Re-Post: Fancy Nancy Father Daughter Tea Party, Summer 2010

***Many moons ago, I had another blog titled "Three Turtles and Their Pet Librarian". This was one of the most popular posts there, and since I have recently reminisced with two of the families pictures below about how much their kids have grown, I thought it would be fun to re-post it here!***

Fathers often get the shaft, holiday-wise. Mother's Day falls nicely at the end of the school year, when teachers and librarians are looking for nice fun crafts to keep the kiddos busy until school lets out. Father's Day? Beginning of June. No school, and librarians are often too thick in the middle of Summer Reading to add an extra event. We weren't too sure how this would go over ourselves, until we started getting sweetly formal voicemails like, "Janey will be attending the tea Saturday, escorted by her grandfather." Two little girls informed us that they were hoping their new dresses would be ready in time. We decided to buy more cookies...

We ended up with 24 daddies and daughters, just the right number for our room. We had a plethora (that's a fancy word for lots) of pink:

Our planned backdrop never arrived, but at the last minute we remembered the castle tucked away in the storeroom:

This young princess was escorted by her big brother.

We invited our guests to come in their fanciest attire, and they certainly did not disappoint.

The hats! The gloves!

And the Daddies! The one who just got in from Okinawa last night, but who made sure he got his girls to the tea party. The Grandpa who not only brought his granddaughter, but let her plaster stickers on his face. The Daddy who, when another Daddy couldn't make it at the last minute, added an extra princess to his family for the afternoon (a little girl he had never met! He is our hero for the week!)

All our Daddies were very special, and it was so much fun to watch them glueing sequins and stringing jewelry with their princesses. We made tiaras and picture frames together, and took pictures at the castle to go in the frames. Daddies and Grandpas wrote the stories of when they first met their princesses. More sweetness!

Some more pictures we just have to share:

 

Them're some good cupcakes!

Tooooooooooooo cute!

In short, we completely overdosed on cuteness today, and are already looking forward to doing this again next year. We would like to thank all our Daddies and Princesses for coming today, and wish them all the very best of Father's Days!

My Boyfriend is a Monster - Graphic Novel series from Lerner

NOTE: I am working on bringing some of the old posts over from our former web site, Three Turtles and their Pet Librarian - particularly the book reviews and library events. So, no, you aren't going crazy, you really did read this already:)

by Evanne Tsang and Janina Gorrisen
Graphic Universe (Lerner Publishing)
978- 0-7613-6004-9

by Paul Storrie and Eldon Cowgur
Graphic Universe (Lerner Publishing)
978-0-7613-5601-1

You may have noticed that we don't review many graphic novels. As in, we never review graphic novels. There's a reason for that: we don't generally read graphic novels. But who can resist a title like My Boyfriend is a Monster: I Love Him to Pieces, featuring a story line with a zombie apocalypse? And lines like: "There's a difference between a zombie and a high school boy? Well, when you get a zombie's attention, you know that it'll stick with you, at least until it can eat your brains. Regular guys are more fickle."

Definitely one for guys or girls, nerds or jocks (or turtles). It's campy, of course, and moves too quickly to flesh out the plotline much, but - it's a graphic novel! The dialogue and the artwork are the key elements of a book like this, and both work very well in this case. We will be handing this to the first reluctant reader we spot. We would also love to see Tsang try his hand at some non-graphic YA fiction.

The second in the series, Made for Each Other, follows a Frankenstein theme. Not quite as funny as the first, it still has enough of the same characteristics to hold a reader's attention - although it does seem a little more girl-oriented. At any rate, the entire series has promise of being a big hit among middle and high schoolers. We give both books a

4 out of 5.