Children's Book Recommendations!

So, we've been cleaning out the bookshelves in our house and throwing away any old books that we didn't want anymore, and I have started looking at books I read as a kid that I loved again. It was interesting to remember all the nice times reading those books. So, I will share my favorites with everyone- so someone else's kid might have the privilege of enjoying them too. I'll start with books for the younger child- not tiny, tiny, hard books, but still picture books.

The first is East of the Sun & West of the Moon. This book was lavishly illustrated by Mercer Mayer, adapted from a Norwegian folktale of the same name. The main draw of the story for me was always the art work, I spent hours staring at the pages when I was a kid, especially the one with the tea cup that fell into the water. But I won't spoil it for you. Instead, I'll give you a different preview picture. 

Isn't that just bloody gorgeous?

The next book I will speak about is Heckedy Peg. This book has absolutely gorgeous drawings, it has got a healthy dose of peril, and it has a great story. I think this one is adapted from an old tale too. It's by Audrey and Don Wood. 

This witch scared the hell out of me as a kid, but heck I loved the story anyway because of the heroine. 

It is a great book to teach kids not to open the door to strangers in a creative way, while also feeding a kid's imagination. 

The third kids book is a gentler foray into the children's literature category, and it is also by Audrey and Don Wood. I guess that authoring group was just a staple in our family. Anyway, the Napping House is the not so regular goings on in a house while it is raining. Beautiful, and it also goes in a poetic sequence, which seems to be a winner in children's books. 

The color combination in this book seems to be blue and yellow, which for some reason seems like a strange combination that might be slightly unsettling to the eye. Or maybe I am just crazy. 

I think Audrey and Don Wood liked to experiment with their styles and color palettes in their children's books. Anyway, onto the next one. The fourth is By The Light of the Halloween Moon.

This one might be a tad bit creepy for the really young ones. But it's still good anyway.

This one is a scarier one, but it is so creative and poetic that I have to recommend it. I think I was scared of it as a kid, so you might want to screen test this one. 

The next is the Frog and Toad Treasury, or any of the individual stories, by Arnold Lobel. This is actually for a tad bit of an older audience, I think, and the pictures are very good. 

And very lastly for the picture books, is The Escape of Marvin the Ape, by Caralyn and Mark Buehner. The main appeal for this book was the sequencing, and there is a bit of where's waldo in there, with hidden images of bunnies and emus, etc. It is a fun picture book that utilizes story and pictures together. 

Now. Onto the chapter books. I'll try to go from youngest to oldest. There are only six of them here, but there are many more good ones. These are just some of my favorites. The first happens to be Which Witch? by Eva Ibotson. It's about an evil wizard- Arriman the Awful- trying to pick a witch of equal evilness to marry. So there is a contest to see who is the most evil witch to marry. The plot sounds ridiculous the way I explain it- but the book is very good for a grade schooler. 

Another good one by Eva Ibbotson that I enjoyed as a kid, probably a little bit more than Which Witch, was The Secret of Platform 13. It's about a forgotten door on an abandoned railway platform, which is the entrance to a magic kingdom. When the prince of the island is kidnapped by Ms. Trottle, a band a strange creatures is sent to rescue him. 

This is another book for the grade school age. A lot of people love Eva Ibbotson, but a lot of people don't like her, either. I read The Secret of Platform 13 in 4th grade and Which Witch in 5th. The biggest appeal of these books is the imagination in them. The plots are so fantastical that it seems only a kid could understand it. The Secret of Platform 13 is an imagination book! I read these books late, so I would say these books could be read as early as the 2nd grade. 

A book for the 5th graders would be Coraline, and even The Graveyard Book, both by Neil Gaman. Coraline can be read as early as 4th grade, it's a little creepy though. The Graveyard Book is even creepier than Coraline in my opinion, and should probably be read in 5th grade at the earliest. 6th would probably be better. 

