Please don’t let the fact that it took me six weeks to read Mambo In Chinatown scare you off from reading it. Jean Kwok is wonderful and this book was terrific — the slowness of my reading was related entirely to JMP’s visit + this stupid cold that won’t go away.
I really enjoyed the characters in this book and I found myself wanting to watch ballroom dancing videos.
Mambo In Chinatown Read More »
I’m still playing catch up with the books from JMP’s visit. I may never catch up…
We were listening to kids’ music on iTunes radio and I asked Jenn if she’d ever gotten JMP an audiobook. She hadn’t, so I reserved a couple from the library.
The Little Red Hen was fine… it came with a book that he enjoyed flipping through. You could just listen to the story straight through or you could listen to a version that had a signal to “turn the page”. I think he mostly enjoyed the music that played when each animal said “not I…”
The one I (we?) liked more was The Gingerbread Boy and Other First Tales — because more stories!
Two Children’s Audiobooks Read More »
When I checked out that cool flower gardening book, TW suggested we plant perennial vegetables so I reserved a ton of books about perennials of all sorts, but primarily veggies. I read two last week (or was that the week before?) Perennial Vegetabls from Artichokes to Zuiki Taro and Perennial Companions. Both were interesting — The first was super interesting but TW kept talking about “invasives” and crap so I think she was pretty much boycotting most of the veggies I found most interesting lol. The latter was… just ok. Kind of pretty but not super useful.
Two Non-Fiction: Perennials! Read More »
I impulsed picked a bunch of books from a Grandparents’ Day display at the library. The two non-fiction were Grand Activities: More Than 150 Fabulous Fun Activities for Kids to Do with Their Grandparents and Kids and Grandparents: An Activity Book.
The first was… not good. It was primarily things that kids can do with PARENTS in relation to the child’s grandparents or things to do and send TO grandparents. Not what I was looking for at all.
The latter was a nice enough book if you need help thinking about old-fashioned games and activities to do with kids. One thing that was interesting to me was thinking about the fact that so many of these activities are really REALLY old-fashioned. It won’t be long before grandparents have never done any of these activities as kids… which leads me to wonder what the next book of old fashioned fun for grandparents and grandchildren will look like. If I had more time or inclination, I’d write that book, lol.
2 Non-Fiction for Grandparents Read More »
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.
3 More Children’s Books Read More »
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.
Some Children’s Books – 4 Of Them Read More »
I probably read these in August but for the sake of my sanity and who the hell really cares which month I read these when the entire 30 day period should just be called JMP month and we should just leave off the two weeks before and the two weeks after and jump right to October… whatevs. I read three non-fiction. Home decor kind of stuff.
How to Hang a Picture. Woh. Who knew you could be so serious about hanging pictures? Not me. Except now I know. I’m kind of afraid to hang pictures now because I guarantee you that I’m doing it wrong.
Bright Bazaar was completely fun but not necessarily useful. Which is good. I like that in a coffee table pretty picture-y book.
Decorate Fearlessly was… fascinating. Also fun. Also definitely not something I would ever find useful at all. Except each funky room had one or two things in it that I coveted. Hard.
Pretty much my only goals were JMP related and I managed to do all but one thing on my list. So yay me.
I haven’t touched the water bottle I was supposed to make for Melisa before I see her in September. I’ve barely touched my Filofaxes since JMP arrived. I keep falling behind on the daily journaling and have to catch up by looking at my Instagram to see what we did on each day.
So, everything is going smoothly. Except when it isn’t. Mostly it’s good. Very good.
Filofax, Art Journaling and Other Goals in August Read More »
Oh boy. Good thing I planned to NOT read very much in August because man, I really didn’t read much.
17 total.
5 non-fiction
1 graphic novel
1 YA
6 children’s fiction
3 were Cybils
1 was queer
1 audio
Sheesh. Must read more — even if it’s more children’s fiction.
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.
6 Children’s Books, 2 Cybils Read More »