I enjoyed William Steig’s Sylvester and the Magic Pebble years ago, but not so much that I set out to find everything Steig had written. More recently, I read Dr. De Soto and didn’t love it. I also remember feeling that the cover of The Amazing Bone is a bit creepy; flashbacks to childhood nightmares…
Tag: Animal Stories
Miss Jaster’s Garden
Miss Jaster’s Garden by illustrator turned author N. M. Bodecker is one of those picture books that every family library should have. The illustration has a daydream-like quality with soft watercolors, the story line is adorable and the kind that children love to giggle at, and the writing is charming and intelligent. If Anne Shirley-Blythe…
The Library Lion
I cannot remember where I discovered this perfectly sweet picture book. I am sure that someone in my book group suggested it, and I regret that I cannot give them credit for the excellent recommendation. Alas, the best I can do is share this with as many others as I can so that the recommendation…
Felix Salten’s Bambi
Though my husband assured me that it was nothing like the cartoon, for over 30 years I resisted reading Felix Salten’s Bambi.
The House of Wings
My family and I have developed a fun little habit of heading to our local St. Vincent de Paul Charity Resale shop about once a month to donate our excess and rescue books. Sometimes I discover homeschool gold like a 1980s set of Childcraft. Sometimes I find a book set I know nothing about but…
Billy and Blaze
I have a cowboy kid. You know, a little guy who loves horses, dreams of living on a cattle ranch, and who believes that the wild untamed West is still out there, waiting for him to put on his boots and spurs so he can saddle up to that special kind of man’s work. I…
David and the Phoenix
“You never know what you will find when you climb a mountain…” While he was a student at Berkeley in the 1940s, Edward Ormondroyd had a vision of a “large pompous bird diving out of a window, tripping on the sill, and crashing into a rose arbor below” (from the author’s letter in the Purple…
The Water Horse
“Writing my books is like handing out presents. Giving children pleasure gives you a wonderful sort of Father Christmassy feeling.” – Dick King-Smith, October 1995 Dick King-Smith was a gift to children. A beloved English children’s author, King-Smith grew up in a sort of well-to-do existence. His family owned a quality paper company and King-Smith…
Handle With Care
A couple of years ago someone gifted this oversized hardbound picture book to my science loving kids. We read it immediately and loved it. This spring, my ten year old was searching for science books to read during his daily quiet hour. When he pulled this one out of our biology bucket, we all enjoyed…
The Wilderking Trilogy
This spring my family fell in love with The Wilderking trilogy. Much like Narnia or the Shire, the Wilderking books are set in a place that feels romantic and a bit heaven-kissed. Corenwald is a place of physical beauty, vibrant community, traditional values, exotic intrigue, relative peace, and the possibility of high adventure. The fictional…
Papa Gatto
Ruth Sanderson is one of my favorite illustrators and children’s storytellers. Her art is classical and magical; her storytelling is traditional and grounded in folk tales. After falling in love with her work in the two Saints: Lives and Illuminations books, I started to request everything else she had from my library. Her Twelve Dancing Princesses is…
Mr. Putter and Tabby
With 25 books in the series, Cynthia Rylant’s “Mr. Putter and Tabby” books range from sweet and endearing to naughty and questionable. I think that the series can best be understood by reading a sample of just two or three particular examples. The inaugural book, Mr. Putter and Tabby Pour the Tea, is one of…
Why I don’t like Phyllis Naylor’s Dog Book, Shiloh
I am not a fan of surprises. I especially don’t care for surprises in my children’s reading. I take the sacred vocation of being my child’s first and foremost teacher very seriously and I am extremely careful about what kind of intellectual and emotional foods I am giving them to eat. As a lover of…
Kavik the Wolf Dog
Kavik the Wolf Dog, by Walt Morey I see by the listing of several of our addresses on the flyleaf in my immature handwriting, that I loved this book between the ages of about 10 and 14. As I reread it this week, I was struck by how familiar the beginning scenes were. I wish I…
The Black Stallion
What is it about gorgeous black horses that draw men in, set their imaginations on fire, and steal a bit of their hearts? As a child, I knew that horses were regal creatures. Because they are gorgeous, capable of intelligence, posses affection, and have a certain nobility, I was always smitten with horses. Nearly all…