I think we all know what Coraline is about. It's artfully written, the imagination is definitely there, and the drawings are stunningly disturbing. The Graveyard Book is Neil Gaman's ode to the Jungle Book, a novel he was fascinated with as a child. It is a great book, but again is very creepy in some parts. 

And this isn't even one of the creepiest drawings. Some of the drawings in this book were seriously creepy.

Different style of illustrations here, but still very good. More flow-y it seems.

The fifth book, one of my all time favorite books, is Howl's Moving Castle. Again, some people won't agree that this is a great book, but I loved it very much. It's about a girl named Sophie, born the eldest of three sisters, who lives in a fairy tale sort of world and accepts the fate that she is destined to have the most boring life of her three sisters. But in reality, she is wrong! This book is about not accepting fate that is given to you, and making your own way! It's imaginative and exciting! 

The very last book I will speak about, which is probably for the oldest kids, is The Ear, The Eye, and The Arm. This is probably for the 6th and 7th graders, I think that that is when I read it. It was an easy read for me then, it was fast paced, exciting, and different. Set in a future Zimbabwe, it is the story of three wealthy children who run away from home, are kidnapped, and then continuously kidnapped. Three super powered detectives go in search of them- the ear, the eye, and the arm (the arm being my favorite). This book didn't settle well with some people because the plot was apparently 'weird'. I disagree! It is again, imaginative and interesting!

So, those are the twelve I am recommending. Some people might say that these books are not 'great' because they might have improper character development, or some parts of the plot are convoluted, etc. But they all have such fantastic imagination and mystery that they are great reads for a young kid trying to make sense of the world around them. I think modern realistic fiction (The Perks of Being a Wallflower, Perfect, Speak, etc) is to help kids get through late middle school and the beginning of high school and help figure out who they are as individuals, the classics are to help older kids get a sense of language and how to utilize it, how to love it, but the books for the youngsters should be about developing that imagination. Because a world without creativity is no world at all! Rant over. 

Other great books: Treasure Island, Lafcadio, Sans Famille, The True Confessions of Charlotte Doyle, The Egypt Game, To Kill A Mockingbird (these are all fantastic and acclaimed reads that I also loved as a kid, perhaps excluding Lafcadio, I don't know what awards if any that won, but it is by Shel Silverstein, a master lyric, and an interesting poet) 

Handmaid's Tale: Mayday Activity Reflection

The Mayday activity was very interesting. There were high strung, intense moments in the game and people actually thought I was an Eye!

Sweet Canada, with your fluffy sweet birds! 

I for one was trying to find out for myself who the mayday rebels were, and I was sure that Sheridan was one. But, in the end, alas, I was wrong. Completely wrong! It was Jordan and Tori. Too bad I didn't get to go to Canada. I have unbelievably bad luck when it comes to the important things. If I was in this world, one day I may find a left over cake in the fridge or something, a different experience than the usual meals of eggs butter and milk (creepy when thought about) and that would be my stroke of luck. But when it comes to Canada, I'm not going, because I don't have that kind of luck. I shall wallow for a moment. Anyway, people had the audacity to think I was an Eye because apparently I was 'keeping quiet', when really, I was just trying to figure out who was who! They said maybe I was an eye, and I just got quiet, because what else do you say? If you say 'no I'm not!' they'll think you did it, and if you say nothing, they still think you did it. You can't win! But, it doesn't matter now...

The two english students circle. One senses an opening, and pounces! Little does the magnificent creature know that its companion is going for the low attack...

I'm watchin' you!

