PICTURE BOOK - The Runaway Wok by Ying Chang Compestine

Illustrated by Sebastia Serra

2011, Dutton Children's Books

32 pgs.

Goodreads rating:  3.84 - 478 ratings

My rating:  2.5

Endpapers:  Bright yellow-orange

1^st line/s:  "One Chinese New Year's Eve, a poor couple sent their son, Ming, to the market."

My comments:  What a great story, with really fun illustrations, with one not-so-tiny flaw.  Set during the Chinese New Year in Beijing, China, a wok steals from the rich and gives to the poor.  It also kidnaps the rich and gets rid of them (we know not how or where) forever.  What???  The beginning of the story seems based on Jack and the Beanstalk, the next based on Robin Hood.  But outright stealing and kidnapping instead of something more magical and legal would fit the bill for me a bit better.  I still can't rate it down too TOO much because the illustrations and the Chinese culture that shines through are wonderful.  Not to be missed:  The author's note and the "Festive Stir-Fried Rice" recipe at the end of the book.

Goodreads:  When a boy goes to the market to buy food and comes home with an old wok instead, his parents wonder what they'll eat for dinner. But then the wok rolls out of the poor family's house with a skippity-hoppity-ho! and returns from the rich man's home with a feast in tow!
          With spirited text and lively illustrations, this story reminds readers about the importance of generosity.

PICTURE BOOK - After the Fall: How Humpty Dumpty Got Back Up Again by Dan Santat

Illustrated by the author

2017, Roaring Brook Press

$17.99 HC

32 pgs.

Goodreads rating: 4.52

My rating:  4

Endpapers: Morning view/evening view from the top of the wall

1^st line/s:"My name is Humpty Dumpty.
This was my favorite spot, high up on the wall.  I know, it's an odd place for an egg to be., but I loved being close to the birds."

My comments:  Limping around after his horrific fall, Humpty Dumpty has become anxious and especially afraid of heights.  But he overcomes his fears and the climax is even better than he ever imagined.  Great illustrations, and a wonderful moral-based story.

Goodreads:  Everyone knows that when Humpty Dumpty sat on a wall, Humpty Dumpty had a great fall. But what happened after?
          Follow Humpty Dumpty, an avid bird watcher whose favorite place to be is high up on the city wall―that is, until after his famous fall. Now terrified of heights, Humpty can longer do many of the things he loves most.
          Will he summon the courage to face his fear?

PICTURE BOOK - Little Red Writing - Joan Holub

Illustrated by Melissa Sweet

2013, Chronicle Books

HC $16.99

28 very thick pages

Goodreads rating:  4.09

My rating: 4/Liked it a lot

Endpapers: All the pencils on the way to school - on a white background

Title Page:  Left:  Pencil School News (with credits

     Right:  Title on notebook paper, "Write often and carry a big notebook."

Illustrations:  All the characters are pencils.  Sweet used watercolors, pencil (17 HB pencils, to be exact!) and collage.  They're gorgeous.

1^st line/s:  "Once upon a time in Pencil school, a teacher named Ms. 2 told her class, "Today we're going to write a story."

My comments:   Now this is my kind of story!  I'm not sure how much kids will like it, but it sure is a great teacher book.  It's written sort of Ms. Frizzle-y with lots going on...meaning main storyline, thought bubbles, story within story, words sprinkled all over the page to read -- and lots and lots to think about.  It is visually gorgeous, too.

Goodreads:  Acclaimed writer Joan Holub and Caldecott Honoree Melissa Sweet team up in this hilarious and exuberant retelling of Little Red Riding Hood, in which a brave, little red pencil finds her way through the many perils of writing a story, faces a ravenous pencil sharpener (the Wolf 3000)... and saves the day.

Goldilocks and the Three Dinosaurs - Mo Willems

Illustrated by Mo Willems

Balzer & Bray/Harper Collins, 2012

HC $17.99

Ellsworth Library

32pages

Goodreads rating: 4.20

My rating: 4

Endpapers: X's through other possible titles:  Goldilocks and the Three Hippos, Goldilocks and the Three Cyclops, Goldilocks adn the Three Germans, etc. (all different and very funny)

Title Page: Big block letters, colored in  - left page has a wide-eyed Goldilocks peering around a corner

Illustrations - Simple, clean and clear, no white (color washes instead), humorous

1^st line: "Once upon a time, there were three Dinosaurs:  Papa Dinosaur, Mama Dinosaur, an some other Dinosaur who happened to be visiting from Norway."

