This is a great show. It's a cartoon about two brothers and what they do over their summer vacation. We aren't talking scouts and basketball here though, these two boys are brilliant engineers in the making and build outrageous creations. Roller coasters, time machines, pet translators are only the tip of the ice burg, a running joke in the show is that the delivery person who delivers the parts they order asks 'Aren't you a little young to be ...' And they always answer, 'Yes, yes I am.'
Phineas and Ferb also have a sister named Candace. All siblings take a perverse pleasure in telling on each other, but Candace takes this to the extreme, especially because her brothers are doing extremely outrageous things. However, she never seems to be quite able to complete this task, because whenever she gets her mother to come see what her brothers have created, it mysteriously disappears.
This brings us to the other portion of the show. Phineas and Ferb have a pet platypus named Perry. Little do they know however, that Perry is a secret agent working for the government! Every day he disappears and gets his mission to go stop the evil Dr. Doofensmirtz from doing... Whatever it is he's doing. As with all evil villains, Doofensmirtz wants to take over the world, or more specifically, the Tri-State area, but he tries to do this in wacky ways, most involving some 'tragic' back story, like how his parents made him be a lawn gnome. He also creates a machine for every episode and ends it with -inator. He also feels it necessary to explain how and why he's doing what he's doing to Perry after he captures him, and if he cannot do that he can't go through with his evil scheme. He's just a really hilarious villain with a chivalrous heart and a burning desire to rule the world because of his past disappointments.
One thing I don't really like about the show is that every episode there is this really bad song scene. I know this is Disney... but that doesn't necessarily mean a requirement for bad music. Other than that however, one of the better shows on tv!
Word Girl is a children's television show about a young girl who lives a double life as a superhero, fighting crime and teaching everyone new words. When I first heard of this show, my initial judgement was that it would be another boring attempt at educational programming. While vocabulary can be fascinating, it's not what immediately comes to your mind when you think of engaging, entertaining children's programming, but after watching a few episodes, I'm happy to report that the show is quite effective for its target audience.
Word girl is from the planet of Lexicon and when she cane to earth she was adopted by human parents who gave her the name Becky, but they don't know her true identity. The only one who seems to know about her double life is her pet monkey Bob. She tries to balance living a normal life with fighting crime in the city, brought on by various cooky villains, and she usually defeats them by somehow incorporating one of the words of the day. There are usually two new words that are defined in the show and they are explained and demonstrated throughout the length of the episode.
In an age when high school kids have trouble spelling basic words and the use of 'big words' are a source of uneasiness and even scorn, shows like this are really encouraging to see. We are in the information age, and yet our society grows increasingly more stupid. We should empower future generations with knowledge, not perpetuate ignorance and fear. Vocabulary is not indicative of a person's intelligence, but it becomes how one presents them self to the world. Lets have our kids 'dress' for success.
This is the story about several house hold appliances that come to life (have always been 'alive') and decide to journey to find their master.
The story begins at an old cottage. At first it just seems like a regular, old cottage that hasn't been used for a while, but then we begin to see objects around the house come to life. A toaster, an electric blanket, and clock radio, a desk lamp, and a vacuum cleaner are the main appliances in the story. When they wake up they all go about their chores, stopping every time they hear a car coming, because they are constantly waiting for their master, a young boy, to come retrieve them and use them again. Well on one fateful day, they realize that the cottage is going to be put up for sale, and that they might never see their master again. Instead of just sitting to rot and waiting for their next masters to take possession of the cottage and them as well, the toaster convinces them to go off in search of their master. They travel through many forests and fields, and actually fall into a swamp at one point and are found by a man who repairs broken appliances. He takes them back to his shop, a scary place where appliances apparently go to die under torturous circumstances. Just as the radio is about to go, they create a diversion and make their escape and miraculously find their master's apartment in the city. When they get there though, the new furniture is jealous of the old furniture and tells them that their master doesn't need them anymore and throws them into a dumpster, and they are taken to a landfill. Little do they know, their master drove to the cottage to retrieve them, only to find them gone. When he returns home his old tv (friends with toaster and gang) direct the master to the dump, in hopes that he'd find toaster and bring the gang back. Things at the dump get a bit dangerous when a magnetic machine spots our appliance friends and tries to crush them. What will happen I wonder.
This is a great movie. And actually this is a terrifying movie. I can't believe I didn't notice the sheer terror this movie should have caused me when I first watched it, but kids are always stronger than we give them credit for.. and maybe it's adults who are more susceptible to fear, or knowledge of fear anyway. If you want to preview some of the scenes look up the clown scene, or the scene with the air conditioner. They're on YouTube. It's a really interesting movie to watch, and it has catchy songs too.
