All posts tagged: books

March 2014 Photo a Day

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So begins the March Photo a Day challenge round up!  Yellow is one of my favourite colours, so a great start. March saw snow and snow days off school, we had a few trips out to local State Parks and the zoo which is always a treat. I read ‘The Hive’ by Gill Hornby and laughed all the way through it. Being a Brit living in the US, it always a joy to find such an ‘English’ book. None of the colloquial language had been edited and I loved all of it!  Now what to read? I think I am going to give ‘The Goldfinch’ by Donna Tartt a go. Have you read it? Any recommendations? The garlic is growing nicely in the raised beds and I have planted some Basil, Coriander/Cilantro and Ancho chili pepper seeds in pots, so we can’t wait to see them start to shoot up. And of course I took a photo every day following the prompts provided by Chantelle of Fat Mum Slim. Thanks Chantelle!  1. Yellow  2. Something …

A Cup of Tea with Me

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For the past month I have been a student in the classroom of Blog with Pip and I have a folder full and a notebook bursting with ideas. Now we have graduated, we have been invited to write this post by our fearless leader,  Pip Lincolne of Meet Me At Mikes, so here I am to chat about me over a cup of tea.  If you pop over to Pip’s blog, you can read posts by the other lovely students.  I got to spend time with some creative, inspiring folk I can tell you. Today’s cup of tea features a gorgeous vintage pink willow pattern teacup and saucer.  My youngest picked it out from a flea market while we were on holiday in Cape Cod last year.  I must admit, I don’t drink out of it, I need a big mug of tea, but big mugs are not so pretty. Being from the UK originally, I should be a tea drinking monster, but I tend to gravitate towards coffee more and more since I have …

The insides of books

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I borrowed some books from the library today and all of them had some loveliness inside.  I haven’t read them yet, but I am sure the picture books will be devoured and I will browse the non-fiction and hopefully I will love the novel. From ‘The Bear’s Song’ by Benjamin Chaud.  Look at all the detail here, all of the illustrations in the book are like this.  Makes me want to find things!  In this picture I like the lady exercising in the window. ‘My Father’s Arms are a Boat’ by Stein Erik Lunde and Oyvind Torseter.  Wonderful 3D created illustrations throughout this book using cut out paper. At last I am at the front of the line for Kate Atkinson’s ‘Life After Life’.  I can’t wait to get stuck into it. From ‘Josephine’ by Patricia Hruby Powell.  I spotted this book during Multicultural Children’s Book Day, I was immediately drawn to the illustration style and I wasn’t disappointed when I saw the book.  It is thicker than I thought and I can’t wait to …

Multicultural Children’s Book Day-Celebrating Diversity in Children’s Literature

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I talked a bit about Multicultural Children’s Book Day-Celebrating Diversity in Children’s Literature this week and about the book I am reviewing for this event – The Girl with a Brave Heart.   January 27th is the big day, so pop to the library and grab a book about a different culture to read to the kids.  If you need any ideas for books, check out any of the links at the bottom of this post or visit Pragmatic Mom or Jump Into a Book. When ‘The Girl with a Brave Heart’ by Rita Jahanforuz and Vali Mintzi arrived from Barefoot Books, the first thing that struck me was that it is a gorgeous vibrant book with fabulous colorful illustrations.   Is it me, or does every book published by Barefoot Books consist of wonderful read aloud stories alongside stunning illustrations?  I can’t thank them enough for letting me read and review this book. We read the book as soon as we received it and we tried to guess what was going to happen in …

Multicultural Children’s Book Day is coming

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Next Monday, January 27th 2014 is the very first ever in the whole wide world –  Multicultural Children’s Book Day. It is the wonderful brainchild of Mia at Pragmatic Mom and Valarie  of Jump into a Book, both blogs are chock full of book recommendations, go and have a look.  It will be a day to begin many days of reading about different cultures and the stories within.  Or even well known stories set within a new culture.  I think we have read every connotation of the Cinderella story over the years and enjoyed them all. I received an e mail a few weeks ago to see if I  wanted to be part of this extravaganza of reading, and  review a book connected to  Multicultural Children’s Book Day here on my little blog.   My pleasure. I love books and I love love childrens books and I love love love picture books. In fact I am hanging onto any situation where I can pull out a pile of picture books to read to my kids, ok, …

