Bookie Woogie

Monday, January 25, 2010

Review #58: Millie's Marvellous Hat

Gracie (age 9): Millie's Marvellous Hat...
Isaac (age 11): By Satoshi Kitamura. This book is about a girl named Millie - and you've probably figured that out already because of the title. She sees a hat in the store window. But the hat is $599.99.
Gracie: Not counting tax.
Isaac: So the store manager gave her a special hat instead.
Lily (age 6): A free one.
Gracie: Millie doesn't have anything in her purse, so the store owner gives her an invisible hat that can be anything.
Isaac: He's really nice - probably a different hat store owner wouldn't have done that.
Dad: Which do you think was better? The $599 one, or the free imaginary one?
Gracie: The imaginary one.
Isaac: I would never pay almost $600 for a hat. If I had that much money, I would use it all on Legos.
Dad: So what happens next...
Gracie: Millie goes for a walk. She sees a cake store, and her hat turns into a cake. 14 cakes on top of each other... I just counted them. Then she sees flowers and her hat becomes flowery.
Isaac: Then when Millie was at the park, she noticed everyone had a hat of their own. And at the end, her parents had hats too. The dad had a giant penguin hat.
Elijah (age 4): I like that penguin hat.
Dad: Millie had a pretty good imagination. Who else does?
Gracie: Sa-tushy Ki-mostra has a good imagination.
Isaac: It's actually... "Satoshi Kitamura."
Dad: What do his pictures look like?
Isaac: How do we explain the art in this book? Abstract-ish?
Gracie: He has never used a completely straight line in this whole book.
Isaac: Well, they are straight.
Dad: The lines are just all at odd angles to each other.
Isaac: And they are splotchy.
Gracie: Thick and thin lines.
Dad: He varies the line width.
Gracie: And Millie really pops out. All the colors are dull except for Millie. She's bright!
Dad: What was your favorite hat in the book? Mine was Millie's peacock hat.
Gracie: It must have taken him an hour to draw that peacock hat.
Isaac: I'm not drawing that.
Lily: It had too much feathers. That hat would have knocked everyone over.
Dad: You think it would have actually knocked people down... even though it was imaginary?
Isaac: I think the animals in the book could see the hats. Well, the dog saw the cake hat - I know that much.
Gracie: Its tongue was hanging out.
Dad: How about you guys? What was your favorite hat in the book?
Isaac: My favorite hat was the vacuum cleaner one - that was cool. That one and the Titanic hat were cool.
Gracie: I have two favorite hats. I like the peacock hat before it opens its feathers because it's the prettiest shade of blue in the whole world. And I also like the Mommy's hat at the end. It's really pretty. It's flowers.
Dad: How about you, Lily?
Gracie: I know which one Lily would like! This duck hat.
Lily: That is a goose.
Dad: Actually I think it's a swan.
Lily: Well, I want the little baby swan hat.
Gracie: Look - there's a safety cone hat.
Isaac: Awesome! I want the safety cone hat!
Gracie: And look -- she's tall and skinny, so she's got a giraffe hat. And he's short and chubby, so he has a rhinoceros hat.
Dad: Wow... the hats match the people... I never even noticed this! I thought they were random. But she's balancing packages so she has a hat with a seal balancing a ball. Oh and look - she's pregnant so she has a kangaroo with a pouch...
Gracie: And he's very distinguished and rich...
Isaac: And he's fast like a race car driver...
Lily: And they are fighting...
Dad: I never would have noticed that - you guys are so smart!
Elijah: Look - that's a cool hat!
Dad: That would be a fun game, wouldn't it? When we're all in the car waiting for mom to come out of the grocery store, we could imagine different hats on the people walking by based on their personalities. Let's try it out... What kind of hat do you think baby sister Evie would have?
Gracie: A bullhorn!
Isaac: No -- a hat with oranges! She loves oranges.
Elijah: I want a toothpaste marvelous hat!
Dad: I could do that... I'd be happy to put toothpaste on your head...
Isaac: Elijah would have a toilet hat.
Dad: Ha ha -- yes, we have trouble with Elijah's 4-year-old potty mouth, don't we.
Elijah: YEAH! A toilet hat!!!
Dad: How about mom?
Gracie: A vacuum cleaner. Because she feels like she's the only one in the house who cleans up.
Lily: No! She would have a picture of her family.
Dad: Yeah - she loves you guys. That's one of her most distinguishing features. How about me -- do you have a hat for me?
Gracie: A pencil hat!
Dad: Cool. I would wear a pencil hat if there was one.
Isaac: I wonder what the author's hat looks like.
Gracie: Probably a Millie hat!
Dad: So he would have a hat of a girl wearing a hat?
Gracie: I think he should write another book about Millie. Millie's Marvelous Shoes. Or Millie's Marvelous Mustache! Ha ha hahh hah...

