Good Deals and Good Causes

  
As a self confessed book shopaholic (which brings up memories of the giddy fun of my Mom taking me to bookstore and letting me choose whatever books I wanted, on her) I thought I would pass on some good book deals that I came across lately.

You can pick up five different books right now in boxes of Cheerios.  We got No T. Rex in the Library the other day, which was totally exciting to BB.  We also picked up 1 Zany Zoo last time they did this give away, which is a pretty fun book.   I am definitely going to have to do a serious Cheerio stock up, not only because LF and I eat oodles of them, but also because I want a free copy of All the World.  Check out the Spoonfuls of Stories website, it seems like a really great cause to help get books to needy families.

The other good deal that I have been meaning to mention is Costco - I picked up Fancy Nancy: Splendiferous Christmas and Of Thee I Sing: A Letter to My Daughters each at about $8 dollars under the listed price.  (More on Of Thee I Sing later.)

*I don't have an affiliation with Cheerios or Costco - just wanted to pass on some good deals.  Happy shopping!

Holiday Tradition Find

So I know that I harp on a bit about books from my past, and also asked recently what readers would suggest to me as far as holiday books - so when my sister sent me a link to Savouring the Details' Christmas book tradition, I was totally psyched.  Plus, since I have a pretty young family, I am always on the look out for new traditions to make our own.

What a wonderful idea to wrap up all of your favorites.  I already have visions of sugar plums BB and LF's faces as they rip open the wrapping on old favorites and exciting new additions alike.  That said, and don't tell H, but I have already started shopping to beef up our collection (more on some good book deals in the next post.)  Yippee!  I do love an excuse to buy books!

In our stack at the mo - Fancy Nancy: Splendiferous Christmas, The Littlest Angel, Eloise At Christmastime, Dear Santa, Lyle at Christmas just to name a few.  For more suggestions check out the this post by Savouring the Details.

High and Low Tech Reading Ideas

I am lucky at the moment that BB and LF love story time, especially BB - so I don't have to think of much other than great books to entice them.  But I am fully aware that this might change and so I am keeping my eyes open for cool new ideas to encourage reading.

The high-tech option:  We haven't tried it yet, but I found a mention of Readeo in a parenting mag.  It seems like a super cool service through which you can video chat and read a book with a child at the same time.  They call it BookChat.  I call it cool.  So we are going to sign up for the free trial offer and try it out with Mimi.  I will keep you posted once we try it, to let you know how it goes.

The low-tech option:  I was at a salvage yard today and BB bee lined it for what looked like a sweet little playhouse.  As I stood there waiting for him to agree to come back out, I looked down at the for sale sign and noticed that they were calling it a reading house.  On closer inspection I noticed that one outside wall was made an inbuilt bookcase (which created a little shelf on the inside too) and the roof had a little lip at the over-hang so that you could place books or magazines along the roof too.  The inside was pretty plain and just big enough for a couple of bean bags, a chair and table or whatever.

I was thinking to myself that it seems like a pretty cosy way for a little one to curl up with a book and feel like they were in a world of their own.  Also, I am guessing that this was meant to be an indoor reading house, so you would need a pretty big space, but I bet if you made the shelves on the inside, rather than out, you could have this in a backyard too.

My description probably didn't do it justice, so I will try to draw and scan the basics of this house, in case you want to make one for your own little ones.

Lastly - and back to high-tech, I am thinking a lot lately about children's ebooks.  My next move is probably going to be to download a few and see what BB and LF think of them.  I don't have an e-reader other than, I suppose, my laptop and my iphone, but that should suffice to get started.  I want to know more about the options before we jump to buying an actual dedicated reader.

What are your thoughts on e-readers for children's books?  I would love to heard from readers and authors alike.  Also, if you use them, which do you use and can anyone tell me how the graphics look on the Nook?

That's all for me.  I need to recover from the festivities this weekend of celebrating LF's 1st Birthday.

Head over heals for Art & Max

 Wow, I have never been so happy that the library was closed, despite my two trips (yes, two) there before remembering a poster I had seen saying that staff training would be taking place on Veteran's Day.

I am happy because I was big time craving some new books, and so decided to bring Bud Bud and Little Flower over to the books store in the absence of the library.

There we picked up some books on Thanksgiving and Christmas and then - Art & Max by David Wiesner.  Wow!  I had seen a suggestion for this book on another blog, but to be honest hadn't paid it much attention after finding out the the local library didn't have a copy.  But this book is just up my alley.

Arthur is an experienced painter who is painting "serious" portraits when Max bursts onto the scene - the story that follows is exquisitely illustrated in exciting and novel detail.  After Max literally paints Arthur, we watch him step after step deconstruct Arthur's color, form and line and then build him back up again.  The illustrations show artistic styles such as pointillism, abstract expressionism and ends with Arthur and Max painting side by side with joy and excitement.

An artist myself, an art history buff, and of course a children's book lover, I think this is a wonderful book.  A definite recommend!  You can read it straight through and just enjoy, or as I am always looking for, you can stop and talk to your child about so many aspects of the story, such as art making itself, art history and the physical actions of the characters.

Also, if you have an interest in how children's books are developed, click on the link about - which takes you to the Amazon page for the book, which includes a series of mock ups by the author as he developed the characters and story.  Very interesting.