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Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer Pop-Up Book by Lisa Ann Marsoli and Keith Andrew Finch

November 28, 2014 by

Source: Silver Dolphin Books
Paperback, 12 pgs
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Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer Pop-Up Book by Lisa Ann Marsoli and Keith Andrew Finch is a classic story for the holidays, and many of us who have grown up since the classic television show was first aired remember this heart-warming story.  In many ways, it is an anti-bullying story, but more than anything its about spreading kindness and giving to others.  Rudolph is a reindeer who doesn’t quite fit in, but through his journey and with the help of Santa Claus, who realizes the error of his earlier judgments, he finds that he has more to give than he first thought.

The pop-up book, which is out in time for the Christmas special’s 50th anniversary, gives these classic characters new life for kids of all ages, and for collectors and adults too.  The images are those of the television classic and the story is truncated, but through the simple 3-D images, young readers will be awed by the flying reindeer and the gang.  This is sure to become part of every family’s holiday tradition.  Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer Pop-Up Book by Lisa Ann Marsoli and Keith Andrew Finch allows parents to share one of their time-honored classics with their children in a new and engaging way.

83rd book for 2014 New Author Reading Challenge.

Filed Under: challenges, children's fiction, New Authors Challenge, Read in 2014, review copy, reviews Tagged With: , , ,

Mice Mischief: Math Facts in Action by Caroline Stills

November 26, 2014 by

Source: Holiday House
Hardcover, 24 pgs
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Mice Mischief: Math Facts in Action by Caroline Stills, illustrated by Judith Rossell, has adorable illustrations of 10 mice, and these mice perform circus-like feats.  While one mouse is somersaulting, the other nine are making their beds tidy.  In a round about way, the book starts young readers off thinking about how many mice there are and what they are doing.  The equations also are on the pages, allowing younger kids to see what those formulas look like.

These mice are dividing their time between work and play, and parents can have young kids count each mouse performing each page’s tasks and then add them together to see how many total mice there are.  At the conclusion of the book, all of the mice are rewarded.  Mice Mischief: Math Facts in Action by Caroline Stills, illustrated by Judith Rossell, is one way to introduce young children to math problem solving while providing fun illustrations and new vocabulary words.

82nd book for 2014 New Author Reading Challenge.

Filed Under: challenges, children's fiction, New Authors Challenge, Read in 2014, review copy, reviews Tagged With: , , ,

The Wing Wing Brothers Geometry Palooza! by Ethan Long

November 25, 2014 by

Source: Holiday House
Hardcover, 32 pgs
I am an Amazon Affiliate

The Wing Wing Brothers Geometry Palooza! by Ethan Long is in a comic-book style with the wing wing brothers up to insane antics.  Using the whammer the brothers demonstrate the relative position of objects by shooting each brother out of a cannon hoping to go through a ring of fire.  Kids will learn the difference between in front, behind, below, and above as the birds are flung through the air at alarming rates.  Each illustration is vivid in color, and kids will love these daredevil birds and their death-defying attempts at teaching geometry.  Long has created captivating characters that kids will gravitate to easily.

My daughter loves that part of the book where the birds are creating shapes from smaller and more simple shapes, including a parallelogram.  My daughter may not know these bigger shapes yet, but she’s learning to see how they can be created using the shapes that she does know, including triangles and squares.  By the same token, kids will learn about equal parts and fractions of larger parts.  The Wing Wing Brothers Geometry Palooza! by Ethan Long is a fun way to introduce math to younger readers, and this book meets the Common Core State Standards for math.

About the Author (from Amazon):

I love writing books. I love creating characters, crafting plot, and working with great editors and art directors. I love visiting schools and meeting students and teachers. I love when you read and enjoy my books. And of course, I love when you buy them. I hate garlic ice cream, but I love pizza and sushi. I live in Orlando, Florida, USA with my family, and I love them, too.

81st book for 2014 New Author Reading Challenge.

