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Raccoon on the Moon and Other Tales illustrated by David Semple

September 23, 2016 by

img_3746Source: Purchased from Usborne Books
Hardcover, 144 pgs.
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Raccoon on the Moon and Other Tales, illustrated by David Semple, is a set of stories in the Phonics Stories series for young readers.  With my daughter beginning Kindergarten this year, I wanted to get some more books focused on phonics, and this one looked cute, especially since my daughter loves animals and outer space.  Since this book arrived in the house, it has been part of the evening reading ritual before bed.

Each night she picks a story from the list, and we read it.  If we have time, she begs for a second story. The illustrations are clear, brightly colored, and fun!  Kids will love these stories and, after several readings, they will be reading along with you.  In the final pages of this collection of stories, there are puzzles for kids to complete — from finding which words rhyme or which words in the sentence are the wrong one given the context and image.

Our favorites in this collection are Raccoon on the Moon, Llamas in Pajamas, and Mole in a Hole.  Raccoon on the Moon and Other Tales, illustrated by David Semple, is a fun collection to help young readers learn new words, take adventures with fun animal characters, and read long with their parents.

RATING: Cinquain

***For those on Facebook, I’ll be having a book party for Usborne on Oct. 21. I can invite you if you are interested, though we have to be friends on Facebook***

Filed Under: challenges, children's fiction, New Authors Challenge, purchased, Read in 2016, reviews Tagged With: , ,

Review and Giveaway: Edgar Allan Poe: An Adult Coloring Book by Odessa Begay

September 22, 2016 by

Source: Sterling Publishing
Paperback, 96 pgs.
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Edgar Allan Poe: An Adult Coloring Book by Odessa Begay is a gorgeous coloring book that perfectly illustrates the beauty and sadness of Poe’s work, with quotes from various stories interspersed throughout. Begay is a talented artist who carefully weaves in beauty with each horrifying image — from skulls to pestilence personified. Many of these designs are very intricate and will require a steady hand to keep within the lines, but that’s half the fun of achieving calm through coloring. It’s almost meditative to follow the curves of her images and think about how to complement each color to make an overall pleasing image.

Aren’t those images gorgeous? This book is perfect for those who love Edgar Allan Poe, participating in the fall R.I.P. challenge, or those who just want to color some horrifyingly beautiful illustrations. Edgar Allan Poe: An Adult Coloring Book by Odessa Begay is a wonderful tribute to the macabre Poe and his darkly beautiful work.

Here’s one of my pictures — it’s not very good:

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RATING: Cinquain

About the Author/Illustrator:

Odessa Begay resides in Philadelphia, PA. She is a graduate of NYU/The Tisch School of the Arts where she studied photography and imaging. She has licensed her work widely in the children’s/baby markets, as well as botanicals for home décor, paper, and fabric. Learn more about her at Website.

Want a copy of your own? Live in the United States or Canada?

Leave a comment on this post by Sept. 29, 2016, 11:59 PM EST, about which story or poem by Edgar Allan Poe is your favorite.

***GIVEAWAY IS NOW CLOSED!***

Filed Under: cartoon, challenges, fiction, giveaway, New Authors Challenge, Read in 2016, Reference, review copy, reviews Tagged With: , , , ,

Heirlooms: Stories by Rachel Hall

September 21, 2016 by

Source: Caitlin Hamilton Marketing & Publicity
Paperback, 190 pgs.
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Heirlooms: Stories by Rachel Hall is a series of connected stories that read like a novel. Four generations of a Jewish family are touched by the secrets held as one generation copes with the Nazi occupation and, ultimately, flees France to safety. What are the heirlooms this family carries into their new lives? Is it a baby carriage? A beloved wedding band? Or is it simply the memories that flood their minds when they refuse to speak of the past?

From “The War Ends Many Times” (pg. 53)
“Of course, one second-guesses, grasps at the many missed opportunities for escape–that lovely word, that flowing cape of an idea! Why did they not attach themselves to it when it flapped and hovered close? Why?”

