Poem: Doris Skips

Doris Skips
Doris skips,
Dolores prances,
Delia scurries,
Della dances,
Daphne walks,
With queenly grace,
Dolly always
Wins the race,
Darcy marches,
Donna ambles,
Dorothy lopes,
And Dora scrambles.
Almost every
Girl you meet
Has some special way
With feet.

~Leland B. Jacobs

Book Review: Silk Umbrellas

Silk Umbrellas
By Carolyn Marsden

This is one of the many chapter books I’ve read recently while researching titles for upcoming Literary Child issues. I had never heard of the title before, but happened to pull it off the library shelf, and I’m glad I did. I loved this book, so I thought I’d take a moment to recommend it.

Silk Umbrellas is a beautiful story set in Thailand about a young girl named Noi who has a passion for painting, learned from her aging grandmother.

The family’s financial struggles send Noi’s older sister to a job in a radio factory, working long, tiring and monotonous hours. Noi desperately fears the same fate awaits her, when all she yearns to do is paint silk umbrellas, receiving her inspiration from the wildlife and beauty that surrounds her jungle home.

Noi must either resign herself to her dreary fate…or gain enough faith in her gift to make money for her family using her talents and following her passion. But is her art good enough to sell? And does she have the courage to find out? Courage like that is hard to muster at such a young age.

Silk Umbrellas is a sweet and inspiring story and suitable for children of any age!

Word of the Week: gingerly

gingerly
adverb
Dictionary: in a careful or cautious manner.
Thesaurus: cautiously, carefully, charily, tentatively, warily.

adjective
Dictionary: showing great care or caution.
Thesaurus: careful, cautious, wary, chary, tentative, timid.


My 6 year old son says: "I pick up a tarantula gingerly."

Borrowed Books: Week 2

The kids' borrowed books this week:

Non-Fiction and Chapter Books
Whales
World’s Weirdest Dinosaurs
Triassic Dinosaur World
Be an Animal Detective
Sea Monsters of Long Ago
Spiders and Their Web Sites
A Field Guide to Spiders and Scorpions of Texas
The Good, the Bad and the Goofy (A Time Warp Trio Book)
Polar Bears Past Bedtime (A Magic Tree House Book)
Buffalo Before Breakfast (A Magic Tree House Book)

Picture Books
Daisy-head Mayzie
Monster Mama
I Miss You, Stinky Face
The Keeping Quilt
The Name Quilt
The Twelve Dancing Princesses
If I Were Queen of the World
Each Living Thing
A Porcupine Named Fluffy
The Very Bad Bunny
One to Ten and Down Again

Books on CD
Anne of Green Gables

VHS
William’s Wish Wellingtons
Amazing North America (National Geographic “Really Wild Animals”)
The Pebble and the Penguin
101 Dalmatians
Bambi

Poem: Be Glad Your Nose is on Your Face

Be Glad Your Nose is on Your Face
Be glad your nose is on your face,
not pasted on some other place,
for if it were where it is not,
you might dislike your nose a lot.

Imagine if your precious nose
were sandwiched in between your toes,
that clearly would not be a treat,
for you’d be forced to smell your feet.

Your nose would be a source of dread
were it attached atop your head,
it soon would drive you to despair,
forever tickled by your hair.

Within your ear, your nose would be
an absolute catastrophe,
for when you were obliged to sneeze,
your brain would rattle from the breeze.

Your nose, instead, through thick and thin,
remains between your eyes and chin,
not pasted on some other place-
be glad your nose is on your face!

~Jack Prelutsky

Picture Book Review: Rabbit Stew

Rabbit Stew
Rabbits are sneaking into the dog's garden and eating all of his vegetables! So the dog catches them all and gets ready to make himself a nice rabbit stew. But those clever rabbits have a few tricks up their sleeves!

Being a vegetarian, this title really stood out for me at the bookstore. I picked it up and first examined the cover. There was an illustration of a confused dog looking at a cookbook and three very much alive rabbits in a pot on a counter surrounded by vegetables. I quickly flipped through the book and decided it was a must-have for our family because the story ultimately rings very true...the very best rabbit stew is the kind without rabbits in it!

Rabbit Stew, written by author Donna Kosov, is available at Amazon right now for only a penny!! :)

Word of the Week: frolic

frolic
verb
Dictionary: play cheerfully
Thesaurus: frisk, caper, skylark, gambol, rollick, romp, play, skip, sport

noun
Dictionary: cheerful play, merriment
Thesaurus: merrymaking, gaiety, sport, fun (and games)


And now my son uses it in a sentence:

6 year old son: "I hate to frolic because I like to play rough!"

Borrowed Books

These are the books my kids picked out at the library this week...I'm going to have to implement an "if your bag is too heavy for you to carry it, you have too many books" rule because my shoulders are taking some weekly library abuse!

BOOKS:
(Non-Fiction and Chapter Books)
Does God Have a Big Toe?
Endangered Animals
Kids Can Save the Animals!
Animals in Danger
I Wonder Why the Dodo is Dead
Tongues and Tails
Curious Creatures: Strange Nature
Curious Creatures: Mistaken Identity
Curious Creatures: Making Contact
Prehistoric Life
Insects
Pirates Past Noon (A Magic Tree House Book)
Lions at Lunchtime (A Magic Tree House Book)
Knights of the Kitchen Table (A Time Warp Trio Book)
The Not So Jolly Roger (A Time Warp Trio Book)
The Little White Horse

Picture Books:
Cat Games
Over and Over
Amelia Bedelia and the Baby
Truelove
Grand Hotel
Noah's Ark
Eloise at Christmastime
Christmas Cookies
The Night Before Christmas
(Don't ask me what's with all the Christmas books...they weren't even filed together!)

STORIES ON CD:
Magic Tree House Collection: Books 33-35
Prokofiev's Peter and the Wolf

VHS:
Totally Tropical Rain Forest
Aladdin
Rascal
Rose Petal Place
MUZZY*

*I found the Spanish Muzzy system and was SO excited...but when we got it home, I was dismayed to find out that inside was the first half of Level 2, and the second half of Level 1...so it was pretty much useless. Whoever donated it to the library must have mixed up the tapes unknkowingly.

I also borrowed 10 chapter books for research on upcoming issues of Literary Child. I found July's book selection, and I'm so excited...we LOVE it!! So stay tuned....