Bargain Book Bonanza (6)

Welcome to the sixth edition of Bargain Book Bonanza!

BBB is a linky party to showcase all the great books (new, used, vintage, electronic, audio) that we book lovers score on sale.

Each Monday through Thursday, all book lovers are invited to carouse, make merry and revel with bargain book abandon!

Want to join the party? Just visit the Bargain Book Bonanza page for the particulars.

DeLynne is hosting this week!

Trips to the big city are rare for me, but even more special because they don't happen often. They involve a two hour train trip each way, which is a great opportunity to sit and read.

Last time I went I found I had nothing to read for the trip home, so whilst racing to the train I ducked into a book store.

Almost a year ago, Miss Shirley, an Off the Beaten Page reader on Heron Island, talked to me about Agatha Christie's complete short story collection. She said they were too short for her taste. I wasn't sure if the same would apply to Sir Doyle's collection, but decided to take a punt on them anyway.

I was really happy with my purchase. It cost $6.50, which is nothing to crow about when some of us are posting about free or 25 cent books. However, with the price of new books in Australia this is a bargain. And I got lots of enjoyment from it.

On the train I ran into some of my students, and was able to chat occasionally in between stories. It was also great by my bedside for weeks, where I would read one story before lights out.

This counts as a bargain in my book, but I have some even cheaper ones to post about someday soon.

Can't wait to see everyone's Bargain Book Bonanzas!

BBB is linking up to Mailbox Monday hosted this month by Passages to the Past.  Welcome Mailbox Monday visitors!  Are there bargains in your mailbox?  If so, you are invited to join Bargain Book Bonanza to show them off. The more bargains the merrier!  

Storytime: iBaby: Goodnight, Baby illustrated by Ana Martin Laranaga

My mother gave Miss Nina the sweetest board book. 

 

The sun has set, the stars are out, the animals are in the barn.

Time to say goodnight to all the babies on the farm.

As you read each page, your little one tucks all the babies into their beds.

My little girl is about 2 1/2 and just loves this book. Each baby animal is attached to the book with a ribbon and she has to find the right baby and put it in the right place - piglet, chick, puppy, lamb, and a baby. That's her favorite - the baby at the end. (It looks like a boy, but he is in yellow, so you could get away saying it's a girl if it is important to your little one. Maybe scribble on a bit more hair?)

Nina absolutely does not let me help her find and place the babies. She squeals at each page, "Ohhh, the baby is so cute, Mama. Aww, look at the baby, Mama. Babies sleeping. Shhhhh, Mama. Babies sleeping."

Which brings me to my one complaint with the book. It states on the back that it is "perfect for bedtime." In our case, not so much. She gets too excited looking at the babies and the animals and squealing and oohing and awing...it's a bit hard to get her to wind back down again. I save this for during the day!

This is most appropriate (and recommended for) under 3. Maybe you could stretch it to 4 years, but I think an older child would get bored too quickly with this one.

All in all, we enjoy the book. It has a sweet little rhyme on each page. Nina is so happy to put the babies in bed over and over, and it doesn't drive me crazy reading it a few times each day. It's a win for us!

Check it out if you have little ones. I think you will enjoy reading this one to them too.

 

Phryne Fisher meets Precious Ramotswe

I inhabit a world where I might be killed by a snake released in my bedroom, stabbed while dancing, eaten by a crocodile, shot in a drive-by, or pulled from a train and hung from a water tower. Yes, I do love mysteries, but it would be easy to become paranoid. Lately I have immersed myself in two vastly different mystery series.

Not too long ago, my family and I attended Woodford Folk Festival (I wrote about it here). We had torrential, terrible rains, and camping was an exercise in endurance. But our nights were made more tolerable by curling up, each on his or her camp bed, with a book light and a good book. At one point our tent collapsed, breaking poles and wrecking the camp. All we were really worried about was the borrowed camping gear and the bag of Christmas present books, not necessarily in that order.

