Exciting New Installment in The Dragonwatch Series!

Alysa here, and I've got a special guest review for you today. My sixth-grade son Benjamin and his best friend Zaya have both read and reviewed the latest Brandon Mull book. Enjoy!

Dragonwatch: Master of the Phantom Isle—Book 3 in Brandon Mull's Dragonwatch series.

This thrilling sequel to Dragonwatch: Wrath of the Dragon King, is packed with action. Seth is desperate to figure out where he fits in in the magical world. Kendra is equally desperate to find her brother, Seth. Kendra's quest to find Seth brings her to a fallen dragon sanctuary. Can Kendra find her brother? Can she and her allies win the perilous war with the dragons? Can Seth resist the darkness that surrounds him? Find out in Dragonwatch: Master of the Phantom Isle.

Zaya: I was excited to read Master of the Phantom Isle. because the book before is a real cliffhanger. I actually think it’s probably one of the best cliffhangers because it really involves the main characters and its resolution could completely affect the plot line. I had to find out what would happen! It was fun to read and It really pulled me in.

Benjamin: Yep! Ditto.

Zaya: When I only had 20 pages left, my older brother stole it from me at school and I was devastated. And super mad. I yelled at him.

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?

Favorite Gardening Picture Books?

Hello, friends! Well, I guess it's safe to say that it's tough for me to blog when I'm expecting a baby. More of a personal update coming from me, Alysa, soon. For now, I wanted to share with you this post that Bethany kindly wrote for us, when she heard I was pregnant and noticed that the posts here on Everead had slowed down a bit. Thanks Bethany! I'll chime in, too, on a few of these.

Favorite Gardening Picture Books

Bethany's son enjoying harvest time in their first family vegetable garden. 

This Spring my family is taking on the project of planting a vegetable garden. We had a successful garden out west, but living in New England brings different challenges to gardening. It’s worth the effort.

I’ve been gardening since I was little. I remember walking along the tidy rows of mounded dirt and using a ruler to measure an equal distance to drop in the seeds. In the summer, our days began at 6:00 am weeding the garden while the dirt was damp with dew and the sun was mild. Harvest time was my favorite. I liked pulling carrots straight from the ground, brushing off the soil and biting right in. I liked sitting on the shady porch with my Mom and snapping the beans to prepare for canning. Food from the garden tastes the best and I think some of that is because of my own effort put in.

“To plant a garden is to believe in tomorrow,” is a quote by Audrey Hepburn. I like to think this applies to raising children, too. Gardens are a great project to involve the kids and help more than just plants grow.

Here are some of my favorite gardening picture books to get you in the Spring of things:

Sophie's Squash by Pat Zietlow Miller

This book quickly became my daughter’s favorite picture book. Sophie is a fun character and kids can relate to her way of thinking. It is a sweet story to help kids really love their vegetables.

Alysa: I really love this book too. It's very sweet, and so is its sequel!

Tops & Bottoms by Janet Stevens

Such a great story about using your smarts. It also introduces the concept of the different parts of plants. The book is read top to bottom, which is amusing because of the title, but kind of cumbersome for the reader.

If You Plant a Seed by Kadir Nelson

A beautiful book! The illustrations are captivating and the message meaningful. My little girls love animals and every page resulted in “ahh, so cute”.

Eating the Alphabet by Lois Ehlert

I love the vivid colors of this book. Everything looks delicious and inspires variety for the taste buds.

Alysa: We used to have this book! We let it go when we were paring down for a move, if I remember right. And yeah, I love Lois Ehlert's illustrations. There were some unexpected choices in food, too. Very fun.


Thanks again Bethany! We haven't done a full-blown garden here in Connecticut yet, but we did plant some peas. Tell me, fellow book lovers, what books would you add to this list?

Fractured Fairy Tales: 8 Great Titles that Mix Things Up

Hello! Today I have another helpful booklist for you, from Bethany Jensen. You can see previous posts by Bethany here. Thanks for these great suggestions, Bethany. 

In my last post I shared the funny way my dad read our bedtime stories. My favorite jumbled stories were fairy tales, the stories I know by heart. I grew up with classic characters like Rindercella, her Gary Fodmother, and the never-waking princess Aurora Borealis.

Speaking of lights in the heavens, here are two fairy tale twists that take place in a land far, far and even farther away than the Brothers Grimm ever imagined.

The Three Little Aliens and the Big Bad Robot by Margaret McNamara and Mark Fearing

In this story aliens travel the galaxy in search of homes of their own, but they have to watch out for the big bad robot. There is lots of fun language, although I'm still not sure how to pronounce Nklxwcyz (I wish that was a scrabble word). Also, Mark Fearing studied Nasa photographs for the illustrations. Very cosmicly cool.

Interstellar Cinderella by Deborah Underwood and Meg Hunt

Cinderella is a intergalactic fix-it gal. Instead of a shoe that fits, the prince is looking for that special girl that can repair a spaceship. His only clue is a lost socket wrench. I love this concept and the sparkling word choice. The illustrations are saturated in color and in a style reminiscent of 1960's space. I half-expected to see the Jetsons zoom by across the page.


