G-Squared Tote Bag

I took this class today, Friday, Feb. 3, 2012.  It was at Quilter's Market, taught by Linda Powell.  There  were just three of us, an all-day clsss, and I finished the bag completely.  I worked for about an hour in the morning prepping the smaller blocks, and Linda taught us lots of tricks.  She created the pattern herself.  It sure feels good to finish the bag COMPLETELY in one day.  YAY!!!

Won Ton: A Cat Tale Told in Haiku - Lee Wardlaw

Illustrated by Eugene Yelchin
2011, Henry Holt & Co.
$16.99
32 pages
Rating:  4.5
Endpapers:  Navy & lt. blue/gray cat fur, close up

Very cool story, told entirely in haiku (3 lines, syllables count! 5-7-5) about a huge-eyed Siamese cat who is adopted from an animal shelter and taken home by a young boy.  Count the syllables.

Nice place they got there
Bed. Bowl. Blankie.  Just like home!
or so I've been told.

Yawn.  String-on-a-stick.
Fine.  I'll come out and chase it
to make you happy.

Help!  I've been catnapped,
dressed in frillies, forced to lap
tea with your sister.

Artwork:  fully cover page.  The at is great.  "Graphite and gouache on watercolor paper."  They're nice, very nice.

Alphabet Bird Collection - Shelli Ogilvy

Illustrated by the author
Sasquatch Books, Seattle; 2009
$16..95
ages 3 up
56 pages
Endpapers:  Dark, deep slate blue
Book design:  Beautifully laid out.  Double page spreads.  No white.  Each spread is a different background color:  mustard, burgundy, blue, black, plum, peach clay.... Square pages.  Bordered illustration on one, couplet, short explanation, and "how the bird's song sounds" on the other.  I admit, though, the song part didn't sound like bird songs to me -- my singing and pronunciation must be off.

Magpie:
Mischievous and strikingly loud,
A group of Magpies make a noisy crowd

Quetzal:
In a Guatemala forest's early morning light,
Spy a Quetzal, colorful and bright.

Extension idea:  Create pages for our study of local birds when studying Arizona

MOVIE - Ides of March

Not one single dull moment...
Wide release 10-7-11
Friday 1-27-11 after school at Kolb cheap theater
R (1:40)
RT Critics: 85% Audience 76%
I loved it, it was really good (5.5)
Director:  George Clooney! (he co-wrote the script, too)
Ryan Gossling (wow), George Clooney,

I saw the previews for this many times, and it didn't give away the details that meant the most.  I really appreciate that, usually you know every little thing that's going to happen and there are no surprises.  There were plenty of surprises here.  This was a great story, looking into the dirtiness of politics.  Dirty.  Oh yes. 

Stevie (Gossling) is one of the masterminds behind the presidential run of Clooney's character.  He begins the film as a smart young guy with a bit of a sparkle in his eye and a belief -- and liking -- of his candidate.  He doesn't end the movie like that.  Ryan Gossling is an amazing actor.  He WAS this guy.

The ides of March - the 15th of March - is the date of the Ohio primary, which will probably seal the winner for the Democratic party.  There are two forerunners, and this story is about the battle between them.  And it's about so much more.

10. Small As an Elephant - Jennifer Richard Jacobson

2011, Candlewick Press
$15.99 TPPL
278 pgs.
Rating:   It was okay

Setting:  Contemporary Mount Desert Island, Maine - Seawall, Bar Harbor, then Trenton, Lamoine, Ellsworth, Bucksport, Searsport...
OSS:  And 11-year old is abandoned in Maine by his bipolar mother and has to figure out how to find her so that the DSS doesn't find out and separate them.
1st sentence/s:  "Elephants can sense danger.  They're able to detect an approaching tsunami or earthquake befofre it hits.  Unfortuantely, Jack did not have this talent.  The day his life was turned completely upside down, he was caught unaware."

What a delightful treat to know every single place that Jack visited - whether it was Ben & Bill's on Main Street in Bar Harbor, or the sight of Fort Knox in the distance, or even the long expanse of road between Ellsworth and Bucksport, the author gets every detail down perfectly. That's my home, my tromping ground for 30 years, and it was pretty cool to relive it all in a book that I know children will read and enjoy.