Beyond loyalty and duty, each generation is tethered by the ghosts of the past — a father who dies a revolutionary at the hands of Nazis and a mother dying in bed calling for her mother even as her own baby waits in the next room. Peeling back each layer, readers peer into the lives of the Latour family, seeing echoes of the past and reverberations into the future. Even the smallest decision of a stranger desperate for a child she can never have is felt through the generations, forcing one member to make a decision that affects many more and another to accept responsibility for a casual moment.

From “En Voyage” (pg. 89)
“When Jean takes the film to be developed, he is given doubles of this roll. He puts one set of the photos in an album, labels them carefully. He can’t bear to throw the extras away, though there is no one to whom he can safely send them. This makes him feel as if that time is lost, irretrievable, though he knows certainly he does, that time is like that, moving only forward despite our wishes.”

Heirlooms: Stories by Rachel Hall is a deeply moving collection of stories about survivors of WWII and how they coped with their own survival. Fears and protecting their children were forever at the top of their mind, making them hide the past. Despite their efforts, the past can re-emerge in the most unpredictable ways — the effect of heat-stroke leaving you exposed to those you sought to keep from prying too much, from getting too close.

RATING: Quatrain

Photo Credit: Pamela Frame

Photo Credit: Pamela Frame

About the Author:

Rachel Hall’s collection of linked stories, Heirlooms, was awarded the BkMk Press 2015 G.S. Sharat Chandra prize, selected by Marge Piercy.

Hall’s stories and essays have appeared in a number of journals and anthologies, including Bellingham Review, Crab Orchard Review, Gettysburg Review, Lilith, New Letters, and Water~Stone. In addition, she has received awards and honors from publications such as Lilith and Glimmer Train, and New Letters and from the Bread Loaf Writer’s Conference, Saltonstall Foundation for the Arts, as well as Ragdale and the Ox-Bow School of the Arts where portions of Heirlooms were written.

She holds an MFA from Indiana University where she was the Hemingway Fellow in Fiction. Currently, Hall is Professor of English at the State University of New York-Geneseo. She teaches creative writing and literature and holds two Chancellor’s Awards for Excellence—one for teaching and one for her creative work.

Filed Under: 2016 World at War Reading Challenge, ARC, challenges, fiction, New Authors Challenge, Read in 2016, reviews, short stories Tagged With: , , ,

Austen’s Independence Day by Melissa Belle

September 14, 2016 by

Source: the author
Paperback, 333 pgs.
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Austen’s Independence Day by Melissa Belle is a modern take on Pride & Prejudice with a twist. Long ago, the town of Austen, Texas, had a founder whose wife demanded he trap the ghost of Jane Austen in the town jail until true love could be found and set her free. This was his punishment for cheating on her with another. While the tall tale is far-fetched at best, it becomes the basis for a whole industry in the town, keeping its residents afloat financially and some pre-occupied with curses and romance beyond reason.

Macey Henwood has had a tough life, caring for her siblings, her alcoholic father, and her romance-obsessed and co-dependent mother, but through it all Morgan Thornbrush has been her rock. He’s helped her through the tough moments and shared some her best, and like him, she’s done the same for him. Set in Texas, there is a rough and tumble way about the townsfolk that seemed at odds with the romantic ghost tale. Macey and Morgan made a pact as teenagers to never marry or marry anyone else, and their on-again, off-again romance is a bit tough to take when readers learn how long it has been going on. Commitment issues abound, as Macey says she was never meant to marry.

Can Macey really blame the guy for wanting to move beyond some silly pact made as a teenager? When is she going to grow up and stop caring for everyone else and do what she wants to do — become an author?! It’s tough to say, as she sees how much she’s done but continues to devalue herself. Meanwhile, she insists she doesn’t need a man to make her whole like her mother, but her whining about Morgan after his engagement to a Manhattan rich girl makes it appear that she does.

