Monday Recap

It's Monday...

  ... November, DST has departed - So has That Extra Hour - and it's dark when we arrive home from work.  The only thing to do is to READ!  Not such a bad time of year, after all!

It's Monday! What are you Reading? is hosted by Jen at TEACH.MENTOR.TEXTS, and shared with Ricki and Kellee at UNLEASHING READERS.   

         And, also visit Sheila at BOOK JOURNEYS for more reviews. 

 Tweet! at #IMWAYR

Thanks to Jen, Kellee, Ricki and Sheila for keeping us reading!

        I didn't read very many books this week, but those I did were good.  I hope you all had a terrific Halloween, and are having (or have had) good, satisfying conferences.  It's always a busy time, isn't it? 

Many Moons – written by James Thurber and illustrated by Louis Slobodkin

               I was looking for a book for a teacher to use who is helping a young student study rhetoric, and re-discovered this older picture book by Thurber. A young princess is ill and it is thought she will recover if she can only have the moon. Her father asks his closest servants to help, whereupon they offer lists of all the things they have found for him through the years, but say, with various arguments, they cannot get the moon. The quest is repeated until the problem finally is solved, through wise reasoning and logic. It's a wonderful tale in itself that might start some really interesting arguments about those who give outlandish answers when it suits their own beliefs. See if you can find a copy!

The Snatchabook - written by Helen Docherty and illustrated by Thomas Docherty

             A Goodreads friend, Carrie Gelson of There’sABookForThat, once in a

while, sends me a message that I MUST get this book, and of course, I do!  Wouldn’t you?  This is one of them, a creative story of make believe that shares the story about the lonely Snatchabook who goes about stealing books being read at bedtime to sweet little animals around the forest. The young children are sad to lose their books, and little Eliza Brown, one of the young rabbits, is determined to find the culprit. Through her wise actions, she solves the mystery, and helps the young Snatchabook solve his problem in more positive ways. The illustrations are filled with cute details that make the reader want to look and look. I just read this to a group of kindergarteners, and they grinned and laughed, were well able to follow the story and predict what was going to happen next.

Halloween Nights  twenty-one Spooktacular Poems - written by Charles Ghigna and illustrated by Adam McCauley

          I saw Charles Ghigna share about his book on Facebook and ordered it, have had a great time reading the poems to my granddaughter, and just enjoying the different looks he’s given to Halloween topics, and the terrific endings he manages, never easy to do well.  Topics range from costume dilemmas to NOT being afraid around Halloween (“I’m not afraid of closet doors/when they are open wide") choosing just the right pumpkin in the pumpkin patch (“We came upon a little one/that sat there all alone”) and the real duty of Jack o’ lanterns, which you’ll need to read to discover!  The illustrations by Adam McCauley are bright, graphic pictures, filled with mostly black and orange, with highlights of purple and green, very clever and flashy.  I will take out the book every October and enjoy it all over again!

Leave Your Sleep -A Collection of Classic Children’s Poetry adapted to music by Natalie Merchant and illustrated by Barbara McClintock

               I didn't know there was a previous cd of these poems set to music by the

wonderful Natalie Merchant until I received the picture book from the library.  It's a collection of perhaps little known poems from years ago, but well known classics that are found in the earlier anthologies or very old school books.  I remember some of these being read to me by grandparents.  You can hear parts of some of the songs on Natalie Merchant's site that announces the picture book.  Some poems are sweetly sung and others are set to rowdy folk music, like the poem, "Adventures of Isabel" by Ogden Nash.  Other poems shared, among the many wonderful ones, are E.E. Cummings "maggie and milly and molly and may” and that moral poem-tale by John Godfrey Saxe, "The Blind Man And The Elephant".  This new book sharing the poems also comes with Natalie Merchant's cd and is illustrated realistically, and beautifully, by Barbara McClintock.  One of my favorite illustrations is for "Equestrienne" by Rachel Field, showing a ballerina standing on a white horse, curtains parting at the circus, and then Barbara has her twisting and pirouetting so gracefully in her act.  The poems are rather old-fashioned in their language at times, but all the more fun to read aloud, discuss, then listen, and listen again!

Still Reading - Code Name Verity by Elizabeth Wein, so good, but just haven't had the time to finish.  And, I'm still reading parts of those PD books for discussion, and a few poetry books a little at a time.  I'm reading, just not finishing!