Kid Lit Giveaway Hop – The Tree of Mindala

Posted on May 13, 2013 by Katy K.

Kid Lit Giveaway Hop PosterWelcome to the first Kid Lit Giveaway Hop, hosted by Mother Daughter Book Reviews and Youth Literature Reviews.

We are celebrating Children’s Book Week (May 13 to 19, 2013) by providing all of YOU, our loyal followers, with the opportunity to win fabulous children/teen’s books, gift cards, cash, or other prizes by hopping around to the almost 100 participating blogs/authors listed below in the Linky List. What better way to celebrate Children’s Book Week?

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Click here to see the other blogs in the giveaway hop.

Our Prize – 3 Lucky Winners will each win an ebook copy (any format) of The Tree of Mindala by Elle Jacklee
Tree of Mindala

Contest runs May 13 to 19, 2013
Please leave a comment and tell us about your favorite fantasy forest (from a book, of course!) to enter this giveaway.

This is a middle grade fantasy novel, published this year, equally appealing to boys and girls.

Description: Soon to be twelve-year-old Miranda Moon’s overactive imagination has landed her in trouble again. This time, she’s been suspended from school. Since her Halloween weekend just got extended, her parents decide to take her and her straight-laced younger brother, Marcus, to her late grandparents’ old cabin. That suits Miranda just fine. She’s always felt there was something special about the place. Besides, she has a knack for making the best of things. But when Miranda finds a curious water globe hidden in the cabin, she and Marcus are catapulted into a world even she never imagined. A world where everybody already knows their family name and magic flows through the trees. A world called Wunderwood. But their arrival happens to coincide with the release of a sinister warlock from a forty-year imprisonment. Thornton Crow resumes his deadly agenda to find the source of Wunderwood’s magical power, the Tree of Mindala, and seize it for his own. As Miranda learns of her own connection to Thornton, she realizes that it’s up to her to end his cruel and relentless cycle of death that would steal not just magic, but also hope. With only the cryptic words of a prophecy to guide her, she holds the fate of the entire realm as well as the safety of Marcus and the newly found branches of her family tree in her hands. Miranda’s signature optimism is put to the ultimate test when she chooses to carry out the task that will save Wunderwood… or doom it forever.
(Contest details shown twice to be easier to find.)
Contest runs May 13 to 19, 2013
Please leave a comment and tell us about your favorite fantasy forest (from a book, of course!) to enter this giveaway.

Keep reading for a guest post from author Elle Jacklee!
Elle JackleeWhen The Tree of Mindala was first released, a friend and fellow mom said to me, “It’s a little like having another baby, isn’t it?” Of course, nothing can compare to the experience of becoming a mom, but it was hard to deny that, in some ways, she was right…

First the idea for a story is conceived, much like that moment of human conception when not much about the finished product is clear, only that something truly amazing has happened. Then, as time goes on, details become sharper, and things start to take shape. You begin to feel connected to this miracle that grows each day. Before long, it’s a part of you and you’re a part of it.

There are days, in both scenarios, when the euphoria of creation has you walking on air. There are also days when you’re just a tiny bit (okay, maybe more than just a tiny bit!) afraid about what will happen once your newest addition meets the world. Will everybody adore your pride and joy as much as you do? Will the world appreciate the beauty that is your crowning achievement? And will you ever get a full night’s sleep again? But soon you realize there’s no turning back, so there’s really no point in worrying about any of that.

When I was expecting my first child, I daydreamed about what he would look like, which personality traits he would get from me and which from his dad, etc. It wasn’t long after he was born before it was clear that some of my expectations were not entirely “accurate”. Likewise, when I first sketched the characters in my book, I thought I had a pretty good idea of who they were. But as the story unfolded, some of their personalities emerged in ways I hadn’t expected. They had taken on a life of their own. With my children as well as my fictional characters, I’m still amazed at how their personalities continue to evolve. And in both cases, things just seem to go better when I allow them to be just who they are!

Now that they (my children and my book!) are here in the world, I no longer concern myself with those doubts I had while they were on the way. Deep down, I always knew that in the end it would all be worth it, and it has been. I just tell myself, just as I will tell my children, to always be true to yourself and always do your very best. And ultimately, doing one will be the same as doing the other.

As a proud mom, the stories that I will always be most interested in watching unfold will, of course, belong to my children. But I’m excited to share that I’m currently working on the second installment of the Wunderwood series, The Triad of the Tree. I’m really enjoying delving deeper into the characters and I can’t wait to share more of Wunderwood’s history with readers. But between my kids and this new addition on the way, one question still remains: will I ever get a full night’s sleep again? But I guess it doesn’t really matter… there’s no turning back now!