“I think I’m going to throw up. But it figures, really. Morgan always went for rich girls. Except when he was slumming around with little old redneck me.”

Despite many of these issues, once the history between these characters unfolds, it becomes less of a surface relationship about sex and more about their support of one another through rough patches. They are more than friends, they are lovers who support each other’s dreams. Belle has a unique story compared to many in the Austenesque world, and with a bit of editing to reduce the instances of diary reading and repeated comments between Morgan and Macey (which were unnecessary), this would have been stellar.

Reading from her diary to Morgan seemed a bit forced in some places as he tried to get over her and marry someone else, but what’s worse is she was writing these detailed entries as early as age six. Not possible, unless she’s a genius, and her actions and behaviors suggest otherwise. Overall, Austen’s Independence Day by Melissa Belle is a fun read with interesting characters in an oddball town.

RATING: Tercet

About the Author:

Melissa Belle loves to write steamy romance novels where the hero and heroine are passionate, independent, and good to each other. The first romance novel she read (and fell in love with) was Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice. Melissa wrote her first novel riding through Europe on the train, and she travels with her husband (her best friend and first reader of all her stories) as much as possible.

Melissa dances in a belly dance troupe. She is a professional tarot and oracle card reader. She also loves songwriting, hooping, and her two rescue kitties. And cupcakes.

Filed Under: challenges, fiction, New Authors Challenge, Read in 2016, review copy, reviews Tagged With: , ,

The A.B.C. Murders by Agatha Christie

September 1, 2016 by

Source: Audible
Audiobook, 6 hrs.
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The A.B.C. Murders by Agatha Christie, our August book club selection, is narrated by Hugh Fraser and is the 13th book in the series.  Despite being so far into the series, it was refreshing to read a murder-mystery that was more intellectual in nature. Hercule Poirot is being taunted by the serial killer working his way through victims based on the alphabet, and beside his victims, he leaves the ABC Railway Guide open at the name of the town where the murder has taken place. Arthur Hastings, a longtime friend of Poirot, is excited to be working with his friend after a long time, and this book is told from Hastings’ point of view for the most part. The other narration is a third-person narrative created by Hastings’ reconstructions of other eye-witness accounts. Christie creates another mysterious layer this way because readers will always partially doubt the validity of those recollections.

The first three murders occur with little evidence of who the killer is, but once the killer decides to make an enemy of Poirot, he is bound to make mistakes. There also is a certain complexity of motive here, in which it is obscured again and again by other events and things that occur. While Hastings is in awe of his friend’s ability to solve cases, Inspector Crome is less than a fan. It’s interesting to see these two opinions face off, and it forces the reader to wonder is Poirot a super-detective or is he a man that gets lucky. Like many mysteries, the truth is somewhere in the middle.

The camaraderie between Poirot and Hastings is great, and the pace is spot on, even as the murders seem as though they will never be solved. A careful reader or listener can see the clues and figure out who the killer is, but Christie is adept at throwing in obstacles to obscure the truth. Hugh Fraser was a good narrator for Hastings, though at times some of the other characters got a bit muddled in the reading. The A.B.C. Murders by Agatha Christie is a well written mystery that will have readers guessing and re-assessing.

RATING: Quatrain

About the Author:

Agatha Christie is the best-selling author of all time. She wrote eighty crime novels and story collections, fourteen plays, and several other books. Her books have sold roughly four billion copies and have been translated into 45 languages. She is the creator of the two most enduring figures in crime literature-Hercule Poirot and Miss Jane Marple-and author of The Mousetrap, the longest-running play in the history of modern theatre.

