Fairy House (kid brag)

While Mike and I worked on home repairs (post coming) all last week, Sheridan and Logan came up with a project of their own. They spent three solid days on it. I have never seen them cooperate for that long before!

A very special young lady was turning ten Saturday, and I had already gone out and purchased a gift. She loves fairies, though, and the kids got it into their heads that she needed a fairy house. They asked me for a box, and I gave them some leftover blue paint and free run of the craft materials.



This was all them! I didn't give them any direction or ideas, they just looked at what they had available, and thought things up. The only assistance I gave was cutting the door and window holes at their direction. Here is the finished product:

Fairies need glitter!

Of course, they had to make furniture, too.

Sheridan had sewn pillows for both beds (adult and baby sized!), but the cats stole them, and we can't find them anywhere! Pom-poms worked just as well. And then we locked the house in a closet.

Table and chairs:

Even artwork on the walls:

Of course, they need books to read, too!

This one is titled "The Little Fairy". The Gingerbread Man gets a cameo too! The birthday girl seemed to like it, and her little brother was seen playing with it few minutes later. Hopefully her parents will forgive the glitter some day...

Review: The Family with Two Front Doors by Anna Ciddor

9781541500112

$16.99

Meet the Rabinovitches: mischievous Yakov, bubbly Nomi, rebellious Miriam, solemn Shlomo, and seven more! Papa is a rabbi and their days are full of intriguing Jewish rituals and lots of adventures in 1920s Poland. But the biggest adventure of all is when big sister Adina is told she is to be married at the age of fifteen—to someone she has never met.

Reading this immediately put me in mind of the All-of-a-Kind Family books. Light, family-oriented stories perfectly suited to patrons asking for "wholesome" books, in which the major tension happens when the challa bread is dropped on the floor before baking. No sex, no drugs, no political upheaval.

Of course, there is the custom of arranged marriages, which may horrify some. I look at the whole book as a window into a different culture, not a promotion or condemnation either way, just a simple fact of this-is-how-it-was (and still is for some). Even as the customs of a traditionally observant orthodox Jewish family may be foreign, the feeling of finally being deemed old enough to help with an adult task is universal. (And the establishment of the groom's character is done very sweetly, in my opinion.)

The entire book is based on the stories of Ciddor's grandmother's childhood, and every main character quickly becomes distinct in the reader's mind. I am hopeful that there will be more stories to come (although the author's afterward tells us they won't be forthcoming from some quarters - skip that if you want to stick with the happy ending.)

Review: Without Refuge by Jane Mitchell

9781541500501

$16.99

Thirteen-year-old Ghalib wishes his life could go back to normal. He wishes he could still hang out at the market with his friends, root for his favorite soccer team, even go to school. But civil war has destroyed his home.

As violence rages around them, his family makes the difficult choice to flee Syria. Together they start out on a dangerous journey toward Europe. Along the way, they encounter closely guarded borders, hardscrabble refugee camps, and an ocean crossing that they may not survive.

This is the title I would recommend to any upper elementary/middle grade student who is just starting to be aware of the conflicts and refugee crises going on around the world. Striking a delicate balance between not being too gory or frightening but not whitewashing the issues, Without Refuge can help answer some of the questions so many people (kids and adults) ask. Why don't people just leave? Why do they have to go here or there? Why do they take this risk or that?

Mitchell manages to include many different aspects of the refugees' journey, while showing that the refugees themselves are all distinct individuals, with individual choices to make. The story begins with Ghalib being a very normal young teenage boy in the middle of a life most American children cannot begin to imagine. I imagine most 13 year old boys will be able to see themselves in him, making a connection that will hopefully help them stay in his shoes as the journey becomes more and more foreign to them.

An excellent addition to any elementary or middle school library, with plenty of talking points to make it a great book study! 

Review: The Big Bed by Bunmi Laditan and Tom Knight

9780374301231

$16.99

From Bunmi Laditan, the creator of the Honest Toddler blog, The Big Bed is a humorous picture book 

about a girl who doesn't want to sleep in her little bed, so she presents her dad with his own bed—a camping cot!—in order to move herself into her parents' big bed in his place. A twist on the classic parental struggle of not letting kids sleep in their bed.

This went quickly from "looks cute, I'll order it," to "reading parts (and then all) out loud to the person next to me," to, "wait, I'm taking this home to read to my husband!" 

I'll probably let the kids read it, too, but this is definitely a book to make the adults laugh out loud. The voice of the young protagonist is both very real and very adult. Anyone who ever hears their own words and reasoning coming back to them out of a pint-sized mouth (while you cover your own so you don't get caught laughing) will relate. The illustrations, particularly facial expressions, are spot on.

