July 2009

PUB DATE: April 2009

Thank You to Tundra Books and Sylvia for sending us this book to read and review.

If you remember my last review about Tundra Books I was inquiring about the jacket of the book and Sylvia kindly emailed me to let know that in fact this was only on Tundra Books. They are called posters. I think this is a great feature of the books.

This was such a fun book to read and the illustrations were fantastic. Michael really enjoyed the book. He loved naming everything in the pictures. We talked about the price of the items.

Anna Maria is a little girl who loves to help her grandparents in their grocery store on Saturdays. Its a very small grocery store. She helps to arrange fruits and vegetables, greet the customers that come in and making sure the store in clean and neat. From the book we learn through all the customers coming in how this store is needed in the community.

There is even a kitchen attached to the grocery store. They make sandwiches for the customers to buy. They are a busy grocery store from the time they open till the close. They sell all kinds of fruits, vegetables, breads, milk etc in the store.

This is a great book that makes you appreciate those little independant grocery stores.

PUB DATE: February 2009

Thank You to Tundra Books for sending us this great book.

Gloria is the happiest little girl because she is the flower girl in her sister’s Fran wedding. She has a brand new satin gown, (its really pretty) long white gloves, brand new shiny white shoes, pretty lace socks and even a tiara.

Her mother has warned her that she is not to wear or play with the dress until the day of the wedding. Gloria has a hard time because at night time the dress hanging on the back of the door looks like a hovering radiant angel in flight.

Even when she plays she can’t stop thinking about her outfit. She can conduct better in the white gloves. The the next day she can’t leave the white shoes at home so she sneaks off to school in them and cleans them after school. She gets caught fixing the tiara and her mother is upset. Then one day she dresses up in the whole outfit and spots her friend outside so she sneaks out the show her and her friends at the park. She feels like a queen until her cousin comes to the park. She is scared and runs home. Telling her dolls and animals that she will never do it again decides to have a tea party with lime soda. Accidentally she feels a cup with too much soda she goes to drink it put it spills on her dress. Scared she doesn’t tell anyone and hangs it up with stain inside. When the day of the wedding comes she discovers that her bouquet will cover the stain and no one will notice until the bride throws her bouquet. Fran and Gloria are more alike then they knew.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR:
Georgia Graham, born and raised in Calgary, has been a compulsive drawer as long as she can remember. Throughout grade school, she filled up endless sketch books and margins of scribblers with doodles and characters. She graduated from the Visual Communications program at the Alberta College of Art in 1982. The Lime Green Secret is the eleventh book she has illustrated and the third she has written. She visits elementary schools, mostly in Alberta, demonstrating her drawing techniques and sharing her love of writing and illustrating. She enjoys Bible storytelling at her church and at camp. Georgia is a self-proclaimed introvert who loves people and talks too much. She lives on a tree farm in central Alberta with her husband and her dog, Ginger, who is depicted in this book.

PUB DATE: March 2009

Thanks to Tundra Books and Sylvia for sending this book to us.

This was another cute book that Michael enjoyed listening too.

The book is about a lazy frog named Bradley who lives in log. This has been the frogs home since he was a polliwog. One hot summer day Bradley looks in the mirror to see he is wasting away. He is hungry. He went to his cupboard but there was no food. He has no idea where the food all went.

He decided that he has new neighbors that he should meet and he decides he will ask them for food. The first person he sees is Miss Mouse. He asks her for food and says he will pay her tomorrow. They go into the house and all she has is cheese with chives and peppercorn and rye crackers. Bradley is disgusted by what he sees and leaves. The next neighbor he meets his Herr Bear and Herr Hare. The offer Bradley carrots in honey. Of course Bradley doesn’t like that either. Bradley spot a cow and was watching her eat the grass. He walked right by without stopping. He goes back home hungry. When he enters his house he is happy there is all kinds of bugs. A frogs favorite food. He feasted on bugs whiling thinking about the strange things the animals ate.

Michael actually thought that the other animals are pretty good stuff and that the frog ate gross things and that he would be disgusted to eat bugs.

If you would like to order a copy for yourself you can go here to order it http://www.tundrabooks.com/catalog/display.pperl?isbn=9780887768644

PUB DATE: Feb 2009

AGE RANGE: 4 and up

Thanks to Tundra Books and Sylvia for sending this book to us.

This is a cute book that we both loved reading together. The story was really cute and the illustrations were well done.

The story is about Hector a retired wizard. He is living happily in a run down house at the end of the forest. He is a lazy wizard who naps and stays away from contact with people except his cat Poison. When they aren’t napping they are watching tv and eating cookies.

Then one morning everything comes to a halt when a noisy neighbor moves in next door. He pulls open the shutters and sees that the house across the street is all spruced up. He goes over and peeks into the window. He spots a beautiful woman singing as she plays the piano. This makes Hector angry.

Hector rushes back home to his attic for his magic spell book. Hector and Poison cook an “evil cake” to get rid of her. The cake looks really gross in the picture. Hector arranges the cake on a platter and he picks a handful of flesh eating flowers.

Hector heads across the street but Hector’s plan falls when the neighbor answers the door. Her name is Isobel and she has a beautiful voice. Her voice is described as “It was clear as water in a babbling brook and gay as a song of a bird.” Hector was no longer angry. He was in love.

It was great to see the change in the illustrations. At the beginning they were dark and Hector appeared dirty and grumpy and as the story went on the images got brighter and Hector appeared happy and clean looking.

If you would like to order the book you can go through here: http://www.tundrabooks.com/catalog/display.pperl?isbn=9780887769016

PUB DATE: Feb 2009

I have to thank Tundra Books and Sylvia for sending this book to me.

I knew that Michael would love this book. I was right. Michael said the story is about him.

The book is about a little boy who loves chocolates and I mean he LOVES chocolate. The book talks about the different kinds of chocolate (milk, semi sweet)and the varities of chocolate (caramel, almond). Its mentioned that chocolate can make you feel better when you have a bad day or need cheering up. Chocolates are used in celebrations such as making a new friend, in love, when you get hurt or when you are sad. Isn’t that true? When we are sad that is the first thing most people go for and when we celebrate we use chocolate.

This is a great book that leads to discussions with your child. It asks what’s your chocolate eating style? Are you a dainty chocolate dabbler or a monster muncher? Are you a messy chocolate musher or a neat nibbler? It also asks how do you eat chocolate do you eat it by the handful or one at a time? Michael said he was a monster muncher and depending what kind of chocolate it is he will eat either by the handful or one at a time.

Our favorite part was “Why do I love chocolate? Because it makes my mouth happy, my tummy happy and my heart happy.”

The book is well written. The illustrations are done very well and there is alot of brown used I guess its to emphasis the chocolate theme.

The only thing after reading the book it makes you want some chocolate. So be warn before reading this book make sure you have some chocolate on hand.

When we opened the book we realized that the dust jacket had pictures on the back of the book. I am not sure if this is just a Tundra Book thing but I thought that was really cute thing to do.

For ordering you can go here: http://www.tundrabooks.com/catalog/display.pperl?isbn=9780887769122#desc