Filed Under: challenges, children's fiction, New Authors Challenge, Read in 2014, review copy, reviews Tagged With: , ,

Plants Feed Me by Lizzy Rockwell

November 20, 2014 by

Source: Holiday House
Hardcover, 29 pgs
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Plants Feed Me by Lizzy Rockwell includes adorable illustrations of vegetables, fruits, plants, and children to demonstrate the importance of plants in feeding humans.  The book provides the basics of plants and their growth cycle for young children to easily understand, including the need for sunlight and nutrients in the earth.  Children are smiling as they dig holes, plant seeds, water plants, and begin harvesting food.  My daughter and I have read this book several times and each time she tells me something new.  She’ll point to something we’ve talked about in previous readings even before I read it to her.  She is recognizing carrots, lettuce, beets, potatoes, and more.

The author talks about the different parts of edible plants and she labels each vegetable and fruit depicted.  Fruits grow on trees and in bushes, vegetables can grow in the ground and above the ground, and some plants that many think are vegetables are actually fruits.  The pictures are well drawn and easy to understand.  Plants Feed Me by Lizzy Rockwell is a great story for young readers to share with their parents, helping them understand the natural wonders and where food comes from.

About the Author:

Lizzy Rockwell is an illustrator whose artwork can be seen in picture books, magazines, games and on walls. She studied art and art history at Connecticut College, and drawing and illustration at the School of Visual Arts in New York City.

Lizzy is the illustrator of over 25 children’s books by a variety of authors including her mother, Anne Rockwell. She is the author/illustrator of Plants Feed Me, Good Enough to Eat: A Kid’s Guide to Food and Nutrition, Hello Baby! and The Busy Body Book: A Kid’s Guide to Fitness.

Lizzy has two grown sons, and lives and works in Bridgeport, CT with her husband, Ken Alcorn, a high school social studies teacher, and their dog Reggie.

79th book for 2014 New Author Reading Challenge.

Filed Under: challenges, children's fiction, New Authors Challenge, Read in 2014, review copy, reviews Tagged With: , ,

Women of Valor: Polish Resisters to the Third Reich by Joanne D. Gilbert

November 12, 2014 by

Source: Gihon River Press
Paperback, 204 pgs
On Amazon and on Kobo

Women of Valor: Polish Resisters to the Third Reich by Joanne D. Gilbert is a collection of heart-warming, terrifying, and inspiring stories of Polish resisters against the Nazi Third Reich during WWII.  These four women have tension filled tales to tell, and they are full of bravery, luck, and serendipity.  As stated in the introductory pages and the brief history on Poland and its Jewish people, Poland was often conquered and victimized and in some areas of the nation, there was rampant antisemitism.  In fact, the country was often treated like a spoil of war, and that did not change when the Nazis began expanding their reach across Europe.  Several of these resisters mention in their stories how Jews are often considered weak and meek, but their stories clearly illustrate that these women engaged in all kinds of resistance against the Nazis and that they were not alone in their fight.

“Before the 1939 German invasion, Poland’s population of approximately 35 million included almost 3.5 million Jews, more than any other European country.  In fact, for many centuries in Poland had been considered the heart and center of Europe’s Jewish population.  When German occupation of Poland ended in 1945, over 6 million Poles–approximately half of which were Jews–had been annihilated.”  (page 17)

Manya Feldman, a nurse and fighter during the war, was considered the “crazy Jewess” when she was infected during the war and unable to walk and move.  She was forced at an early age to decide to flee the ghetto into the forest or stay with her mother and young sisters, but her decision left her haunted forever.  After joining the Kovpak partisans in the forest, she was again separated from her brother and father, but she had little time to wallow as she was expected to not only engage in village raids for supplies, but also nurse the wounded and sick.  Faye Schulman was a nurse, fighter, and photographer, and her skills as a photographer saved her from Nazi punishment more than once.  She even noted, “We all had to be off the streets at dark, which was difficult in winter when darkness came so early.  It was especially challenging for teenagers who wanted to socialize or carry on romances at night.  … I had no idea that this sneaking around would soon become a skill that would keep me alive.”  And at one point, she even found herself near the camp of the Bielski partisans, who were depicted in the movie Defiance.