My comments:  FUNNY!  Clever!  A great "fractured" fairy tale.  Lots of sarcasm and joking.  Ella (6 yrs old) didn't get some of it until I explained it to her, but she understood more and more after that and enjoyed the story immensely.  So did I.

From Goodreads:  One day--for no particular reason--they decided to tidy up their house, make the beds, and prepare pudding of varying temperatures. And then--for no particular reason--they decided to go...someplace else. They were definitely NOT setting a trap for some succulent, unsupervised little girl.

Definitely not! This new take on a fairy-tale classic is so funny and so original--it could only come from the brilliant mind of Mo Willems

The 3 Little Dassies - Jan Brett

G. P. Putnam's Sons, 2010
$17.99
32 pages
Rating: 4
Endpapers: woven basketweave with bugs, butterflies, moths...

Yes, it's a cute fractured fairy tale. Instead of three pigs it's three cute creatures native to the Namib Desert in southern Africa. Excellent for comparing and contrasting, retelling. But it's Jan Brett's signature illustrations that really captivate. How does she draw like this?

Incorporating native fabrics, flora, and fauna, one barely needs the words at all. The clever illustrations tell the whole story. make sure to examine them carefully!

Thea's Tree - Alison Jackson

Illustrated by Janet Pedersen
Dutton Children's Books, 2008
32 pages
Rating: 4
Endpapers: Dark blue

Thea Teawinkle, a budding scientist who lives in Topeka, Kansas, plants a purple seed as the beginning of a choose-your-own research project. But it is a very unusual plant -- making the dirt ooze and turn purple, growing excedingly rapidly and quite huge. And so begins a series of letters between Thea and various experts in their fields.

Thea's letters show the rapid growth, the strange noises she hears from above, and items (like a huge golden egg) that begin to appear beneath the giant immovable "tree." The information she receives - from all sorts of sources - doesn't help her at all...but they're such fun to read.

There's humor everywhere - in the watercolor illustrations that completely cover each green-bordered page, in the condescending answers she gets, even all the salutations cover the gambit from Enthusiastically, Carl Capshaw, Curator to Doubtfully, Ada Adler, First Bank of Kansas to Importantly, Anna Applebaum, Arboreal Acquisitions. Such fun.

Perfect for a letter-writing lesson. And how about a twisted faiy tale?

46. Beastly - Alex Flinn

HarperTeen, 2007
$8.99
300 pages
Rating: I did enjoy this story, more than I thought I would.....4/5

Alex Flinn's version of Beauty and the Beast is a page turner. I saw a trailer for the movie as a preview a few weeks ago, it looked quite good, so decided to read the book before the movie hits the big screen in July. Now, with a bit of research, I see that it has been delayed until next March. Bummer. The summer movies...at least so far....have not interested me very much.

Kyle Kingsbury is spoiled, gorgeous, self-centered, and has a wild mean streak. He gets everything handed to him by his father. Everything except his father's care, love, and attention. The dad's a well known, handsome, workaholic news anchor in NYC. So Kyle is pretty much on his own, and not a nice guy. Of course, it's his father's attention that he craves more than anything.

When he pulls a prank on a fellow high school student, asking her to the prom when he doesn't intend to follow through, he discovers that she's a witch and she turns him into a beast. An ugly, clawed and fanged, furry creature. His life suddenly takes a nose dive.

SPOILERS AHEAD: His father sets him up in his own five-story home in Brooklyn, knowing that he cannot show his face outside the realms of this house. And slowly Kyle, with the help of a caring, blind, live-in tutor and his non-judgmental housekeeper/cook, changes. He becomes a reader, and a gardener, growing lovely roses of every color and type. And then, a drug-addict thief changes everything for him....for the good, believe it or not. For he is willing to give over his daughter in exchange for freedom.

Happy ending, of course, as most of us know some version of the story. But how it all comes together is great fun. Lots of lessons here, about beauty and what is really important. Very different from the other books of Alex Flinn that I've read.

I'm really looking forward to seeing the movie, which will have Vanessa Hudgens, Neil Patrick Harris, and a creative makeup job, sans fur, for Kyle the beast, who will be played by Alex Pettyfer. But we'll have to wait until March 18th to see it. Bummer.

Bubba the Cowboy Prince - Helen Ketteman

A Fractured Texas Tale
Illustrated by James Warhola
Scholastic, 1997
Rating: 4

Bubba lives with his wicked StepDaddy and his hateful stepbrothers Dwayne and Milton. One day Miz Lurleen, who was purty and rich and owned the biggest spread around, decided to throw a ball to find herself a feller that was "cute as a cow's ear."

