A blog of my running thoughts while reading. *Warning: Spoilers*
This is a fun book with adorable painted illustrations. I loved that they bear did everything that the little girl did. It’s cute. I found it a little odd that the text refers to the bear as masculine while the illustrations clearly suggest that it is female (translation issue maybe?). It was a fun, cute book.
This is a very sweet story. It is both touching and funny. I love the man’s devotion to his wife. The illustrations are nice black and white line drawings. The cats are cute and have more variety than I would have expected. This really is a nicely done book and I can easily see why it is still in print.
This is a great book. Olivia is a ton of fun. She is a wonderful character and her character and her story, though quite simple, is irresistable. I love the illustrations! The very simple and well-chosen use of color is perfect and the slightly squiggly outline of Olivia herself only adds to her appeal. This is a brilliantly fun book!
For some reason my store categorizes this as a picture book, but it very much isn’t a picture book (hardly anything with eleven chapters really can be). This is a really sweet story. The pictures, which there aren’t all that many of, are soft and sweet and full of charm. I love the soft feel. The story is fairly quiet and understated, but it is sweet. And there is a remarkable amount of action for the quiet feel it maintains. I loved Bo, she was adorable and charming, and the people around her (her father, Billy, etc.) were nice, if fairly uncomplicated characters. Overall I enjoyed this book a lot. It was sweet and I look forward to reading the sequel.
This book has beautiful illustrations, but it just doesn’t feel like a children’s book. Some of the concepts are hard for many adults, much less children! The pictures are also awfully tiny for what they are. They look lost in the middle of each page surrounded by fields of white space. The verses are spiritual and some are quite pretty, but many feel stilted and forced. This is a good gift book for a spiritual adult, but probably not so good for children.
This is a great book about feelings. The verses for each feeling are short and wonderfully expressive. Each one has a completely different tone from the others. The pictures are my favorite part of this book. They have great colors and each feeling has its own palette. The cirliques that pop up everywhere are adorable (I love the little curled up toes on the shoes!). I would love a print of the “Happy” illustration framed on my wall! This is a wonderful book and I highly recommend it!
This is a funny, adorable book. It has great pictures. The illustrator does a great job of portraying an elephant exhibiting cat-like behavior. I particularly like the paintings and the stepped-upon letter to the author. The book is extremely silly, but a whole lot of fun! This would be a fabulous read-aloud book.
This is a fabulous book. It starts out sad but the book is full of hope and you can’t help but smile at the ending! The dog, Jake, is a great character. The pictures are bright and detailed. They tell many stories that the text ignores. The hippie neighbors were one funny little detail that I particularly liked. This is such a great, uplifting book!
This is a wonderfully complex book. The crowds of animals left behind were poignant and sad while that many offspring born on the ark were both joyous and exasperating. There is so much detail and expression in the pictures that text really isn’t necessary. This book totally deserves its Caldecott Medal.
This story is entertaining thus far, but I almost feel like the princess is too bumbling. I guess she’s a pretty average fairy tale princess (except for the clumsiness). It’s interesting to hear the story from the point of view of the clueless princess who is completely lost without guidance and aid, I just usually like heroines to be a little less helpless. I am quite interested in finding out why the spell didn’t behave the way that it was supposed to, especially since magic seems to have fairly specific rules in the world of the book. I would love to hear more about how magic works too!