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Interview with Martin Berman-Gorvine

Posted on May 11, 2013 by Katy K.

I’m very excited to share with you today an interview with Martin Berman-Gorvine, author of Seven Against Mars. (In case you missed it, here’s my review of Seven Against Mars.)

martinprofileKaty: What’s your elevator speech for Seven Against Mars? Do you have a specific audience in mind for it?
Martin: The loneliness and heartbreak of being a teenager are that much more intense when you are running for your life in an unfamiliar world, as are the 15-year-old heroines of Seven Against Mars. Rachel Zilber, who is trapped on the Warsaw Ghetto in 1942, and Katie Webb, who is fleeing from neo-Confederates in twenty-second-century Texas, find themselves in the pulp science fiction-style world of Rachel’s imagination, where it’s not only their own fate they have to worry about, but that of the planet Mars and perhaps the entire Solar System—not to mention their parents back in the “real” world.
Seven Against Mars has an evil villain it, and zap-guns, and space battles, and that dangerous mix of virgins and live volcanoes. Adults shouldn’t be deterred by the “young adult” label. Continue reading →

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Seven Against Mars

Posted on May 8, 2013 by Katy K.

sevenSeven Against Mars by Martin Berman-Gorvine

Here’s the official plot description:

Trapped in the Warsaw ghetto in 1942, teenager Rachel Zilber escapes the horror by writing about the adventures of Zap-Gun Jack and Princess Anya of Mars. When her parents are captured by the Nazis, Rachel’s transported into her make-believe world, but the danger is far from over. Together with Katie, a girl from the future, Rachel joins Jack and a rag-tag band of misfits to fight the evil Lord Ares III of Mars and restore Princess Anya to her rightful place on the Martian throne.

The adventure is as over-the-top as you’d expect from an homage to pulp fiction, and this is done with a great sense of humor – both Rachel and Katie (who read Rachel’s book in the library) find that the bombastic hero speech so fun to read and write about is a little less easy to deal with in real life. There’s a lot more going on here as well. Rachel and Katie both wonder since Rachel’s imaginary world became real, if she could rewrite the pasts of their own world to rescue their parents. Rachel finds that the world that she imagined isn’t exactly as she’d written it in real life. All of it is fully fleshed out, some with details that Katie had imagined when she read it, some from Rachel’s subconscious or abandoned story ideas. While this leads to a lot of very funny moments, it also leads to a lot of introspection on Rachel’s part. She’d never imagined meeting the idealized version of herself that wrote as the love interest in the book in person, and finds it incredibly awkward. She’s shocked to find that residents of Mars speak what they call Marpolski, and that there’s even a colony of Hasidic Jews on Mars, which she’s been raised to view as backwards. As Katie and Rachel explore how the magic of the written word works, it’s looking at the relationship between author and reader. I’ll admit that it took me a chapter or two to get into the story, but once I did, I was hooked. Though Katie is a fine character, she’s never quite as fully developed as Rachel. This book wraps up its plot nicely, but finishes with introducing a new problem for our heroines to solve, so perhaps Katie will have more of a turn on center stage in the next book.

Seven Against Mars is being billed as a teen book, but, with lots of action and violence no higher than your typical Percy Jackson and just a smidge of romance on the side, this is a book with a lot of appeal for older middle grade readers. On the other end of the spectrum, there so many levels of things going on that there’s plenty to engage an adult reader as well. I fell hard for the combination of action, humor, strong characters, and reflections on identity and literature.

This book was provided to me in .pdf format by the author in exchange for an honest review. It’s available for purchase in print and ebook formats, but unlike most of the books I review here, is not yet available in public libraries. Check back here on Saturday as I interview Martin Berman-Gorvine in alibrarymama’s first-ever author interview.

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Summer and Bird

Posted on May 8, 2013 by Katy K.

Once again, friends know me well – this is one that my colleague Ms. S found for me. It came out in October and got lots of positive reviews, which I somehow missed entirely. Summer and BirdSummer and Bird by Katherine Catmull.

