It's a good book about how opposites can attract and how you don't have to be the same as someone to be their friend. The pictures are colourful and very expressive.
Wednesday 30 December 2009
Pearl Barley and Charlie Parsley by Aaron Blabey
This book is about two friends that are opposites. Pearl Barley is really up beat and energetic and Charlie Parsley is introverted and calm. After showing how different they are, the book asks how they could possibly be friends. Well as it turns out, Pearl's energetic nature cheers Charlie up when he's down, and Charlie's practical nature helps Pearl out. For example, at one point he puts mittens on her hands when she's cold.
It's a good book about how opposites can attract and how you don't have to be the same as someone to be their friend. The pictures are colourful and very expressive.
It's a good book about how opposites can attract and how you don't have to be the same as someone to be their friend. The pictures are colourful and very expressive.
Sunday Chutney by Aaron Blabey
This is a fun book about a girl who's always the new girl. Her parents are always moving from place to place so she's been all over the world and has seen many things.. but as a result she doesn't have any friends and is always 'the new girl' in school. Despite this however, Sunday has a really bright outlook on life. Right after she says something depressing she bounces back with something funny or quirky. She has an amazing imagination and is not afraid to use it. For most of the book her imagination seems to make up for her lack of friends, but at the end she says that making friends is something she's good at and shows her with a group of girls.
This is a good book to give a kid who moves around a lot or one moving once to a new place. It voices the fears kids have in these situations, but is fun enough to almost side-step the unpleasant feelings associated with moving. She has a lot of interests and is really up beat. A fun book.
This is a good book to give a kid who moves around a lot or one moving once to a new place. It voices the fears kids have in these situations, but is fun enough to almost side-step the unpleasant feelings associated with moving. She has a lot of interests and is really up beat. A fun book.
The Duchess Of Whimsy by Randall de Seve
This is a cute story about the Duchess of Whimsy and the Earl of Norm. As the name indicates, the Duchess of Whimsy is.. whimsical. She loves having fun, bright colours and is the life of the party. The earl of norm is 'normal' aka quiet/ introverted. The earl admires the duchess because of her spirit and tries to get her to notice him, but she thinks he's normal and doesn't like him. One day the duchess's chef gets a cold on the day she's having one of her parties and so all of the guests begin trying to help make dinner. All of her friends are like her so they want to make outlandish dishes but the earl just makes grilled cheese. The duchess is interested and takes a bite and loves it, and then she and the earl become friends. She sees how she's like him and he sees how he's like her. It's an opposites attract story. It's sweet even though it's been done before. the art is amazing. It's very colourful and fun.
Tell Me a Dragon by Jackie Morris
This book didn’t really have a plot, but was more of a celebration of imagination. The illustrations are very colourful and magical and I really enjoyed the overall concept of the book. Each page has an illustration of a person and his or her dragon. One person’s dragon is very large, another’s is very small, another’s breathes fire, another ice, etc.
The objective of the story was more to impress on a kid that it is OK to have an imagination and it’s also OK if that imagination is different from everyone else’s. Ursula Le Guin wrote an essay called 'Why Are Americans Afraid of Dragons’ and it talks about how people are afraid to admit he or she plays with their imagination or has moments of make believe or are too embarrassed to admit to liking fantasy or make believe. For a kid, or even an adult, I think this is a nice little book to say just the opposite. That you should embrace your ‘dragon’ because it’s as unique as you are.
The objective of the story was more to impress on a kid that it is OK to have an imagination and it’s also OK if that imagination is different from everyone else’s. Ursula Le Guin wrote an essay called 'Why Are Americans Afraid of Dragons’ and it talks about how people are afraid to admit he or she plays with their imagination or has moments of make believe or are too embarrassed to admit to liking fantasy or make believe. For a kid, or even an adult, I think this is a nice little book to say just the opposite. That you should embrace your ‘dragon’ because it’s as unique as you are.
Thursday 3 December 2009
Crow Call by Lois Lowry
I chanced upon this picture book in my local book store was was surprised to see that I was by Lois Lowry, who I know for writing thought provoking young adult novels, such as The Giver and Gathering Blue. This book was like neither of those, but was still a wonderful story.
This book is an auto-biography of Lowry's childhood with her father. Her father went to war when she was young, so when he came back she didn't really know him. This story is about her father taking her on a hunting trip of sorts so that they can get to know each other. The storytelling is wonderful, the prose is rich and descriptive. It is a book for children and it has great illustrations, but the way in which the author tells the story is almost poetic in the thorough descriptions of the surroundings and the main character's feelings throughout the story. The quality of writing is a rare find for a children's book.
The story itself is also pretty good. The girl wakes up early because her father is taking her on a hunting trip. She is wearing an over-sized, man's hunting shirt that her father bought her. Her father gives her the job of calling the crows so that he can shoot them. As they get closer to the spot, she grows more and more uneasy about being a 'hunter' and killing these birds. In the end she just ends up enjoying being able to communicate with the birds, and her father just sits back and lets her have fun and no birds are shot that day.
