Tag archive for ‘literature’
Mom’s Book Shelf – Emily Schultz’s Heaven Is Small
Editor’s Note: If you missed Gayle Bates this morning, you can read her post on proactive consumption HERE. Now, here’s Robin with the book of the month for March. Here she is:
Iam mildly dark. Ken would tend to disagree, and go with a much darker assessment. My favorite authors are Rosario Castellanos, Keri Hulme and Joan Didion. I [...]
Mom’s Book Shelf – A Discussion on All That Matters
I have to say that I now have a whole new appreciation for Vancouver and its evolution as a city, as well as the unbelievable conditions under which people come to this country and endure with the hopes of a better life thanks to Wayson Choy.
His novel, All That Matters, was February’s book of the [...]
Mom’s Book Shelf – Wayson Choy’s All That Matters
I am so excited to announce February’s featured author and book of the month – mostly because I can’t wait to get started on a new novel and sink my teeth into a book that’s been on my shelf for ages.
As Chinese New Year nears, I wanted to take the time to examine Chinese-Canadian culture. [...]
Mom’s Book Shelf – A Discussion on January’s Featured Novel
Good morning. It’s been a month since we introduced our first Mom’s Book Shelf novel of the year – Zoe Whittall’s Holding Still for As Long As Possible.
Today’s space is all about getting in your thoughts and opinions about the book – if you had the chance to read it – or the issues that [...]
Books to Teach Kids About Chinese New Year
Editor’s Note: If you missed out on Rebecca’s morning post giving us a look inside the Waldorf classroom, you can read it HERE. Now, here’s Robin reviewing a cool collection of children’s books that help kids learn about Chinese culture and Chinese New Year. Have a great afternoon. Here’s Robin:
I get sort of droopy after [...]
Mom’s Book Shelf – Zoe Whittall’s Holding Still for As Long As Possible
One of my major resolutions for the new year is to spend more time reading for myself, something that went by the wayside far too long ago. I tried very hard to get back into it last year, was even blessed enough to be invited to be part of an incredible book group filled with [...]
Year In Review – The Best Children’s Books of 2009
One thing that never seems to give in our house is the love of a great story. We pound through tons of books and if anyone knows what she likes best, it’s the 4-year-old.
We’ve had such a great time discovering some seriously great new reads this year to spend afternoons curled up on the couch [...]
Maddy Erickson Reviews Fern Verdant
Editor’s Note: Good morning. Summer break kicks off this week and, for lots of parents, that means finding some perfect Summer reads for their families. Now, you can get some tips on THE tween Summer book list, and not from crazy, old parents.
Today, I’m excited to introduce Maddy Erickson as the newest addition to the [...]
Blog Book Tour – Crocodaddy
Once in a while we jump in on the KidBookBuzz.com Blog Book Tour and today we are checking out the very sweet, dad-focused tale of fun Summer imagination Crocodaddy by Kim Norman, illustrated by David Walker.
Early readers and picture books are the hot thing at our house right now – right next to crazy creatures [...]
Books for Tom Boys & Spring
Good morning. It’s super late for me to be getting going this morning (8 a.m., yikes!). I am totally dragging my butt today in the work universe, mostly because I have plans to ditch the office long enough to spend the ENTIRE DAY outside combing beaches, roaming trails and wrapping it all up with a [...]
An Interview with BC Kids Book Author Scott Higgs
Good morning. Today we’re checking out the charming tales of Haley & Bix, two best friends who are sweet, caring and totally cool.
Our daughter and I picked up the first in the series: Haley & Bix, Best Friends No Matter What, a while back and totally loved this easy reader.
So, we jumped at the chance [...]
Magic Tales of Unicorns, Dwarves & Discovery
Our house seems to draw a huge crowd of the mystical and magical lately. Every since we discovered Forest Fairies with the help of our friend Maureen (of Strong Start fame) and The Last Unicorn showed up in the DVD player, our house transformed into a fairytale land that pretty much skips the prince and [...]
Family Literacy – Caldecott Award-Winning Style
Good morning. For the last few days, I’ve been meaning to pull something substantial together as a part of Family Literacy Week in Canada. But, my mental idea bank wasn’t letting me withdraw much in the way of anything labeled “substantial.”
Thankfully, there are brilliant people out there who are great at lending a hand in [...]
Book Review – Jan Brett’s Winter Fun
There are a few truly great children’s book authors – storytellers who can take a piece of imagination and bring it alive with the touch of a pen.
They’ve got that magical touch, mesmerizing children (and parents too) for generations. Jan Brett is one of those greats.
Maureen over at Brooklyn Elementary Strong Start first introduced us [...]
Nature Journal – Family Listening Walks
Good morning. Between sickness (mostly mine), insane amounts of snow and the general hibernation-like blah blahs this Winter, it’s been a tough sell to get us out the door every day and into the fresh air lately.
It’s not that we don’t want to (in fact, we all well know how squirrely each of us gets [...]
Book Review – Winter Tales of Survival & Hope
Ken was horrified that I’d brought a book like this home from the library. While I went for what was shaping up to be a long visit to the midwife on Tuesday, he and the tiny person broke into the latest stack of books and CDs that had come home with us from the library [...]
Blog Book Tour – This Is The Feast
When I first got the invitation to join in the blog book tour for This Is The Feast by Diane Z. Shore, illustrated by Megan Lloyd, I wasn’t entirely confident as we here in Canada have long passed our Thanksgiving holiday.