When gum-boot deep in mud, my distraction of choice was the Phryne Fisher series by Australian Kerry Greenwood. Surrounded by smelly muck, I escaped to the glamorous 1920's where Phryne (pronounced Fry-knee) has more money than she knows how to spend, luxuriates in expensive cosmetics, wears bespoke clothes, and solves mysteries while shocking society. She is a ballsy, unconventional woman with an amazing intellect who began her life distressingly poor, and I want to be her (after she got rich). The book covers are beautiful, each showing Phryne in one of the amazing outfits from the book. I even saved one illustration as my phone's wallpaper (I am truly a book tragic).



After purchasing all the books I can find from the series (there are 17, I think, and I have seven so far) I went to the library in search of another lady detective. And Mma Ramotswe came to mind. Alexander McCall Smith's creation is 'Botswana's only--and finest--female private detective.' She is, in contrast to Phryne, a woman of tradition and national pride with a strong moral compass. Mma Ramotswe's life has a quiet rhythm, and much of her detecting is done chatting politely to people over a cup of bush tea. There's a film version, too.



One of my friends tried to read Smith's series and found it boring. I love the gentle pace and evocative language. McCall writes just as I imagine Mma would speak, and I feel like I've already met Botswana's lady detective.

The two lady sleuths couldn't be more different. Phryne screams through Melbourne in a demonic Hispano-Suiza while Mma tootles across Botswana in her tiny white van, lovingly maintained by her fiance Mr J.L.B. Matekoni. One character is free with her favours, slim with hip bones jutting from milky white skin. The other is 'traditionally built' and honoured when someone calls her fat.

Phryne makes me want to take better care of myself while Mma makes me want to take better care of everyone else. Phryne makes me want more stuff and Mma teaches me that I don't need any more stuff.

They are both avaliable on Kindle (Phryne is here and Mma Ramotswe is here.) if you are trying to save bookshelf space.

However, if, like me, you are reading the traditional, paper versions, you'll need bookmarks. For Phryne I chose a Valentino exhibit bookmark with a vintage dress that Julia Roberts wore. For Mma Ramotwse I chose Emus by Aboriginal artist Yirra-Kurl.


If you are looking to escape from your everyday life (and is that not why we read?), then I can recommend either Phryne or Mma Ramotswe. They are vastly different from one another, but both wonderful detectives.

However, after reading of these ladies' escapes you might start looking over your shoulder.

Storytime: There's a Bird on Your Head! by Mo Willems

Hey, Y'all! This is my first official post for the new challenge - picture books. I am super excited, because I read to my little ones so much, yet I hate to keep BLATHERING on about it, you know?

But, now, you HAVE to read my blathering, AND you have to like it. See? It's a Win - sorta Win situation.

Now. On to the review.


My review first. Now, I am speaking as a mom of three, count'em (I have to!), three squirmy wormies! And, although you may feel as though I am a regular June Cleaver (I give off that impression), I actually get rather bored reading some children's books. I know! Gasp! The horror!

So, my perspective is one of a young(ish) mother who will be reading said story about 20 times during the following week. How disgusted will I be with it? THAT, ladies and germs, IS the question!

This book, by Mo Willems, is absolutely. adorable. Aaaand (Yes, there is an "and"!) aaand...FUNNY!

I could totally read this one 20 times this week! 

The pictures are very simple- actually the same basic picture as the cover. I like that because you see the expressions on Piggie's and Elephant's face, and the colors are muted. So there is not a lot to distract from the words.

And the words are very easy to read - the story is a conversation between Piggie and Elephant and beginning readers can read the high frequency words that they will be familiar with (the, bird, on, etc), but there is enough repetition for them to grasp new harder words and memorize them (somewhere, head, etc).

This book will be entertaining for older readers, as well, but it will not be challenging. This is really a beginner's level book.

All of the books in this series (Piggie and Elephant) are similarly written, and I give them a "4 Whews!" and "2 1/2 Snickers (as in laughs, not the candy...although that could work too..)". I may just buy this book and a few more in the series.