Another quality that is good about this movie is it really pushes the idea that you have to cherish and take care of the things you buy. So often we develop the mentality that everything is disposable, everything has an expiry date, and you don't need to care for what you have because if it breaks, you can buy another one just like it. Instead, if more people developed the habit of caring for and taking pride in what they own, we would waste less money on useless purchases and reduce our garbage.
An interesting scene in this movie takes place when Toaster and gang take a break from their journey in field and all of the animals and flowers start interacting with our friends, especially with the reflection they see in Toaster. There is one flower that sees it's reflection in Toaster and falls in love with it, but there's no flower there, and the reflection can't love it back, so the flower begins to wilt and die. It's a depressing part of the movie that doesn't immediately fit in. Of course it could symbolize the other side of the 'love your things' theme, where you can't actually love your things because they'll never love you back, because they're not alive. But it, like the whole movie, is really interesting in it's lack of fear to go to darker places, for a children's movie.
Each of the characters grow a lot in this movie, too (just keeps getting better and better, I know). Characters who begin afraid of everything find an inner strength, characters who don't show a lot of emotion really open up, etc. They all do their own part to complete their journey and make their own sacrifices to achieve a greater happiness.
I really recommend you watch this film. Okay, maybe not the most amazing children's film ever made, but a definite watch.
The story of Thumbelina was originally a fairy tale by Hans Christian Anderson. It's the story of a thumb- sized girl and her adventures in life and love. The film begins with an old woman. The woman is lonely and has always wanted a child of her own, and one day a fairy grants her wish and gives her a small seed. The old woman plants the seed and kisses it when it's ready to bloom, and inside she finds a tiny girl no bigger than her thumb, whom she then calls Thumbelina. Thumbelina is quite contented with her life on the old woman's farm. She tries to help out with chores, but only seems to her herself into scrapes whenever she tries to help. She loves her mother though and is happy. One night, Thumbelina is singing to herself in her room when, as chance would have it, the prince of the fairies flies by her bedroom window and is enchanted by her voice. He takes her for a ride on his pet bumblebee and they sing and fall in love. He then returns her to her room with the promise of returning. On that romantic ride through the meadow, a frog over hears Thumbelina singing and thinks to herself that this small girl would make a great addition to their travelling show and would make her son a good wife. So she kidnaps her that very night while Thumbelina slept, before the prince could come back to marry her. When Thumbelina awakes and discovers what the frogs have planned for her she runs away from them and tries to make her way back home, but being so small she can't see above the grass. The frog whom she escaped from is hot on her tail so quickly makes her way through the company of various bugs and birds and rodents who both try to help her and try to capture her. In the end the swallow, who also is the narrator of the story, helps her find her way to the vale of the fairies, where she hopes to find her prince. They end up getting married and Thumbelina grows a pair of wings to match her prince's and they all live happily ever after.
I liked this movie a lot when I was a kid. I'd sing the songs with my cousin when we watched the movie together, though apparently according to Wikipedia the 'marry the mole' song won the worst original song award. I remember feeling kind of awkward that all of these creepy guys wanted to marry Thumbelina and I guess that sort of took away from the movie a bit for me, but overall the memories are pleasant. Thumbelina isn't a strong character by any means, she sort of just gets tossed around by fate and always needs rescuing. The prince also isn't any knight in shining armour. He acts as a boy would, shirking responsibilities and spouting idealism without having anything to back it up. The villains are also kind of one-dimensional in their drive to get Thumbelina. Besides being struck by her voice, which isn't enough to make someone fall in love, there isn't really anything substantial in their desire to marry her. Besides a few character flaws however, this really is a sweet film. The songs are catchy, I like the animation, and the story is adventurous with a kiss at the end, short, sweet, and nostalgic.
This is one of those activism books for kids, aged 9- 12. I like it a bit more than the other 'how to' activism for kids books out there because it isn't telling kids to fight the world's evils, it isn't telling them that the world is going to end unless they do this, and it isn't at all large-scale. Many of the suggestions in this book only immediately effect the person who is doing them and the person/ people they're interacting with. Instead of listing all of the actions I'm just going to summarize the gist of them by category.
There are a few actions that suggest how to interact with people more, like your parents or your grandmother. In general, many of the actions tell the reader to do more things with people. This is an important suggestion with the rise of technology. Kids are spending more and more of their free time alone in front of some electronic device or another, and while this is fun for them for the moment, too much of this behaviour can alienate them from their friends and family.
So in addition to the do things with people group of actions, there are the 'do things' actions. Things like playing or writing a letter, grow something and eat it, these help get kids off the couch.