Jack has to figure out what to do.  He has to find his mother, he has to make sure she's okay.  In between the delightful experiences he's had with her throughout his life, he's also had to deal with her "spinning times," when she would spiral out of control and sometimes disappear.  But she has never disappeared like this before, he has always had his home in Jamaica Plain to wait for her.  And he knows that if he goes to the police, the DSS will become involved and he will be separated from her...and this time, she might even have to go to jail!

The entire book is paralleled with his intense interest in all things elephant.  He loves elephants, studies elephants, knows the differences between them and all sorts of stories, facts, fictions related to them.  All this is liberally shared in the book.  Each short chapter begins with a new and interesting fact or story about them.  A small elephant in his pocket helps calm him, and the thought of seeing a live one down the road keeps him going.  My problem....I could care less about elephants.  I didn't like all the extra elephant information.  I'm betting it added great interest for most kids, but.....I'll admit it....I either didn't read or skimmed these parts.

So all in all what did I think?  An 11-year old on the road all by himself for over a week?  As a kid I think I would have loved this premise.  What a great plotline.  Of course, a great setting.  But somehow, I couldn't wait for the book to be over.  I'm thinking it was the elephants.....

Compost Stew - Mary McKenna Siddals

an A to Z Recipe for the Earth
Illustrated by Ashley Wolff
Triangle Press, Berkeley, 2010
32 pgs
$15.99
Rating:  4
Endpapers:  Collaged, dark brown earth, other brown pieces, hand cut worms
Illustrations are cut paper with drawing added (the faces - all kids - are really nice. A + !!
http://www.ashleywolff.com/

A "rhyming recipe" on what to add into a stew of goodies to make rich compost

"Environmental chefs,
here's a recipe for you
to fix from scratch
to mix a batch
of Compost Stew."

From A (apple cores) to Z (zinnia heads) it's an unforced alphabet of all sorts of things you can put into compost.

AUTHOR'S NOTE at the beginning and CHEF'S NOTE at the end are full of info - and some is very cleverly funny.

MOVIE - The Artist

Surprisingly delightful!
Limited Released 11-25-11
1-26-11 at ElCon with Sheila, Kate, Linda
PG-13 (1:40)
RT Critics: 97%   Audience: 91%
Rating:  4/Loved it
Director:  Michel Hazanavicius
The Weinstein Company
Jean Dujardin, Berenice Bejo

The whole film is about sound/s.  A silent film superstar is ruined when "talkies" and the stock market crash happen simultaneously.  Ah, but it was about so much more, too.  It was about how the handsome star met a beautiful young ingenue as she was about to begin her career, how she revered him,love him,  rocketed to stardom, stayed sane and grounded, and ultimately saved the handsome star.  George Valentin and Peppy Miller.

Dujardin has a very ordinary face, but when he smiles, his whole face radiates happiness.  It's gorgeous. 
And Bejo, with her hip 20's haircut is a combination of ultra-cute and quite beautiful.  What a great pairing!

The sounds of the movie were amazingly done throughout.  Background silence...or no sound but the clink of a cup on a table surface...or the rise and fall of a great score...sometimes exactly like the old silent movies, sometimes very different.  Fascinating.

This movie was a real delight.

9. The White Mary - Kira Salak

audio read by Joyce Bean
2008, Brilliance Audio
10 cds, 12 hours
$36.95
368 pgs.
Written for adults
Rating:  4/Liked it a lot

Setting:  Contemporary Boston and Papua New Guinea
OSS:  A young, female journalist risks her life tramping through the tropical rainforest of Papua New Guinea following a tenuous clue about her dead hero.
1st Sentence:  "The black waters of Elobi Creek show no sign of a current  It is another dead waterway, Marika tells herself, one that will breed only mosquitoes and crocodiles.  Another waterway that somehow reflects -- in the darkness of the water, in its stillness -- all of her failings."

I certainly had no idea the direction of the plot when I began this book. Marika Vecera, a talented 33-year old journalist who has seen horrible things - genocide, torture, rape, unbelievable despair -  in all sorts of countries around the world, lives, herself, in despair, never allowing herself any happiness.  When she becomes involved in writing a biography of journalist Robert Lewis, whom she has idolized her whole adult life,  she begins a journey through the incredible, dense jungles of Papua New Guinea....a journey that helps her emerge from her despair to begin to understand and appreciate her own life.

