Jim Henson's The Storyteller - Nate Cosby

Title: Jim Henson's The Storyteller
Author: Nate Crosby
Publisher: Archaia Entertainment, 2011
Length: 112 pages
Genre: Children's/Young Adult/Adult; Graphic Novel
Started: February 4, 2012
Finished: February 4, 2012

Summary:
From the publisher's website:
The much-loved, live-action/puppet combination TV show is now a graphic novel series! Archaia and The Jim Henson Company are proud to present ALL-NEW tales of fantastic wonder and extraordinary myth, as told from the tongue of The Storyteller and his loyal canine companion! Witness worded wonderment from a cavalcade of craft creators, including Roger Langridge (The Muppet Show comic, Thor the Mighty Avenger), Marjorie Liu (Black Widow), Ron Marz (Green Lantern, Artifacts), Jeff Parker (Thor, Thunderbolts), Francesco Francavilla (Detective Comics), Chris Eliopoulos (Franklin Richards) and Janet Lee (Return of the Dapper Men). Plus: a never-before-seen story adapted from a screenplay by The Storyteller’s original author, Academy Award® winner Anthony Minghella (The English Patient).

Review:
When my husband and I first got Netflix in our house, one of the titles we came across was a Jim Henson series called The Storyteller from the late 80s that neither of us had ever seen before. We adored it, it's all little vignettes based on myths and legends acted out in live action with muppets. The Storyteller figure is an old man who sits by the fireplace and reads the stories out of books, all while his muppet dog interacts with him. It's wonderful in that it's appropriate for all ages, aside from the usual violence typical of fairy-tales. In this particular graphic novel, various artists illustrate 9 different stories: Old Nick & The Peddler, The Milkmaid & Her Pail, An Agreement Between Friends, Old Fire Dragaman, Puss in Boots, The Frog Who Became An Emperor, The Crane Wife, Momotaro The Peach Boy, and The Witch Baby (the bonus story). All the stories are wonderful, so any favourites I have are as a result of the artwork, and my absolute favourite is Puss in Boots illustrated by Marjorie Liu and Jennifer L. Meyer. The panels are done in gorgeous tones of light blue and silver and it just has a wonderful ethereal quality to it. The Japanese-inspired stories are also nicely illustrated in typical Japanese styles, which I always enjoy.

This is listed as 'volume 1', so I certainly hope there are more installments, I'll certainly be picking them up if they do make any more.

Recommendation:
An excellent all-ages graphic novel that would be at home in any classroom or home library. A must for anyone that likes old-fashioned storytelling.

Thoughts on the cover:
Nice illustration of The Storyteller and his dog, i like how the outlines are recessed into the cover so there's a textured feel to it. The gold and brown colour scheme is very classical too.

Money-Smart Kids - Gail Vaz-Oxlade

Title: Money-Smart Kids
Author: Gail Vaz-Oxlade
Publisher: HarperCollins, 2011
Length: 80 pages
Genre: Adult; Nonfiction
Started: February 3, 2012
Finished: February 3, 2012

Summary:
From the publisher's website:
Want to teach your kids to see money as a tool, not a trap? Determined to help them avoid the mistakes you made?

As a parent you want the best for your kids. You work hard to provide every advantage you can. You want them to be safe, smart and healthy. Yet, when it comes to money, it’s a whole different story. If you’re like most people, you’d rather run a mile through a desert with a camel on your back than talk financial realities with your children.

Your parents told you that talking about money just wasn’t polite. Look where that left you! A healthy, balanced attitude towards money begins when kids are just toddling, so pull your head out of the sand and roll up your sleeves.

Gail Vaz-Oxlade, Canada’s #1 personal finance expert, will teach you everything your children need to know. Gail believes that building confidence and money skills starts with an age-appropriate allowance. In Money-Smart Kids, she’ll show you how to start an allowance and use it effectively to help your kids:

-make saving a habit
-learn the difference between a need and a want
-use the “magic jars” to balance competing goals
-create life-long money management skills

What better gift could you give your kids than the confidence to control their money, rather than letting their money control them? Let Gail help you raise Money-Smart Kids.

Review:
I'm a big fan of Gail Vaz-Oxlade, my husband and I end up watching her shows to make ourselves feel better about our finances, the same way we watch Hoarders to make ourselves feel better about not cleaning the house as often as we'd like. Her approach of financial planning and budgeting is very common-sense, but the one aspect that I always wanted more clarification on was money matters where children are involved. By the time I graduated high school I had a pretty good grasp of money matters, so the outcome was good but I always felt things could've gone better along the way. Now that I have my own child, I wanted to know how to better approach money with her.

I like Gail's way of dealing with money with kids. She believes in giving kids an allowance without it being attached to chores or grades since kids need to learn about money and they can't learn about it if they don't have any. I like this concept because chores should just be a given in a household, unless there's something over and above the normal ones that a child would like to do to earn extra money. She talks about making sure parents explain money matter to their kids, from where the money in the ATM comes from, to how long mommy and daddy have to work to afford certain things. She also talks about using the jar system from her show with kids: one for saving, sharing (donations), planned spending, and mad money, and allocating a child's allowance every week to each jar. I personally wouldn't use all four categories with my child, at least not right away, I would simply use saving and spending until they get the concept of savings as emergency money and have the willpower to save for something over a planned period of time (planned spending).

