Review #125: Charlotte's Web

 
The 3rd Annual 90-Second Newbery Film Festival is coming soon!  We attended the screening in Chicago last year and it was tons of fun!  Don't know what the 90-Second Newbery is?  I'll put some links at the bottom of this post.  But in the meantime...

For our entry this year, we decided to tackle one of the most highly favored novels in Children's Literature.  Charlotte's Web won a Newbery Honor in 1952.  Ten years later, Spider-Man made his first appearance.  Hey... why not bring the two legendary spiders together?  Why not re-imagine the "Charlotte" characters as costumed heroes and villains in the opening credits of an imaginary tv show?  Okay!  Let's do it!  

We're proud to present our Charlotte's Web / Spider-Man / Mashup Video:



And for an actual 'review' of the book, here are the lyrics to our song:

­­

Charlotte’s web, Charlotte’s web

Making miracles with her thread
She spins a web that brings surprise
With her words she saves lives
Look Out!
Here comes Charlotte’s web

See that pig in the mud?
He will faint at the thought of blood
Will our Wilbur soon be dead?
Just take a look overhead
See there:
There’s hope in Charlotte’s web

From the farm to the fair

Meeting animals everywhere

He could get eaten any day

Danger’s never far away

That’s why

He needs Charlotte’s web

In the chill of night
With her own special twine
She in secret writes
To save the life of a swine

Charlotte’s web, Charlotte’s web

Friendly, generous, lots of legs
The pig gets fame
While she’s ignored
Making friends is her reward

So pigs, whenever you are shakin’
She’ll come and save your bacon
Look out for Charlotte’s web!

To see all four of our own Newbery Videos, click here...
To learn more about the 90-Second Newbery Film Festival, click here...
To see the best of the 90-Second Newbery videos, click here...

Author: E.B. White
Illustrator: Garth Williams
Published, 1952: HarperCollins
Want the book?  Here it is

 

Review #121: The Prairie Thief

Dad:  We just finished a big family reading of "The Prairie Thief" by Melissa Wiley.
Gracie (age 12):  I've got such a good blurb for this book. 
Dad:  Oh yeah?
Gracie:  It's better than any blurb Isaac will think of.  I'm going to whoop Isaac at the blurbage.  
Dad:  Okay, tell us your blurb.
Gracie:  I don't want to right now!
Dad:  You want to save it for the end?
Gracie:  Yes, because it still needs a little tweaking here and there.
Dad:  Alright... we're on pins and needles.  So let's talk about "The Prairie Thief."  Let's start with each of the words in the title.
Isaac (age 14):  I'll tell you about the word "The."
Dad:  How about "Prairie"?
Lily (age 9):  The characters live on a prairie.  A prairie is a nice field of long flow-y grass that blows in the wind.
Isaac:  This book takes place in the same timeframe as Little House on the Prairie days.
Gracie:  Yeah, when I think of prairies, I think of Laura.
Lily:  Little girls with braids in their hair, running through the fields.  It's the Old Days.
Elijah (age 7):  They're probably all dead by now.
Dad:  Tell me about the "Thief" part of the title...
Lily:  The girl's dad was accused of theft-ing.
Gracie:  You're not even saying it right.  It's "thievering."
Dad:  Uh, thievering?
Gracie:  Louisa is the main character.  A whole bunch of stolen property is found on their land, and her father is falsely accused.  He has to go to jail, and Louisa has to clear her father's name before they hang him, because her Pa is like an awesome honorable man.
Lily:  Louisa has to go stay with the people who accused her Pa because they are the only ones who live nearby.
Gracie:  It's miserable!  They are called The Smirches.  Which sounds like a totally evil name.
Lily: (growling)  Smmmirchhhhhh....
Gracie:  Doesn't that name just sound like an evil name?
Lily:  Smirch.
Gracie:  Like, listen to this.  Which one sounds like the evil character:  Mrs. Brody...  Mrs. Mack...  or Mrs. Smirch.
Lily:  Smirch.
Dad:  We talked a bit about how this book has a historical setting.
Gracie:  But it was also magical.
Dad:  The author did a good job describing what life on the prairie was like.
Gracie:  Yeah.  And then she did a good job describing what life was like with a Leprechaun for a neighbor.
Elijah:  It's a Brownie!  Louisa finds a Brownie.
Dad:  Brownies!  That sounds delicious!
Elijah:  No.  A Brownie is a little short man with a beard!
Dad:  Like you?
Kids: Ha ha ha hah!
Dad:  Elijah is a little short man.
Gracie:  But he doesn't have a beard.  You do.  It's a mix between you and Elijah.
Lily:  There are two kinds of Brownies.  The "little man" brownie and the "eating" brownie.  And you can't get them mixed up.  That would be pretty bad.
Dad:  Back to the story...
Gracie:  The author shows how difficult life really was back then on the Prairie Days.  She expresses that really well throughout the book.  But then she mixes in magical creatures.
Isaac:  It's a good mix... showing life a long time ago, but also with some fantasy.  It doesn't overdo it either way.  It's a good mix.
Lily:  Louisa crawls into a little hole that she thinks is a badger hole.
Elijah:  But she found a Brownie!
Gracie:  He's got a pointy little hat.
Lily:  And he can talk to animals.
Gracie:  She meets lots of fun little friends along her journey.  Like a pronghorn.  And wolves.
Elijah:  And a Brownie!
Dad:  Isaac, I have a question for you...
Isaac: (hesitantly)  Yeeeees?
Dad:  I've read a bit of debate online recently.  Some people claim that boys don't like books with girls as main characters.  What's your opinion?
Isaac:  Uhhh...  It depends on the book.
Dad:  They say that girls will read books with boys as main characters, but boys won't read books with girls as main characters.
Isaac:  That's not true.  It just has to be the right book.  I mean, boys aren't going to want "Barbie Princess."  It just depends on what the story is.
Dad:  Any examples of books you like that have girls as main characters?
Isaac: (Isaac starts rattling off books, no hesitation...)  The "Amulet" books have a girl in it -- those are graphic novels though.  "Where the Mountain Meets the Moon" would be another good book.  "A Series of Unfortunate Events" has two girls and one boy.  "A Wrinkle in Time" is not really a boy book or a girl book.  It's just a really good book I would suggest for people to read...
Dad:  So what about "The Prairie Thief"?  Is it a book that boys would read?
Isaac:  I don't know about all boys.  But in my opinion I thought it was good.  *I* liked "The Prairie Thief."
Lily:  Sleeping overnight with wolves. Riding on pronghorns. Climbing into mysterious holes.  That all sounds like stuff boys would like.
Elijah:  Yeah, it has to do with wolves and coyotes!  And Brownies!
Isaac:  It's a really good story.
Dad:  Great - thanks guys!  So, are you ready for your blurb now, Gracie?
Gracie:  Okay, I think I've got it.
Dad:  Let's have it.
Gracie:  "'The Prairie Thief' is a mystical mystery not to be missed."
Dad:  Hey, good blurb!
Gracie:  I'm the blurb master now.

