Love: The Dinosaur—Book Review by Caleb (age 14)

Do you have a personal dinosaur expert in your life?

I do. If there is anyone I would call in a dinosaur-fact emergency, it's Caleb.

When I got the latest book in the award-winning Love series by Frederic Brremaud and‎ Federico Bertolucci, I knew I had to pass it to him and get his thoughts. This series focuses on animals in the wild and each one takes the reader on a wordless journey through that animal's eyes. Kind of like a nature documentary, without the cheesy voice-over. Kind of like "a day in the life" but not necessarily just one day. The series so far has four volumes: Tiger, Fox, Lion and now Dinosaur.

Each book starts with a quote, I'll share part of it here. "In the animal kingdom, animals neither love nor hate each other."

Here's what Caleb had to say about Love Volume 4: The Dinosaur

So I’m going to just go through what I think the book did right, and the things that I think the book did wrong, followed just by my personal opinion. It was a great read, and I love graphic novels, so it was awesome, thanks for loaning it to me!

Pros:

The art style works great for what the book wants to be. From my understanding the book follows the viewpoints of three characters, a Bambiraptor, A Tyrannosaurus Rex, and an Isisaurus. Only one of these, the T-Rex is a very common dinosaur, which is really cool. The art style is very vibrant, and makes the change when the first shards of meteors and debris start falling even more drastic. The story told is also amazing. The dinosaurs in the beginning which seem to bully the Bambiraptor, seem to me to actually just be other members of it’s species. They just seem to be more mature, exemplified by the colors. This is why the Bambiraptor follows around the other two dinosaurs. Because he doesn’t have the protection of a packs, so he finds protection in other ways. Many of the other dinosaurs, flying reptiles, and marine reptiles are also realistic. I also love the fight scenes. The classic T-Rex versus Triceratops, and Rex versus sauropod. It also easily captures the dog-eat-dog and "strongest survive" atmosphere normally used when talking about nature and apex predators.

Cons:

While the dinosaurs and marine reptiles are almost entirely perfect based on modern reconstructions, some of them are not. The plesiosaurs (long necked underwater reptiles with long flippers and compact bodies), are portrayed in an evil and scary light. However the fish they are chasing (Xiphactinus, 15 feet) would most likely hunt THEM. But they do only show up in one panel, so this Is not a huge deal. A bigger deal is a part which is designed to show the arrogance of the T-Rex right before the huge show of power as meteors begin to crash into the earth, A dinosaur which looks like a bird with teeth, a long neck, and bat wings is struck by lightning. To my understanding this is an Archaeopteryx, an early bird once believed to be the missing link between between birds and dinosaurs. Just the fact that it has bat wings makes It COMPLETELY unrealistic. However this is also for a short part, and isn’t too important.

Overall, I really like this story! It seems to get it’s point across pretty well. The pictures at the back are really cool, it’s an awesome idea. This seems really cool, and I love the realism of the world that Frederic and Federico painted.

Thanks, Caleb! I'm glad to hear the book meets with your approval.

GIVEAWAY!

I have a copy of Love Volume 4: The Dinosaur to send to a lucky dinosaur lover. Enter to win before Feb 26, 2018.

CLICK HERE TO ENTER

Do you know of any other great dinosaur books for the older reader? I'd love to hear about them! Please comment, below or on the entry form. My personal favorite is Scaly Spotted Feathered Frilled: How do we know what dinosaurs really looked like?

Little Iffy: Giveaway and Review

Hello!

Today I have something special for you. It's not my typical review. This review is a tribute—an homage to one of my all-time favorite book review blogs: Bookie Woogie. Like many tributes, it only holds a candle to the original.

Aaron Zenz and his kids created Bookie Woogie, and now Aaron has come out with a new book himself, and Everead is stop #4 on the blog tour. More about that later.