Then of course there are the environmentally aware actions, but it goes about presenting this in a kid friendly way. One of these is to love your stuff, it doesn't say this, but by loving your stuff you won't rush out to buy new stuff and you'll value what you have. There are also the standard 'don't waste power' actions, but they give you some real life examples like shower time and junk mail.
There are also the 'educate yourself' actions. These suggest that you learn another language or learn about a cause to support or to bug your parents about. One of the actions is to simply ask why, which is always a good tool for learning.
Overall I think that this is one of the better elementary school aged activist books I've come across. It's short and sweet but has a lot of valuable things to say. It's also very colourful and full of pictures so is easy on the eye. What I like about this book the most is that it doesn't only talk about how to fix your environment or how to make a political or social change, it also talks about how you should make more time for the people you see everyday. How you should be more active and more social, because believe it or not those tiny and 'insignificant' interactions are what will shape your world the most and are what will determine your happiness. And if more people are happy, the world will indeed change for the better.
Faeries is an animated film about a sister and a brother, Nellie and George, who are sent to live at a relative's farm for a time. They are somewhat unhappy about this, Nellie in particular. Once they're settled in, the children go out to play. George wants to play hide and seek and scampers off to hide from Nellie, and while she isn't looking, disappears into a tree. While looking for George, a creepy looking man (Jeremy Irons!) appears and tells her of a prophecy. She is a little shaken by this stranger and runs back to the house (not seeing him turn into a crow and fly away). She gets back to the house and continues her search for her brother and comes across a hobgoblin in her cupboard. It appears as though her brother has gone into the fairy realm, and Nellie must hurry and bring him back before he eats something and is unable to return. The goblin takes her to the faery tree and she goes in to find her brother. When she does get to him though, he has already eaten faery food and cannot return to the human realm ever. Nellie calls the faery king and pleads for the release of her brother. The king contents to give them three quests, and if they complete these quests, George will be able to leave fairy land. The nature of the quests change after the prince see's the farm hand Brigit (Kate Winslet). There is also the matter of the shape shifter, who is after the fairy king's throne. It is of course up to Nellie and George to save the day.
This film has a mix of both classic 2D animation as well as an early 3D animation style. For the most part the classic cartoon animation is used for the characters and the background, but several movement shots are done in 3D. Fairy land might have been real life foam fauna as well.
This is a great book about a girl with passion for music. The story takes place in a fictional land called Pern. McCaffrey has fully developed this world in a whole series of books, this is only one series of many that take place in this land, but a lot of them are adult novels as opposed to this one which is meant for kids. The book focuses on this girl named Menolly, who lives in a very conservative fishing village; in a time before modern technology and in a world where dragons exist. Menolly loves music, but it is frowned upon for women to participate in music in any significant way, AKA singing in a chorus is OK, but it is unheard of for a woman to play instruments or compose music. To be a 'harper' which is a person treated almost like a scholar or a priest. Men with talent go off to study in a harper school and to be a harper is a very prestigious position. Every little town is sent their own harper to teach the children songs and to preside over the music at ceremonies and events.
So this girl Menolly is very talented and loves music, but because of the society she lives in, she can't enjoy her gift. The old harper in her village recognized her talent and fostered her gift, and because she was a child her parents allowed this, but as the story opens we find that this old harper is dead and the town (of which her father is the chief) has requested for a new harper. Before the old harper died, he had sent off some songs Menolly had written to the master harper, who is the most important harper of all. He really liked these and told the new harper to find this (thought to be male) prodigy. and this is where we walk into the story.
Menolly then goes through some trials, one of which is cutting her hand while gutting fish. This is particularly tragic because she is told that she can no longer play music. She already feels useless because she's taller and stronger than 'a girl should be' and she has no interest in what she should be doing. Her parents, especially her father, are against her playing music. Her father even beats her when he finds her absentmindedly strumming a guitar after he forbid her to make any music, as he doesn't want her to shame their village when the new harper comes. Because of this she makes herself scarce and eventually runs away to live on a cliff with these little dragons called fire lizards. Will she ever play music again?
This is the first in a trilogy and is a great story for both budding fantasy lovers as well as for veterans. It's a quick read, but has memorable characters and a fast-paced plot. Fun for all ages.
This book is directed towards girls aged... maybe 6-10 and is a good book to introduce an interest in and passion for science. The first part is arranged like a story as the reader follows a girl through a normal day and this fairy-like science woman named Nora tells us the science behind that part of the day. there are experiments the reader can try for each part of the day Nora describes that allows the reader to interact with the information and better understand it.