“When we arrived, we were astounded to see that my possessions had been neatly packed in several boxes, and placed out on the sidewalk.  Everything was just sitting there. Apparently someone in the house had figured out that I’d be in on this partisan raid, and in the chaos of a war zone, took a chance on helping me.”  (page 81)

Lola Lieber was a young woman between childhood and womanhood who was forced to grow up quickly when the Nazis came to Poland.  Her birth outside Poland in Czechoslovakia even became an asset, not only because she knew different cultures and languages, but because the Nazis spared her and the family for a time.  As they put their artistry to the test in forging documents, Lola’s life and that of her family was constantly hanging in the balance.  Miriam Brysk was a little girl who dressed as a boy, and she took to heart the discipline she had been taught as a young girl: to always listen and follow orders.

Women of Valor: Polish Resisters to the Third Reich by Joanne D. Gilbert is a fantastic look at how these women used their intelligence and the skills they had since childhood to resist the Germans, to fight them through guerrilla tactics, and evade capture and death.  Gilbert does a great job of setting up each story so that the reader knows how these women fared after the war and where they live now.  And as many of these women, men, and soldiers are passing on, these stories from WWII grow ever more important to collect because they remind us that people’s courage should never be under-estimated.

About the Author:

Influenced as a little girl by her Grandmother’s vivid and poignant stories of the beloved family and friends who were so brutally murdered when the Nazis destroyed the Jewish People of Vilna, Lithuania, Joanne has always understood the importance of preserving Jewish History – one family story at a time. With this mission in mind, she became a professional Personal Historian in 2007, creating her own business, “Your Write Time!”

A popular Adjunct English professor at the College of Southern Nevada, Joanne is also a sought-after-public-speaker, whose presentations on both Jewish Genealogy and Jewish and Gentile WOMEN OF VALOR: Polish Resisters to the Third Reich consistently receive glowing reviews.

Joanne’s extensive travels to meet with Female Resisters and Partisans have taken her to Toronto, Detroit, Grand Rapids, Palo Alto, Brooklyn, Los Angeles, San Francisco, and Paris, where she was honored to meet with a group of women who had been in the French Resistance.

77th book for 2014 New Author Reading Challenge.

 

 

 

 

 

31st book (WWII) for the 2014 War Challenge With a Twist.

 

 

 

 

 

27th book for 2014 European Reading Challenge; (Set in Poland/Czechoslovakia)

Filed Under: 2014 European Reading Challenge, 2014 War Challenge With a Twist, challenges, New Authors Challenge, nonfiction, Read in 2014, review copy, reviews Tagged With: , ,

The Last Mile by Blair Richmond

November 7, 2014 by

Source: Ashland Creek Press
Paperback, 244 pgs
I am an Amazon Affiliate

The Last Mile by Blair Richmond is the third book in the Lithia trilogy — see my reviews of Out of Breath and The Ghost Runner and be aware that this review could contain spoilers for the previous two books — that combines environmentalism and supernatural elements.  Kat’s world has been upended once again, but she now is more determined than ever to get her life back on track, even if that means revisiting some previous relationships and exploring some untapped feelings.  If there’s one drawback, there is a little too much back story included here and some of it is repeated later in the short novel.  But other than that, Kat has come into her own and gained the strength that she needs to fight Lithia’s demons and ensure that the town has a future.