Ten books on the 10th

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Yesterday was ten on the 10th, so I decided to photo ten books I like. The Sweeter Side of Amy’s Bread by Amy Scherber and Toy Lee Dupree The Family Dinner by Laurie David My Grandma’s recipe book. The daily diary I keep for the boys. Obsessive Consumption by Kate Bingaman-Burt The Stylish Dress Book by Yoshiko Tsukiori Instant Love by Jenifer Altman, Susannah Conway and Amanda Gillighan Perfect by Rachel Joyce Let’s Draw Cute Animals by Sachiko Umoto Designing Jewelry with Glass Beads by Stephanie Sersich I love books, don’t you?!

Spirograph and new library book

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I have had my Spirograph since at least nineteen seventy something.  Now we like to pull it out every so often to make some cool and usually surprising patterns. Today I thought I would make some notecards using my old faithful Spirograph. I recently bought some coloured biro pens which work great to make the colourful patterns. While I was getting the Spirograph pieces out I found the pretty lady who needs Spirograph hair, I do remember that I could never make her hair because I loved the face so much that I didn’t want to use it and  run the risk of ruining it.  So she still has no seventies hair. I have been struggling to find a book to read lately, I started ‘Sisterland’ by Curtis Sittenfeld, but I didn’t finish it before I had to return it to the library and then I started ‘The Truth’ by Michael Palin which I didn’t like, so now I am going to start this one tonight, I hope I like it!  If I don’t like …

This this and that

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I just finished this book and liked it. I saw it recommended on Jools Oliver’s Instagram stream and I thought I would give it a go as the recommender loved ‘Where’d you go Bernadette’ which is one of my favourite recent books. I must admit if I had just picked it up and read the fly leaf, I might not have read it, but I am glad I did. It is set in Gold Rush/Wild West times and the characters are really great, witty and gritty and a good read.  Did I mention I love the cover?  I love the cover. Now, I am about to start this book and I am a big Neil Gaiman fan, so I am looking forward to starting. I love starting a new book don’t you? I have read Neil Gaiman’s  book ‘Odd and the Frost Giants’ to both of my boys over the years and I don’t tire of it, I highly recommend it.  A great mythical read for the kids. Over the weekend I plan to make …

Make, eat, read, plus bracelet prizes!

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Today has been a lovely cool day again with lots of rain which has made my garden happy! I made some ‘Double Coconut Muffins‘ this morning with the addition of mini chocolate chips. I am so happy to be able to switch the oven on without the air conditioning having a nervous breakdown! This is a quite delicious recipe and I recommend it highly, I am even thinking it would work without the coconut, and with blueberries or even more choc chips. What are you reading at the minute? Do you have a list of books to read? I have a Pinterest board full of them! I want to read the new book by Rachel Joyce called ‘Perfect‘, but I am going to have to order it from the UK as I can’t stand to look at the US cover (the rose). It is not published here for ages and I want to read it NOW! Ahem. Yes, I do judge books by their covers, that rose cover looks like a 1980’s sleazy crime novel …

Children’s Books we like.

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Bodhi and I have just finished reading ‘Wonderstruck‘ which is another amazing Brian Selznik book, if you have not read ‘The Invention of Hugo Cabret’, go go go and borrow it from the library, you won’t be disappointed.  The film is great, but the book is so much more. ‘Wonderstruck’ is a book of words and pictures and the two lives in the book run perfectly together.  Ben’s story is in words and Rose’s is all illustrations.  A very satisfying ‘read aloud’ book for bedtime for the reader and the listener alike. We are now reading ‘Hero on a Bicycle’ by Shirley Hughes.  We liked her picture books when the boys were young and this novel is not disappointing so far.  Set during World War II in Italy, it is very descriptive and captures the events in the story vividly.  We are only part way through, but we are looking forward to reading the rest of the book. On the pile to read next is ‘The Terrible Thing That Happened to Barnaby Brocket’ by John Boyne …