The second part introduces different kinds of sciences, with more fun experiments of course. One of my favourite experiments was the 'invisible glue' experiment, which was helping to describe physics and a person's centre of gravity, so you would get a friend to get into a certain position against the wall and watch as they try to move but can't, or you can hold down a friend with a finger, same concept.
And the third part is basically just more experiments.
So as I say, great introduction to science, a fun way to get into the subject. And this book is by no means just for girls. Both of my brothers enjoyed trying out the experiments just as much as I did. I found that this book got me more interested in science than school did because it made it fun and connected it to every day life. It is by no means in depth or lengthy, which I now have some issues with, but as intro books go, this one isn't that bad.
I love this movie and have since I was a kid. I first saw it in a movie rental place and thought the name was kind of funny so I picked it up and I thank myself for that day every time I watch the movie, which I now own.
It's a story about two villages in Ireland who have this kind feud and every day the kids from each village have a 'war' that ends before dinner time. It's an enchanting tale of innocence, adventure, and community. I would definitely recommend it to all people of all ages. A timeless movie for all!!
Alanna want's to be a knight more than anything in the world, but girls aren't allowed to be knights where Alanna lives so she switches places with her twin brother and pretends to be a boy. She then goes off to knight school where she makes some friends and enemies and learns how to be a knight.
Alanna's a pretty strong heroine. She stands up to whatever or whoever her adversary may be with all that she is and doesn't let anything stand in the way of what she wants, which is to be a knight. She does go through some tough times though. She doesn't rely on anyone for fear they might think that she's weak and she does doubt herself quite a bit, but I guess that makes her a bit more realistic. Overall a pretty good series.
The books in order are; Alanna, Hand of the Goddess, Woman Who Rides Like a Man, and Lioness Rampant
I think I like this one even more than don't let the pigeon ride the bus. The pigeon is so much more over the top in this one. Not in an unnecessary, ostentatious way, but in a fun, energetic cute way. Just look at the cover! Look at that face! It's cute, I smile. And I suppose the kids would like it too >.>
Basic plot outline (so if you'd wish to remain oblivious please skip over the first paragraph)
This is the story about a girl who is sent by her step mother to the evil witch in the woods to borrow a light. It starts off like the Cinderella story with the father remarrying a woman with two daughters and then dying, leaving his daughter to be mistreated by the stepmother and stepsisters. The stepmother is jealous of the girl's beauty and sweet disposition in comparison with her own daughters so she sends the girl out into the woods to seek out the evil Baba Yaga to ask for a light. the thing about the witch is that very few people who meet her live to tell about it. The witch eats people and has a house built out of their bones. So the girl goes obediently to the witch and she takes with her a doll her mother made her before she died, and the doll is magical, because it was made with her mother's love. So when she gets to the witch and asks for a light the witch agrees to give her a light if she can complete the tasks set before her, which are to cook huge meals and clean everything. The Baba Yaga leaves and the girl frets over what to do and then her doll comes alive and does most of the chores for her. The witch is satisfied and gives the girl one of her lights which when she presents to her stepmother, burns the stepmother alive. At this point, though she wasn't the strongest heroine ever, I'm hopeful for a strong ending, thinking maybe she won't need to get married at the end of the book to justify the plot... but she does, and it's not a bad thing, I'm just getting a bit bored with the same ending over and over (in both adult and children's stories).
This story had more of a classical fairy tale feel to it. It had a dark atmosphere to it with the beautiful illustrations, which at some points I could see very small children being afraid, of the Baba Yaga for example, but for the most part I felt they kept the story pretty clean. It could have definitely been very much more graphic, which I would have loved, but this is a children's book. What I enjoyed about this book was that things had to be a certain way, things HAD to get done, like in older stories. Even though the stepmother treats her very poorly, the girl still obeys her and minds her, and from a feminist perspective this can be seen in a very bad light. A submissive girl with no back bone and no will of her own, an abusive relationship in essence. But, if you look at it as something produced a time long ago, when morals were different, and from a fairy tale perspective, where (if you know your mythology) everything has rules, very strict rules that must be followed, as the sequence is almost as important, if not more so, than the final product, it's more fanciful and exciting and much more archetypal, like the an old fairy tale. In most of today's stories we tell kids that nothing binds them and they can do whatever they want, and while it is good to leave an abusive relationship and all kids must learn that this is a good thing, people will always be bound by something, something that stays their hand or forces action, maybe sometimes against their will, and a lot of children today (myself included) don't really grasp this concept because all our lives we've been fed the fairy tale that we control our own destiny and what i say goes.. but that's not always the reality. Lessons like this can be learned from fairy tales of this nature.