“He shakes his head.  ‘You know, it was strange back then.  I had moments when I looked up at these trees, these monuments to time, and I felt so guilty.  So cruel.  I knew even then that what I was doing was wrong.  The trees couldn’t fight back.  They were just standing there, like they had for centuries, living their lives, not bothering a soul, cleaning our air, giving nests to birds, making the world a better place just by being alive.  And then we arrived with out axes and saws and train cars, and we left behind miles and miles of stumps.”  (page 43)

Richmond has created a lasting environmental and supernatural hybrid that opens readers eyes to the wonders of nature and the ease with which we can live symbiotically with it, rather than cut it down in the name of progress.  Alex, the vegan vampire, is still at Kat’s side in friendship, though he wants more, but she’s made her choice and she’s moving forward as best she can as the death and destruction of Victor continues to hover in the shadows.  She’s a 20 year old young woman with great responsibility to the land she inherited and to the town where she’s found herself more at home than ever before, but she’s also aware that a delicate balance must be kept between panic and protection.

The marathon race into the Lithia Mountains, Cloudline, is approaching, and despite the anxiety she has regarding Victor’s intentions, Kat continues to train and strategize.  The Last Mile by Blair Richmond is about the push runners must consciously decide to take to make it to the finish line no matter the cost to them physically and emotionally.  Kat faces this last mile as a runner, on her own, and while she perseveres, she’s aware that her finish line may not only save Lithia, but also those she loves.

About the Author:

Blair Richmond is the pen name of a writer from the Pacific Northwest. Out of Breath and The Ghost Runner are books one and two of the Lithia Trilogy. Visit Blair’s blog for the latest on The Lithia Trilogy.

Other Reviews:

Filed Under: fiction, Read in 2014, review copy, reviews Tagged With: , ,

The Monuments Men by Robert M. Edsel, Bret Witter

November 4, 2014 by

Source: Hachette Books
Hardcover, 473 pgs
On Amazon and on Kobo

The Monuments Men by Robert M. Edsel and Bret Witter expertly combines the search for art with the internal mechanics of military operations.  These Monuments Men are struggling to justify their mission to their compatriots and superiors, even though they are given a mandate from the U.S. government, and they are forced to get creative as they are continually denied the resources they need to locate, transport, and protect the art they are searching for.  Stout at one point decides to place signs on monuments that will ensure they are not disturbed: “Danger — Mines!”  Through a series of chapters that not only delve into the fall of the Third Reich but also the confusion of orders from Adolf Hitler with regard to the Nero Decree, Edsel and Witter personalize the stories of these unassuming and dedicated men.

“But with that, the portrait was complete.  Balfour the British scholar.  Hancock the good-natured artist.  Rorimer the bulldog curator.  Posey the Alabama farmboy.  And, lurking somewhere in the back, dapper, pencil-mustached George Leslie Stout.” (page 58)

“This was not to say the job was easy: far from it.  The men had all realized that they really were on their own in the field.  There were no set procedures to follow; no proper chain of command; no right way of dealing with combat officers.  They had to feel each situation out; to improvise on an hourly basis; to find a way to finish a job that seemed more daunting every day.  They had no real authority, but served merely as advisors.”  (page 86)

These men are not only dedicated to their mission, but some are longing for home and the future they have dreamed about.  Like other soldiers in the war, their lives are at risk as the military meets sustained combat and pockets of resistance even as the Nazis retreat into the Alps.  Even after the art has been found and collected, it takes more than six years after the end of WWII before the art would be returned to the museums, owners, and countries from which they were taken.  In many cases, the success of the mission was aided by luck, infiltration of key French personnel, and the meticulous record-keeping skills of the Germans themselves.

“‘A number of our officers went up to see the camp,’ he wrote.  ‘I did not go, because much of my work depended on friendly relations with German civilians, and I feared that after seeing the horrors of the camp my own feelings toward even these innocent people would be affected. …'” (page 310)

The Monuments Men by Robert M. Edsel and Bret Witter brings to life a part of WWII history that had been buried and forgotten for far too many years, and it pays tribute to the modest and dedicated men who fought to preserve not only works of art but entire cultures in the face of great evil and destruction.  These men were hardly alone in their fight to save the art, but they continued to have the courage to push onward and achieve their goals in spite of the obstacles they faced.  As Jacques Jaujard, one of the integral players in France, said, “It matters little that you are afraid if you manage to hide it.  You are then at the edge of courage.”  Moreover, he said, “There are fights that you may lose without losing your honor; what makes you lose your honor is not to fight them.”