A bit of drama when a certain someone slapped another certain someone, and then some more drama, but I did not see one bit of it! I was inside being a handmaid. My reflection of the activity found that we all had zero intuition. I would have never suspected the Eyes of being Eyes, and I would have never suspected the Mayday rebels of being Mayday rebels. So, my intuition and the intuition of the rest of my classmates are practically shot. We would have no hope in the world of Gilead.
I don't really know what else to say. The thing is, there wasn't much to the activity. I didn't really want to condemn anyone, so I didn't really vote for anyone to be done away with. I don't know why I didn't. If I had it my way, I would have done a full on investigation. But seriously, how can you figure out something like that? I knew early on that we'd never figure it out, it seemed so impossible. How can you just 'decide' who did what based on reactions? It's like the Salem Witch Trials! When in doubt, condemn! And that just ain't right. But, I suppose the activity copied the direness of the situation in Gilead, so that's that.

Lion, Lamb, Serpent, Angel

Alright. Today, our class participated in an activity to see what our propensity to kill and lie was. There was a spectrum- more like a compass, to guide us off of. North was the Lion. South was the lamb. East was the Serpent, and West I guess was the angel. I may be wrong though. The point is, you gridded a point where you thought you were off the axes (what is the plural of axis?) and I was in the venomous (serpent) lamb range, meaning I had a greater propensity to lie than the average person, but I had a lesser propensity to kill than the average person. In my class, most people were concentrated in this area.

If you look close enough, you can see it's fangs...

I fully support the right to lie if it is not hurtful to a person. If something doesn't need to be said, it doesn't need to be said. Honesty can be hurtful. If it is constructive, I would probably support honesty. But if it's just mean, why say it?

Ah, so beautiful... 

Example. If someone asks if a dress makes them look fat, I personally will not say, 'mayday! beached whale' or something awful of that nature or any near it. I will say 'It looks alright, but it's really not your color', or maybe say nicely 'it looks kind of stretchy across the abdomen, maybe if you got one with a little more breathing room you'd be able to dance easier'. Anyway, point gotten across, hopefully.
Example two. If I stole the cookie from the cookie jar, I will plead innocent by disassociation. I will not blame my brothers. I will simply say 'I don't know'. Though, if we are speaking in non metaphorical circumstances, I will definitely come clean about eating all the cookies. I'm honest about food. It's some of that other stuff that you let slip by. Disassociation did not always work when I was younger, though, because I would feel guilty enough to crack and tell the truth.
On the other hand, killing, I would not do. I don't know, I just couldn't kill someone. Or maybe I could. The fact is, something that crazy, I wouldn't be able to say whether I could do it or not unless I was in the situation. Maybe I would kill a person who was trying to kill me if they came upon me unawares.
If I was to analyze it, I would say that if given the active choice of saving someone in place of myself, I think that I would be able to hand the towel in (that sounds terrible, by gum...) but if someone snuck up on me and tried to take me out, I would probably fight for my life. I don't know. I don't know. The fact is, that one is really hard. It's a matter of honor, I suppose.

The Handmaid's Tale vs The Crucible

"Oh God, I pray... is this what you had in mind?"(Atwood 92)

The Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood paints a picture of a religious society that has gone too far. In an article she wrote describing the after effects of The Handmaid's Tale, Margaret Atwood discussed how she believed "much of the church's behavior and doctrine during its two millennia long existence as a social and political organization would have been abhorrent to the person after whom it is named"(the Guardian, 2012). The whole society revolved around an interpretation of a bible passage, in which Rachel cannot bear Jacob a child. Jacob becomes angry, and she decides to give her maid to her husband in order to 'bear Jacob children for her'. In The Handmaid's Tale, this passage is followed nearly word for word.
In the book, there was some sort of nuclear disaster that rendered many American women infertile. Apparently, Serena Joy, already having been a gospel singer, spearheaded the new movement to make repopulating the planet easier. But, in chapters 15 and 16 Serena Joy finds out that the movement she helped begin has become more than she bargained for. The interesting thing of the book is the twisting of strange bible passages to give reason for a society that demoralizes and oppresses women. It seems as if this is a look back at the condition of women in an earlier time.
The choosing of a Puritanical Society as Margaret Atwood's base makes sense. Puritan's were among the first settlers in the colonies. Their form of religion was unhealthy, because in their search to be perfect people, they became obsessed with seeking out the damned and condemning them. This is the basis for The Crucible by Arthur Miller. In Puritanical society, it was believed that most people were going to hell, and at some points nothing could be done about it. Perfection as a responsibility was thrown on over paranoid people who were scared of what lay beyond. This lead to mass paranoia in villages like Salem Village, where the Salem Witch Trials took place. The inhabitants were constantly looking for evil in everything that went wrong for them. Mrs. Putnam, who lost a number of children, couldn't deal with the possibility of being infertile, so she blamed her midwife, Rebecca Nurse, for killing her children. This lead to Mrs. Nurse being hung. This was similar the the role of the Eyes in The Handmaid's Tale, who kept everyone on their toes, in paranoia, ready to attack each other. A god who was supposed to be a 'savior' for the people was used as a weapon for oppression in the Handmaid's Tale, as it was in Puritan society.