This is a tale of what happens after the fairy tale. The Swan Queen took off her coat of feathers and fell in love with a human man, who hid her coat so that she would stay with him (but of course it was less simple than that). They married and had children and were happy. Or as happy as a couple can be when one remembers that she used to be able to fly and that her people might be lost without her, while the other knows that his beloved wife might be with him against her will. But the story begins thirteen years after they first fell in love. The children – Summer, 12, and Bird, five years younger – wake to find that both their parents have gone. They know nothing of their mother’s past. All they find is a note in pictures from their mother: a sun, a bird, a broken heart, a gate. They take this to mean that they are meant to go through the gate from their yard into the adjoining forest to look for their parents. Even this is not a straightforward quest, as they are separated, working in different ways both to get their family back and to repair the damage their mother’s absence has done to the Kingdom of the Birds. Summer meets an old man who leaves her a wooden egg to safeguard before he disappears; she learns about the Green Home that the birds used to migrate to and cannot without their queen; she makes friends with a wise old raven and journeys to the World Tree. Bird is taken in by the Puppeteer, a human woman who longs more than anything else to be a bird and the queen of the birds herself and plans to use Bird as her means to that end.

The story is filled with bits of nursery rhymes, poetry, and fragments of many myths, and a lesson repeated many times: everything really meaningful has more than one meaning. It’s all told in lyrical language that gives the book a mystical feeling, similar to a Patricia McKillip book, though written for children. One of the few negative reactions I had to this was, near the end, multiple people saying that Bird couldn’t be held entirely accountable for all of her decisions because of her youth. On the one hand, she is young, but on the other hand, the book is aimed at young people and is a story of young people doing their best, if not always right, to straighten out a situation that adults muddled in the first place. But this was a small misstep in book that I found otherwise close to perfection, beautiful and thoughtful, magical and real.

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Multi-Type Advisory: Seraphina

Posted on May 6, 2013 by Katy K.

“Reader’s Advisory” is a fancy library term that I managed to make my way through library school without hearing. It is what librarians do when you come up to the desk and say something like, “We’re going on a family vacation next week and want a book to listen to. What do you recommend?” or “I just finished reading the best series ever and I’m heartbroken. What should I read next?”

All the way last November, when I was at my state library conference, I went to a session on multi-type reader’s advisory. The idea with multi-type is that rather than just recommending books or movies, we put together a list with some of everything to fit the mood you’re in – ideally, books, movies, graphic novels, music, and, if we’re at the top of our game, even video games. My wonderful boss, Holly Hibner, has put together a few since we went to the session; I am just now getting around to it. To make things easy on myself, I’m going to start with something that feels easy to me, teen fantasy. (I think I’ve been playing with this very book in my mind since November. Yikes!)

The starting point
seraphinaTinySeraphina by Rachel Hartman features a human girl who is half dragon, living in the human city. There’s a lot of tension between humans and dragons – the peace is fragile and crumbling. Other than the explicitly fantasy elements, the world feels like a very concrete 16th century, and Seraphina, a musician, plays instruments familiar to me from medieval and Renaissance music.

Teen Fiction
hiddenHidden Voices by Pat Lowery Collins – for realistic fiction look at female musicians, this time in the eighteenth century
Dragonsinger by Anne McCaffrey – a more completely fantasy look at the music academy in a world with dragons

Adult Fiction
birthThe Birth of Venus by Sarah Dunnant – A tale of a young woman involved with an artist in Renaissance Venice, this features some forbidden romance, mystery and politics, just as Seraphina does.

Nonfiction
musicMusic of the Renaissance by Giulio Ongaro – I’m not sure this would have the same kind of feeling as the novel, missing all the fictional elements.

dragonologyDragonology: the Complete book of Dragons by Dr. Ernest Drake – not the same kind of dragons, but definitely high on the cool factor. This is one my library keeps copies of in both the youth and teen departments.

Graphic Novel
foureyesFour Eyes Volume 1: Forged in Flames by Joe Kelly – 1934 boy Amy Unboundedlearning to be a dragon hunter. The description says it has a dark atmosphere and a missing parent – it could work.

Of course, what you really want here is Rachel Hartman’s out-of-print mini-comic series set in the same world, Amy Unbounded. 

Music
At the workshop, we were given a website, musicovery.com , where you can pick a point on a graph with different ends representing things like happy vs unhappy and high energy vs. low energy. I skipped all of that to look for music that featured some of the awesome authentic instruments that Seraphina played, considering the lute to be the equivalent of her oud.

stadtpfeifferLa Rocque ‘n’ Roll: Popular Music of Renaissance France by the Baltimore Consort The Baltimore Consort has been performing early popular music since the early 1990s.  This one seemed the closest to Seraphina’s music.
At the Sign of the Crumhorn: Flemish Songs and Dance Music from the Susato Music Books by Convivium Musicum Gothenburgense Crumhorns and sackbutts (and hurdy-gurdies) all make a peculiar buzzing, nasal sound that was beloved in popular and dance music in the Renaissance.  This looks like a great example.
Stadtpfeiffer: Music of Renaissance Germany by Piffaro This one actually features a sackbut on the cover – it’s the one that looks like a trombone.  If the dance music sounds like old Lutheran hymns, it’s because Luther stole the pop music of the era.