Now back to Earth. My all-time favorite fractured fairy tale is:

Sleeping Ugly by Jane Yolen and Diane Stanley

No, this book is not the awful truth about bedhead and morning breath. It is almost twenty years since its publication, but I still love this retelling of Sleeping Beauty. I remember reading this in my younger years and liking the illustrations of the prince in a jogging suit; so relatable. This story is about being beautiful on the inside and how that can shine through to the outside, even if you don't have the perfect hair, nose or teeth. And if you do have all the perfect features, you can still be nice. I don't want to leave out pretty people. Don't be fooled by the title. This book is for you, too.

And something with a little mix of everything:

Little Red Gliding Hood by Tara Lazar and Troy Cummings

I think this is a darling story of Little Red finding a partner to skate with. I love all the cameos of other fairy tale and nursery rhyme characters. The opening pages have Little Red gliding across the ice through whimsical painted fairy tale land and you can pick out some of the familiar stories.


Finally (because this list could go on forever, so I really must stop somewhere) I want to mention a series of stories that share fairy tale versions from all around the world. These aren’t funny twists, instead each book contains three to four of the same fairy tale told by a different culture. The illustrations are beautiful and unique for each story. The stories are shortened and simplified which is good for a young audience. Sometimes the shortness of the text seems jarring as so many original fairy tales are actually very dark. I think it’s fascinating to learn the tales from countries around the world and the origins of our favorite fairy tale gems.

Snow White Stories Around the World by Jessica Gunderson.

Little Red Riding Hood Stories Around the World by Jessica Gunderson.

Rapunzel Stories Around the World by Cari Meister.

Cinderella Stories Around the World by Cari Meister.

That was fun! Thanks again, Bethany. Now I have a bunch of books to put on my library list. Do any of you readers have other favorite

Read It Wrong: One Tip to Make Reading Aloud Even More Fun

Hello friends! And Happy Father's Day weekend to you. Today I have another post for you from Bethany. You'll remember that she recommended some picture books about cleaning close to Mother's Day. Today, Bethany shares a story about her dad, (which translates into a great tip for us) and some good book recommendations.

When I was a little girl, whenever my Dad read stories to me and my siblings he always did it wrong. He would mix up the words, use a funny voice or just change the story completely. We loved it!

Now that my Dad is Grandpa, he reads to my kids the same way. One of their favorites is, The Pigeon Wants a Puppy by Mo Willems. Now this is a very funny book all by itself, but when my dad read it with a German accent it sounded like, the pigeon wants a "poopy." Oh, did my children roar with laughter.

Here are more picture books that are all about charismatic reading:

The Book With No Pictures by B.J. Novak  

I was not sure about a picture book without pictures. Illustrations are usually my favorite part.

"Well, at least it has words," said my five-year old. That is pretty lucky and it's lucky that the words are entertaining, but you have to read all of them (also, this book is a little bit bossy). Sometimes the print is small, straight and black, other times it's large, colorful and bubbly. Even though there are no pictures, this book communicates graphically..

My kids love this book. I first read it to my daughter who was four at the time. This is my interpretation of her reaction to it:

That was a good try Mommy. You did a great job with the voices and the little song in there, but I think this book is broken. All the drawings are missing. Now here's a book with a pink princess on it. Put that pile of printed words down and read me something I can look at.

When my older kids came home from school (ages ten and seven) they read it together. They giggled and whooped. My youngest was intrigued. The next time we read stories, this was the book she picked and she knew all the right places to laugh. So unless you have someone to help out the younger kids, this book is probably for ages six and up.

I Stink! by Kate McMullan and Jim McMullan

My boys loved this book so much they had it memorized. Take a big breath before reading. This book needs gusto. The words are big because this monster garbage truck has a lot to do. It is also a great alphabet book.

The Sword in the Stove by Frank W. Dormer

This book was just released, but I got to read it before it hit the shelves. The author brought an early copy to share at my writer’s group. It is not a retelling of the classic tale of King Arthur, but instead a mystery of who would put a sword in a stove...and a helmet and a shield. The art enhances the silliness of this story and I especially like his exclamations...Holy Haddock! Add to the fun and read it Britishly.

Parents, I know your tale of woe. A child latches on to a favorite story, which must be read over and over and over again lest ye be punished with no sleep for a hundred years. It's exhausting!

So, if you can't stand to read Pinkalicious one more time, try reading Stinkalicous (all in good fun) and see if it's just a little more enjoyable.

Bethany lives in Connecticut with her brilliant husband and four creative children. She has a bachelor's degree in journalism from Brigham Young University and is a member of the Society of Children's Book Writers and Illustrators.

10 Perfect Books for a Woodland Nursery

Hi guys! 

I have a friend named Meghan Read. She's fantastic. We met at book club. She's the mother to an adorable little boy who is nearly two years old. She loves the idea of a woodland nursery, and has the Pinterest board to prove it. She even has an adorable wall hanging made from a tree branch in her son's room. 