Isaac's Marvelous Hat

Elijah's Marvelous Hat

Lily's Marvelous Hat

Gracie's Marvelous Hat

Author/Illustrator: Satoshi Kitamura
Published, 2009: Andersen Press
Like it? Find it

Monday, January 18, 2010

Review #57: The Phantom Tollbooth

Dad: Our latest bedtime storybook we worked through was "The Phantom Tollbooth" by Norton Juster. Do you guys remember enough about The Phantom Tollbooth to talk about it?
Lily (age 6): First, I have to tell everyone something. This is a chapter book.
Dad: You are right. But there were pictures in it too.
Lily: Yes.
Dad: The pictures were by Jules Feiffer. He's a pretty famous illustrator. Is there anything you want to say about the pictures.
Gracie (age 9): They were good.
Dad: Alrighty then.
Lily: The story is about a kid named Milo.
Gracie: At the beginning of the book, he is the most bored kid on earth. He has a thousand toys that he's never ever ever in his whole life used before. But he thinks he has nothing to do.
Isaac (age 11): Then this package comes, and in it there is a tollbooth.
Dad: Do you guys even know what a tollbooth is?
Isaac: Yeah. When you go into a different state there are tollbooths, and you have to pay money. In case you wreck the roads and stuff.
Gracie: So Milo puts a coin in, and he takes a little car... and I don't know where he got the car... and he drives through the tollbooth. And he goes to this crazy world.
Lily: His room just had a red car in it.
Gracie: I think it was a toy car he could drive. A blue car.
Isaac: No it was red.
Gracie: Blue.
Dad: Well, the pictures in the book were black and white...
Lily: It was red.
Dad: Let's check the story and see what it says...
Isaac: Blue is not a good color for a car.
Gracie: Blue is the perfect color for a 3 foot car.
Dad: Here we go... Here's the answer... Ready? The book says, "He looked glumly at all the things he owned... the small electric automobile he hadn't driven in months--or was it years..." So what's the answer?
Lily: Nothing.
Gracie: It's blue!
Dad: The answer is: The book doesn't give us a color. It's whatever color it was in your imagination.
Isaac: Red.
Gracie: Isaac, schwatreuse would be a better color on that car.
Isaac: There's no such thing as "schwa-treuse."
Dad: You mean chartreuse? I think you guys need some kind of "truce." Since the author doesn't tell us in the book, then he intentionally wanted to leave it to your imagination. Agreed? It's blue to one person, red to the other, and that's okay.
Lily: Purple.
Gracie & Isaac: Purple!?!
Dad: Okay, moving on...
Gracie: Milo goes to this crazy world. And he goes on a special mission to save Princesses Rhyme and Reason. And he meets, like, 100 different crazy characters on the way.
Isaac: Everything had become chaos, and everyone was fighting. So they needed Rhyme and Reason back.
Lily: Milo meets Tock.
Gracie: My favorite character!
Lily: He goes tick tick tick tick tick... Tock is a dog with a clock on his side.
Gracie: A watchdog!
Lily: He is comforting.
Dad: Tock is a good friend to Milo, isn't he.
Gracie: If I had to have a dog with a giant watch attached to his stomach, I would definitely want Tock. He's always trying to protect Milo. And whenever he gets really mad or excited, his alarm goes off.
Dad: Do you know what a "pun" is?
Isaac: A word joke?
Dad: Yep. There were lots of pun-characters in this book, weren't there? Like "watchdog."
Gracie: A dog with a clock.
Dad: And we know what a "spelling bee" is in real life. But what was it in the book?
Lily: A bee that spells everything.
Dad: Okay, we've described Milo and Tock. Who was the third main character?
Lily: The Humbug. He is a black bug. And he has a coat. He is full of himself. He's always like, "Look at me! Look what I did!"
Gracie: He's mostly focused on himself.
Isaac: The Humbug agrees with everyone. He's focused on not getting into trouble and on looking like the smart one.
Gracie: And he's a big scaredy.
Dad: What were the two main lands they visited?
Lily: The alphabet place and the number place.
Gracie: Dictionopolis and Digitopolis. And the two kings were Azaz and the Mathemagician.
Dad: So, we described our three heroes. But there are sooooo many other crazy folks they meet on their adventure... there's no way we can cover them all. How about each of you pick just one to tell us about. Tell us one favorite each.
Gracie: There was this kid named Alec who floats. He grows down instead of up. His head starts from how high up he's going to be when he's an adult, and his feet grow down to the floor. But his head stays the same height his whole life.
Dad: And his family thinks that makes more sense.
Isaac: Because then you can always have the same perspective.
Dad: We grow up, so our perspective is always changing. His stays the same.
Gracie: But what if he wanted to see a little tiny pebble when he was only 3 years old? Then he would be like, "I can't reach the ground... I can't see a pebble, I want to see a pebble..."
Dad: What character do you want to tell us about, Isaac?
Isaac: I liked Canby. He's this guy who is everything. He says "I'm as tall as can be, I'm as small as can be..."
Gracie: "I'm as skinny as can be, I'm as brave as can be..."
Dad: Do you remember where they met him?
Isaac: Conclusions. That's an island.
Dad: And how do you get there?
Gracie: You always jump to Conclusions.
Isaac: It only happens when you decide something without knowing the facts.
Dad: Your turn, Lily.
Lily: I want to tell you about the number person. The Mathemagician. Milo asked him, "What is the biggest number?" And it was a giant 3. Then Milo said "No, no, no, I mean the longest number." And it was a big looooong 8.
Dad: Great. Any way to summarize the book as a whole?
Gracie: It's crazy. It's so crazy.
Dad: And did they ever save those princesses they were off to find?
Isaac: I'll just leave that so you have to read the book. I'm not going to say what happens, because everyone has to read the book.

