Review #102: The Goose Girl

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
Like it?  Here it is

Review #101: The Little Prince

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 your 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
Like it?  Here it is

Review #100: Just So Stories

It's our 100th review!  A few weeks ago we asked our readers to recommend books for us to consider for review #100.  The kids and I read as many as we could in the interim, and then we ranked our favorites.  When we tallied the votes, three of the books rose to the top, all within a point or two of each other.  (I think for our next 2 reviews we will feature the two runners-up -- be sure to check back to see what they are!)  But today, the distinction of Bookie Woogie's 100th review belongs to Rudyard Kipling's "Just So Stories"!


Dad:  First of all, congratulations on your 100th review...
Gracie (age 10):  Yea!  "Just So Stories."
Dad:  Why do you think this book came in first place when we voted?
Lily (age 8):  Because it's awesome.
Dad:  We probably wouldn't have read this book without the prompt.  I've owned this book since I was your age, but I had never actually read it.
Gracie:  Why not?
Dad:  Just never got around to it.
Isaac (age 12):  It's awesome.  Everyone should read it.
Lily:  The book is not just one story.  It's a lot of stories.  That's why it's called "Just So Stor-IESSSSSS."  Instead of "Just So Story."  Hee hee.
Dad:  What do all the stories have in common?
Gracie:  They are stories about how things got things.  How animals got their qualities.  Like how the elephant got his trunk and how the leopard got spots.  Things like that.
Dad:  Origin stories.  Like, a Spiderman origin story would tell about how he became Spiderman.  Or a Batman origin story would tell about how he became Batman.  So an elephant origin story will tell about how they got elephant-y.
Gracie:  These remind me of Tales of the Jungle Imps by Winsor McCay.
Dad:  They were published right around the same time.  Just a year apart.
Gracie:  The stories are not really true.  But they are really fun.
Dad:  Did you have a favorite story?
Lily:  I like "The Beginning of the Armadillos."
Dad:  That might have been my favorite too.
Gracie:  Oh, yeah.  That was great.
Lily:  There was a hedgehog and a turtle.  I like the part when they made the jaguar all confused.
Dad:  They engage in some great dialog.
Lily:  The jaguar's mom told him that the hedgehog is the one that curls up, and the tortoise is the one that goes inside of his shell and swims.  But they said to the jaguar, "Are you sure that's what your momma told you?"
Gracie:  Also, they confused him because the tortoise learned how to curl up, and the hedgehog learned how to swim.
Dad:  And as they got more and more like each other, they got more and more armadillo-y
Isaac:  I like the story about the elephant getting his trunk.
Dad:  Why was that one your favorite?
Isaac:  Because he got spanked, and he spanked everybody.
Dad:  So, you love spankings?
Isaac:  Whenever the elephant said anything, all his uncles and aunts spanked him.  Then at the end, the elephant gave all his family spankings back.
Dad:  Isaac, the Spank-lover...
Isaac:  And he also stuck his baboon uncle into a hornet's nest.
Dad:  Would it be fun to make up your own animal origin stories?
Lily:  How a pig learned how to dig with his snout.
Isaac:  Or how a frog learned to use his tongue to catch a fly.
Gracie:  Or how the snake lost his legs.
Dad:  I loved the way Rudyard Kipling writes.  That was my favorite thing about the book.  Beyond the funny stories, I love the language he uses.
Lily:  In every story, he says, "My Best Beloved," "My Best Beloved," "My Best Beloved," over and over and over.
Dad:  He must really love you guys.
Gracie:  And each story has one thing that he says over and over, just in that story.
Lily:  Like, in the leopard one he always says "exclusively," "exclusively," "exclusively."
Gracie:  And in "How the Whale Got His Throat" he keeps saying, "Do not forget about the man's suspenders..."
Lily:  And "He had to," "He had to," in "The Singsong of Old Man Kangaroo."
Dad:  That's called "repetition."  What else did Rudyard Kipling have fun with?  How about: "Stickly-Prickly."
Lily:  Rhyme.
Dad:  And "Slow-and-Solid."
Lily:  Alliteration.
Gracie:  He also likes long lists.
Dad:  Do you remember an example?
Gracie:  Yeah.  In "How the Whale Got his Throat," he says something like, "The man jumped and he bumped, and he smashed and he bashed, and he chopped and he hopped, and he danced and he pranced, and he bit and he knit..."
Dad:  Alright...
Gracie:  "And he kit and he wit..."
Dad:  Alright, good job...
Gracie:  "And he bot and he fought..."
Dad:  Okay, good list...
Gracie:  Yeah, he likes lists.
Isaac:  I like his descriptions.  He doesn't just say, "Here is a tree."  He would say something like, "Here is a swooshy-swashy, fluffy-poofy tree."
Dad:  He has lots of fun with words.
Gracie: (reciting) "He schlooped up a schloop of mud from the bank of the great, gray-green, greasy Limpopo and slapped it on his head to make a schlooopy-sloshy mudcap that was all trickly behind his ears."
Dad:  Man, Gracie, you have an awesome memory!  That's got to be pretty close.  The language is fun, huh?
Gracie:  Yes!  It sticks in my head.
Dad:  You have sticks in your head?
Gracie:  What?
Dad:  Someone named Joanna recommended this book to us.  Are we glad that she did?
Isaac:  Thank-you!
Dad:  What would we have missed out on if we had never read it?
Lily:  Armadillos.
Gracie:  And a lot of "Schlooping."