8. I Am J - Cris Beam

2011, Little Brown &  Co.
340 pgs.
Written for YA
Excellent/4

Setting:  Contemporary NYC
OSS:  Being born male in a female body and dealing with that, silently, for your whole life....that's where we meet J at the beginning of his senior year. 
1st sentence/s:  "I could smell the hostility, the pretense, the utter fakeness of it all before they even climbed the last set of stairs."

What an intriguing, informative read!  J, born Jenifer to a Puerto Rican mom and a Jewish dad, has always known that he was a boy, born with the wrong body.  Now in his senior year, and never having discussed this with anyone, he is ready to become the person he feels he has always been.  Dressing in layers of clothing to hide body parts that he feels shouldn't be there, speaking very little, so that his soft voice is not detected, have to be changed.  But he has to figure out a way to tell his parents, and he's afraid of their reaction.  Even though they've always seen the boy, they still consider him their daughter.  He loves them.  He so badly wants and needs their understanding. 

His only friend is Melissa, who seems to understand him, but who he's never discussed his predicament with.  Other than that he has no friends, and no one to talk to. Until now.  He's studied up.  He's learned about testosterone injections. And then he discovers a school that is FOR kids like him.  He makes a friend, reluctantly talks to a counselor, joins a support group.....and finally makes friends.  Friends that understand him, friends that he can talk. 

This was an intriguing, thoughtful read.  Cris Beam adds a wonderful afterward and a list of sites and books and information that would be helpful to any transgender teen.  She's volunteered at a school similar to J's, she is foster mom to a transgender teen.  She knows what she's talking about, which makes this even better.

7. Jellicoe Road - Melina Marchetta

2006 Australia, 2008 USA, HarperTeen
419 pages
YA
Rating:  Awesome/5
Michael L. Printz Award

Setting:  Australia, somewhere in the Sydney vicinity.
OSS:  A 17-year-old orphan, still yearning for the mother who abandoned her, traces all sorts of secrets that ultimately lead to her own future.
1st sentence/s:  "My father took 132 minutes to die."

There are reviews of this book all over the web, mine would never do it justice. It was everything I look for in a perfect novel.  A seamless, well-plotted storyline; lovely writing; characters that become real, they're so well written, and a mystery.

Taylor Markham has little memory of her growing-up years with her drug-addicted mother, she only knows that she was abandoned at 11 and sent to a boarding school on the Jellicoe Road.  The only adult in her life since that time has been a woman named  Hannah, who works at the school but lives in a house on the riverside, quite close by.  And now it is Taylor's last year, and for six weeks a school ritual is about to begin - "wars" between the townies, the school, and the Cadets who come each year to camp and live in the wild.  From the lives and memories of five close friends 18 years previously, to the lives of five who will end up being close friends in the future, I am left to ponder love and family, grief and forgiveness, secrets and honesty.  Wow.  what a book.

The last line of the blurb on the jacket is what made me begin this book (finally): " If Taylor can put together the pieces of her past, she might just be able to change her future."

Oh, how many times I've taken this out of the library and returned it without beginning.  And to think I almost didn't read it this time, either.  What a shame.  This book is bound to be a favorite.  Incredible story-weaving, and gorgeous word-weaving.

6. No Ordinary Day - Deborah Ellis

2011, Groundwork Books, House of Anansi Press
160 pages
Written for middle grades (however a small caution:  although nothing is ever said outright, at one point Valli is almost sold to a house of prostitution, and she also sees boys disappearing with older men, never to return.  It is subtle, but present.  However, it must be a huge part of life on the streets in a city in India...or anywhere in the world.  But would I share it with my fourth graders?  Hmmmm.)
Rating:  Liked it a lot/4

Setting:  Contemporary Kolkata (Calcutta), India
OSS:  A homeless, orphan Indian girl adapts to life in the streets until she meets...and ultimately trusts....a female doctor.
1st sentence:  The best day in my life was the day I found out I was alone in the world.