About the Authors:

Robert M. Edsel is the best-selling author of Saving Italy, The Monuments Men and Rescuing da Vinci and co-producer of the award-winning documentary film The Rape of Europa. Edsel is also the founder and president of the Monuments Men Foundation, a recipient of the National Humanities Medal, and a trustee at the National WWII Museum. After living in Florence for five years, he now resides in Dallas, Texas.

Bret Witter has co-authored eight New York Times bestsellers. His books have been translated into over thirty languages and sold over two million copies worldwide.
26th book for 2014 European Reading Challenge; (Set in Austria/Germany)
30th book (WWII) for the 2014 War Challenge With a Twist.
Filed Under: 2014 European Reading Challenge, 2014 War Challenge With a Twist, challenges, Hachette Books, New Authors Challenge, nonfiction, Publishers/Publicists, Read in 2014, review copy, reviews Tagged With: , ,

Land of Dreams by Kate Kerrigan

October 20, 2014 by

tlc tour host

Source: William Morrow and TLC Book Tours
Paperback, 336 pages
On Amazon and on Kobo

Land of Dreams by Kate Kerrigan, the third book in the Ellis Island trilogy (Ellis Island and City of Hope), could be read alone as Kerrigan provides enough background on Ellie Hogan that new readers could pick this one up without a problem, but readers may find a richer reading experience when they read all three.

(If you haven’t read the other 2 books, this review could contain spoilers for those books)

Ellie Hogan has come into her own as a wife, mother, and artist, only to have her life disrupted when her oldest adopted son Leo runs away from his upstate New York boarding school.  Ellie is a first generation Irish immigrant who has lost a lot to the Irish war against the English, but she’s also gained a sense of purpose in America, learning to make her own way.  Her artist’s life is very isolated on Fire Island, and with her son, Tom, she has a quiet existence among the people who have become like family.  But when her son, Leo, runs away to Hollywood, she has to make a choice — send the police or go after him herself.  Making her away across the United States, Ellie tries to keep her fears at bay while being thankful that her youngest son is in the care of good friends while she makes the journey.  Along the way, she meets Stan, a composer who escaped from Poland before the Nazis took over.

“Yet surely the desire for fame was not so different from the desire to be loved, and everyone in the world wants to be loved.  The desire for fame and love is born from a deep human need to be seen, and I felt as if I could really see this young woman now, beyond the mules and the dye and her ridiculous ideas and affectations.  So I started to draw her.”  (pg. 122)

Ellie may have been a quintessential landscape painter with her own signature for delivering paintings to her clients, but in Los Angeles, she’s a mother in search of a star-struck son.  She must decide whether at 16 he should pursue his dream or return to New York and school, and it is a tough decision for any mother with a son who has finally found something to be passionate about.  Ellie’s experiences in a restrictive Catholic home in Ireland inform her ultimate decisions, as she decides that she would rather be more open-minded than her parents had been with her.  Kerrigan easily tackles the ideas of nature versus nurture in Ellie’s parenting, touches upon the seedier side of Hollywood — though not as much as some readers would expect — and incorporates significant details about World War II and the internment of Japanese-Americans.

Land of Dreams by Kate Kerrigan is a satisfying conclusion to this trilogy about seeking out a home and family, but also stability.  But it is also about the realization of dreams across generations and having the gumption to take the leap.  While everything is not as it appears in Hollywood, the facades of the city also mirror those of Ellie’s own adopted country — a land of freedom and opportunity that still oppresses certain minorities and immigrants seeking a better life.

About the Author:

Kate Kerrigan is the author of three previous novels. She lives in Ireland with her husband and their two sons.  Visit Kate’s website at www.katekerrigan.ie and follow her on Twitter: @katekerrigan.

 

 

35th book for 2014 Historical Fiction Reading Challenge.