 

Nico's interview. (Nico is six, and "motivationally challenged" - that means...uhh..lazy. So he HATES to actually read - he wants me to do it. He pretends, yes, pretends to sound out the words so that I will give in and just read the dang word. He works harder at not working than actually working!)

Me: Nico, did you like this book?

Nico: Uh-huh. Can I go?

Me: No.What did you like about it?

Nico: I don't know. Are we finished?

Me: Not yet. COME BACK HERE! Did. you. like. the. story.

Nico: Yeah. It was funny. Maaaamaaaa, can I go NOW?

Me: Jus' a sec. Did you like to read the words?
Nico: No. Well, yeah, but I just don't know how to read all those books. Can I go?
Me: *sigh* NO! Now. What was your favorite part?
Nico: Elephant said "Aaaaaaaaaaaaagh." And it was funny. He thinks there was a bird on his head!
Me: NICO! COME. HERE! Do you think other kids would like this book?
Nico: (Grinning) Yeah. It was funny. Now can I go?

I must say, I let him go. Through the entire interview, he was hopping up and down. How would Oprah or Barbara Wawa have handled it? Could they have made him cry? Or would they have started to cry?


Anyway, folks. There you have it. It was funny. And not torturous to read the words. He read it with me once, once by himself, and once with his brother and sister each. Not bad, boy-who-doesn't-like-to-read, not bad at all!



Please visit the Read to Me Picture Book Challenge's February linky party   hosted by There's A Book for more terrific picture books!

Little Boys Will Be Little Boys - Our Bedtime Stories

I was thinking about this today, about which story I will be reading to my little ones tonight.
My boys like non-fiction stories about dinosaurs, sharks, and other PREDATORS (duh-duh-DUH). I sigh and read them, with feeling (ok, Izzy?)




But sometimes, I get to read the stories that I prefer. They are compromises, still about dinosaurs and reptiles, but sweet stories. Fiction, of course!

One of my favorite series are the "How Do Dinosaurs..." by Jane Yolen and Mark Teague. These are sweet little rhymes written for children who pretend to be dinosaurs. The drawings make me smile, as I see my own little dinosaurs acting like those in the illustrations - in this case, before going to bed!



Another group of books that I enjoy reading to them are written by Ann Whitmore Paul. The books we particularly enjoy are the ones written in English, but with Spanish thrown in. Adorable retellings of fairy tales. For example, Tortuga in Trouble is a twist on Little Red Riding Hood.

These stories make a nice change for us, and since they are not too long, on nights when I don't have much time, I can get in a story that relaxes them and gets them to slip into to Slumberland.

Bedtime Stories

Confession time; I, Izzy Rose, 13-year-old, am not too old for bedtime stories. In fact, I would be very upset if bedtime stories were discontinued in my house. They're not as childish as they may sound, and only the finest shall be read to me as part of my nightly routine. A fine collection of old and new, including A Little Princess, The Secret Garden, A Wrinkle in Time, Chinese Cinderella, The Lost Island of Tamarind and Wee Free Men.

It is comforting to be read to at night and often puts me to sleep before the chapter is even done. The elements of the story and the reader must fit a certain criteria tailored for me and my sister's tastes. Criteria:

• The reader must have a comforting voice, and is not allowed to read in a drab monotone. (no offense Dad)
• The book cannot include any blood, guts and gore, especially no vomit.
• If there is a chapter with a suspenseful, uncomforting ending, the reader must let me stay up late, reading with a huge dolphin torch, to see if everything turns out okay.
  
• Must have a good storyline, and keep me entertained.
• If demanded, reader must read another chapter.
• If book is not liked, reader must switch immediately.

That is all. And they lived happily ever after.

Oh Jane, Jane....

C.E. Brock circa 1898
The rest of the watercolors from Emma

Not to hog the blog, so to speak, but I’m almost beside myself about Jane Austen’s Emma and am more surprised about that than anyone. In fact, this has been so pleasurable that I read the first four chapters, felt like I was being rushed, so I started over from the beginning.