Deborah Ellis is amazing.  Valli is homeless and all alone in the world.  She lives on the streets of Kolkata (Calcutta) begging, stealing (she calls it borrowing), practical joking, and finding safe places to sleep.  She is afraid of "the monsters" that she occasionally sees, people who have leprosy, little knowing that she has it, too.  Granted, it's in the beginning stages, but.....  She meets a doctor, a female doctor, in a very believable way, a doctor who recognizes this kid as the smart young lady that she is, and teaches her to trust in a way that she's never understood before.  Short, powerful book.  Valli is so believable...smart and funny and full of amazing questions about everything.

Oh....every bit of royalty from this book goes to a leprosy foundation in Canada (Ellis is a Canadian writer).

5. May B. a Novel - Caroline Starr Rose

a novel told in verse
2012, Schwartz & Wade Books, Random House
233 pgs.
Written for middle grades
Liked it
Historical Fiction
Lots of starred reviews **


Setting:  Late 19th century Kansas prairie.
OSS:  May B. is "lent" by her family to help out a new farmer and his young wife in their sod house...an unhappy proposition made even worse when she is abandoned with no way to leave the homestead.
1st sentence/s: 

I won't go.

"It's for the best," Ma says,
yanking to braid my hair,
trying to make something of what's left.

Ma and Pa want me to leave
and live with strangers.

I won't go.

Loneliness, blizzards, wolves and dyslexia make this a looooong 6 months for May B.

Movie - Joyful Noise

Lots of laughs, with every subplot having a happy ending
Released 1-13-12
1-14-12 at ElCon with Dede
PG-13 (1:57)
RT Critic: 38% RT Audience: 76%
Liked it
Directed by Todd Graff
Warner Brothers Pictures
Queen Latifah, Dolly Parton

The young, male lead, Jeremy Jordan, just stole the show.  He was adorable, comfortable, and a wonderful singer.  Great music.  lots of fun.  Hairstyles galore...they must have had a huge budget for hairstylistss alone.  Every subplot had a happy ending, the entire movie ended with a "one year later" big bang.  A poignant scene (one of my favorite) with a minor tear shed, and lots of great musical entertainment.

Dolly Parton and Queen Latifah live in a tiny town in Alabama, and have always sung in the church choir together.  The choir competes in an area competition, but there's a choir from Detroit that always beats them.  Once again they are on their way to compete against them, when their director dies and Queen Latifah is named as the new choir director.  She and Parton have always been at odds, and since Parton had been married to the previous director, they are even more at odds now.

Parton's grandson, Randy, arrives and shakes things up...not only with Queen Latifah's 16-year old daughter, but with the choir.  He relates really well to Queen Latifah's autistic son, too.  Ups an downs (have to have conflict in a flic, right?) mixed in with some really nice music and you have two hours of excellent entertainment.

Substitute Creature - Chris Gall

illustrated by the author
Little Brown & Co., 2011
HC $16.99
32 pages
Endpapers:  Full double page illustrations of a street on Halloween - before and after the story. (Look for the changes!)
Title Page:  The doors of the school with monster shadow - full page illustration
Illustrations:  all encased with a border
1st sentence/s:

"On a windswept day in late October, the students of Ms. Jenkin's class arrived to a surprise at school.

"Substitute teacher today! announced Peyton.

Amanda giggled and scribbled on the chalkboard.  Luke performed a circus act.  Gavin laughed like a mad scientist.

Then, at precisely eight o'clock, the door to the classroom creaked open.  The substitute teacher entered the room."

Mr. Creacher (a 5-eyed green monster with tentacles) tells his unruly class the tales of six different students who got into trouble in school and the unhappy results - with a twist at the end!

This has a Halloween aspect, but I wouldn't consider it a Halloween book at all.

Rock 'N' Roll Mole - Carolyn Crimi

Illustrated by Lynn Munsinger
Dial Books for Young Readers (Penguin) 2011
HC $16.99
32 pages
Rating:  4
Endpapers:  Violet-blue
Title Page:  Mole being followed by the three chicks that adore him"
Illustrations:  Big, bold, colorful, fun

1st sentence/s:

Mole had a rock-and-roll soul,
He woke up each morning yelling,
"Let's rock the house!"

Mole is ultra-cool -- his strut, his leather jacket, and his shades all prove it.  And hi music is great.  But...he can't perform in front of an audience.  He gets stage fright. 

Then his best friend, Raccoon, puts on a talent show and Mole has to come to his aid....