daddy, mommy, and baby watchdogs, by Lily

Tock and Milo meet the princesses, by Gracie

more crazy characters, by Isaac

Author: Norton Juster
Illustrator: Jules Feiffer
Published, 1961: Random House
Like it? Find it

Wednesday, January 13, 2010

2009 Readers' Pick

How would you like to help pick a title for Bookie Woogie review? Now's your chance! Isaac, Grace, Lily, and I have taken turns picking. From time to time our mail carrier picks one for us. We've even let Hungarians and New Zealanders have a go. Now it's time for our first "Readers' Pick."

Our posts alternate week to week between new releases and old favorites. Well, 2010 is now upon us. We have two last '09 reviews all set to post on Jan 25 and Feb 8. But you have a chance to help pick a third before we move on to highlighting 2010 titles.

Every book we've reviewed on this site is a book we think you should take a look at. Here are nine more. These are nine '09 books we loved and WOULD have reviewed as well if we had the ability to post more often... or if years had twice as many weeks in them.

Leave a comment on this post telling us which of the books below you would like us to review. Maybe it's a title you love too, and you want to see what the Z-Kids have to say. Maybe it's a title you've never heard of, and you'd like to learn more about it. We'll let the voting run 'til the end of January. Whichever story gets the most comments wins a Bookie Woogie review on Feb 22!

Comments Commence!