Storytime 4/12/11.

Slightly belated, but here it is. Thankfully a fair amount of the three and four set showed up, so it wasn't all babies. Hurray!

The Gruffalo by Julia Donaldson & Axel Scheffler (illustrator)
(Puffin, 4+)
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

How had I missed The Gruffalo? I think maybe it was just one of those things that got a little over-hyped for me, but we'd just got it back in stock at work, so I picked it up for storytime. And it's brilliant.

A little mouse walking through the woods keeps running into different predators (fox, owl, snake) all of whom he scares away with threats of the fictional Gruffalo (whose favorite food is the animal in question). It's an unpleasant surprise when he runs into the Gruffalo who turns out to be real and exactly as he described, except his favorite food is mouse. However, the little mouse handles himself with aplomb, convincing the Gruffalo that he's the baddest cat in the woods by having him follow along to see the predators run away from him. And of course, the mouse's favorite food is Gruffalo.

Smart and funny, it's a brilliant read aloud because the rhyme scheme is so good and natural. It has a nice repetition without getting boring and there's still some room for interaction with the kids over it. I can't recommend it highly enough for storytime.

Break for ABC's. And kids actually sang along. Huzzah!

I Am Invited to a Party! by Mo Willems
(Hyperion Book CH, 4-8)
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

I honestly think this is my favorite Elephant & Piggie book (which is saying a lot). It's certainly the one I recommend the most, although that's partially cause it's the one we always have in stock.

Piggie gets invited to a party and she's never been to one before. Thankfully, Gerald knows parties. But what if it's a costume party? Or a pool party? Or a fancy pool costume party? THEY MUST BE READY!

Cute, fun and witty. Also, Elephant & Piggie books are my favorite recommendation for early readers. The text is simple and often repetitive, but the plot will still keep them engaged. I mean, it keeps me engaged.

Slipped some Itsy Bitsy Spider in here. One boy was particularly excited about it.

Llama Llama Mad at Mama by Anna Dewdney
(Viking Juvenile, 3+)
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

SO cute. Mama drags Llama Llama to run errands at the Shop-O-Rama, when all he really wants to do is play. As we can imagine, this does not make Llama Llama a happy camper. But my favorite thing about this book (aside from the amazing rhyming scheme) is how Mama Llama handles his inevitable tantrum. Llama Llama throws a fit (and a good portion of the shopping cart) but Mama just coolly calms him down by saying how she doesn't like shopping either but she's just happy to spend time with him. How ridiculously sweet is that? And b) can all parents learn to function this way? I have worked in retail for much too long and have seen far too many parents throwing a bigger fit than their children or treating them abominably. Mama Llama wins at life.

I also like it better than Llama Llama Red Pajama, which mostly just sees Baby Llama being whiny and Mama being busy. The shopping experience was just a little more relatable as to why he was so unhappy. This book also gets props for being my favorite counter-recommendation to the creepiness that is Mad at Mommy.

Also really cute? The teenaged girl who was forcing her mom to sit through her reading it today. The mom then tells me her daughters are fifteen and sixteen and love to buy picture books. Clearly girls after my own heart.

And in the in between we did the Hokey Pokey. The best part? The four Asian moms who would chime in "Hokey Pokey!" in between the verses.

Otis by Loren Long
(Philomel, 3-5)
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Oh, I want to love Otis. The illustrations are the most super gorgeous and Otis and his little calf are too cute, but it's just kind of boring. That might be a little harsher than I mean, but there's too much text for not enough plot. And frankly, that "puff puff puttedy-chuff" business was just hard to read. It might work better in a single child bedtime story situation, but unfortunately for storytime, it just fell a bit flat. It does nicely fall in the vein of Mike Mulligan & His Steam Shovel, but it's trying a little too hard. A little bit.

Definitely this would rank as one of my favorite storytimes. Otis is going to lose out in the future, but the other three I would pick up again anytime.

Why every teenage girl should read Jane Eyre.

This week, I'm rereading my all-time favorite book, Jane Eyre. I've read it more times than any other book: I first picked it up when I was ten, was actually able to read it at twelve and have generally reread it about once every two years since then.

I took it up this time after seeing the new movie in theatres, and then, dissatisfied with the adaptation aspects, also watched the 1944 Orson Welles/Joan Fontaine version (an even worse adaptation, if a solid movie) and the 1983 BBC miniseries starring Timothy Dalton and Zelah Clarke (far and away the closest to the novel in many ways and Dalton is a surprising win for my favorite Rochester).