Filed Under: audiobooks, challenges, fiction, New Authors Challenge, purchased, Read in 2016, reviews Tagged With: , , , ,

Snow White and Rose Red by Patricia C. Wrede

August 24, 2016 by

Source: Purchased
Kindle, 288 pgs.
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Snow White and Rose Red by Patricia C. Wrede, which was our July book club pick, is a retelling of a fairy tale.  In this rendition, the tale is set in England, and the characters are a bit modified.  Wrede says in the afterword that the original fairy tale had gaps and characters appeared and disappeared, leaving their motivations out of sight for the most part.  Here, Wrede contrives to make motivations fit the story, which mirrors the original very closely.

The language used here to mimic Elizabethan times but, in so doing, the dialogue was very stilted and hard to engage with for a good portion of the book.  While the language may have been to authenticate the time period, some of it was off in terms of usage and slowed the pace of the tale considerably.  However, her use of John Dee and Edward Kelly as the wizards in the town of Mortlak, who cause harm to the world of Faerie, was inspired, though even just Kelly would have been enough here.

Rosamund (Rose Red) and Blanche (Snow White) are the daughters of the Widow Arden (forest) who live on the outskirts of town near the land of Faerie, and while they tend to stay outside the forest and only use the herbs found within its borders for good, they have skills that other townsfolk only speculate about.  It is there in the woods that they find all manner of plants, including elecampane, which is native to central Asia.  Is this the work of the fay?  Or a miscalculation on Wrede’s part?  It’s unclear.

Wrede also relies on the continuation of “work” over several dayson more than one occasion without going into depth about the failed experiments, etc. This also slows the pace of the fairy tale down.  Snow White and Rose Red by Patricia C. Wrede is a satisfactory retelling of a well-known fairy tale, but what is unclear still is the motivations of one set of evildoers — the fay.  While the mortals clearly seek fame and fortune in their magic renderings, the fay involved in the spell-casting seem to have muddy reasoning for their part in it.

RATING: Tercet

About the Author:

Patricia C. Wrede was born in Chicago, Ill., and is the eldest of five children. She started writing in seventh grade. She attended Carleton College in Minnesota, where she majored in Biology and managed to avoid taking any English courses at all. She began work on her first novel, Shadow Magic, just after graduating from college in 1974. Patricia received her M.B.A. from the University of Minnesota in 1977.  Patricia finished her first novel in late 1978, and she has since published 12 books.

Filed Under: challenges, fiction, New Authors Challenge, purchased, Read in 2016, reviews Tagged With: , , , , ,

Ergon by George HS Singer

August 18, 2016 by

Source: George HS Singer
Paperback, 86 pgs.
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Ergon by George HS Singer, who is on tour this fall with Poetic Book Tours, is a debut with subtle power.  The collection is broken down into four sections — Visiting, Ergon, Our Quotidian, and Immensity — and each reveals a keen observer in Singer and each is infused with Buddhist sensibilities, but not overtly so.  In “Slipping Out,” Singer draws lines of connection between the Korean lady on the freeway and ourselves, as well as the bits of ourselves we find behind the eyes of our children. But there is so much more being said in this poem – we must savor our moments of connection because they could slip away before we realize it.

From “Slipping Out” (pg. 15-16)

But don’t be so sure the bell
won’t crack and the mind slip out
to meet itself in another’s face.

In this first section of poems, the lines call to mind the section title. We’re just visiting, our time is limited here and in these moments we have, and we must make the most of them while we can. For those moments we wish did not happen as they do, we can be comforted by their transient nature. We must learn to let go of the harmful memories and events and cherish those that imbue us with strength.

Throughout the collection, there are poems that recall wars and battles of the past, which can affect people and shape who they are. How do we deal with these changes? How do they? These are questions that only individuals can answer for themselves, and they must accept the choices they have made. Singer uses nature to illustrate his themes, including the movement of tides.

In the title poem, “Ergon”, the narrator concludes, “The ergon of strangeness in a household is silence.” The line is haunting and makes us wonder what exactly is strangeness? Is it the memories we do not vocalize, the traumas that we bury? Those are not really strange, but many often feel that they are set apart because of them. To stay silent is to deny the truth. It is these events that shape us and those around us, and they should also be what connects us and draws us closer to one another.

