Senor Parrot’s Perch

Archie and the Pirates, by Marc Rosenthal, is a very good, very fun book. Kids, from little through first or second grade will love it. When I say this book has just about everything needed to be a sure success with kids, I mean it. That is to say, it’s got a monkey and pirates! I think that  spells instant winner with a lot of kids.

I picked it up and flipped through a few pages and that’s all it took to convince me to take this book home and feed it to my 7-year old. She read Archie and the Pirates  through to the end,and she loved the story. If it’s good, funny, and has great illustrations, she’s all for the book every time.

Yes, Archie is the monkey – a monkey marooned on a tropical island paradise- almost. You see, there’s this tiger roaming about roaring hungrily. And then, there’s these pirates, and they…

Let me back up. As the story begins, without explanation, we find Archie adrift on the ocean, fast asleep in his bed, and dreaming that he is asleep in his bed, adrift on the ocean. He awakens to find that he floated to a desert island somewhere in the tropics. Following the lead of the Swiss Family Robinson, he constructs an elaborate, and ingenious tree house with multi-purpose items, and even running water, all with tools and items he collects from the beach and elsewhere on the island.

Archie soon makes friends with an Ibis, and he whiles away the pleasant hours with her. But there is danger on this island, and later, the pirates come and kidnap one of Archie’s friends. Can Archie mount a rescue?

Pictures are from Marc Rosenthal’s Website.

Marc Rosenthal has written other books, but I’m only familiar with

For a lot of us,  it’s hard to get too much of Harry Potter. So the great news now is The Wizarding World of Harry Potter, the Harry Potter-based theme park in Orlando, Florida, is now open. The Wall Street Journal has a nice photo journal of the park. The park seems like a certain destination in my families future.

It’s interesting to think about how much J.K. Rowling created in this fantastic set of books. At the same time, much of the world was also brought to life by the movies. The Wizarding World of Harry Potter seems as much about the movies as the books. Had the books been in existence for many years before put into movies, I wonder how well accepted the movies would have been? Would die-hard fans be griping about the characterizations and adaptions in the storyline to make the films work the in the same way that is characteristic of other film adaptions?

Probably the difference is the well known and intense involvement of Rowling in the drafting of the screenplays of the movies, ensuring that the central core of the films remained true to the books, especially choices of central characters. This isn’t always the case with adaptions. Some films that left my kids and her friends very disappointed were the recent Percy Jackson and the Olympians: The Lightening Thief movie, or The Spiderwick Chronicles. Either events that they thought were absolutely central were omitted or the characters were so far removed from their personal conceptions from the books that they just couldn’t enjoy the movies for themselves. It fringed on a violation to them, as though the movies had performed some grossly disrespectful act to the books’ authors and their stories.

 

The Midwest Bookseller Association is made up of 240 or so independent, local booksellers. Annually they vote for their favorites in several categories. Today they’ve announced their award winners. Always, these are excellent picks.

At the awards dinner, to be held late this September, there are usually autographed copies available to the member booksellers. If you want to get your hands on one of these, go to your local bookseller, not Barnes and Noble, Borders, or other national chains, and find out if they’re members of the Midwest Booksellers Association and if they are going to attend the fall trade show in St. Paul, Minnesota this year. Ask, beg, or whine if they can get an autographed copy for you-you’ll need to pay, of course. They may even take your own copy to get it signed. Local booksellers are the best. In Madison, I like Booked For Murder.

These are their choices for this year:

2009 AWARD WINNERS

Fiction

The Story of Edgar Sawtelle

David Wroblewski
(Ecco/HarperCollins)

Nonfiction

Coop: A Year of Poultry, Pigs and Parenting

Michael Perry
(HarperCollins)

Poetry

Swimming With A Hundred Year Old Snapping Turtle

Freya Manfred
(Red Dragonfly Press)

Children’s Picture Book

Louise, The Adventures of a Chicken

Kate DiCamillo, Illustrated by Harry Bliss
(Joanna Cotler Books/HarperCollins)

Children’s Literature

The Graveyard Book

Neil Gaiman, Illustrated by Dave McKean
(HarperCollins Children’s Books)

2009 HONOR BOOKS

Fiction

A Reliable Wife

Robert Goolrick
(Algonquin Books/Workman Publishing)

Nonfiction

Dewey: The Small-Town Library Cat Who Touched the World

Vicki Myron with Bret Witter
(Grand Central Publishing/Hachette Book Group USA)

Poetry

Yellowrocket

Todd Boss
(W.W. Norton & Company)

Children’s Picture Book

Snow

Cynthia Rylant, Illustrated by Lauren Stringer
(Harcourt Children’s Books/Houghton Mifflin Harcourt)

Children’s Literature

Savvy

Ingrid Law
(Dial Books for Young Readers/Walden Media/
Penguin Group (USA)

Veterans’ Day isn’t much anymore. When I was a child, all our fathers served in one way or another in WWII or the Korean War and helped build the world I grew up on. Some of my friends were children of their mother’s second husband, the first remaining somewhere in Europe or at the bottom of the Pacific. That world died with Viet Nam.

The Children’s Book Review-Growing Readers has provided a nice list of books that remember those who bravely put their lives on the line for us. Now, many of the children reading thises books would have grand parents and great grandparents who served in WWII or the Korean War, or in the Viet Nam or first Iraq wars. Many will have fathers who have or continue to serve in Iraq or Afganistan. And since Viet Nam, they have grandmothers and mothers serving as well.

Let’s always remember their great sacrifice.

Elizabeth Kennedy, over on childrensbooks.about.com , has a great website devoted to children’s books. She covers book news and offers a free newsletter, provides shopping guides, reviews some of the best new kid’s books, lists some of the better children’s lit blogs, and provides lots of resources for learning about and selecting some great books for your kids. Its definitely worth the bookmark and regular visits.

This just in from the ALA, via the American Booksellers Association: the announcement of this years winners of the Newberry and Caldecott awards are:

Newbery Medal
The Higher Power of Lucky by Susan Patron, illustrated by Matt Phelan (Simon & Schuster/Richard Jackson)

Newbery Honor Books
Penny From Heaven by Jennifer L. Holm (Random House)
Hattie Big Sky by Kirby Larson (Delacorte)
Rules by Cynthia Lord (Scholastic)

Caldecott Medal
Flotsam by David Wiesner (Clarion)

Caldecott Honor Books
Gone Wild: An Endangered Animal Alphabet by David McLimans (Walker)
Moses: When Harriet Tubman Led Her People to Freedom, illustrated by Kadir Nelson, written by Carole Boston Weatherford (Hyperion/Jump at the Sun)

The full and brief announcement is here:

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I picked up The Secret Garden by Frances Hodgson Burnett for my daughter when I saw it in remainder pile at a local bookstore. I had seen the movie from 1993 and also a television version on PBS and liked it. I started reading it when I got home. I was so drawn into the book I couldn’t put it down. I’ve read quite a few books this year but this has them all beat. (more…)

There is lots of sing-a-long fun for the whole family here. We have several book versions of The Twelve Days of Christmas song, but this one ranks first on the fun-fun-fun meter. Each day a young pig’s True Love brings her a gift, hidden behind a fold-over section on the right-hand page, and the gifts pile up and the disorder does too. Finaly, all is in place, in order, and ready to sing.

The illustrations are great, simple, and silly. This is a constrant grab by the youngest with the demand to sing. She’s picking up the words as we sing along and by the end of the book, she’s singing loudly and confidently, even if its not the right words. When we start, pretty soon everyone, including the cat, has come into the room and joined in.

Kids love singing. They do it naturally and this book is a natural way to nurture that love.