hedgehog, tortoise, and jaguar, by Lily

elephant getting his trunk, by Gracie

baboon in the hornet's nest, by Isaac

Author: Rudyard Kipling
Published, 1902: Macmillian
Like it?  Here it is

Reader's Pick

 
Has anyone noticed how close we are getting to Review #100?  Really close!

We've spent the last two and a half years recommending our favorite books to all of you.  I thought in honor of this 100th Review milestone we would do something special.  We'll give one of you, our readers, the chance to pick the book for our 100th review.  We'll do this a little differently from our first Readers' Pick.  Instead of us giving a list of recommendations and you voting, this time we'll do it the other way around.

In the comments, suggest one book that you would like to see the Z-Kids review.  Any book at all.  New.  Old.  Classic.  Unknown.  Picture book.  Graphic novel.  Chapter book.  Board book.  And yep, you only get to suggest one.  Tough decision!  If someone has already listed your favorite, go ahead and use your comment to suggest another.  Multiple votes for the same book won't give it any more weight.

We will do our best over the next couple of weeks to locate as many of your recommendations as we can.  I look forward to seeing how many will be books that we already know and love, and how many will be new discoveries for us!  After we spend time with the books you all have suggested, I'll let the kids each rate their favorites.  I'll tally up their votes, and the book with the most points wins the distinction of Bookie Woogie Review #100!  (And who knows, perhaps some runners-up might find their ways into future reviews...)


Update:  Thanks for all the suggestions!  Here's what you recommended:


 