 

 

 

 

29th book (WWII) for the 2014 War Challenge With a Twist.

 

 

 

4th Book for the Ireland Reading Challenge 2014.

Filed Under: 2014 Historical Fiction Reading Challenge, 2014 War Challenge With a Twist, challenges, Harper Collins, historical fiction, Ireland Challenge, Publishers/Publicists, Read in 2014, review copy, reviews, tlc book tours Tagged With: , ,

War in the Balkans: The Battle for Greece and Crete 1940-1941 by Jeffrey Plowman

October 15, 2014 by

Source: Pen & Sword Books
Paperback, 160 pgs
I am an Amazon Affiliate

War in the Balkans: The Battle for Greece and Crete 1940-1941 by Jeffrey Plowman is a photographic history of the year in which the Balkans became the battleground for the Nazi’s in World War II as it worked with Italy and sought to advance on Russia.  Plowman is very detailed in troop movements and the artillery used, but the pictures were more helpful in ascertaining what tanks, bombers, etc., he was talking about.  Most of the book is photographs that were not been used previously or published before, and the text is a backdrop to these photos.  Plowman clearly has done his research as he follows the accumulation of weapons as they prepare for war, and the unexpected strength of the forces the Nazi’s encountered, even when they were outnumbered.

“This led Britain to discuss the possibility of a coordinated defense of Crete but the Greeks would not allow any landings on their soil without a declaration of war.  Nor did the Italians have much luck either in their discussions with Germany.  When they sought German support for an attack on Jugoslavia, Adolf Hitler was adamant that he did not want to see the war spread to the Balkans.”  (page 11)

There were a high number of casualties in this battle for Greece and Crete, and those were accounted for by nationality — British, Australian, etc. — in the epilogue.  The stance of the major leaders of these governments shifted over time as it looked like the British would enter the war and the Nazis could face harsher opposition than from those of smaller nations’ armies.  This is a book that would be best read over a longer period, with readers taking in small amounts each time.  War in the Balkans: The Battle for Greece and Crete 1940-1941 by Jeffrey Plowman is a fascinating look at one series of battles in WWII, and the pictures flesh out his text well.

24th book for 2014 European Reading Challenge; (Set in Greece and Crete)

 

 

 

 

28th book (WWII) for the 2014 War Challenge With a Twist.

 

 

 

 

70th book for 2014 New Author Reading Challenge.

Filed Under: 2014 European Reading Challenge, 2014 War Challenge With a Twist, challenges, New Authors Challenge, nonfiction, Read in 2014, review copy, reviews Tagged With: , ,

The Lollipop Monster’s Christmas by Eric T. Krackow, illustrated by Heather Krackow

October 14, 2014 by

Source: Schiffer Publishing
Hardcover, 64 pgs
I am an Amazon Affiliate

The Lollipop Monster’s Christmas by Eric T. Krackow, illustrated by Heather Krackow, is a children’s story about the meaning of Christmas through engaging colored pencil drawings.  Reading this together, my daughter and I talked about the presents the monsters receive from one another, the cocoa they drank, and how they opened their hearts and home to a monster who was spending the holiday alone in the woods.  Larry’s favorite holiday is Christmas, not because of the gifts, but because he can spend quality and fun time with his friends.

At 64 pages, this was a little long for a young toddler, but she did take to heart what we discussed as Larry made the monster at home in his house and among his other friends.  She learned that holidays — and generally, most ever day — should be about spending time with friends and family and enjoying one another.  The text was not too much for her per page, which was nice, and the illustrations were colorful, but not overly vivid.

The Lollipop Monster’s Christmas by Eric T. Krackow, illustrated by Heather Krackow, is an engaging story, though we would have liked it a little bit shorter.  Otherwise, the story has a good message for young kids learning about the holidays and what is truly meaningful about spending time with family and friends.

69th book for 2014 New Author Reading Challenge.