Movie
Henry V directed by Kenneth Branagh – it’s a classic, with at least some of the politics of Seraphina. I might be stretching here again. You could also try
The Borgias or Game of Thrones for historical or fantasy political epics.

Video Game
spyroLegend of Spyro: Dawn of the Dragon
How to Train Your Dragon

It’s not that hard to find games with dragons; it’s a bit harder to find ones where dragons aren’t the Evil Enemy, though there’s nothing quite like the nuanced relationship that humans and dragons have in the book.  Not that I found, anyway.

I’m kind of feeling now that I might have cheated looking mostly at music, time period, and dragons rather than more nebulous feelings created by the book in the first place. Maybe next time. For right now, if you have any books, music, movies or games that you think would fit well with Seraphina, or if you have any thoughts on what I should tackle next for this type of project, let me know!

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Owly: The Way Home and Bittersweet Summer

Posted on May 3, 2013 by Katy K.

Usually when I show a parent a wordless or nearly wordless book for their child who can already read, their first reaction is that their child is too advanced for such a thing. Not at all! Reading words and letters is important, but though we often forget it, the deciphering of shapes into meaning is only one part of what goes into a story. The ability to see the arc of the story and understand the meaning of what’s going on are separate component parts. And while of course my son reads print every day, the deciphering letters part is hard for him. I got him this nearly wordless comic to give him something to relax with, where he can focus on the parts that he’s already good at and just enjoy the story. But wordless stories are also good for kids whose letter-decoding skills are just fine, but who have difficulty with the narrative flow and comprehension. Making up words for a story that doesn’t have one already is healthy stretching for mental muscles that might not get such a workout when the words are right there.

OwlyOwly. The Way Home & Bittersweet Summer by Andy Runton Owly helps baby worm find his way home. 4/16/13
I’ve been hearing about Owly for years, but this was my first foray into book-length Owly. He’s a round and adorable little owl who gets into all sorts of adventures. In the first story, Owly is (somewhat ironically) filling his bird feeder when he finds a baby worm who’s been separated from his family and lost his way home. It takes Owly a little while to convince him that he’s safe, but when the rain stops, they set out on a journey to find the little worm’s family. In the second story, Owly and the little worm (who has decided to stay on for a bit) make friends with some hummingbirds, and then are heartbroken when the summer ends and their friends need to migrate. The art is sweet and expressive. It’s not entirely wordless – there are sound effects and the occasional bit of print on a sign or building. In “The Bittersweet Summer”, Owly makes a photo album and captions the photos with text. Usually, though, the thought and word bubbles are filled with imaged sequences or punctuation marks. Runton does amazing things with almost no words, telling moving stories with characters we care about. They are good storytelling, no matter your reading level.

Other low-word comics:
Intrepid Girlbot (web comic and print)
Korgi

Remember that tomorrow, Saturday May 4, is Free Comic Book Day! Visit your local comic book store or participating library to get your free comics.

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The Runaway King

Posted on May 1, 2013 by Katy K.

It’s Kidlit Blog Hop day again! Hop over and take a look at all the books, interviews and more!

Kid Lit Blog Hop

Also, take a look at the Guys Lit Wire blog for pics of happy high schoolers with new books.

The Runaway King
The Runaway King by Jennifer A. Nielsen.
This is the sequel to last year’s amazing Cybils-award winning book The False Prince. It will therefore be hard to avoid spoilers, but I’ll do my best. Sage, now known by his real name, Jaron, is now king of Carthya. That hardly means that all is well. As the story opens, the kingdom is finally having the official memorial service for the rest of Jaron’s family, who were murdered before the start of the first book. Before he can get to the service, Jaron deals with an attempted assassination attempt by his former friend Roden, who’s now joined the infamous pirates. Immediately after that, there are some not-too-veiled threats from the king of neighboring Avenia, which would clearly like to annex Carthya. Even his official fiancée, Amarinda, doesn’t trust him. His best friend is Imogen, but even now, he can’t trust anyone enough to tell her what’s going on or why he feels compelled to push her away. Because of course his first reaction knowing that the country is in trouble and his advisors don’t trust him is run towards what he feels to be the source of the problem and try to solve it single-handedly. In this case, that means taking down the pirates.