Ergon by George HS Singer is a collection that will push readers to think about their lives, their place in it, and those who have influenced them. Those who have inspired us, and those we have feared — all have left their indelible mark.

RATING: Quatrain

About the Poet:

George HS Singer, a former Zen Buddhist monk and student of Rev. Master Jiyu Kennett, lives with his wife of forty-two years in Santa Barbara, Calif., where he works as a professor at University of California, Santa Barbara. He was educated at Yale, Southern Oregon University, and the University of Oregon. He wrote poetry in college but took a twenty-year break before taking it up as a regular discipline. He has been a long term student of Molly Peacock and has had the opportunity to work with other marvelous poets through the Frost Place in Franconia, N.H. He writes about life in and out of a Zen monastery, trying to live mindfully in a busy and troubled world, his love of nature and of his wife. The arts have become more central to his life. Singer’s poems were published in the Massachusetts Review, Prairie Schooner, and Tar River Poetry

Filed Under: challenges, New Authors Challenge, poetry, Poetry Reading Challenge, Read in 2016, review copy, reviews Tagged With: , , ,

The Secrets of Nanreath Hall by Alix Rickloff

August 17, 2016 by

tlc tour hostSource: TLC Book Tours
Paperback, 416 pgs.
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Secrets of Nanreath Hall by Alix Rickloff is an epic debut in the historical fiction genre in which both strong women — Lady Katherine Trenowyth and Anna Trenowyth — are challenged. Katherine, a budding artist, bucks societal expectations to follow her heart, but her actions have ramifications. Nurse Anna closes herself off from others following a tragic sinking of a ship and deaths that rock her world. These women choose hard, lonely paths, but their strength carries them through the good and bad. While Katherine knows when to accept help, Anna must learn this lesson on her own, which can be tough during a WWII when many things are uncertain and tragedy can strike at any moment.

Panicked like a wild thing caught and frozen by the hunter’s lamp. (pg. 293 ARC)

As Rickloff shifts between the points of view and the time periods, readers may expect to lose their place in these stories, but she does such a wonderful job integrating them, readers are bound to fall in love with both characters. Although we may want the best for them, the realities of war and circumstance will intervene. When Anna shows up to tend to the patients at Nanreath Hall, an ancestral home she’s never seen, her curiosity takes over, forcing her to uncover the secrets of her mother, where she comes from, and the family she never knew as a child.

Secrets of Nanreath Hall by Alix Rickloff is a carefully woven tapestry of generations of Trenowyths, whose lives are upended by the decisions they make, the passions they follow, and the wars they cannot control. This is historical fiction at its best with elements of romance, artistry, romance, and mystery. Get swept away by the mysterious ruins of lives past and learn to make a new path from the old.

RATING: Cinquain

About the Author:

Alix Rickloff is a critically acclaimed author of historical and paranormal romance. Her previous novels include the Bligh Family series (Kensington, 2009), the Heirs of Kilronan trilogy (Pocket, 2011), and, as Alexa Egan, the Imnada Brotherhood series (Pocket, 2014). She lives in Chestertown, Maryland, with her husband and three children.  Find out more about Alix at her website, and connect with her on Facebook and Twitter. You can also follow her on Pinterest.

Filed Under: 2016 World at War Reading Challenge, ARC, challenges, Events, fiction, historical fiction, New Authors Challenge, Publishers/Publicists, Read in 2016, reviews, The Literary Road Trip, tlc book tours Tagged With: , ,

United States of Books: Independence Day by Richard Ford (audio)

August 15, 2016 by

Source: Public Library
Audiobook, 17 CDs
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Entertainment Weekly said, “The second of four books to feature Frank Basscombe, a sportswriter-turned-Realtor who’s the perfect sarcastic resident of that great big suburb called New Jersey.”