Louisa crawls into the hole, by Lily

 

Louisa meets a wolf, by Isaac 

Louisa rides a pronghorn, by Gracie

Brownie riding a wolf, by Elijah

Author: Melissa Wiley
Illustrator: Erwin Madrid
Published, 2012: Margaret K. McElderry Books
Like it?  Here it is

Review #117: The Order of Odd-Fish

 
Gracie (age 11):  We are reviewing The Order of Odd-Fish, and it is SO weird. 

Isaac (age 13):  It is crazy.  You will never read anything else like this. 

Lily (age 9):  It's very odd.  And you don't know what's going to happen next... so it's also kind of fishy. 

Isaac:  Silly.  And sometimes it's nerve-racking and suspenseful.

Dad:  From the very fist page we could tell this book was a little different.  But when did we know this book was totally off the rails?  When did we know that we were in for a very strange experience?

Gracie:  The flying head.  The first weird thing that happens is Mr. Cavendish's head flies off...

Dad:  Well, that's not the FIRST weird thing.

Gracie:  Oh yeah... before that, there's this giant talking cockroach...

Dad:  That's not even the first weird thing.

Gracie:  There's a guy with this weird digestion...

Dad:  THAT's not even the first weird thing!

Lily:  HA ha ha ha!

Gracie:  Colonel Korsakov comes along and he's got this magic digestion that tells him what to do.  So it's like... 'okay, that's weird.'  But by the time you get to the 3rd chapter in the book, talking digestions don't seem weird at all because Mr. Cavendish's head flies off and starts buzzing all over the room!

Lily:  It was very crazy.

Gracie:  The main character is Jo, and she works at a diner.  The only people in the whole town are old senior citizens.  Her Aunt Lily, who is kind of nutso, finds this black box, and she says, "I'm going to do a magic show!"  She stuck the box on Mr. Cavendish's head and cranked it, and Mr. Cavendish's head popped out of the box and started flying around!  And there was this crazy lady who started throwing waffles everywhere trying to hit the head.  All the old ladies were like, "Catch him! Bring him back!" And all the old men were like, "Go, Mr. Cavendish! Be freeeee!"  That's when we first thought, "What the heck is up with this book?"  I was laughing so hard.