Review #61: Crazy Hair

Dad:  What book are we reading?
Gracie (age 9):  "Crazy Hair."
Dad:  And the cover says "From the award-winning creators of 'The Wolves in the Walls.' "
Lily (age 7):  Wait.  The "Wolves in the Walls" guys made this?  Oh my goodness!!
Dad:  You like that one, eh?  So what are your impressions of "Crazy Hair"?
Lily:  It's crazy.
Isaac (age 11):  Crazy.
Gracie: (whispering)  Dad, can you stop the recorder...
Dad:  Huh?  Why?
Gracie: (still whispering)  I can't say...
Dad:  Can't say what?
Gracie:  The book freaks me out a little bit.  But I don't want to say that, because it might hurt the author's feelings...
Dad:  I am willing to bet that Neil Gaiman can take it.
Gracie:  This book freaks me out.  It gives me goosebumps.
Dad:  What part of it?
Gracie:  Everything.
Isaac:  I like it!
Dad:  You must have never read "Wolves in the Walls" yet.
Gracie:  Oh, yes I did.  It was awesome.
Dad:  That one didn't bother you...  but this one does???  I think "Wolves in the Walls" is the scariest children's book on the planet!
Isaac:  It is probably the scariest children's book on the planet... but it's cool!
Dad:  And Gracie, "Crazy Hair" is the one that freaks you out?
Gracie:  It's just kind of creepy...
Dad:  What -- his hair was creepy, or the book was creepy?
Gracie:  The book.
Dad:  Which part?
Gracie:  It was freaky all along, but then at the end it got really creepy.
Dad:  How about you, Lily?  Did it freak you out?  You're the youngest one here...
Gracie:  That doesn't count!  She's the toughest, bravest one in the whole family!
Lily:  I thought it was cool.  But it does have a scary tiger with red eyes.
Dad:  Well, before we go any farther, how about you guys give us a recap of the story...
Isaac:  It's about this girl...
Gracie:  Bonnie.
Isaac: ...she's walking by, and she sees a guy who has this crazy, really long, extremely long, crazy hair.  And he tells her all about this stuff living in his hair.
Gracie:  That's just -- Okay, that's just wrong.  He's got people dancing in his hair.  And he doesn't care?
Dad:  I would love to have people singing and dancing on my head.
Isaac:  You would?
Dad:  Sure.  Then you'd always have music with you -- you wouldn't have to have an ipod.
Isaac:  That's true.
Gracie:  There are parrots, and pirates, and acrobats living in his hair.  And octopuses.
Isaac:  And hot air balloons and lions.
Lily:  I bet he even has an elephant in his hair.
Isaac:  I bet there were wolves in his hair-walls.
Dad:  He probably has a little of everything.
Gracie:  Does he have a pool?  And a jacuzzi?  Does he have a roller coaster?
Isaac:  Then Bonnie tries to comb the guy's hair, but a big fist of hair comes out and grabs her and pulls her into the hair.
Lily:  How did Bonnie all of a sudden shrink small enough to get in there?
Dad:  It's crazy.  The hair isn't logical.  But she doesn't really mind it.  She has adventures in there.
Isaac:  She does stuff like teaching the lions to rhyme.  Digging for buried treasure.  Teaching parrots naughty words.
Gracie:  Oh, that's bad.
Isaac:  I think these guys should keep making more books.  Just don't let Gracie see them.
Gracie:  I like "Wolves in the Walls" and "The Day I Swapped My Dad for Two Goldfish."
Dad:  So what about Rapunzel?  She had crazy hair.
Gracie:  Rapunzel's hair does not have lions, circus people, and parrots that say naughty words in it.
Dad:  That's true.  But Gracie, there's gold coins in his hair!  Treasure!
Gracie:  How would the people in his hair use it?  There's nothing to buy in there.
Dad:  Carousel rides.
Gracie:  You can get those for free.  Money wouldn't matter... unless he's got a Walmart in his hair.
Dad:  Maybe he does.  He's got everything else.
Isaac:  It is kind of freaky hair.
Dad:  Now, is it the poem that freaks you out, or is it the pictures?
Gracie:  If you had illustrated it, you would have done it in bright colored pencils.  This guy does it in weird chunky thingies.
Dad:  The poem is just as strange as anything Dr. Seuss wrote.  But Dr. Seuss pictures are silly.  If someone had illustrated this with silly pictures, would it still have freaked you out?
Gracie:  No, not really.
Dad:  Aha!  So maybe it's not so much the words, but the pictures?  Maybe it's not Neil Gaiman.  Maybe it's Dave McKean who is freaky...
Isaac:  Where do you think the illustrator got all this hair?
Dad:  Do you think he used real hair in the illustrations?
Isaac:  I think so.
Dad:  I'm wondering if it's computer hair.
Gracie:  I'm just still wondering how that guy's hair got so long.
Dad:  Tell me about these illustrations.
Lily:  Do you want to know my favorite picture?  It's the one with the little, cute bear in the hair... the bear with the comb.  Cute.
Dad:  So not all the pictures are "freaky."
Gracie:  In some parts it looks like the artist cut things out.  In some parts it looks like he drew them on the computer.  And some parts it looks like paint.
Dad:  Do you know what that's called?
Gracie:  Collage.
Dad:  I was going to say "Mixed Media."  That means it's not just one material.  He probably mixed lots of things together to make the pictures.
Isaac:  Yeah... that hair looks digital.  Dad, I think you are right.
Dad:  So you've seen their three books... "Wolves," "Goldfish," and "Crazy Hair."  Is there anything those three books have in common?
Isaac:  They are all kind of...
(long pause)
Gracie:  ...Odd.
Isaac:  Strange.  Different.  Crazy.  Good crazy.
Gracie:  Are you sure no one will be offended?
Dad:  What do you think... Is it okay for people to have differing opinions?  Or does everyone have to like the same things?
Gracie:  Well, I like chocolate, and Andrea says she doesn't like it.  Chocolate is one of my favorite things!
Dad:  And besides... Isaac, Lily, and I all like this book.  Three against one.
Gracie:  Hey.
Dad:  People can have different tastes.  We can still all get along!
Gracie:  Not all books have to be sweet and cuddly.
Isaac:  There's a place for weird books.  Weird books are cool books.  I like these books.

crazy hair about to grab Bonnie, by Gracie

crazy hair guy, by Isaac

taking a treasure chest to a Walmart inside the crazy hair, by Lily

Author: Neil Gaiman
(see Neil Gaiman read Crazy Hair)
Illustrator: Dave McKean
Published, 2009: Harper Collins
Like it?  Find it...