
by Karen Beaumont & David Catrow
128. "Heckedy Peg" by Audrey & Don Wood

129. "Tale of a Tail" by Judit Bodnar & John Sandford (review)
130. "Pumpkinhead" by Eric Rohmann
131. "Who's Got the Apple?" by Jan Loof

132. "Alice the Fairy" by David Shannon
133. "Kipper's Book of Colors" by Mick Inkpen
134. "The Little Drummer Boy" by Ezra Jack Keats (review)
135. "Newt" by Matt Novak

136. "Rapunzel's Revenge"
by Shannon and Dean Hale & Nathan Hale (review)
137. "Sweet Dreams Lullaby" by Betsy Snyder
138. "Star Climbing" by Lou Fancher & Steve Johnson
139. "How to Paint the Portrait of a Bird"
by Jacques Prevert & Mordicai Gerstein (review)

140. "Looking for a Moose" by Phyllis Root & Randy Cecil
141. "Fox Makes Friends" by Adam Relf
142. "Wild and Wooly" by Mary Jessie Parker & Shannon McNeill
143. "Wild Child" by Lynn Plourde & Greg Couch

144. "The Tub People" by Pam Conrad & Richard Egielski
145. "Dragon Gets By" by Dav Pilkey
146. "The Secret Shortcut" by Mark Teague

147. "Tumble Bumble" by Felicia Bond
148. "Sylvester and the Magic Pebble" by William Steig
149. "The Day Jimmy's Boa Ate the Wash"
by Trinka Hakes Noble & Steven Kellogg
150. "You and Me, Little Bear" by Martin Waddell & Barbara Firth

151. "There's No Such Thing as a Dragon" by Jack Kent
152. "Duck on a Bike" by David Shannon
153. "The Dog Who Belonged to No One"
by Amy Hest & Amy Bates (review)
154. "Just You and Me" by Sam McBratney & Ivan Bates

155. "Wet World" by Norma Simon & Alexi Natchev
156. "Bunny My Honey" by Anita Jeram
157. "Mama's Little Duckling"
by Marjorie Blain Parker & Mike Wohnoutka

158. "If Animals Kissed Good Night"
by Ann Whitford Paul & David Walker
159. "Sailor Boy Jig" by Margaret Wise Brown & Dan Andreasen
160. "The Terrible Hodag and the Animal Catchers"
by Caroline Arnold & John Sandford (review)

161. "He's Got the Whole World in His Hands" by Kadir Nelson
162. "Little Gorilla" by Ruth Bornstein
163. "Sir Toby Jingle's Beastly Journey" by Wallace Tripp
164. "Peach and Blue"
by Sarah Kilborn & Steve Johnson and Lou Fancher

165. "All About Owls" by Jim Arnosky
166. "Door in the Dragon's Throat" by Frank Peretti
167. "Small Sister" by Jessica Meserve
168. "Ramona Quimby, age 8" by Beverly Cleary

169. "My Penguin Osbert" by Elizabeth Cody Kimmel & HB Lewis
170. "The Incredible Book Eating Boy" by Oliver Jeffers
171. "Hare and the Tortoise" by Helen Ward
172. "Millie's Marvellous Hat" by Satoshi Kitamura (review)

173. "Spring is Here" by Taro Gomi
174. "Crocodile Beat" by Gail Jorgensen & Patricia Mullins
175. "On the Banks of Plum Creek" by Laura Ingalls Wilder
176. "Book Fiesta" by Pat Mora & Rafael Lopez

177. "Home Sweet Home" by Jean Marzollo & Ashley Wolff
178. "Aesop's Fables" by Brad Sneed
179. "Time Flies" by Eric Rohmann
180. "Sheep Take a Hike" by Nancy Shaw & Margot Apple

181. "Charlie and the Chocolate Factory" by Roald Dahl
182. "Elmer Blunt's Open House" by Matt Novak
183. "In the Small, Small Pond" by Denise Fleming
184. "Way Out in the Desert"
by TJ Marsh, Jennifer Ward, & Kenneth Spengler

185. "Alphabet City" by Stephen T. Johnson
186. "You See a Circus, I See..." by Mike Downs & Anik McGrory
187. "Apple Picking Time"
by Michele Benoit Slawson & Deborah Kogan Ray
188. "Louis the Fish" by Arthur Yorinks & Richard Egielski

189. "Tales of a Fourth Grade Nothing" by Judy Blume
190. "Bad Day at Riverbend" by Chris Can Allsburg
191. "Howie Goes Shopping"
by Sara Henderson & Aaron Zenz (review)
192. "I Love Animals" by Flora McDonnell

193. "Stomp, Stomp!" by Bob Kolar
194. "Little Loon and Papa" by Toni Buzzeo & Margaret Spengler
195. "Bear and Kite" by Cliff Wright
196. "Leaving the Nest" by Mordicai Gerstein