Dad:  Okay, let's back up.  Tell me more about our main character Jo.

Gracie:  Jo is all mysterious.

Lily:  When she showed up as a baby, a note came with her.  "This is Jo.  Beware... she is a dangerous baby."  Bum-bum-BUM!

Isaac:  There was a really bad prophecy about her that said she was a monster called the Ichthala. 

Gracie:  It's going to destroy the world.

Isaac:  But Jo doesn't want to become a monster.  Everybody wants to kill the Ichthala.  But they don't know that it is Jo -- only she knows.

Gracie:  She feels like a living lie.

Isaac:  She doesn't know what to do.  She wants to tell somebody, but everyone will freak out and hate her.

Dad:  So that's something you don't always see... The main character of our story is the hero AND the villain.

Isaac:  There were lots of villains.  Ken Kiang is a millionaire who is attempting to be evil.

Gracie:  He wants to be the most evil person ever, but he can't because the Belgian Prankster is the worst.

Lily:  The Belgian Prankster can pluck his nose off and grow a stinger.  He also is really good at making balloon animals.

Gracie:  And he filled the Grand Canyon with tapioca pudding.

Dad:  Tsk tsk... how evil of him.  And tell us, what exactly is the Order of Odd-Fish from the title?

Gracie:  The Odd-Fish live on this island.  Jo and her friends get there after being swallowed and spit out of a big fish.  Colonel Korsakov was like, "Halleluiah! I'm in a giant digestion!"  The Order of Odd-Fish is an organization made up of all these knights that study ludicrous things.  Like... the leader is Sir Oliver, and he studies "Dithering."  Sir Festus studies insane weaponry.  Sir Alasdair and Dame Isabel study weird musical instruments and interesting smells.

Lily:  All the knights get a flying ostrich, and they ride all around on them.

Isaac:  The book has very weird creatures. 

Gracie:  Flying ostriches, talking cockroaches, Nangnangs, the Schwenk...

Isaac:  The Schwenk is a creature with four wings and it's very colorful.  It likes to be hunted.  Colonel Korsakov has a quest...

Gracie:  He's the "digestion" guy.

Isaac:  He has to capture the Schwenk.  That was his life's goal.  But the Schwenk always gets away before he catches it.

Lily:  There are also howling squids.  Jo and her friends go over to a big pit and get swallowed up into water. Then they ride around on squids in the diamond-walled tunnels and get chased by evil underground monkeys.

Gracie:  It's not something you see everyday.

Lily:  It's freaking awesome.

Gracie:  This is nothing like any other book.  It's so weird. This guy has an awesome imagination.  I love whoever wrote this book.  James Kennedy rocks. 

Dad:  The book is packed full of crazy.  So much more.  We haven't even begun to scratch the surface.

Gracie:  Kids will love this book... Unless you are some abnormal kid that likes broccoli and is all serious about the world.

 

underground squid riding, by Lily

 

Mr. Cavendish's flying head, by Gracie

  

Ken Kiang rides the schwenk, by Isaac

Author: James Kennedy

Published, 2008: Random House

Like it?  Here it is

Review #114: The Hobbit

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.  It was my favorite.  I just 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

Review #112: Tales of the Kingdom

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 #110: Wonderstruck

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
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Review #109: The Black Cauldron

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

Review #108: The Penderwicks

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
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Review #98: The Book of Three

