I have two kids under two. A true Cannonballer, I read to them all the time. One of my favorite books to read out loud to them is Alice Schertle’s Little Blue Truck. My kids like the art and the county-song-rhythm of the prose (“Horn went ‘Beep!’ Engine purred. Friendliest sounds you ever heard.”) I do, too, and I hope my little ones absorb the book’s message of selflessness and kindness. I hope I learn that lesson, too! The book is about an old, flare-side farm […]
We don’t need no words
You may think: CV, even you cannot write an over- 250 word book review of a tiny book with no words. You would be wrong and here is why: I have a lot of words in me and also I’m going to cheat. Mercer Mayer is a brilliant illustrator of children’s books, probably best known for his Little Critter books. (This is the part where I cheat by going on about other books.) That series follows the adventures of a weird little guy identified only […]
Not just for kids
Predator’s Gold is the second book in Philip Reeve’s Hungry City Chronicles, following Mortal Engines where we were first introduced to a world in which great traction cities stalk the land, preying on smaller or weaker cities. We catch up with Hester and Tom two years after the MEDUSA blast that destroyed Tom’s home city of London. Having taken the airship The Jenny Haniver as their own following the death of its badass previous owner, they’ve since eked out a life trading and travelling the […]
Folktales Redux
Fairy tales have intrigued me due to the fact that they’re aimed at children yet carry very adult themes. If you’ve read Grimm’s you know that they almost always end in the maiming or death of someone. I find the fairy tale/folk tale genre is a short lesson that older generations pass on to the younger one. It’s dramatic enough to capture the young imagination, the lesson is clear enough, and there’s just enough fear to keep the young ones on the right path. Since […]
Harry Potter and the Curse of Expectation
I own twenty-one Harry Potter books: a set in Dutch, a set in English, and a set of e-books. This is excluding my copies of Quidditch through the Ages and Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them. I own three sets of Harry Potter related clothing and all eight films on DVD. I’ve gone to midnight screenings. I’ve braved my irrational yet powerful loathing of Eddie Redmayne and gone to see Fantastic Beasts. I used to moderate subsections of a thriving a Harry Potter internet […]
Old-School Horror for Kids
When I was a kid, my dad and I read books together. It’s a bittersweet memory, since we’ve been estranged for most of my adult life. My favorite author then was John Bellairs, who wrote Gothic horror set during the era of his own childhood in the 1950s. The early editions had covers and sometimes illustrations by Edward Gorey, and between Bellairs and Gorey, I grew up with a lifelong love of the macabre. This weekend, I had to do an assignment for my editing […]
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