Children’s Literature

3 More Children’s Books

2014, Books in Bed, Children's Literature, Cybil Challenge /

I think these must all be from the Cybils shortlist. Lord knows I wouldn’t read another Elephant & Piggie book unless it was on the list. Or JMP picked it out himself. He didn’t, so it must be. A Big Guy Took My Ball was one of my least favorite in the series. Mo Willems can do better and has done better. These need to stop being added to the Cybils shortlist — they’ve jumped the shark.

Penny and Her Marble, sigh, I have a fondness for Kevin Henkes unfortunately, none of the children I’ve read to on a regular basis seem to share my fondness. JMP liked this one well enough. It was long and I don’t think he knows what a marble IS (which I admit is my fault — the book is intended for slightly older children) maybe he’ll like it more when he’s older.

Open This Little Book was super adorable. JMP wanted to turn all of the pages — sometimes more quickly than I could read the words, which is saying something since you can’t really fit that many readable words onto some of those tiny pages. So far, this is my favorite (I think) from the Cybils children’s books we’ve read.

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Some Children’s Books – 4 Of Them

2014, Books in Bed, Children's Literature, Cybil Challenge /

I read some of these in August. Some in September. Whatevs. I think some are Cybils but I won’t know until I finish writing this and go take a peek. Most were just impulse pick ups from library visits with JMP.

Melvin Might was awesome because JMP LOVES TRUCKS. ALL THE TRUCKANOW. I wish this series had an iPhone app instead of games that you can play on your computer. Trucktown really needs an app y’all. I think we need all of the Trucktown books.

Mr. Tiger Goes Wild — and gets naked and roars and stuff. I think this was a Cybil. JMP liked it and I liked it. Animals can be so stuck up and judgy, ya know?

Pick a Pup was adorbs. At least I thought so. JMP wasn’t so sure. I don’t think he groks the concept of choosing a puppy. Why would he when he is surrounded by dogs. Dogs just happen in JMP’s world.

Never Poke a Squid. Well. That’s a good rule. However the book was a jumbled mess of I don’t even know what and I should have just ad-libbed my way through. I might read it again, to JMP, and make up my own damn story because the one in the book… I couldn’t even tell you how the squid got poked. I’m not sure we ever found out.

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6 Children’s Books, 2 Cybils

2014, Books in Bed, Children's Literature, Cybil Challenge /

It’s that time again. Time for me to read my children’s books than anything else. 😉

Tractor is a cute little touch & feel type board book. JMP likes tractors.

Woof! Woof! was the dumbest board book EVER. I only looked at the first page while in the library and that was cute. It was three DUMB pages long. Total waste of time.

That’s Not My Panda was … cute enough. The author has a whole series of these and I’m not super impressed. Reading one was enough.

Boats was nice. JMP likes boats. It’s a nice book for new readers with vocabulary words in it. Very nice.

The Pet Project is from the Cybils shortlist. A little girl wants a pet and her parents make her research pets. She finds out that she’s not really a pet person.

Count the Monkeys is also from the Cybils shortlist. I umm went off the rails and did some special grandma cursing, which amused JMP’s mom. It was cute but the monkey pay off at the end wasn’t as good as I’d hoped. Too many monkeys to count.

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Three Graphic Novels

2014, Books in Bed, Children's Literature, Comics & Graphic Novels, Cybil Challenge, Young Adult /

All Cybils and all better than I expected.

I absolutely loved Templar and didn’t expect to.

Uzumaki was freaky. It’s hard to read a book while you’re covering your eyes. Also, I will never look at spirals in the same way. Shudder. Also, it’s been awhile since I read real manga (front to back) much less horror manga.

War Brothers is heartbreaking. I think I’d have liked the real book better than the graphic novel.

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The True Blue Scouts of Sugar Man Swamp

2014, Audiobooks, Books in Bed, Children's Literature, Cybil Challenge, Favorites, Sci Fi and Fantasy /

Lol

The True Blue Scouts of Sugar Man Swamp is a cybil middle grade book, I believe. We listened to it on audio and you’d think the fact that it was read by Lyle Lovett would make this a slam dunk. It did not, my friends, no it did not (lol — I’m laughing at myself for typing that, which you would understand if you’ve read this book.)

He started slowly and it took awhile to warm up to him. The whole book started a wee bit slowly and then suddenly, we were hooked.

The language is fantastic. The vocabulary — holy hell, sports fans… remember those dumb assignments where you had to find five words you didn’t know (while reading some library book) and write the definitions and it was impossible because you already knew all of the words. If you have a kid like that, try this book. Brilliantly done. Really.

I’m not generally a fan of anthropomorphism, but in this case — I loved the racoons and the canebrake rattlers, and the armadillo and even that horrid porcine family. Oh and the cat. I liked him, too.

I’ve also got a nasty craving for a sugar pie…

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Lockwood & Co: The Screaming Staircase

2014, Audiobooks, Books in Bed, Children's Literature, Cybil Challenge, Sci Fi and Fantasy /

We listened to The Screaming Staircase on audio and man that was creepy. I think this was on the Cybils middle grade scifi/fantasy list and if that’s true… I hope the middle grade readers can handle some really creepy, yukky descriptive content.

It was good. Really good. I liked all of three of the kids a lot. I’m looking forward to book 2.

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The Rithmatist

2014, Audiobooks, Books in Bed, Children's Literature, Cybil Challenge, Favorites, Sci Fi and Fantasy, Young Adult /

We really enjoyed listening to The Rithmatist on audio. Except… it took a chapter or so to get into (alternate realities often do) and at the beginning or end of each chapter, they describe a rithmatic defense. It would have been nice to be able to see those lines as they were described. Instead, we kept going online later and looking at the drawings.

I don’t usually do this but… it was very Harry Potter-like. A boy. His father died. He’s at a boarding school. There are professors, some of whom the boy suspects of wrong-doing. There’s magic. There’s even a “symbol” — it may not be a lightning bolt on a forehead but… see, very Harry Potter-like. Which possibly explains why we enjoyed it?

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Deep Blue (Waterfire Saga)

2014, Books in Bed, Children's Literature, Sci Fi and Fantasy /

Mermaids. I like mermaids. I should have liked Deep Blue more than I did.

I didn’t actually really start to enjoy it until it was almost over and then I was kind of grouchy because it ended and now I have to get book two in order to find out what happens next (all while hoping that I enjoy the beginning of book two more than I enjoyed the beginning of book one. Which I’m not all that inclined to do, right now. Maybe later.)

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Escape From Mr. Lemoncello’s Library

1 Comment / 2014, Audiobooks, Books in Bed, Children's Literature, Cybil Challenge, Favorites, Library /

Best book from the Cybils shortlist so far this year! I loved Escape From Mr Lemoncello’s Library and I’m extra glad we listened to it on audio.

We chuckled our way through it and were sad when it ended. Equally sad that Nickelodeon optioned it for a TV movie. Sure wish Pixar would have grabbed it. It would make a great movie — and a great theme park attraction.

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Hiding Out At the Pancake Palace

2014, Books in Bed, Children's Literature, Fiction /

I was really enjoying Hiding Out at the Pancake Palace until I got to the end. It’s like there were pages missing. We go all the way through this and THAT is how it ends? I keep thinking this morning that maybe I was too tired to finish last night at 11pm and maybe I did skip some pages or something? Maybe if I go back, I’ll like the ending (or feel like it even made sense). If I try and it turns out I missed something, I’ll let you know.

Otherwise, unless you like an fulfilling and dare I say DUMB ending, skip this one. (It’s middle grade fiction, too, by the way.)

And, now I want pancakes.

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