PICTURE BOOK - Secret Tree Fort by Brianne Farley

Illustrated by the author

2016, Candlewick

HC $16.99

32 pgs.

Goodreads rating: 3.73

My rating:  4

Endpapers:  Simple.  Pale green with individual leaves flicked in.  A great outdoors-in-the-yard kind of feel

Title Page:  Older sister curled up in comfy chair reading.  Younger sister creating a block masterpiece on the floor.

Illustrations:  charcoal, pencil, and ink.  Colored digitally.

1^st line/s:  "It's a beautiful day!  Go play outside!"

My comments:  Ha!  The first pages definitely remind me of me and my own sister.....  And, it's dedicated to "my favorite sister." This book is cute, clever, and imaginative - a little Where the Wild Things Are meets Bink and Mollie.  And, unlike what really happened with my own sister, it has a wonderful, perfect ending.  Great picture book.

Goodreads:  Even a bookish big sister is drawn in by the promise of her imaginative sibling’s spectacular hideaway.
          I have a secret tree fort, and YOU’RE NOT INVITED!
          When two sisters are ushered outside to play, one sits under a tree with a book while the other regales her with descriptions of a cool fort in a tree that grows ever more fantastical in the telling. What will it take to get the older sister to look up? The promise of a water-balloon launcher in case of attack? A trapdoor to stargaze through? A crow’s nest from which to see how many whales pass by or to watch for pirates? Or the best part of all, which can’t be revealed, because it’s a secret?

Mattoo, Let's Play - Irene Luxbacher

Kids Can Press, 2010
$16.95
32 pages
Rating: 4.5
Endpapers: Dark rusty clay

Illustrations: Black and white with added colors of dark red, olive green, mustard, dark blue. Collaged a bit - mainly the fabrics, I think. It's different and very cool. All the way to the edge of the page.

Story: Simple, but boy does it bring back memories. A boisterous little girl keeps trying to get her cat, Mattoo, to play with her. She's imaginative and her ideas are clever and loud and wild. Poor Mattoo just isn't up for any of it. In each of the illustrations you can see his fluffed-up tail peeking out from wherever he's trying to hide. It isn't until the girl decides to go on a safari, where you have to be really quiet to see animals, that Mattoo comes around.

There aren't a whole lot of words in this book, there don't need to be. it's a great story, imaginative and creative.

Irene Luxbacher's website.

PLAY - The Kite Runner

Wow. Three thumbs up.
Arizona Theatre Company
Temple of Music and Art
Sept. 23, 2009 with Sheila
My rating: R
Directed by David Ira Goldstein

I've read the book, written by Khaled Hosseini. Loved it. I've seen the movie. Wonderful. And now I've seen the play, screenwritten by Matthew Spangler. Powerful. Leaving the air snapping with electricity, this stage production was wonderfully crafted, gut-wrenching, and quite unforgettable. I felt sorry for the people who had no clue about the story and were unprepared for the enormity of what they were about to see. The two young men who portrayed the two boys, Amir and Hassan, were wonderful. Believable. And always present, narrating the entire play, was the grown-up Amir. I cannot imagine givening this performance each and every day. I was exhausted and wrung out just watching it!

I have a zillion positive things to say, and only two slightly negative. (1 - The two young men playing the leads should have had a curtain call just prior to the lead Amir, not so close to the beginning of the curtain calls. 2 - The scene with Amir praying for the first time in two decades was loud and jarring and too overdone for me. It seemed out of place somehow.)

Cowardice. Guilt. Redemption. Growing into yourself. Growing up. Thanks, Sheila, for a wonderful seat smack dab in the middle of the orchestra section, and a wonderful (if very late)evening.