197. "Miss Spider's ABC" by David Kirk
198. "Owl Moon" by Jane Yolen & John Schoenherr
199. "Teddy Bears' Mother Goose" by Michael Hague
200. "The Leaf Men and the Brave Good Bugs" by William Joyce

Review #102: The Goose Girl

2011-07-11T08:00:00.008-04:00

Last month we took recommendations for books that our readers wanted the Z-Kids to review. In the weeks that followed, we read as many as we could; then the kids ranked their favorites. After tallying up the votes, we decided to share the books that placed in the top three spots. Thanks to "Renee" for recommending today's book: The Goose Girl!

Gracie (age 10): "The Goose Girl" is about a princess who can talk to animals. And everybody thinks that's weird. So her mom sends her away to get married to a prince in another country.
Isaac (age 12): The princess' name is Anidori-Kiladra. If she doesn't marry the prince, the other country may invade theirs. So they are going to make a peace treaty between the two kingdoms.
Gracie: But on the way, Anidori-Kiladra's lady-in-waiting Selia tries to kill her.
Dad: I think we're safe giving that away. I wasn't really surprised....
Isaac: I figured it out.
Gracie: You could tell she was going to turn bad, because they kept saying, "You're such a good friend... You're such a good friend..."
Lily (age 8): The lady-in-waiting Selia looks exactly like the princess, so she took her place. She wanted to be the princess so she could marry the prince and be over the palace.
Isaac: And... what's that guys name? Ungolad? He's the evil henchman of Selia. I'm going to draw him because he's cool. Well... he's not cool. He's evil. But how I imagined him looking is cool.
Gracie: And the book tells you the adventure of Anidori-Kiladra escaping and running through the woods. And when she gets to the city, she has to hide from Selia and all the guards, so she goes into disguise.
Lily: And she changes her name.
Isaac: She has to hide and get a job.
Lily: She took care of geese. That's called a Goose Girl.
Isaac: We mentioned that she can talk to animals. That's kind of an important part.
Lily: But there's this other Goose Boy.
Gracie: He hates her because he's used to being the only Goose Person. Then when Anidori-Kiladra comes in there and starts talking to the geese, he feels jealous.
Isaac: She has to prove to the king that she's the real princess. And at the end they had a big battle.
Gracie: She also finds out that she can talk to the wind too. She didn't know that before. So she talks to the wind.
Isaac: The end half of the book was really exciting.
Gracie: This isn't a main part of the book, but I have to say it because it freaks me out. Selia says, "The penalty for treason is to be put into a barrel of nails and drawn by four white horses through the city!" Which is FREAKY! So I had to say that.
Dad: Do you guys know who wrote this?
Gracie: No. Let me guess. "Princess Academy."
Dad: Yep, Shannon Hale. You could tell. Why, what's similar between "Princess Academy" and "Rapunzel's Revenge" and "Goose Girl"?
Gracie: They are all about girls in hiding, away from home...
Dad: Why did you guys like this book so much?
Gracie: It is exciting. And romantic. And people die in it. And Anidori-Kiladra makes a lot of good friends. And she has a lot of secrets.
Lily: This book had the power of love.
Gracie: It's one of those stories that... you don't know why you like it, but it's one of your favorite books you ever heard. One of those books that you want to listen to over and over again.
Dad: Did Anidori-Kiladra grow and change over the course of the book?
Isaac: Character Arc!
Gracie: At the beginning, she was trying to be perfect just like her mother.
Lily: But she was bad at it.
Gracie: She was trying to prepare for her future. But nothing prepared her as much as Celia's evil rebellion.
Lily: At the beginning she was a scaredy cat. She was puny and picky. But she grew into a brave person.
Gracie: At the beginning she was expecting to be waited on and served. But by the end she just expected to sleep on the floor.
Dad: What would you guys do if you could talk to the wind?
Gracie: I could make Cameron's hat blow away. That would annoy him so much!
Dad: Why do you want to annoy Cameron? Hmmmmmmm...
Isaac: Oooooo...
Gracie: Giggle giggle giggle
Dad: I think you just want to look at his flowing locks.
Isaac: His luscious hair...
Gracie: giggle
Dad: How about animals? Would you guys like to be able to talk to animals?
Gracie: Oh yeah.
Dad: What would you say to them?
Gracie: I would tell them not to poop in our yard.
Dad: Great.
Lily: I would say... "Hi! How are you doing?"
All: HA ha hahh ha!
Gracie: We're all really lame!
Dad: It's a good thing super animal-powers weren't wasted on you guys.
Isaac: I would ask them weird question about what animals do and why.
Gracie: Yeah, questions about the mysteries of science.
Mom: I would always check to see if they have rabies.
Isaac: Ha ha ha... "Hello, little baby raccoon... Do you have rabies?"
Mom: Like that possum we saw... I would love to have asked him why he was walking around out in the middle of the day!
Isaac: "Ohhhhh... I've got rabies."
All: HAH ha ha ha ha!