Dad:  What did we read?
Gracie (age 10):  The Horned King.
Dad:  Nope - wasn't called "The Horned King."
Lily (age 8):  "The Book of Three"!
Dad:  And what is it about?
Gracie:  The Horned King.
Dad:  Okay, I'll give you that.  But who was the MAIN character.
Gracie:  The Horned King!
Dad:  Nope.
Isaac (age 12):  It's about a kid named Taran.  He lives on a farm in the country, and all he does is grow vegetables and learn to make horseshoes.  He hates it.
Lily:  They don't even have horses!
Isaac:  He'd rather go on a quest and be a knight.  Taran wants to be a hero.
Gracie:  This is a medieval adventure story.
Lily:  An awesome one!
Dad:  When I read this book as a kid, it was my favorite book ever.  Each of you guys has a set of books that finally "clicked" with you.  Books that finally sucked you into the world of reading.
Isaac:  Percy Jackson.
Gracie:  Junie B.  That was it for me.
Dad:  For me, it was the five books in the Prydain Chronicles.  I loved them.  I lived them.  I thought about them constantly.  They changed my imagination.  They changed the kind of stories I made up.  Even today... my writing style is still very heavily influenced by Lloyd Alexander who wrote these books.
Lily:  You rock, Lloyd Alexander.
Isaac:  I love these books.  They are amazing.
Dad:  So what is the main point of "The Book of Three"?  What is Taran trying to do in this book?  He has two big goals...
Gracie:  He has to warn the Sons of Don about the Horned King.  And he has to find his pig.
Lily:  Taran's pig knows all the secrets of the whole entire world.  It's a magical pig.
Dad:  Why is Taran the one off looking for the pig?
Gracie:  He wants his pig back.  Wouldn't you?
Isaac:  Taran is the Assistant Pig Keeper.
Dad:  Right, so the pig that ran off was his...?  What.
Lily:  Pig!
Dad:  But it was his re--ssssss...
Lily:  Servant!
Dad:  His respon--ssssss...
Isaac:  Responsibility.
Gracie:  Took us long enough to figure that out.
Dad:  Haha...  So those are the two obvious goals: Warn everyone about the Horned King and find the pig.  But deep down, what is Taran REALLY trying to do?
Lily:  He wants to have an adventure.
Isaac:  He wants to do something that people will notice him for.
Lily:  He wants to be a hero.  He wants to be awesome.
Dad:  But is being a hero what Taran thought it would be like?
Gracie:  No.  He didn't even know you would have to sleep on the ground.
Lily:  He thought quests would be awesomeness.  But they are dangerous.  Like, everyone got caught in a whirlpool and ended up underground with an evil dwarf.
Dad:  Was there a character arc?  Did Taran grow and change over the course of the book?
Isaac:  In the beginning of the book, Taran couldn't wait to get away from the farm.  But by the end, he missed it so much.  He really, really wanted to get back.
Dad:  One of the best things about the book is all the great characters.  Did you have a favorite character?
Gracie:  The Horned King!
Dad:  Who are some of the people Taran meets during his quest?
Gracie:  The Horned King.
Dad:  Who else?
Isaac:  All these crazy companions.
Lily:  Gurgi!  He's a furry-man-thing with sticks and twigs all over him.  And he likes "crunchings and munchings" all the time.
Gracie:  Food.  It's always about food.
Lily:  And he is worried about "smackings and whackings" on his poor tender head.
Isaac:  And Taran meets this girl named Eilonwy.
Lily:  She has a glowing bauble.
Isaac:  And she talks too much.
Gracie:  I like her.  She talks too much, and she's too hyper.  She's just like me!
Isaac:  And there is somebody called Fflewddur Fflam.
Lily:  He is a bard.  A traveler dude.
Isaac:  A person that travels around and lives in the wilderness and plays music.
Gracie:  He gets excited and he stretches the truth.  Which is the same as lying.  And every time he does that, one of his magical harp strings breaks.
Dad:  Tell me something about Doli the dwarf.
Lily:  Well... he's short.
Isaac:  Doli is always complaining.  And he's always trying to turn invisible.
Gracie:  He's grumpy.
Lily:  He's not really grumpy - it's just for show.
Isaac:  Doli comes from the Fair Folk.  They live underground and they have a king.  The king doesn't do much at all.  He's just fat and he sits in a chair and complains.  It's funny the way he looks in my mind.
Dad:  And finally, tell me about the Horned King.
Gracie:  The Horned King!
Lily:  He's an evil dude.
Isaac:  He's this really evil guy.  A war lord.  He wears a skeleton head as a mask.  But he has horns attached to it.
Lily:  He's trying to kill people and capture people.
Dad:  Isaac has already read the whole series.  How about you girls?  Now that we've finished the first book, would you girls like to read the other Prydain books on your own?  At your own pace?
Lily:  Noooo!
Isaac:  I'd like to read them again together.
Lily:  Yeah!!!  Together!  Dad, you've got to!
Gracie:  The Summer of Narnia was good.
Dad:  So maybe this could be the Spring of Prydain?
Isaac:  Yeah!
Dad:  Finish the sentence: Inside these books you will find...
Lily:  Adventure!  Awesomeness!
Gracie:  The Horned King!

Gurgi finds the piggy, by Lily

Eilonwy, by Gracie

the companions meet the dwarf king, by Isaac

the Horned King, by Lily

the Horned King, by Isaac

the Horned King, by Gracie

Taran meets the Horned King, by Isaac:


Author: Lloyd Alexander
Published, 1964: Henry Holt
Like them?  Here they are