Jane Eyre by Charlotte Brontë

My rating: 5 of 5 stars

I love this book for so many reasons. One of the things that most disappointed me about the new film was its departure from the classic and wonderful dialogue. But what I've really realized during this latest rereading is part of what I love best of all is that huge boring bit when she goes off and lives with the Riverses.

Yes, it's arguably the least exciting or interesting part of the story. (And, as my roommate will be sure to tell you, it's completely implausible that they should turn out to be her cousins.) But it's really, very important to her life and it's what differentiates it from other classic love stories of this or any other era. Jane is a singular heroine, in that she leaves Rochester, no matter how unwilling she may be, goes off and becomes an independent, happy person all on her own. She refuses to compromise her own morals in order to stay with him, because she knows whatever happiness she finds will be as the expense of her own self-respect. So, even though she loves him, can't bear the thought of leaving and has no place to go, she goes anyway. When she returns to him, it's because she loves him, but she doesn't need him to complete her, or any other bullshit like that. Strange Dickensian twist of fate it may be, but on her own she has found family and fortune. However, I think even prior to that, she again found a purpose in the world, and when St. John proposes to her, she refuses him too cause she doesn't feel that way about him and she doesn't need a man.

Yeah, there's some feminist lady-empowering stuff in here, but my real point is, man, do I wish more women had this sort of sensibility, so they're not staying with guys they love even though there's some other large impediment to their own self-worth, or they're not just dating guys just to be with someone. Because that is the worst. And as I always say about exes, is that they're your ex for a reason, and unless that reason is resolved (say like his crazy attic wife dies so he's no longer trying to be a bigamist), you shouldn't get back together with them.

Obviously this post is a lot of me imparting my principles on the world, but I really think this book likely shaped these principles, which I feel are some of the best that I have. At no point in the story does Jane degrade herself for any man, and I think that's something that's all too common with women. Also, Jane? Not a looker. This is not like she was going to have offers pouring in. She was just cool with being by herself, rather than settling for something less than what she deserved.

That's it, I guess. Make your teenagers read Jane Eyre. (Look, you can even buy it in a Twilight-esque edition!)

I gotta get back to Hogwarts.

So we sell many a Lego set at Scholastic, but definitely the coolest (or maybe just my favorites for obvious reasons) have to be the Star Wars and Harry Potter stuff. But, um, I'm too old/poor to be spending my money on Legos, obviously. So when a Hogwarts Express box came up damaged and leaking pieces, I jumped on the idea that I should build it and we could use it as a display.

So last night, my roommate Robin and I sat down with Raiders of the Lost Ark on the television and built us a train (and a Ford Anglia). The results:

Close-up on HP and Ron driving the Ford Anglia. I love Ron's oh-no face.

Close-up: Ginny and Draco about to duke it out on the roof of the dining car,
epic wizarding duel style. Luna's chilling on the luggage car with Hedwig,
reading the latest issue of the Quibbler.

Close-up: HP in his invisibility cloak. Luna totally knows he's there.

My thoughts: The car is brilliant. The boot totally opens and you put luggage in it. It's got a stick shift and everything. Plus, I liked hanging them out the side like that. And I just threw their wands in the back. Ginny and Draco both have the snarkiest faces. It's supremely excellent, plus Ginny's hair wins. The dining car is fully furnished and comes along with the candy trolley, or whatever it's called, which advertises Bertie Botts' Every-Flavor Beans and, erm, something else I can't remember. Possibly chocolate frogs. Also there's an actual chocolate frog on top of it. We popped all the extra stuff in the luggage car, including boxed up wands, the Daily Prophet, two more owls, Scabbers and more. Luna has the option of her crazy awesome glasses or not (all the characters have two face options), although her hair was having a hard time staying on. The invisibility cloak is absolutely fabulous.

There's lots of extra tidbits like the fuel in the engine or parts of the car. It's well done, there were lots of things where I was thinking how intricate it was for parts you wouldn't even end up seeing. But it was fairly easy with the instructions, which take you no more than a couple of pieces at a time. Just a lot of things to do, I was thankful for Rob's help.

Overall I give it 5/5 stars. A good family project, and then lots of fun options of things to play with and do with the characters.

Now hopefully someone will mess up a box of the Hogwarts castle.

Bonus points for any use of the word magicool in your everyday life.

There's only so many vampire stories even I can do.

I love vampires, don't get me wrong, but they are rabidly over-played and most of my vampire patience gets taken up by my television watching: True Blood, The Vampire Diaries (neither of which I read the books to) and, of course, Buffy and Angel reruns. So in my young adult reading, I find it refreshing to find some really good (no Twilight here people) paranormal fiction. And we're going to try and stay away from the vampires here entirely.