But there is a hole in Meghan's life. . . .

Hi, it's Meghan. When I think of a woodland-themed nursery, there are certain words that come to mind: rustic, wild, brave, and adventurous. This is my dream nursery, folks. Probably because I love nature and the outdoors, but who doesn't? And what is a dream nursery without books? Rhetorical questions aside though, this is a serious matter. HOW has a woodland nursery book list been overlooked by every single woodland nursery pin on the planet?! 

I asked my friend Alysa, who is conveniently a children's lit expert, to help me create a book list for my dream nursery. (I mean for my child.) And before we get into it, let me share the 2 qualifications for books that made this list:

1) The book illustrations had to reflect the natural woodsy feel of nature. I was thinking simple and rustic, nothing too bright or crazy.

2) The literary themes had to match the feelings embodied by a woodlands nursery—bravery and adventure. And a little bit of humor doesn't hurt!

Meghan had a few ideas of what books would be perfect for a woodland nursery, and I helped her round out the list. Some of these books are board books, some are pictures books, some are chapter books, so this list will help you start the woodland themed library for your little one that will last as the man-cub grows. For your convenience I've linked the cover images to Amazon.

Take it away, Meghan!

10 Perfect Books for a Woodland Nursery

1. I Want My Hat Back by Jon Klassen. This is hands down my favorite children's book to read as an adult. Which is fortunate because I often find myself reading it over and over again, sometimes multiple times in a row. (Thank you, child who loves repetition.) In this book, a bear asks several animals if they have seen his hat, but none say they have. The bear is about to give up when he realizes that he saw one of the animals wearing his hat. A key to enjoying this book is over-exaggerating everything the bear says at this point. He gets his hat back, but I won't ruin the story for you by saying how! I like to think about what age my son will be when he actually "gets it."  I hope we'll be reading this book for years to come.

2. We're Going On A Bear Hunt by Michael Rosen and Helen Oxenbury. What's more to do with nature and being brave and adventurous than a bear hunt through impassible obstacles? This is my absolute favorite children's book because of the memories that I have of my dad reading it to me as a little girl. My dad worked long days and traveled a lot, so he wasn't always home. I cherish this book not only for those memories, but also for the story. It's a story of a dad taking his kids on a fun adventure, and who doesn't want that? I loved sharing in this story with my dad.

3. Where the Wild Things Are by Maurice Sendak.  A quick and classic page-turner with exceptional illustrations, this adventure story makes me happy. Never overestimate the power of a good monster story! Is there anyone who doesn't know this book?

Now I'm out of ideas. So I'm going to turn it over to Alysa.

Hello again! I have lots of ideas! Here are books 4-10.

4. Children Make Terrible Pets by Peter Brown. This book turns the woodland narrative on it's head, as you can tell from the title. A young bear in the forest finds an adorable little human and wants to keep it for a pet. 

5. Up The Creek by Nicholas Oldland. Moose, Bear, and Beaver go on a canoeing trip together but they soon disagree on the best way to go about it. When I was looking up this book I discovered there are more books with these characters, too! I check out Big Bear Hug as well and it's quite fun. 

6. Peek-a-who! by Nina Ladon. There is no animal that represents the woodland as well as the owl. Am I right? Peek-a-who! Is a cute board book with cut-outs that plays with the "peek-a-boo" theme and different animal noises. Totally adorable. 

7. The Gingerbread Man by Jim Aylesworth. What could be more adventurous than chasing a cookie through the woods, only to see it gobbled up by a hungry fox? This is the edition that my family has of The Gingerbread Man and let me tell you it is timeless. One side-benefit I experienced from reading this to the kids is what Jubilee, age 2, said a few days after we had read it: "Run, run, fast as you can. You can't catch me; I'm a girl and you not a gingerbread man!"

8, Little White Rabbit by Kevin Henkes. I guess I think of woodland rabbits being more brown than white, but I couldn't resist including this book on the list. Little White Rabbit goes on an adventure in his imagination, and returns home to mother. 

9. Guess How Much I Love You by Sam McBratney. Here are those brown forest hares! I admit that having to say "little nut brown hare" over and over is my least favorite part about the book. But I discussed it with Meghan and she thinks the adorableness of the story outweighs the length of the characters names. So here you go. You could call this the most controversial pick on the list. ;-)

10. Shh We Have A Plan! by Chris Haughton. In this superbly illustrated book, four brothers are trying to catch a bird in the forest. The super simple text paired with the hilarious illustrations makes our whole family laugh. It's definitely an adventure!

Bonus chapter books!

Because it is only a couple of years before you're wanting to read something longer to your little one, here are three chapter books that also fit the bill with rustic illustrations and themes of adventure and bravery.  

  

Winnie the Pooh, Peter Rabbit, and The Miraculous Journey of Edward Tulane.

Thanks for stopping by and I hope you found something that looks good! If you have other recommendations, definitely leave those in the comments. If you're looking for more books little ones, check out my list of great board books to read to groups!. I also have two posts about books to give at baby showers, here and here.