goose girl, by Lily

Ungolad, by Isaac

showdown in front of the king, by Gracie

Author: Shannon Hale
Published, 2003: Bloomsbury
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Review #101: The Little Prince

2011-07-04T08:00:00.002-04:00

Last month we took recommendations for books that our readers wanted the Z-Kids to review. In the weeks that followed, we read as many as we could; then the kids ranked their favorites. After tallying up the votes, we decided to share the books that placed in the top three spots. Thanks to "Kelli Jo" for recommending today's book: The Little Prince!

Dad: Tell me about the Little Prince.
Lily (age 8): He is little. A kid. He has really yellow hair. He's from a star. A teeny star.
Gracie (age 10): It's about the size of our table...
Isaac (age 12): It was more like an asteroid than a star.
Gracie: Or maybe it was the size of our porch...
Lily: It's round. So everything would be tippy there.
Gracie: It wasn't bigger than a house...
Isaac: There was a rose there. He loved the rose. But the rose was always self-focused. So he finally left her.
Gracie: The planet was more like the size of a round refrigerator...
Lily: He wanted to make a friend.
Gracie: So he visited a bunch of different planets. One with a king, one with a vain man, one with a businessman, one with a lamplighter.
Lily: The lamplighter's planet spins fast. So he had to keep lighting the lamp over and over because his days and nights were one minute apart.
Isaac: Finally the Little Prince went to Earth.
Lily: Which is our planet. He's looking for a friend, and he finds a fox. The fox says, "Tame me! Tame me!"
Isaac: And he meets this guy who crash landed in the desert, and the Little Prince tells him, "Draw me a sheep."
Gracie: Because the Little Prince was lonely. The guy and the Little Prince learn to love each other.
Dad: What was mood at the end of the book?
Isaac: Gracie cried.
Gracie: Yep. I love the book. It was sad, but it was happy at the same time.
Dad: What was the main point of the book? It wasn't really a lesson... more of an observation...
Gracie: The most beautiful, most special things in life are invisible.
Lily: It's not the thing itself that is most important. It's the time you give to the thing that makes it special.
Isaac: There are millions and millions of roses. But there was only one that he took care of and learned to love. Or, like, there may be tons of toys, but this is your favorite stuffed animal because it's your special one that you sleep with. It's different than any other one.
Lily: And there's a million kids with freckles and brown hair and blue eyes named Lily.
Dad: But which one do I love?
Lily: Me. Because you give time to me.
Gracie: You were the one that cleaned up her "womp," and changed her diapers, and read her books, and snuggled her, and changed her diaper again, and pushed her around in shopping carts...
Lily: The invisible things. Roses are roses, And violets are blue, But the one that you love, Is one you gave time to.
Dad: Ah, you just made a little rhyme!
Lily: Hee hee!
Dad: I love it.
Gracie: There could be billions and billions of pickles in the world... but the pickle that... wait.
Dad: No, keep going. That example could work. You had a tomato plant once.
Gracie: I did. They tasted very, very good.
Dad: Better than store-bought tomatoes.
Gracie: I really took care of them! I loved those tomatoes. I watered them. And I talked to them. And I sang to them. And I made sure they grew right. And I wiped away the spiderwebs.
Dad: So why did you like those tomatoes so much?
Gracie: They were MY tomatoes. I even named my tomato plants. Biggie and Cutie.
Dad: The fox said that from now on, whenever he saw golden wheat, it would remind him of the Little Prince's yellow hair and give him good feelings. Do you have anything that stirs up good associations in you?
Isaac: My hat. I've worn it to every concert I've ever gone to. And I get people to sign it, so I remember all the places I've been.
Dad: So it's more than a hat. It's a scrapbook on your head.
Isaac: Yeah.
Dad: There are certain smells in the wind that remind me of childhood.
Gracie: WHAT??? I don't understand.
Dad: Well, you're still a kid. Maybe someday it will happen to you too.
Gracie: Do you have any good associations with Mom? What reminds you of her hottiness?
Dad: There are certain songs that remind me of when we were first dating.
Gracie: Every time I see a hippo, it reminds me of you, Daddy.
Dad: Oh great. "When I see great, large hippos... I think of my Dad."
Gracie: No! Just purple hippos.

visiting the lamplighter's planet, by Lily

"draw me a sheep," by Gracie

watching the sunset, by Isaac

Author/Illustrator: Antoine de Saint-Exupéry
Published: 1943
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