Shiver by Maggie Stiefvater
(Scholastic, 13+)
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

The most fitting into that Twilight sort of genre of anything I'm likely to recommend on this blog. It's a love story with werewolves. And the love story is slightly like something you've seen before: boy watches girl from afar before circumstances align for them to interact face to face. It's Edward Cullen, it's Angel, it's Stefan Salvatore, or Bill Compton or any of those vampire guys. But Sam's a werewolf, and not your average werewolf at that. Stiefvater's werewolves aren't ruled by the moon or able to change of their own volition, their physical state depends on the temperature out. When it's cold is when they turn into wolves, and they spend the entirety of the winter months in that state. Respectively they spend the summer as humans, however as time goes on they turn into wolves more and more easily until they spend all of their time that way. And moving to a warmer climate would only make it worse.

So Sam watches Grace from afar, aware that his situation would make being together impossible. Especially since we find out that Grace has been bitten by a werewolf but never changed, so her becoming a werewolf is equally impossible.

The writing is lovely, the story is interesting and although there is a sequel, Linger, and an upcoming conclusion to the trilogy, Forever, I actually really loved Shiver as a one-shot. I bought Linger, but it just continues to chill on my bookshelf waiting to be read.

Alternately we next come to two of my very favorite young adult trilogies ever.

The Summoning by Kelley Armstrong
(HarperCollins, 12+)
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I first started reading Kelley Armstrong many years ago when my coworkers at Walden ooks convinced me to pick up Bitten, the first in her Women of the Otherworld series and as solid a piece of adult paranormal fiction as they come. But as these things usually do, her more recent entries in the series haven't been as good as her early efforts. The complete opposite is true of her young adult work. Not only is it better than her current adult novels, each book in the Darkest Powers Trilogy is better than the previous one.

It actually took me a minute before I picked up The Summoning because from reading the blurb it seemed to skew a little younger than I was feeling at the moment. (Although being twenty-five in the YA section, who knows where I'm going with that thought.) But Chloe is a realistic fifteen-year-old who does a lot of growing up during the series. Oh, and she's also a necromancer as we find out during the course of the books.

The series is populated with werewolves, ghosts, witches, a large conspiracy theory, many characters you don't know whether to trust or not and a really well-done teenage love triangle. I mean, I know who I was pulling for, but I had a real question as to which she'd go for.

The Awakening by Kelley Armstrong
(HarperCollins, 12+)
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

The Reckoning by Kelley Armstrong
(HarperCollins, 12+)
My rating: 5 of 5 stars






The second trilogy in the series starts this year with the upcoming The Gathering, and while I'm sad that Chloe's story is at an end, I appreciate Armstrong's willingness to take on another character so as not to wear the first one out, as she did with the Otherworld series (which, for the curious, takes place in the same universe).

A Great and Terrible Beauty by Libba Bray
(Delacorte Books for Young Readers, 13+)
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Libba Bray's first novel introduces us to Gemma Doyle, the titular character of the trilogy. Gemma is in Mary Lennox-like circumstances when her mother dies and she's removed from her beloved India and replaced into Victorian England. This book encompasses the historical with the fantastical, a portal story as well as a paranormal one, and throws it into a Victorian boarding school where the girls are as much teenage, and often mean, girls as any contemporary YA story. Oh yeah, and there's a love interest too.

I'm going to have a problem genuinely reviewing this series, cause I just adore it so much. Let me just say, it has everything, is well-written and made me cry. And I cry very rarely. (Pretty much only at that one scene in Gone With the Wind with Mammy and Melanie talking on the stairs. And also Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. But only the first time.)

Basically if you enjoy any of the sorts of stories I mentioned, you have to read this. Double if you are or ever have been a teenage girl.

Rebel Angels by Libba Bray
(Delacorte Books for Young Readers, 13+)
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

The Sweet Far Thing by Libba Bray
(Delacorte Books for Young Readers, 13+)
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Reading aloud a book with no words.

Where's Walrus? by Stephen Savage
(Scholastic, 3+)
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Last weekend we had an event with the author in my store and I had to read it aloud for storytime. Read aloud a book with no words. I was a little nervous to say the least, but it ended up going great. The kids were engaged and participating. There was a big discussion about can-can dancers and feathers in one's hair and about how many of the kids had been to Central Park. Really the illustrations speak for themselves in a lot of ways and I can't recommend it enough. I hope others will choose it for storytime too. I promise you won't be disappointed.

In addition, Stephen Savage drew walrus pictures with the kids and then we had a great scavenger hunt for the walrus all around the store. It ended up being a really successful event. I was surprised at how well everything went, particularly the hunt where a different kid found each walrus and we only had one set of tears. It was really an awesome day.