Bookie Woogie

Monday, March 16, 2009

Z-Kid Favorites

Hi-ho! Z-Dad here. A couple weeks ago my computer broke, and since I'm an illustrator and we are therefore living off starving-artist-income, it's taking me some time to acquire all the items necessary for work (and Bookie Woogie) to get back up and running again. But rather than skip a week of Bookie Woogie, I thought I'd raid the Z-Kids' other blog Chicken Nugget Lemon Tooty for some children's-book-related posts. So instead of a single review resting here all week long, check back every day for seven, count 'em, seven fun posts!

Through dedicated scouring of inexpensive avenues, we're fortunate to have right around 3000 children's books at home. Last year I asked the kids what their absolute favorite books were out of the whole collection. These pictures were based on their choices:

The Horned King from "The Book of Three" by Lloyd Alexander
by Isaac, at age 9

Dad has to say, I think Isaac's design here is the best imagining of the Horned King I have EVER seen! Way cool!

Tribute to "Babymouse" by Jennifer & Matthew Holm
by Gracie at age 7

Gracie's picture depicts Babymouse approaching her homework-eating locker. (I'm SURE we'll be seeing a Babymouse review here on Bookie Woogie sometime soon...)

Tribute to "Oink Oink" by Arthur Geisert
by Lily at age 5

Piglets falling from the sky into a cornfield...

Monday, March 9, 2009

Review #19: A Book

Dad: Alright, who's excited?
Kids: MEEEEEE!
Dad: Oh for the love...
Kids: We got a new book! We got a new book for Bookie Woogie!
Dad: What does it say on the package? It says "Gerstein." Do you remember who Mordicai Gerstein is?
Gracie (age 8): "How to Paint the Portrait of a Bird!"
Dad: Do you remember what Mr. Gerstein said in the email he wrote to you?
Gracie: He liked our review, and he would send us his new book! This must be it!
Dad: Let's see what it's called... (opening package) It's called...
Isaac (age 10): "A Book."

Dad: Of course it's a book.
Lily (age 6): It's called "A Book."
Gracie: It has a whole bunch of crazy guys on the cover.
Isaac: A clown, a goose, a parrot...
Gracie: ...the "I'm-late-I'm-late-for-a-very-important-date" Rabbit.
Dad: Alright, let's read it!

Reading commences....
...Reading concludes.

Dad: So what do you think?
Gracie: This is a funny book. I liked it a lot!
Isaac: The story is a story of a girl finding a story in her story!
Gracie: That's a lot of "stories."
Dad: A family of characters lives in this book, and each person has their own story.
Gracie: But the girl didn't know what her story is. So she tries to find it.
Dad: She visits different kinds of stories to see if any of them are a good fit. What kinds of stories did she check out?
Isaac: Fairytales, a pirate story, a mystery story, a historical story, a science fiction story with aliens...
Lily: The aliens are funny.
Isaac: One of them says "Pipick" and the other one says "Pupick."
Lily: I like the pink one -- it's a girl.
Isaac: They look like little suns and they have one eyeball.
Dad: Do you know what a "historical" book is?
Isaac: From a long time ago. Like "Little House on the Prairie."
Gracie: Like me!
Dad: Like you! I think you belong in the historical story. Tell everyone how you were dressed when the book arrived.
Gracie: I'm wearing a dress that looks like it's from olden days, and an apron, and a bonnet!
Isaac: Try jumping into the book!
Dad: It's cool because the characters know they live in a book. How did the girl find out that there are people reading about her?
Isaac: The goose said to look up.
Gracie: And the girl screamed "Ahh! What's that big blobby thing that looks like a face!"
Dad: You almost started crying when she said that!
Gracie: I'm not a blobby thing...
Dad: Maybe she was looking at Lily.
Lily: No, you!
Dad: Me?
Lily: Yeah, because you were reading it!
Dad: True enough. I probably have the blobby head. Besides, if she had been looking at Gracie she would have said, "What's that thing in a baby bonnet?"
Gracie: It's a Little House on the Prairie bonnet!
Isaac: She couldn't see me - I hid behind the book.
Lily: I don't want to be seen.
Dad: What do you think about the illustrations?
Isaac: The pictures in this book are cool! They look like 3-D popping up.
Lily: The people look like they are walking on the pages.
Isaac: One of the ways he makes it look like 3-D is with shadows.
Dad: ...cast shadows.
Isaac: And he kind of makes the people look like they are tilted, coming up at you.
Gracie: And when he makes speech bubbles, he makes them look like they're popping up too.
Dad: If our family lived in a book, who do you think the main character would be?
Gracie: All of us. Or... probably Lily. She's the one who is most interesting in our family.
Lily: I am?
Isaac: She is?
Lily: I would like to be in the story of Cinderella because there was a prince in there. All those kinds of stories are princess stories, so I would be a princess.
Gracie: I want to be in a comedy story. About candy.
Isaac: I want to be in a book about cool stuff like how to build tree forts and how to make bows and arrows.
Dad: You guys are kind of in a story every week through Bookie Woogie. And you have Readers. We just can't see them. Or their blobby heads.
Gracie: I know what story we are in. We are in a story about an artist family. A family where everyone is an artist - except Mom.
Mom: I want to be in a book about a clean house.
Dad: Anything else you want to say?
Gracie: Thank-you Mordicai Gerstein!
Isaac: We really love the book!
Dad: "A Book" hits shelves in April. Be on the lookout!

pipick, pupick, pepick, papick, popick, by Gracie

mysterious scene, by Isaac

hitchin' a ride, by Lily

Author/Illustrator: Mordicai Gerstein
Published, April 2009: Roaring Brook Press
Like it? Find it

Monday, March 2, 2009

Review #18: Museum Trip

Dad: We just read "Museum Trip" by Barbara Lehman...
Gracie (age 8): Read it? How do you read it? There aren't any words! You make up the words.
Dad: Would the book have been better with words?
Isaac (age 10): It's best the way it is. Words could have wrecked it.
Gracie: They should have called this book "Maze" because that's the main part of the book.
Dad: Tell me about it...
Gracie: A boy got lost in a museum, and then he went into a secret room where he found a bunch of mazes on pieces of paper. He shrunk down and did all these mazes.
Lily (age 6): They're cool.
Isaac: This book is different than other books. It's a story about someone who found mazes, but parts of the book turn into real mazes that he goes through.
Lily: If you want to, you can do every single maze. And you can do it over and over again if you want to.
Isaac: I like the cover. He's pulling the mat back, and behind it you can see a maze.
Dad: So was it real or a dream? Did he really shrink down tiny and go though the mazes, or was it his imagination?
Isaac: Real.
Gracie: Well, at the end he still HAD the medal he got in the last maze.
Isaac: The museum guy and the kid both have medals. So the museum guy did the same thing.
Gracie: It... was... magic...
Isaac: It was magic!
Lily: It would be cool to shrink down and go around a maze on paper.
Gracie: But what if you never got out? What if you got stuck in there? Lily IS the wandering one in our family.
Isaac: It would be cool to shrink down onto paper because - what if somebody saw you?
Gracie: ...and they were like, "Look, Daddy! Little tiny miniature robots are crawling in the maze!"
Isaac: But what if you got wrinkled up...
Gracie: ...and thrown in the trash can!