The long forgotten pleasure of slowly savoring each delicious sentence of a book is gift from Miss Austen. She's already given me others, and I’ve only really Read (capital R) two chapters.

Until this slow read, I couldn’t have told you why women in particular seem to love Austen. Now I know. I read this enlightening passage of Emma out loud to my husband last night as he watched football, and though we aren’t one of "those" couples, he did have the good sense to nod and grunt affirmatively in all the right places.

Austen was forty when she wrote Emma, if Wiki is to be believed and the wisdom of years comes through in her evaluation of what constitutes happiness within a mature relationship or in the case of the above passage, the lack of said same. It should be laminated and stuck into every bridal magazine ever published. In fact, (spoiler alert *waves at DeLynne) I might take this up as my personal mission, which tells you I have yet to learn the pitfalls of meddling in other people’s lives and should keep reading.

The other thing that has surprised me is that Austen is a mistress of devastatingly subtle humor. I don’t know if humor was her intention, but funny is funny. I cannot tell you how very much I truly want to “throw” some offensive someone “off with due decorum” and to disapprove of their “sort of spirit” with Austen's level of understatement. No one in particular, yet, but that is a social art worth cultivation, to my mind. The beauty of it is that they wouldn’t know they’d been insulted until they were far enough away to discourage retaliation. What’s not to like??

Here I invite, encourage, prod and meddle. Read Emma with me if you haven’t already. Read it again if you have. If nothing else, you’ll find you can call someone a whining hypochondriac without them taking offense. Just use the word valetudinarian and leave off the whining part.

Greetings from the Knit Café, Weekend Knitting and Luxury Knits

Today I had a minor medical emergency and spent almost two hours in the doctors' office. Knowing before I left how long the wait might be, I took my knitting. I am an almost compulsive knitter at times (some obsessive tendencies, here) and have been seen knitting everywhere. There's been a bit of a hiatus, and I felt the need to take back up my needles.

So I sat and sat and knit and knit and in walks this woman. Her beret was nearly horizontal on the side of her head, and I thought; 'Now THAT's a jaunty angle!' She's one of the types of people most of us avoid eye contact with. She stands in the middle of the waiting room and asks, 'Would anyone like a glass of water?' I politely decline, but undeterred, this offer was made to each new-comer to the room.

Then, from her capacious bag she pulls out crocheting and sets to work, just like me. How strange it struck me. You just don't often see needle work of any kind in public anymore, and here we were two kindred spirits, with very little else in common.

From across the room she nodded at my lap and enquired, 'Scarf?' I replied, 'No, slippers.' She worked quietly for the rest of my wait, only pausing to offer liquid refreshment.

And in my rambling way, this brings me to my current bedtime reading. I must now confess that despite the amount of time I've spent over the years working on my knitting, I am only consistently successful with flat, rectangular projects. Washers, dishcloths, scarves, wraps, coasters and hot pads. I churn them out. And they are wonderful, but I am longing to make more things that are shaped properly, you know, with armholes.

So, like a kid unable to ride a two wheeler who spends hours watching motorbike races, I read knitting books. I lust after the patterns and the photos, and imagine myself wearing something that makes people say, 'That's really lovely!' instead of, 'Did you make that yourself?'

And below are some of my current bedtime books. I nod off and dream of wearing some of the creations in these beautiful books.

Weekend Knitting by Melanie Falick has projects that look simple enough for me. They are trendy, colourful, cheerful and small.

Amanda Griffiths' Luxury Knits has beautiful, classic designs, but they look way out of my league. I read some reviews on Amazon that said one of her books had lots of errata, too. So for me this is a definite 'dream' book.

But my favourite in the stack is Greetings from the Knit Café by Suzan Mischer. It's so cheerful and bright, with a large variety of patterns. Baby, adult, simple, elaborate, large and small, they are all here, even flat ones! You can knit for a person or your home with this book. It also has recipes, music suggestions and the history of the Knit Café, an actual place in West Hollywood, apparently. The models are real customers and the book has a scrapbook style that is very appealing. This is a great book for lusting over.