I felt a little torn about this book. On the one hand, I had very strong feelings of “what in the world do you think you’re doing, you idiot?! Go ask for some help! And have some respect for your own life!” (He won’t, and he doesn’t.) There also can’t be quite the same level of double narrative going as there was with the first book. On the other hand, Jaron still isn’t going to share all his secrets with us, and he is a smart and resourceful person. He’s still got plenty of tricks up his sleeve, and Nielsen does a very good job of making things come out good enough without being perfect. If you haven’t read the first book, go read it first. If you have, this one is well worth reading, especially if you’re a fan of tricksy plots or pirates. I’d say this is aimed at older middle-grade students, with lots of appeal for teens and adults as well.

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Three Thieves Book 1. Tower of Treasure.

Posted on April 30, 2013 by Katy K.

My love and I chose these books for the Ballou Senior High School Book Fair: Scarlet, by Marissa Meyer for me ; Infinite Kung Fu for my love; and somewhat randomly Juicy Central #7, just because high-low books are good to have, and a school of mostly African-American kids should have books with African-American kids on the cover.

Tower of Treasure Three Thieves Book One. Tower of Treasure. by Scott Chantler.

This is one I heard about in a recent webinar on graphic novels for schools and libraries. Rather than his publisher giving a rundown of all their new and hot books (useful but common) Chantler talked about how, in writing this book, he was inspired by the great action sequences in the old silent adventure films. All that in a fantasy setting sounded like it would be irresistible to my eight-year-old adventure-loving boy, so I went right out to the children’s graphic novel section at the library and got it for him.

Our heroine, Dessa, is working as an acrobat with a freak show, since her house was burned down and her brother kidnapped. She’s hoping that this tour of the country will help her find either her brother or the villain who kidnapped him. When they finally make it to the capital city, she runs in the middle of a show when she sees someone she thinks is the kidnapper. Naturally, this ruins the show, and she’s told to find dinner for the entire crew if she ever wants to be part of it again. If she weren’t in such a tight spot, she’d never have agreed to help Topper the goblin and the one-headed Ettin, Fisk, try to rob Queen Magda’s legendary treasury. At least doing so gets her in the castle, where she learns about the Queen’s Chamberlain, a secretive and powerful inventor who just might be responsible for her brother’s fate. We also meet a potentially sympathetic Captain of the Guard, and see the poverty that has come to the ordinary people of the city since Queen Magda’s reign began. My boy enjoyed this on his own just looking at the pictures, until I read it to him, when we both really enjoyed it. The action-movie love shows: the chase scenes are brilliant. But Dessa and her motivations are also given enough time that I cared about her as a person, and of course having a girl star in an adventure comic makes this a good choice to appeal to both genders. I’m really hoping Chantler shows up at Kids Read Comics again this year, so we can buy some of these for our home library.

[Edited 5/1/13 to add links.]

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Saffy’s Angel

Posted on April 24, 2013 by Katy K.

This is the first book in a series popular among many bloggers I read, including The Book Smugglers and Charlotte of Charlotte’s Library. I snagged it for some comfort reading, and it pushed its way to the top of my TBR pile without my quite knowing how.

Saffy's AngelSaffy’s Angel by Hilary McKay.
Saffy’s Angel hearkens back to the old-fashioned heart-warming large family story, but with a quirky, modern sensibility. Eve and Bill Casson are both artists, which is why she named all of her children after paint colors. The children are Cadmium, Saffron, Indigo, and Permanent Rose. As the story opens, Saffy is about six, and learns for the first time that she is adopted – Eve is actually her mother’s sister. This revelation rocks her world. But we quickly fast-forward several years, to when Saffy is 13, ten years after her mother’s death. Their beloved grandfather dies, leaving behind a cryptic will. Bill, the father, is the most odious father I’ve ever seen in a cozy family drama. He decided some years before that a real artist couldn’t work with so many children around, so he rents a flat and a separate studio in London and only visits on weekends. So when Saffy wants to know what the angel she was willed was and where it is, Bill just tells her it either never existed or was lost and she should forget it. But Saffy can’t. Her friend down the street, a rebellious rich girl in a wheelchair named Sarah, concocts a plan to take Saffy to Saffy’s first home in Italy to do research, while her siblings make their own plans.