But, all it took was opening the package, personally sent from Shore, with a handwritten [...]
Spooky Stories of Bones and Bunnies
In a little, tiny house on an everyday sort of street lived a little girl who loved monsters.
It seemed her destiny to dig those spooky ghouls, as her dad had adored them even longer than her, creating more than a few in his time, and they lived everywhere in that house – framed, in notebooks, [...]
An Interview with Jeanne DuPrau
I love talking with other writers, getting a bit of insight into how their creative brains work and how they pull everything together.
Jeanne DuPrau and I had the chance to trade questions in a brief interview recently as she heads off to promote Diamond of Darkhold and her soon-to-be-released movie City of Ember.
As a part [...]
Tween Reads – Diamond of Darkhold
For a long time, parents with older kiddos have asked me to offer up book reviews for the tween crowd. We read and read, and read some more around here. But, chapter books and novels hadn’t been a part of our repretoire – until my oldest nephew fell in love with books and now inhales [...]
Harvest Tales
I love Fall.
How can you not dig a time of year when the toques come out, the skies turn a brilliant shade of blue and everything delicious in the comfort food universe is fresh from the fields?
So many of the quiet, heartfelt, comfortable memories in my life come from picking apples in Eastern Washington State, [...]
Potty Humor Reads & Funny Phobias
I’ve been going over and over in my head how to start this book review. There’s no really delicate way to admit to it. I’ve always been the kind of kid – mostly because anything to do with the topic was absolutely banned in my house as a child – who believes in the value [...]
6 Reads to Make the First Day of School Easier
I’m so sorry for the late post this morning. Sort of.
As many of you know, CVK is in the midst of a major redesign, which is code for “Wipe sleep off of the to-do list for at least 6 months.”
I broke the code last night after two weeks of major sleeplessness and, about 7:30 a.m. [...]
What’s Gonna Work? Team Work…
Where oh where has my Summertime gone?
Seriously, I am ill prepared for the onset of soggy wetness of Fall on the island – still totally imagining that I had at least another month of chances for beach runs and leisurely hikes without having to consider unholy amounts of rain gear and busting out the turtlenecks.
And, [...]
Book Review – Reverse Psychology to Eat & Sleep
Ken and I, we were quite skeptical at first.
These books, they seemed too easy to actually work.
Could it be possible that all we had to do was read an engaging story, with adorable, lovable characters who didn’t want to eat or sleep to make our grumpy 3-year-old think that eating and sleeping was cool?
No…way, we [...]
Book Review – Running Through The Meadow
Since I finished reading Food Not Lawns by H.C. Flores I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about the changing face of yards.
When I was a kid, a big yard, perfectly mowed and glistening green was the envy of every parent in the neighbourhood. But, it wasn’t the manicured lawn I loved.
I spent most of [...]
Book Review – Life on The Farm and Ferdinand
When I was a kid, I loved the loners.
The ones who stood out and moved away from the crowd always won my heart – especially if they found themselves stepping back in the name of a big, gentle heart.
Characters like Thumbelina, Aslan and Pippi Longstocking took their rightful places as staples in the imaginary world [...]
Book Review – Learning to Lend A Hand
For late-night or early-morning readers, I apologize for our technological glitch with the Rainy-Day Book Club this morning. Apparently, I shouldn’t start working when half asleep. The results are, as you saw, half:)
Back to the business of great books.
In the middle of the first of what surely will be many rounds of defiant testing of [...]
Discovering Living Books
When we first started talking about homeschooling our daughter, I started to read.
I researched nearly every homeschooling philosophy out there, scanned blogs, subscribed to newsletters, checked out and pored through a huge pile of books from the library and realized pretty darn quickly that we are an eclectic secular homeschooling family.
There are bits and pieces [...]
Stories with a Sleep Charm
We have a new bedtime routine.
Books and stories have always been a part of our evening ritual. But, it wasn’t until the tiny person graduated from board books and we started discovering the world of classic storytelling that the warm, quiet and connective time spent reading her to sleep entered into our lives.
Of course, it [...]
Women of Heart
When I was a tiny person, I dreamed of life as a great explorer.
I lived in my imagination, with an entire universe of imaginary friends who roamed the sidewalks and pounded the pavement of the city with me, in search of magic.
As many are, mine was a complicated childhood. Disappearing into a world where I [...]
Spring Migration
The swans are disappearing.
The thousands of lovely, white, long-necked beauties are vanishing by the day after packing local farm fields snacking down all Winter.
Thankfully, they aren’t being destroyed. It’s just time for them to head back to Alaska because a cozy rainy season on the island means they’ve got some baby making to attend to [...]
Book Review – Classics for Any Bookshelf
I had entirely different plans for today’s Rainy-Day Book Club.
I wanted to plug you in to some gems this holiday season that are about celebrations from around the world like Hanukkah, Winter Solstice, St. Lucia Day and Kwanzaa. Unfortunately, I searched high and low locally and found, well, not much that I would consider really [...]
Kids Books with Holiday Charm
Finding sweet, sentimental holiday stories for tiny people with a nod to tradition and a modern flair is no easy task. In the last couple of weeks I have pored through my fair share of seasonal tales.
I was completely impressed with the library’s wide range of stories of celebration from around the globe. But, while [...]
Reading Local in British Columbia
I am a big fan of all things local. Not that I’m averse to exploring the world – it just seems to me that connecting deeply to your everyday means a personal investment in the well-being of everything around you. That’s where we can begin to truly make a difference.
Living on the West Coast is [...]
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