Hmm...maybe I won't let the kids read this, particularly the Catnip Kid - that little con man does not need any additional ideas! You, however, need this book, whoever you are. Hi. larious.

Review: Lola Dutch by Kenneth and Sarah Jane Wright

9781681195513
$17.99

From the best ways to serve breakfast — an elegant feast! — to the ideal sleeping spot — a majestic blanket fort, of course! — Lola is inspired all day long.

Her dear companion Bear sometimes says she is just too much, but Lola is rich with imagination and originality, which even Bear will agree is AMAZING.

Does this description remind you of any young person you know? Someone who loves to go all out and make things bigger, better, grander, more exciting? Someone who goes all out, full throttle, all day long? Or does it remind you of any grown-up you know? (E.C., I'm looking at you!)

Whether you know someone who is the high-energy Lola, the happy accomplice gator, Pig or Crane, or the quietly shaking-his-head, there-when-you-need-him Bear, this is just an all-around great gift book. Give it to someone having a birthday, expecting a new baby, or embarking on a new project. And by all means, get one for your library shelves so everyone can enjoy it!

Review: Up, Down and Other Opposites with Ellsworth Kelly

9780714876290

$10.95

Ellsworth Kelly's paintings and sculptures take center stage in this creative visual presentation of opposites. The pairings range from together/apart to vertical/horizontal, from full/empty to front/back [of a canvas!], providing readers with both expected and unexpected visual vocabulary. Images include Ellsworth's most famous works, as well as some lesser-known pieces, providing a stunning representation of colors and dimensions.

Concept books are a popular genre for board books. This series uses those concepts (in this case, opposites) to also introduce the work of a particular artist. I had never heard of Kelly myself, but abstract art is a perfect foil for this genre, with its simple clear lines and shapes. At times it seems as if the text is being forced to fit the art (I don't know that I would say a half is an opposite of a whole), and it would have helped if the opposites in texture had surfaces you could feel as well, but overall the comparisons are clear enough for little ones. The text goes a bit further than some others in that it actually uses the word "opposites" over and over, whereas most just offer examples.

A solid addition to your board book collection. Other books in this series include:

Blue and Other Colors with Henri Matisse

Squares and Other Shapes with Josef Albers

Birds and Other Animals with Pablo Picasso

One and Other Numbers with Alexander Calder

We will most likely be ordering these for our collection soon!

Today is Brought to You by the Letter A!

Very, very beginning letter studies with Shane and Grace! Once a week Grace's teacher sends home worksheets for her to trace letters. Gosh, that's exciting. And, seriously, homework for preschool?? (No, we don't do them.)

It seems a bit counter-intuitive to have a child with fine motor issues trying to trace letters she can't identify, so we are starting with just recognizing letters - no sounds, no writing, that can come when they are ready. Shane already knows some of his letters, while Grace just guesses "G" for each one (it is the most important after all!), so we are starting at the beginning. These are just some fun activities we did to help cement that first letter in our heads:

These are free printables found at totschool.shannons.org

She has all sorts of fun activities, and you have to love her tagline: "Because I can't handle another episode of Barney." There aren't any posts from the past few years - I hope that doesn't mean Barney came calling - but she still has her old posts up to explore. It occurred to me recently that we haven't used our dot markers in a while, so this was a great way to introduce the letter and practice motor control.

Anything with foamy shapes is a win. I just opened the tub and challenged them to see how many As they could find.

Grace is an all-or-nothing kind of gluer. Some got barely a dot, while others...

While they were working, I did a Google image search for "letter a", and printed out a few pages of results. I cut them into strips and told them to pick out the ones they wanted to cut out and glue on another paper.

The choice seemed to be "all of them", which was great! They are both doing a super job with scissors, and Grace kept running to me to show me "I cut in the lines!"

Ignore coil of wire, I was supposed to be putting up a chicken fence.

They had so much fun, they both wanted to do multiple pages, so I told them to get more paper out of the art drawer. Somebody apparently had already used this one. 

Shane refused to cover it up.

I printed out several "A" coloring pages and we did different things with them. This one was supposed to be colored in one color per space, but they decided at this point they weren't doing what the teacher told them to:

Sheridan helped Shane cut out his (purple) one, while Gracie did her own. Her scissor skills are actually coming along, not too long ago she would have cut right through the middle!

That pretty much signaled we were done for the day, but we will continue later by coloring the other A's in different ways - painting, thumbprints, and gluing cereal on them. Next up: snack time with Scrabble crackers, during which we will eat all the "A"s we can find!