But this is a whole family drama, and all of the family members have their own stories going on, too. Eve, the mother, while perfectly affectionate, is a classic absent-minded artist, so the children alternately take care of things themselves and direct her. Caddy, the oldest daughter, is stretching out her driving lessons as long as possible because of her strong attraction to her teacher, Michael. Indigo is trying hard to cure his fear of heights by hanging out of an upper-story window, so he can be a polar explorer. I found myself caring intensely about the family and all its members (with the exception of Bill, who never really belongs), despite the neglectful parents and the high level of mostly-happy chaos that they live with. I found the blogger-love deserved, and went on to the next book immediately.

Other family dramas I’ve reviewed:
Five Little Peppers and How They Grew
The Penderwicks and The Penderwicks and Pointe Mouette.

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Dragons, Princesses and a Fairy

Posted on April 24, 2013 by Katy K.

notyourNot Your Typical Dragon by Dan Bar-el. Illustrated by Tim Bowers.
Crispin Blaze is a young dragon looking forward to his seventh birthday, when dragons start to breathe fire. But when he tries to light the candles on his birthday cake, whipped cream comes out instead of fire. Only his little sister, Ashley, is happy about this (I love their names). His horrified father rushes him to the doctor the next day, and Crispin joins the fire-breathing training at school after that – but he breathes Band-Aids at the doctor’s office and marshmallows on the training field. Convinced he’s a disappointment to his family, he runs away, only to be found by a young knight whose father won’t let him come home until he’s slain a fire-breathing dragon. Sir George does his best to help Crispin, using his dragon manual, but nothing works. In the end, Crispin goes home and saves the day with his unconventional object-breathing. It’s illustrated in a goofy style that looks like a hybrid of computer graphics and watercolor, and the setting, too, is a mix of medieval and modern, as the Blazes live in a regular suburban house while Sir George wears plate armor. My three-year-old daughter loved this, and I read this to all of the second and third graders at my son’s school, who also loved it. The adults all loved the message of acceptance for people who don’t fit the standard mold, especially boys who aren’t aggressive or athletic.

A Gold Star for ZogA Gold Star for Zog by Julia Donaldson. Illustrated by Axel Scheffler
Another tale of an unconventional dragon: Zog is a dragon who always tries his best at dragon school, but each year’s final assignment finds him pushing himself too hard. He flies into a tree, lights his own wing on fire, and so on. Each time he’s rescued by the same girl who patches him up and sends him on his way, until the year when he’s assigned to kidnap a princess. Then she reveals that she is a princess, hates palace life, and would much rather be a doctor to the dragons. The scansion on the rhymes faltered painfully, and my historical fashion sense was horribly violated by Pearl dressing in something like late 19th-century to early 20th-century schoolgirl clothes while the other people were dressed in late medieval to Renaissance style. Still, it has a good message with both girl and dragon breaking free of expectations to follow their dreams, and my daughter loved it.

Dangerously Ever AfterDangerously Ever After by Dashka Slater. Illustrated by Valeria Docampo.
Princess Amanita loves everything dangerous, especially her garden full of dangerous and deadly plants. When a prince from a neighboring kingdom bikes over to visit, she’s not sure what to do with him. As the story unwinds, Princess Amanita finds herself biking through a dark and dangerous forest with a bouquet of nose flowers, realizing that danger isn’t quite so fun when she’s not controlling it, as well as learning about friendship. I got this (after reading many reviews from fellow book bloggers), mostly for my daughter who’s just starting to get excited about princesses. It turned out to be borderline too long for her. But my eight-year-old son and his classmates thought it was hilarious. My son especially appreciated Docampo’s fashion choices: Princess Amanita’s clothes are as full and frilly as you could want a princess’s dresses to be, but always blue and frequently with exposed metal hoops or studs, and her hair done up to look like a scorpion’s tail. The illustrations are lush and beautiful, and Princess Amanita is the rare princess who’s equally fun for girls and boys.

Alice the FairyAlice the Fairy by David Shannon. How can you go wrong with David Shannon? I had so much fun introducing my three-year-old to Alice, as I introduced her brother at a similar age. Alice describes her doings as a “temporary fairy” – turning her father’s chocolate chip cookies into hers, or making herself invisible. The words describe the magic while the pictures show the reality – her wands lets her reach the light switch. There’s no plot, and Alice makes the kinds of poor choices you’d expect a four-year-old to make, but somehow the book is still utter delight. We found the book-with-CD kit at the library, and my daughter listened until she had the whole thing memorized.

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