Independence Day by Richard Ford, narrated by Richard Poe, is one of those novels in which readers can be frustrated, as the main character, Frank Basscombe, often scurries along tangents just when the narration appears to be going somewhere relevant.  Poe does a good job of narrating this character.  He’s a divorced man who lives alone in his former wife’s house in Haddam, N.J., and he’s entered the real-estate game.  He barely sees his children, still wants to hang onto his newly married ex-wife, but also says that he loves his girlfriend.

Basscombe tells the truth as he sees it in that moment, but from moment-to-moment that truth can change.  He’s not steady in his beliefs, and much of that is because he’s clearly in the midst of a crisis.  He’s unsure of his own direction and his own place in life and in his family.  On a trip with his son to the Basketball and Baseball Halls of Fame, Basscombe makes a concerted effort to be someone to at least one somebody — his son.  However, like him, his son is going through a period of unease, as he’s unsure how to be and act, and he’s trying on different hats — some of which raise concern with his mother about his mental stability.

In many ways, Basscombe and his son’s inability to stand firm and find their own peace in the world mirror the wishy-washy perception of New Jersey — which ET calls a suburb.  The view of New Jersey can be its industrial gas and oil farms or the fact that it is the neighbor of New York, a place where those who work in the city come to escape the fast-paced life and find some green.

It’s hard to believe that there are four books about this character, given his disinterest and disdain for everything.  Independence Day by Richard Ford, narrated by Richard Poe, is one man’s search for a final independence — he’s looking to free himself from the ties that bind him to his ex-wife, trying to carve out a new career, and to find some direction for his own life without being hampered by the past.

RATING: Tercet

About the Author:

Richard Ford is a Pulitzer Prize-winning American novelist and short story writer. His best-known works are the novel The Sportswriter and its sequels, Independence Day and The Lay of the Land, and the short story collection Rock Springs, which contains several widely anthologized stories.

 

 

 

 

USbooks New Jersey

Filed Under: audiobooks, borrowed copy, challenges, fiction, New Authors Challenge, Read in 2016, reviews Tagged With: , , ,

Prince Noah and the School Pirates by Silke Schnee, illustrated by Heike Sistig

August 12, 2016 by

Source: Plough Publishing House
Hardcover, 32 pgs.
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Prince Noah and the School Pirates by Silke Schnee, illustrated by Heike Sistig, is a fun adventure about inclusion, working together, and having fun. In Prince Noah’s kingdom, the kids are sent off in separate ships to learn skills, such as girls learning to weave and boys learning to fence. Kids with disabilities are sent off in their own boats as well.

While the book has a lot of text for young kids, the adventure makes it a book to read with your child right before bed. You can break up the book into segments, making it easier for kids to follow along and enjoy the ride. When the kids are at sea, pirates swoop in and capture the children. What will happen to them as they are put into the pirate tower? Who will save them?

Prince Noah and the School Pirates by Silke Schnee, illustrated by Heike Sistig, is delightfully illustrated with so many things to look at; it’s almost like a Where’s Waldo? book.  My daughter enjoyed this story and told me we should read it again, and we probably will … many times.

RATING: Quatrain

About the Author:

Silke snow is a journalist and works as a TV program maker at a public broadcaster in Cologne . She is married and has three sons . Her youngest son Noah was born in July 2008 with Trisomy 21 ( Down syndrome ) .

“At first, when Noah was born, we were shocked and sad. And it wasn’t easy to see how some people look at children with special needs as strange or different. But the catalyst for this book was witnessing the effect he had on many people, despite being categorized as disabled. In fact, our little prince brings much love, joy, and sunshine not only to us, but to all around him. Children are a wonder, and we must see them with the eyes of our heart: each child just the way he or she is.”