Am I the only one who reads about projects she'll never accomplish, or does anyone do something similar? What's your favourite fantasy DIY publication?

And, by the way, I never worked out where that glass of water was going to come from…

Swotting up on children’s books

I remember reading A Little Princess and loving the old-fashioned language and the quaint illustrations. I could just imagine I was Sara living oh so long ago. But recently I checked out a few possibilities for our bedtime book (one chapter or thereabouts each night) and the quaint language gave me some hard decisions to make.

My heart was set on Peter Pan, the 100^th anniversary edition. I don't think I've actually read it myself, and was keen to share the experience with my two girls. The first night, however, we hit a snag. 'Rather delightful' is a quaint yet accessible phrase, and I loved how it set the tone in the first paragraph. The second, however, started 'Of course they lived at 14, and until Wendy came her mother was the chief one.' I really didn't get it myself, and there was a chorus of questions from the girls' beds. Soon we were reading about bookkeeping, Brussels sprout, cauliflowers and babies. It was all too much, and we abandoned the effort after two nights.

This dilemma made me sad. Are my kids never going to read Barrie's original work? Will they forever identify with the Disney version? How much effort am I willing to put in to our evening read? I really can't imagine how we will get through it at this age, and that makes me sad. I hold out hope for the future, when we can read it together or they pick up the books by themselves. Unlocking an old-fashioned text is like learning a foreign language. It helps with our everyday language and gives us a sense of accomplishment.

The girls and I are now reading The Wee Free Men by Terry Pratchett, and loving it. The tiny pictsies speak what seems to me Scottish accents with quaint words, 'Ach, yer fightin' yersels, ye eejits! Ah'm fed up wi' the paira yees!' Their swear word of choice is 'crivens' and they say, 'Wailly wailly' when they are distressed. We are having so much fun. Or at least I am. I bung on an accent which I think is pretty good, and have even used 'wailly wailly' on FaceBook, much to my brother's amusement. I do tend to get carried away!

In the book only the pictsies use such language, and the rest of the text is effortlessly understood. I find this mix an entertaining, pleasant challenge. Tiffany, the protagonist also has to seek translations from pictsie to English, and that helps us to identify with her.

So how timely that I read this article on the re-editing of Enid Blyton's works. The debate rages at household and global level. Do you think we should edit classics so that children can understand them more easily?

Aussie baby books

What to give a baby? Books, of course! My beautiful great niece was about four months old and I still hadn't given her anything. See, I don't usually give gifts to the unborn, and just hadn't found the right gift. Part of my problem was a determination to give this little Texan something made in Australia. Of course everything here is made in China, just like all over the world and I was searching in vain. And because she's there and I am mostly here, I wasn't sure of colours, tastes and sizes for clothing.

Finally, a lovely friend reminded of books for babies. She commented on how much her baby girl loved the books I had given her a year or so ago. I had forgotten, I suppose, but she said her little one was responding to books at six weeks. Mine were too, but that seems so long ago. So I sought out some Aussie board books for wee ones. They must be board books, to be chewed, bashed and played with. I found a couple of good ones.

Jackie French is an author I feel close to because I started reading her articles in the back to basics magazine Earth Garden many, many years ago. She seems like a distant aunty or long-time pen pal. Her personal story is interesting: she started writing in a desperate attempt to pay some bills and she is dyslexic. So I bought Princess the book Diary of a Wombat, illustrated by Bruce Whatley.

It is just what it says-- a recount of a week from the point of view of a marsupial. Oddly I never read this one to my own kids, but I was amused to hear my twelve year old reading it aloud to her little sister and a thirteen year old friend on the way home from the shop. The story is so charming, you can't help smiling. Mothball the wombat does a lot of sleeping, but works hard to train the humans that live nearby, and they do eventually catch on. In the end she concludes, 'Evening: Have decided that humans are easily trained and make quite good pets.'