Mom: Ok, so today we are reading and talking about Little Iffy Learns To Fly by Aaron Zenz. Do you know who Aaron Zenz is?
Benjamin (age 9): . . .The author of Little Iffy.
Mom: Ha. Yes. What else has he done that we know about?
Jubilee (age 4): Make books!
Mom: Haha! Yes! He did Nugget on the Flight Deck, and The Spaghetti Slurping Sewer Serpent. He illustrated those, but he has written and illustrated other books, too.
[reading of Little Iffy Learns to Fly begins]
Benjamin: Backup backup backup plan!
Jubilee: (lots of giggling)
Benjamin: That's why they call her Eggs. Because she's always hatching a plan.
[reading ends]
Mom: Ok so what do you think?
Jubilee: Good.
Mom: What do you think of the story?
Jubilee: Good.
Mom: Tell me what happens.
Jubilee: They make Iffy fly.
Levi (age 7): No, they don't they don't make him.
Mom: What happens?
Jubilee: Somebody sprangs him up!
Mom: But it's by accident, right?

Jubilee: Yeah.
Mom: What do you think of the pictures?
Jubilee: Cool.
Mom: Now, the people who will be reading this won't be able to see the pictures. So, tell us about the pictures. (This is me, fishing for the sort of interesting illustration analysis that comes from the children of Bookie Woogie ...and...not getting it. Jubilee begins to describe each picture one by one.)
Jubilee: Um. Well. Little Iffy, in this picture you see his mom and him and his balloon. In this picture, his friends are near and he is happy.
Mom: Ok. Well, don't tell me about all the pictures. Just talk to me a little bit more about—What if you were Little Iffy?
Jubilee: I would say "Don't worry, I'm going to learn it sometime. I'm going to do it, when I'm like, as big as you guys."
Mom: Is there anything you are scared to do? That people want you to try but you've never tried it and it's too scary?
Jubilee: Umm, sometimes at movies.
Mom: So if this book was written about you it would be called Jubilee Learns to Watch Movies?
Jubilee: YEAH!
Mom: Or Jubilee Learns to what?
Jubilee: Crochet.
Mom: Jubilee Learns to Crochet. You're scared of crocheting?
Jubilee: No.
Mom: That's just something you want to learn, huh.
Mom: What if this book was written about you, Levi?
Levi: I don't know!
Mom:Well what's something you want to learn? Little Levi Learns to . . . Leap.
Levi: Go down the fire pole.
Mom: Little Levi learns to Go Down the Fire Pole. Nice.
Mom: Hey Benjamin, if this book was written about you, what would the title be?
Jubilee: Little Benjamin Learns to...
Levi: BIG Benjamin Learns to.
Mom: Big Benjamin Learns to ...what. Learns to skate.
Levi: yeah
Mom: How about Big Benjamin Learns to Skate?
Benjamin: Maybe.
Mom: Ok what's one thing you would say to somebody who's a little scared? Like Little Iffy is?

Jubilee: I would say...
Benjamin: Climb on a seesaw then have an elephant jump on it!
Jubilee: I would say "Don't be worried, you can do it anytime. I have some plans to help you learn it. 
Mom: Haha! Nice!
Benjamin: What if it's about crocheting?!
Jubilee: Oooh.
Mom: hahaha!
Mom: What would you say to someone who is scared?
Benjamin: Jump off a cliff.

And, last but not least, here is some tribute art that Jubilee made of Little Iffy and his red balloon.

Well, that was fun!

If you would like to win a signed copy of Little Iffy Learns to Fly, you're in luck! I have one to give away.

THIS GIVEAWAY IS NOW CLOSED

If you would like to shop for a copy of the book, you can click the cover, below.



