warning - there be cursin' ahoy

This piece isn't really specific to children's books and I'm not even sure I entirely agree with it, but how could I not quote this?

"WRITE YOUR OWN FUCKING BOOKS.

Yes, I'm serious. FUCK you, Anne of Green Gables Fights Poseidon by Lucy Maud Montgomery's Straw Boater and Fred LazyAss. FUCK you, The Long Winter - with the Abominable Snowman by Laura Ingalls Wilder's exploited corpse and Penny CantWriteWorthaShit. FUCK you, A Little Princess - Of MARS! by Frances Hodgeson Burnett's debt-ridden great-great-grandniece and Suzanne ArtisticHack."

This is what the internet does best

An amazing learning tool: The scale of the universe.

It's not just about conjunctions anymore...

Schoolhouse Rock for a more complex age.

(No, not really. But it will make you nostalgic.)

Where the Sidewalk Never Ends

Children's books we might see today. (Some are kind of annoying, but most are pretty funny.)

the future is now

Children's books, always the best resource on how we should be living.

a short quiz on classic children's books

We've been having a school-at-home day. Evan asked our son to read a chapter of a children's book and then draw a picture about it. Son hates this assignment because he is very self-conscious about his drawing skills. Evan told him that since he's very comfortable drawing pac-man characters, he should just draw all the characters as pac-men.

Can you name these characters?

~\o is this the little boy, etc. etc. ~\o

My rapidly growing little boy despises picture books these days. I brought home Where is Christmas, Jesse Bear? from the library, because it has been a perennial favorite, and he gave it the most WTF?! look I've ever seen. As if I'd handed him a baby bottle and told him it was dinner.

Now he's off reading The Hobbit. Isn't there any middle ground? Is he going to just completely skip the Melendys and the Moffats and Chester and Tucker, or even the more modern equivalents thereof? I suppose it's in his genes to love high fantasy, he was born to be a geek, but gosh, he is missing out on a lot.

Now back to the Herculean task of cleaning out his picture books. Which takes forever, because of all the awwing and sighing. On my part, that is.

Review: When Mindy Saved Hanukkah

For more Hanukkah book recommendations (or not, as the case may be) see our bibliography.)




When Mindy Saved Hanukkah by Eric A. Kimmel. Illustrated by Barbara McClintock. Scholastic, 1998 (0-439-7690-6) $5.99 pb

Tired of Hanukkah stories featuring old-fashioned Jewish families? For once, I wasn't. This particular family lives behind the walls of the Eldridge Street Synagogue, where they use thimbles as vases and play with dreidels half their size. But they have a problem: they need a Hanukkah candle (to melt into lots of tiny candles) and the synagogue has acquired "a fierce Antiochus of a cat!" who almost ate Papa! So brave little Mindy, who can "climb better and run faster than anyone!" sets out to make sure the family has candles for Hanukkah.

Using a paper clip as a grappling hook and a leftover palm branch from Sukkot, Mindy climbs to the shelf where her father had seen a lost candle. Then suddenly the cat appears! Thankfully, Zayde has followed, dressed like a Macabee of old, and he "drives" this new Antiochus from the temple with some pickled herring, while Mindy quickly rolls the candle home. Just in time.

Hanukkah themes and bits of Jewish culture are mixed seamlessly into this entertaining story. (There are a few jokes too: the Kleins share Hanukkah with several other families, including the Littles, the Katans and the Pequenos.) The ink and watercolor illustrations range from majestic scenes of the temple to cozy domesticity behind the walls; the kid in me most loved the postage stamp artwork, bottle cap serving dishes, and pocket watch kitchen clock, though some of it is more decorative than logical. (I read a claim online that McClintock's illustrations were actually used as models to restore the historic Eldridge Street Synagogue but unfortunately can't find any verification. It's one of those stories that you wish were true, though.)

Overall, this one of the best Hanukkah books for kids I've seen, especially for those who love tiny worlds. * (5-10)

© 2009 Wendy E. Betts

FTC disclaimer: Reviewed from a copy that was given to my son. This blog is completely independent, but I receive a small percentage if you order books from Powell's via this site.

Other blog reviews: Becca Reads