Filed Under: challenges, children's fiction, New Authors Challenge, Read in 2016, review copy, reviews Tagged With: , , ,

The Diary of Emily Dickinson by Jamie Fuller

August 3, 2016 by

Source: Purchased
Paperback, 224 pgs.
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The Diary of Emily Dickinson by Jamie Fuller is an ambitious project that recreates the life of Emily Dickinson, a hermetic poet from Amherst, with her poetry and from the letters that remain from her life.  Fuller has done her research, which is clear from the annotations that accompany poems and diary entries.  But what’s disappointing is that Fuller’s diary entries — while they mirror Dickinson’s style — do little to extrapolate from the letters or poems to create something new.  Readers will want a fictionalized Emily to be more revealing, not more obscure than what she left behind.

“A captured bird mutes its tune.” (pg. 95)

There are gems in some of the diary entries that allude to Emily’s views on marriage and how it would interfere with her poetic work.  She has been called to write poetry, and while she does household chores, she clearly had greater leeway with her family than she would with a husband or children of her own.  In this way, Fuller has called attention to an age-old problem many women face when they marry — how do you balance the expectations of being a wife and mother with your own dreams and desires.  This would be particularly difficult in Emily’s time.

The prologue is the most creative bit about the book in which Fuller describes the how the diary came to be saved when so many letters were burned by Emily’s sister.  After reading through the poems you remember, you wonder what do the diary entries add.  Unfortunately, they add very little and leave readers wondering if they should have spent their time reading her poems, creating their own narratives for Emily alongside what facts are available from the letters that have survived.

The Diary of Emily Dickinson by Jamie Fuller had potential, and while readers know that Emily was a hermit for much of her life and lived with her family and her poetry, Fuller has not taken the creative leap to bring us into the mind of a poet.  The novel feels flat and two-dimensional.  The saving graces here are Emily’s own poems and the annotations from letters and facts discovered in the historical record.

RATING: Couplet

 

 

 

 

 

 

Filed Under: challenges, fiction, New Authors Challenge, poetry, Poetry Reading Challenge, purchased, Read in 2016, reviews Tagged With: , ,

Make Your Own Zoo by Tracey Radford

July 29, 2016 by

Source: Cico Books
Paperback, 128 pgs.
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Make Your Own Zoo: 35 Projects for Kids Using Everyday Cardboard Packaging by Tracey Radford helps parents and kids turn recyclable materials into fun jungle animals and habitats.  My daughter had a babysitter, Anna‘s daughter, for a week, and they attempted to do more of these than the sad-looking lion that she and I did before or the unfinished animal she started with daddy.

IMG_2969

Our sad lion, who is apparently missing his tail.

When my daughter and the girl were working on their projects, we discovered that I somehow missed a step…I forgot to cut out the templates for the lion parts that are included in the back of the book. So the poor looking parts are my poor drawing skills at work. They decided not to cut out the templates either, but their stuff looks better than mine — probably because my daughter used some old stencils my parents gave her from my attic savings at their house.

IMG_2919

Hard a work on their own version of a jellyfish

Trying to make her own animal.

Trying to make her own animal.

You need the templates unless you’re more confident in your drawing skills, glue, scissors, paint, pens, cardboard tubes, egg cartons (cardboard and Styrofoam), old newspaper, and cereal boxes. Animals range from giraffes to parrots, and you can made ice floes, tree houses, and more.

Their giraffe without paint

Their giraffe without paint

The girl's jellyfish in water.

The girl’s jellyfish in water.

Make Your Own Zoo: 35 Projects for Kids Using Everyday Cardboard Packaging by Tracey Radford is an adaptable book that can be used by all ages to create animals and fun dioramas on a rainy afternoon. Some of the directions are a bit complicated for the age 5 group, but with a little help, they can have fun putting these animals together. Make it a group activity and see their creativity become unleashed.

RATING: Quatrain

Filed Under: challenges, New Authors Challenge, nonfiction, Read in 2016, Reference, review copy, reviews Tagged With: , , ,