Filed Under: challenges, children's fiction, New Authors Challenge, Read in 2014, review copy, reviews Tagged With: , , ,

Children’s Activity Atlas by Jenny Slater, illustrated by Katrin Wiehle and Martin Sanders

October 9, 2014 by

Source: Sterling’s Children’s Books
Hardcover, 31 pgs
I am an Amazon Affiliate

Children’s Activity Atlas by Jenny Slater, illustrated by Katrin Wiehle and Martin Sanders from Sterling Children’s Books, is chock full of information about landscapes, national flags, and industry.  This volume focuses mainly on the large continents, and each region is depicted over a two-page spread, complete with mountains, lakes, rivers, and topography like desert and grasslands, etc.  The book comes with a passport that kids can use to answer questions about specific items on the regional maps using the map key and once those questions are completed, the kids can place their seal on the passport page.

Each page is colorfully illustrated, includes local industry and culture on each nation, as well as a key to the land and other facts about those nations.  The back pages have stickers for the individual flags of each nation, which kids can add to each map and stickers for a variety of industries, animals, and local sites.  My daughter and I have started doing a region every few days and placing the stickers and answering the questions, but we’re also talking about what I learned about those nations and where I’d like to visit someday.  She points to things that interest her on the map and we make sure that we fill out the passport together where the questions are and affix her seal when she’s done.  Rather than be a one-time use atlas, this book contains information that can be referred to again and again, and there are postcards included for kids to share with family and friends.

Children’s Activity Atlas by Jenny Slater, illustrated by Katrin Wiehle and Martin Sanders from Sterling Children’s Books, is an interactive look at other countries and regions that kids and parents can use together to discuss different cultures, topography, and industries, etc.  My daughter gets excited when I ask if she wants to bring out the atlas and check out some other countries and regions.  I would recommend this for parents with toddlers eager to learn and interact, as well as older kids who are in school.

68th book for 2014 New Author Reading Challenge.

 

Filed Under: challenges, children's fiction, New Authors Challenge, Read in 2014, review copy, reviews Tagged With: , , , ,

There’s a Pig in My Class by Johanna Thydell, illustrated by Charlotte Ramel

October 7, 2014 by

Source: Holiday House
Hardcover, 26 pgs
I’m an Amazon Affiliate

There’s a Pig in my Class! by Johanna Thydell, illustrated by Charlotte Ramel and translated from Swedish by Helle Martens, is a cute book for kids in kindergarten and for parents to read to kids.  A lonely pig dreams of fun at the local school and one day gets his wish.  He is sneaked into the school and dressed up like a kid, so he can fit in.  While the students distract the teachers from the pig and his funny clothes, the other students make sure the pig can play the games and eat lunch with them.  He even gets to take a nap.  But eventually, the teacher becomes aware that this kid is a little bit different from the rest.

Nice pencil and ink drawings make these characters come alive from the honey-haired girl to the lively pig in human clothes.   My daughter adores books with animals and this one is no different, though the text is a bit too much for her, she did look at the pictures as I read it to her.  There’s a Pig in my Class! by Johanna Thydell, illustrated by Charlotte Ramel and translated from Swedish by Helle Martens, is a fun book about nature and how children can be brought out into the world and learn from it, and that nature can be fun.

About the Authors:

Johanna Thydell is a popular YA novelist in Europe, where her books have been published in thirteen different languages.  Her first novel won the prestigious August Award and was made into an award-winning film.  This is her first picture book and was inspired by her young son.  She lives in Stockholm, Sweden.

Charlotte Ramel grew up in Sweden with an American mother and a Swedish father.  Before becoming an illustrator she art directed food magazines.  The first children’s book she illustrated, The Cake Book by Marie Meijier, was an international hit.  She has since worked with Sweden’s most eminent children’s authors and now lives in Stockholm, Sweden.

66th book for 2014 New Author Reading Challenge.

Filed Under: challenges, children's fiction, New Authors Challenge, Read in 2014, review copy, reviews Tagged With: , , , ,