This is a good book for kids who are missing a parent because he or she is away, either to a war or even on away on business a lot. It's a really touching story, I recommend.
This book is an auto-biography of Lowry's childhood with her father. Her father went to war when she was young, so when he came back she didn't really know him. This story is about her father taking her on a hunting trip of sorts so that they can get to know each other. The storytelling is wonderful, the prose is rich and descriptive. It is a book for children and it has great illustrations, but the way in which the author tells the story is almost poetic in the thorough descriptions of the surroundings and the main character's feelings throughout the story. The quality of writing is a rare find for a children's book.
The story itself is also pretty good. The girl wakes up early because her father is taking her on a hunting trip. She is wearing an over-sized, man's hunting shirt that her father bought her. Her father gives her the job of calling the crows so that he can shoot them. As they get closer to the spot, she grows more and more uneasy about being a 'hunter' and killing these birds. In the end she just ends up enjoying being able to communicate with the birds, and her father just sits back and lets her have fun and no birds are shot that day.
This is a good book for kids who are missing a parent because he or she is away, either to a war or even on away on business a lot. It's a really touching story, I recommend.
Millenium Actress (2001)
I'd heard of this movie and seen it around on and off for several years, but the clips I'd seen and the description turned me off, so I didn't watch it despite having heard good things about it. After seeing it however, I don't know why I waited so long! The movie is about two guys who want to interview a famous actress for the documentary they're doing on her life. Clips of the movies she has been in are featured throughout the film to tell the story of her love for a man she doesn't really know. This sounded extremely boring to me. The pacing of the movie isn't fast and exciting either, but more of a slower building up to the climax, so if one were to fast forward through to see segments of various scenes... well it just looked boring. But, the movie is actually really good.
First of all, the art is amazing. A lot of attention paid to detail and it's a pleasure to watch purely from an artistic perspective.
So the story is about two guys who interview a famous actress about her life, and she tells this story through movies she's been in. Basically when she was young she met a wounded rebel in the streets and hides him from the police for a night. When she goes to see him in the morning he's gone, but he left a picture of her that he drew saying something like 'until next time'. So she sort of falls for this man and then obsesses over him for the rest of her life. She gets an offer to be an actress and accepts because the job she was offered took her to where the guys escaped to. So we find out that her success as an actress stems from her desire to find this guy. And this sounds superficial and weak as a motivation to do something with your life, kind of playing off the stereotype that a woman needs a man to complete herself, which is why I like this movie so much. When a typical North Amercian thinks of Japanese culture, or for some people Asian culture in general, they think of the stereotypes of weak- willed, submissive women because of how the media portrays them and such, but this movie subtly twists that stereotype on its head. The girl spends her entire life chasing after this guy and during many parts in the movie I wondered why she doesn't just give up on the guy and live her life for herself. At the end of the movie though ... I guess spoiler alert, but if I'd known this sooner I'd have watched it sooner... she tells the interviewer that it didn't matter to her if she ever actually caught up with the guy. In fact if she did catch him she would probably get bored of him because it was the chasing that she lived for. And this is like anything in life. If you chase a man or a job or even an ideology of some kind, the journey is the important thing, meaning that she is in fact living for herself, even though from a supercifical or incomplete understanding of her situation, it seems to be otherwise. That made the movie for me. So I liked it.
First of all, the art is amazing. A lot of attention paid to detail and it's a pleasure to watch purely from an artistic perspective.
So the story is about two guys who interview a famous actress about her life, and she tells this story through movies she's been in. Basically when she was young she met a wounded rebel in the streets and hides him from the police for a night. When she goes to see him in the morning he's gone, but he left a picture of her that he drew saying something like 'until next time'. So she sort of falls for this man and then obsesses over him for the rest of her life. She gets an offer to be an actress and accepts because the job she was offered took her to where the guys escaped to. So we find out that her success as an actress stems from her desire to find this guy. And this sounds superficial and weak as a motivation to do something with your life, kind of playing off the stereotype that a woman needs a man to complete herself, which is why I like this movie so much. When a typical North Amercian thinks of Japanese culture, or for some people Asian culture in general, they think of the stereotypes of weak- willed, submissive women because of how the media portrays them and such, but this movie subtly twists that stereotype on its head. The girl spends her entire life chasing after this guy and during many parts in the movie I wondered why she doesn't just give up on the guy and live her life for herself. At the end of the movie though ... I guess spoiler alert, but if I'd known this sooner I'd have watched it sooner... she tells the interviewer that it didn't matter to her if she ever actually caught up with the guy. In fact if she did catch him she would probably get bored of him because it was the chasing that she lived for. And this is like anything in life. If you chase a man or a job or even an ideology of some kind, the journey is the important thing, meaning that she is in fact living for herself, even though from a supercifical or incomplete understanding of her situation, it seems to be otherwise. That made the movie for me. So I liked it.
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