How To Avoid A Shark Attack: Bored Blog

Hello. We all love the beach with a passion, right? We love to swim, right? But, there's always that underlying fear...

OF A SHARK ATTACK!! 

For those of us who watched Jaws when we were very young, this is a slight problem. I caught my first look at Jaws when we were still living in Dallas, so I was probably five. I couldn't even take a bath for a few weeks without fearing that Jaws would break up through the porcelain and drag me down into the murky depths that was our hot water tank. I don't know how I ever went into the ocean after that, but I have always loved the water, so I guess I dealt with the possibility of being eaten by a shark. They are no doubt interesting creature, and I soon became very interested in finding out more about them. 

So, I am prepared to share my knowledge with you... here it is... 

HOW TO AVOID A SHARK ATTACK:

1. Don't go swimming at night. Reference first scene of Jaws 1. 

2. Don't swim too far from shore. My dad actually petted a shark by accidence when he swam a few too many yards out into the ocean. 

3. Don't swim after it's been raining heavily; fresh water fish and some sharks will move into places they normally wouldn't.

4. Low tide sometimes gets sharks stuck in bays, mouths of rivers, etc, so don't frequent those places during low tide. 

5. If there's a dead animal nearby, don't go over to it. There might be a shark in the vicinity. 

6. Avoid diving from boats. You might just dive onto a SHARK. 

7. Apparently a paddling dog spells out shark bait. Reference Jaws 1 just before yellow raft child goes into the water. 

8. Don't frequent a spot where shark attacks have taken place. Since sharks frequent the same places, they'll probably pay a visit again. 

9. Swim in a group, but always bring someone you really don't like with you, so if a shark visits the group, you can all distract it with Unfortunate Una so you all can escape (I'm kidding, I'm kidding...)

10. Don't feed the sharks. There's a 200% chance that it won't work out in your favor. 

11. Swim on sunny days. If it's cloudy, the shark might think that you are prey. 

12. Don't look like a seal. Surfers are plagued by this problem so be extra careful if you are surfing. 

13. If you see a shark, leave. 

14. Don't swim in murky waters. 

15. Did that tan not work out too well? Apparently, uneven tans resemble skin color contrasts on fish. So don't swim. 

16. Stay alert. 

17. Don't swim if you're bleeding. 

18. Bright clothing apparently looks like 'fish bling'. So wear ugly greys, blacks, whites, and browns if you want to swim. :( Or wing it. 

So these are ways of avoiding a shark attack. Some of them are kind of old, so I don't know if they are completely true. The thing is, sharks are very mysterious creatures, and urban myths about them live on because not many people know much about them. I only found out recently that they were warm blooded. 

So, perhaps the moral of the story, is sometimes, you just got to get past the fear and the precautions that verge on madness, and just have fun. Obviously places with lots of seals will have great whites. Apparently, sharks and humans swim in close proximity in ocean water a lot of times, and hardly ever do the two species interact in these situations. 

In the end, having fun is the most important thing.