My other choice was Where is the Green Sheep? by Mem Fox and illustrated by Judy Horacek. Again, hearing this during the back seat recitation was strange. See, this book is my main foreign language teaching source with children from about three to five years old. My little students love doing hand gestures to the story, and reciting along with me. There's no Italian or French publication that I can find. I just translated it myself and show the kids the pictures in the English version, a copy of which is in almost every kindy or grade one classroom in Australia. So, I had never read it out loud in English and hadn't realized it actually rhymed!

Obviously, the main idea is the search for the Green Sheep, and we have to meet lots of other sheep before we find him. For example, 'Here is the near sheep. And here is the far sheep. Here is the moon sheep. And here is the star sheep.' The story ends as we find that elusive sheep, asleep curled up behind a bush like Little Boy Blue…er, Green. Ending a bedtime story with a character asleep is great. Sets a good example, see?

While in the post office I saw a book by Pamela Allen with a magpie on the front, called Waggle Giggle Gargle. They are charming Aussie birds that make a fun sound (click here to hear it). This one's new to me, but I've always loved her books, and I popped it in the package. Princess' Mum and Dad will have to tell us if she likes it.

So I hope Princess' parents read her lots of books, especially ones to teach her about her family in Australia. And I hope they let her chew them, too.

Which books would you buy for a baby?

Who's Afraid of the Big Bad Book?

Grandma and Grandpa got the girls a gift certificate to a local book store, and Dellylu chose this beautiful book by Lauren Child. She passionately collects everything Charlie and Lola, who are the cutest characters ever. This story doesn't have Charlie and Lola, but the illustrations and pop-ups are irresistible.

Below is a synopsis by our eight year old.

"It's about a boy named Herb who gets trapped in fairy tale book with pop-up stories. But Herb drew mustaches and glasses on all of the people, and put telephones in every room. Goldilocks and the three bears are in it, and she is very angry when Herb is in her story."

It's a book about books and taking care of them. Dellylu was captivated by the book within a book idea, and counted them all up. I loved the message that was delivered without sounding preachy. Herb is no brow-beaten goody two shoes!

The Lost Island of Tamarind

Every night I am reading aloud from the Lost Island of Tamarind by Nadia Aguiar. Wow, what a great bedtime story! Maya, Simon and their baby sister Penny are on a mysterious island looking for their parents. It doesn’t exist on any map, and has bizarre animals and plants they have never even heard of. A strange storm has washed the grown-ups from the family’s yacht where they have always lived, travelling the seas and doing research.

According to my websearch the author, Nadia Aguiar, grew up and now lives in Bermuda, which shows in the rich depiction of the tropics. Her descriptions of the plants, the heavy air, the sounds and the smells remind me of the subtropical rain forest outside my own door.

In the story, the kids manage to sail to Tamarind where carnivore vines swallow up the boat, suspend jaguars, and try to abduct Penny. They meet up with Helix, a boy who protects them and takes them to a river where they can wait for a barge. Refusing to stay, he slips into the jungle after giving them a spear and an amulet. Maya wonders if she’s made the right decision, or if she should have trekked through the dense growth with him to town.

They don’t even know if their parents are on the island, are not sure if they can trust the bargeman, can’t decipher their parents’ log book entries, don’t know what the amulet will protect them from, aren’t sure they can get help in town, and are fast running out of diapers for Penny.

I am swept up in the fantasy and mystery of the story, but also appreciate the accurate depiction of adolescents. For example, Maya pretends to be asleep so she won’t have to talk to her brother. ‘She felt too strange and emotional right then—filled with so much love for her family she thought she might weep—but if he spoke to her she was afraid she would snap at him. Why was it like that with family?’ Why indeed?

I am not reading ahead, really I am not. So at the pace we are going it might be a few weeks before we finish it. Do you want to know how it ends as badly as I do?