If you would like to read more about the book (and maybe even find some more giveaways to enter) check out the other stops on the book tour:

Mon Dec 4  :  An interview with Aaron Zenz at Mile High Reading  
Tue Dec 5  :  Nitty Gritty Details on Illustration at Seven Impossible Things 
Wed Dec 6  :  A Flash Giveaway at 100 Scope Notes  
Thu Dec 7  :  A Tribute to Bookie Woogie at Everead 
Fri Dec 8  :  Librarian’s Quest  :  http://librariansquest.blogspot.com
Sat Dec 9  :  Amanda’s Pile of Books  :  http://amandaspileofbooks.blogspot.com
Sun Dec 10 :  Kids Talk Kid Lit  :  https://strohreads.blogspot.com
Tue Dec 19  :  Nerdy Book Club  :  https://nerdybookclub.wordpress.com
Mon Jan 1  :  Picturebooking Podcast  :  http://www.allthewonders.com/podcasts/picturebooking

Picture Book Giveaway!

Hurrah! Today I have a great picture book giveaway for you!

This giveaway comes to you from Candlewick Press.

If you sign up for my email list, you will be entered to win a prize pack that includes 1 hardcover copy of Journey by Aaron Becker and 1 hardcover copy of Quest by Aaron Becker.

The third and final book in the series, Return, just came out on August 2, and the publishers want to get you all excited, if you weren't slavering already. I mean, the illustrations are practically mouthwatering. Especially if watercolors make you drool.


All three of the books are wordless, no text at all, and they follow a girl with a magic drawing implement who enters another realm. Journey is a Caldecott Honor book. My kids love these, especially my boys, who are 8 and 5 years old.  Really I recommend them for any library, and think they'd be great coffee-table books anywhere.

On the back of the book Kirkus Reviews is quoted as saying "Picture books rarely feel this epic." I have to agree. Each page is beautiful, and together they tell adventure stories that just get better with re-reading.

If you want to win, put your email in the box in my sidebar over there that says "Get the Everead Newsletter." If you want to know more about the newsletter before you sign up, that's here. If you try to give me your email but it doesn't work, leave me a comment here or email me at everead@gmail.com and I'll get things fixed up for you.

Contest closes Aug 23, 2016 and the winner will be contacted via email.

Also, the images above are links to the books on Amazon, in case you want to read reviews, look inside, etc. (You do want to look inside. Just sayin.' But you can't look inside Return yet. Don't ask me why.) If you shop through these links, I earn a small commission.

A Modern Boy's Reading of The Babysitters Club

Benjamin has torn through the Babysitters Club books this past summer, and has continued to reread some of them this school year. When I tell people he's reading them, they're kind of incredulous. He is a seven-year-old boy, after all. Not the target audience. :) But they're good books and my mom brought me my whole collection when she came to help us move.  I thought my collection had been donated them to the library! So it was a pleasant surprise to see the books again.

I knew I had to keep them in easy reach for Benjamin for a couple of reasons:  Because I loved them at his age, and because if I suggested that he read them I knew he never would. The only way to get him to read them would be to have them in easy reach. They're so colorful and appealing, how could anyone resist? And I think they're books worth reading! I learned a lot about babysitting and childcare from reading them. And Ann M. Martin won the Newbery Honor you know, for her book A Corner of the Universe. She's a good writer. Sidenote: I got to see her speak once. I wrote a little about it here.

My point here is that I have had such a great time watching Benjamin read the books.The things he has said have made me laugh and really taken me back to my babysitters club days. Whether we were learning about the pop culture of the past or discussing the real-life issues the series talks about, we've had a great time.



1. "Stacy has diabeets." Hey, if I had never heard anyone pronounce the word diabetes, I might think that's how you said it.

2. "Logan is an associate member of the Babysitters Club. He doesn't have to go to meetings." Ah, I had forgotten that Logan was an associate member! Haha. Of course I had not forgotten about Logan. No, indeed. One of my first literary crushes.

3. "Dawn is a health food nut." Hahaha. And you are a Pokemon nut, son. I haven't heard anyone use the word nut like that in quite a while. :-D

4. "I want a peanut butter sandwich. Kristy and Mary Ann had peanut butter sandwiches at lunch and Dawn said, 'That's so Connecticut'." Order up! I would be happy to assist you in solidifying your identity as a resident of Connecticut by making  you a PB&J.