You know the story. This one is cute and the illustrations are really cute. And who was his "fairy godmother?" Well, let's see: "Now, Bubba figured he'd bonked the bejeebers out of his bean, 'cause the voice was coming from a cow. She chewed her cud for a moment, then said, "I'm your fairy god cow, and I can help you go to the ball."

Yee ha!

The illustrations are full page, edge-to-edge and give a whimsical old west feel.

Note: The illustrations include a lot of saguaros. I've become quite sensitive to this, living in the Sonoran Desert which is the only place in the world where saguaros grow naturally. They are NOT native to Texas, and won't be found in the wild there.....

The True Story of Little Red Riding Hood - Agnese Baruzzi & Sandro Natalini

Published 2007, in US 2009
Templar/Candlewick
Rating: 4.5
Ages 3+
$14.99

This is a prequel to the originial Red Riding Hood Story with letters to pull out of envelopes, doors to open, sheer shower curtains and gingham aprons to peek behind, pages of books to turn, tabs to pull, paper wheels to rotate , popups and popouts and glitter - altogther 16 pages, plus endpapers, of interactive entertainment with a good story to boot!

Wolf want to be good, so he asks the nicest person in the forest, Little Red Riding Hood, to teach him how. First on the list is to stop eating meat. She teaches him well, he soon becomes the nices person in the forest -- to Riding Hood's chagrin. So she decides to change him back (and we know the rest of the story to come....)

Delightful!

The Three Pigs - David Wiesner

2002 Caldecott Award
Published: 2001
Rating: 4
$16.00
Endpapers: light brown

We start out with the well-known tale of the three little piga - but as the wolf starts to blow the house of bricks, the pigs all escape from the page of the book and some of the pages fall out! Deciding to explore, they turn one of the pages into a paper airplane, climb on to it, and take off --- and crash. They run through other fairy tales, helping a dragon who's about to be slayed, escape. He joins them in their search for home until they find the pages and climb back inside. Ahh! The story is now able to end, and when the wolf tries to blow the brick house in, he encounters the dragon!

Cute pigs. Cute story.

The Wolf Who Cried Boy - Bob Hartman

Illustrated by Tim Raglin
Published: 2002
For: kids
Rating: Cute
Read: Jan, 2009 with Aesop unit/5th grade
Endpapers: Counted cross-stitch in light blue on cream

Little Wolf hated what his mother prepared for dinner each day - sloppy does, lamburgers, chocolate moose, three-pig salad. He longed for BOY chops, baked BOY-tato, BOYS-n-berry pie. So in a take on the classic Aesop's Fable, The Boy Who Cried Wolf, he pretends to see a boy and his parents hunt and hunt in the woods for him, just to please their son. Twice. But when he does see a boy - lots of boys- a whole scout troop of boys - his parents have had it and ignore him.

Okay, the story is a fractured fairy tale (well, actually it's a fractured FABLE), which is fun, but it's the illustrations here that are delightful. The expressions on the wolves' faces are super, the details are great fun. Mr. Raglin uses a needlwork motif on the cover, endpapers, and title page, and I'm not sure why, since it doesn't relate to the story in any way, but I really like it.

This is a wonderful model for kids to see how you can take a simple fable, add embellishments, details, color...and voila, you have a great story.

The Three Swingin' Pigs - Vicky Rubin

Illustrator: Rhode Montijo
For: Kids
Published: 2007
Rating: Fun
Endpapers: Dark Orange

I am always on the lookout for fractured fairy tales - someday I'm going to write a curriculum using them. I stumble on them every once in awhile, as I did a week ago at the library - this was standing up on a shelf above the picutre books. Dark reds and purples and oranges are used in fully illustrated, edge-to-edge acrylic drawings. Much of the easy-to-read font is white on the dark illustration. Its fun to look at, and it's fun to read. It's jazzy.

Yup, a jazz version of the three little pigs:

Satch played sax. Wee-wee-wee-wee!
Mo played bass. Doont-doont-dun-duhhh!
And Ella sang. Scat-scooby-dooby, scat-scooby-dooby, skit-scat-skedoodle, shoooo!

You can hear the music as your read. It reads aloud really well, and I can picture kids taking parts.

...in the Hogland Woods there lived a wolf, and he was baaaaaaaad. On a typicl wolf day, he ate up six coach mice, sate down on other people's tffets, and went around in the most unwolflike of getups. A real bad cat.

It turns out that Wolfie joins the pigs and thye begin a band: 3 Swingin' Pigs and Wolfie. Great fun. Great words. Great music. A cool choral reading (one of my favorite things).