Craft's illustrations are absolutely gorgeous and I wish there were more of them in this book. The subject matter had the potential to be scary, so I think the scenes depicted were selected carefully and on some pages only a small picture was provided in the corner... but this illustrator is so good that anything she does is magnificent. I wish the whole book was full pages of her illustrations. The prose was good as well though. It had a decent flow and was over all pretty well done.
This book was surprisingly good. I wouldn't say that I was surprised by the material, because you can get a pretty good idea of what to expect from the plot by reading the summary, kind of a Mulan/ Alanna series (Tamora Peirce) story about a girl who rises out of the stereotypical female role and sort of blurs the boundary we so readily assign to gender association. And this story is a good one, but because it's so over done there is a huge potential for failure. This book however, did not fail.
First off I have to say that I'm somewhat impressed. This is a story about two young girls dealing with the death of their father and brothers, and there is actually evidence of violence. It is a children's book so of course there is nothing too graphic, but it is no max and ruby! You fear for the characters and the suspense your fear creates because they could actually get hurt really increases the anticipation. The story makes you want to feel things basically :P but again, this is a novel for children. I picked it up in the 9 - 12 section of the book store and I'd say the subject matter is handled in a way appropriate for that age. More often than not, though danger is close at hand, the girls are spared what would be a scary scene (and what would have been added in the adult version of the novel with more gore and blood) leaving only a handful of actual encounters wherein they are confronted with an unpleasant confrontation.
The main characters Kimi and Hana were great as well. The story wasn't so much about how they 'beat the system', how they showed everyone that girls can do whatever boys can. It was a better story, side stepping that superficial attempt at feminism. It was about inner strength and fighting your own demons with what you've got. And yes, Kimi wants to be a samurai like nothing else, but the focus of the story is on how she reacts with strength and courage when such a bad thing has happened to her and her family. She uses her desire to become a samurai to move forward, to avenge her family, but her reason of existence isn't to prove that she can. She knows she can. Her purpose is acknowledge her ability, nurture it, and then use it to best accomplish what she desires.
The book ended... like a beginning, so I assume this is the beginning of some sort of series. And this is a novel written for children, but that I'm 20 yr old university student and still enjoyed it says something, I think, about the author's talent for storytelling. It was a well written book with a good story and great characters. I look forward to a continuation.
This story is about a princess who loves balloons and uses them to rid the kingdom of evil, with the help of some friends.
It's a cute story with a simple but effective message. I love Phoebe Gliman, she writes amazing children's books that, though they are nothing complex, are truly epic. One of those stories you'll remember when you're older. This one isn't my favourite by her, I prefer something from nothing, or Jillian Jiggs, but this one is great as well... exactly what I would expect from her. I recommend this author.
This was a cute book about some kids who live in this city that keeps growing leaving them with no where to play, so they play in the streets. People get mad at them for getting in the way on the street so they yell back 'but the streets are free'. But the adults dont listen, so the kids take their problem to city hall, and the mayor ultimately does nothing after promising to build them a playground. So the kids come together and inspire the community to come together to build the playground. It's a nice little story about fighting for what you want and what is important to you, in a realistic setting. It's cute.
This is a really cool book, it's a kids book of colours for blind children. The whole book is black, there is no other colour, but on every page there is a picture the sticks up for a person to feel and there is the accompanying sentence on the opposite side with braille under it. At the end it has the braille alphabet. It's a really cool idea
First off, this movie had the potential to be interesting and magical and exciting. The elements for what could have made this movie great were there somewhere, they just weren't touched upon. This turned out to be a movie about 'everyone's an individual, just like you' and near the end when I discovered that this was the only moral I felt really disappointed. It's just one of those movies that will leave no mark on you, washboard quality. If you've ever seen the sequel to snow white, the cartoon version, I forget what it's called because yes it was just that bad, it is reminiscent of that.
Now this would all have been fine and dandy if it was just another movie to sucker people out of 30 bucks or however much it costs... but it is a story about Tinkerbell... from peter pan. It almost seriously offended me that anyone would stray so far from a wonderful, classic story like that and steal one of it's signature characters and turn it into this. Such a bastardization of arguably one of the most memorable characters in children's classical literature... some one should be slapped, really hard. It offended me enough to go out and write this review, which probably isn't even that articulate because my mind is still boggled by the fact that these greedy, money sucking... people at Disney wouldn't just create some other nameless character, not drag a classic one through the dirt. .. Of course I doubt anyone would buy that nameless character because of late their story writing ability is far from decent... as this little jem proves.
There are other fairy stories out there, don't support this one.
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