5. "What does it mean 'tie up your parents' line?" We had a great little dinner table conversation about how telephones used to work. You could see the light bulb come on over his head. "Oh! So that's why Claudia has a private line!"

6. One day I was doing my makeup in the bathroom. In pops Benjamin. "Bart wants to go steady with Kristy." "Does she want to go steady with him?" I ask, not wanting to give anything away. "We don't know!" he says. "She didn't answer him and then next book is not a Kristy book. So we probably won't know until the next Kristy book! Unless someone mentions it out loud..." Oh, the suspense.

7. "Dawn has two holes in each ear, but Claudia has one in one ear and two in the other..." Oh man. Now I know why I was so obsessed with ear piercings when I was in elementary school! I remember that I couldn't wait to get my ears pierced (my parents made me wait until I was eight) and that pretty soon I was dying for a second piercing (never happened). I had not realized the ear piercing discussions in The Babysitters Club were influencing me all along. If you can get a 7-year-old boy excited about how many holes 12-year-old girls have in their ears, you know that's persuasive writing.

8. "Claudia reads Nancy Drew mysteries but she hides them because her parents don't approve..." Ha! I had forgotten that. Nobody could forget that the Kishi's are a model of disapproving parents, but putting the kibosh on Nancy Drew? That's when you know they're supposed to be ridiculously disapproving.

9. "That's what Claire Pike calls everybody. She's the baby of the Pike family. She's 5 years old and she's in a silly stage." Oh kid. you're in a silly stage, too. :-D

10. "Who are the three stooges?" This of course led to some YouTube education.

11. "What if Watson Brewer came to our lemonade stand . . ." We were having a lemonade stand one Saturday, and received a generous donation. This let us to speculate about what Kristy's rich stepfather would do if he stopped by.

12. "I should have known!!!" This random exclamation near the end of one of the books caught me off guard. Benjamin went on to explain that now that he knew the twist, he could easily see the book's foreshadowing.

13. "It takes me about 7 minutes to read a chapter; and there are about 15 chapters in each book, so it takes me about two hours to read a Babysitters Club Book." Not only does Benjamin love reading, he loves math.

14. "What's The Monster Mash?" This one comes up in Kristy and the Secret of Susan, when autistic-savant Susan plays it on the piano. This led to a discussion about autism, and a monster mash dance party.



Which one of these made you smile? And what book or book series do you remember fondly from childhood? One person who comments will win a BSC postcard from me and Benjamin. Contest ends 3/31/16. Congratulations to commenter Cami! You have won!

Christmas Book Giveaway!

Hey everybody! How's it going? The 2015 Holiday Recommendations post is still going strong, so feel free to request more recommendations, if you need them. I'm having a lot of fun with these. We have ages 3, 4, 5, 6, 8, 9, 10, 13, 15, and adult covered! Anybody have a 7, 12, or 14 year old in their life?!? Haha. You can totally repeat ages by the way, I'm just going for a straight, or a royal flush or something.

As for today, I have a Christmas book giveaway!

 

This book looks like a great one to put under the tree. Here's the trailer for it:



What do you think? It looks like something I could use to discuss not only Christmas, but also forgiving others, asking for forgiveness, and creativity. I wouldn't be surprised if the book inspired my boys (ages 5 and 7) to make their own unusual nativities.

If you want to win this book, sign up for my newsletter! I'll be honest and say that at this point I pretty much only use the newsletter to let subscribers know about giveaways, and to then be able to get in touch with them easily to give out the prizes. I do reserve the right, however, to send awesome emails that don't have giveaways in them . . . just in case. And of course you're welcome to unsubscribe anytime being on my email list is no longer useful to you.

If you're already signed up, just reply to the email, and I'll put your name in the hat. ;)

Put your email here for a chance to win A Rare Nativity:

You should get a  confirmation email from me via MailChimp. Confirm your subscription and you know you are entered.


This giveaway will end on Sunday, December 13, 2015. Click here to read the Everead Giveaway Policy.

Merry Christmas!