The chapter on credit was especially good, which I think is needed for some kids that have a hard time understanding the concept of credit cards (I didn't growing up, but I know a lot of young kids do and then have big credit card issues once they get their first card at 18).

Recommendation:
Wonderful little book for parents that want some guidance in how to teach their children about money. This is especially timely considering how many kids and young adults these days have no considerable concept of budgeting or credit.

Thoughts on the cover:
Keeps in theme with Gail's other books with the image of her, except instead of against a clear backdrop she's against a chalkboard background. The title in chalk with the $ as the s is a nice touch.

Cinderella Ate My Daughter - Peggy Orenstein

Title: Cinderella Ate My Daughter
Author: Peggy Orenstein
Publisher: HarperCollins, 2011 (Hardcover), 2012 (Paperback)
Length: 245 pages
Genre: Adult; Nonfiction
Started: January 28, 2012
Finished: January 30, 2012

Summary:
From Amazon.com:
The acclaimed author of the groundbreaking bestseller Schoolgirls reveals the dark side of pink and pretty: the rise of the girlie-girl, she warns, is not that innocent.

Pink and pretty or predatory and hardened, sexualized girlhood influences our daughters from infancy onward, telling them that how a girl looks matters more than who she is. Somewhere between the exhilarating rise of Girl Power in the 1990s and today, the pursuit of physical perfection has been recast as a source—the source—of female empowerment. And commercialization has spread the message faster and farther, reaching girls at ever-younger ages.

But, realistically, how many times can you say no when your daughter begs for a pint-size wedding gown or the latest Hannah Montana CD? And how dangerous is pink and pretty anyway—especially given girls' successes in the classroom and on the playing field? Being a princess is just make-believe, after all; eventually they grow out of it. Or do they? Does playing Cinderella shield girls from early sexualization—or prime them for it? Could today's little princess become tomorrow's sexting teen? And what if she does? Would that make her in charge of her sexuality—or an unwitting captive to it?

Those questions hit home with Peggy Orenstein, so she went sleuthing. She visited Disneyland and the international toy fair, trolled American Girl Place and Pottery Barn Kids, and met beauty pageant parents with preschoolers tricked out like Vegas showgirls. She dissected the science, created an online avatar, and parsed the original fairy tales. The stakes turn out to be higher than she—or we—ever imagined: nothing less than the health, development, and futures of our girls. From premature sexualization to the risk of depression to rising rates of narcissism, the potential negative impact of this new girlie-girl culture is undeniable—yet armed with awareness and recognition, parents can effectively counterbalance its influence in their daughters' lives.

Cinderella Ate My Daughter is a must-read for anyone who cares about girls, and for parents helping their daughters navigate the rocky road to adulthood.

Review:
Now that I have a daughter I find myself a little worried over how good a job I'll do to help her grow up a well-rounded woman. When I started teaching, I paid attention to the little girls (and eventually older ones) in my classes and noticed that the tv shows and toys they admired and adored were a lot different than the ones I had as a child...and not necessarily in a good way. The girls in their tv shows were ditzy and dumb and seemed to be proud of it, and their toys looked like something you'd find on a street corner at night than in a little girl's toy chest. This book speaks to adults who are a little disturbed by the trends found in marketing towards girls that leads to the early sexualization of said girls, starting with Disney Princesses through Bratz and Monster High dolls to Disney's television shows. From the onslaught of the colour pink (that I called the pink hoarde when my daughter was born), to the limited options girls are offered in toys geared specifically towards them (kitchens, flowers, jewelry, clothes), this book addresses the current state of raising a girl and makes a person aware of these things that sometimes go unnoticed.

Although the observations are quite entertaining and sometimes insightful, one thing I noticed was that the author doesn't really offer any solutions to this problem, no scripts to instigate teachable moments (good thing I have quite a few on hand from encountering this stuff in my teaching). So I was kind of expecting that...even examples of how she combats this with her own daughter, which she didn't really offer either. The things she addresses and anecdotes about her own daughter were quite entertaining though, which really is the point of the book it seems, just a person reporting things she's observed, sometimes quite wittily.

The paperback version of this book is out this week, so rather than spend the money on the hardcover, you'd be better off with the cheaper paperback or borrowing it from the library first to see if it floats your boat.

Recommendation:
If you've been around young girls frequently in the past few years, either as a parent or an educator, there's not much here you won't already have figured out for yourself. If you suddenly find yourself the parent of a daughter and have had no exposure to children since you were one, you might want to give this a read. Don't expect any solutions to the observations being made here, but it is an entertaining ride nonetheless.

Thoughts on the cover:
Very appropriate considering the subject matter. I love the swirl of sparkles leading from the girl's wand to the little text bubble at the bottom.

Anticipated Reads for 2012

Since I finished my list of my favourite reads of 2011, I thought I'd look forward to my long list of anticipated reads for 2012. The list for this year is longer than last year's, mainly because a lot of my anticipated titles are continuations of series I began reading this year.

Without further ado:


Insurgent - Veronica Roth, sequel to Divergent


Bitterblue - Kristin Cashore, sequel to Graceling and Fire, been waiting for this one for years


Fever - Lauren DeStefano, sequel to Wither


Enshadowed - Kelly Creagh, sequel to Nevermore


Fear - Michael Grant, 5th in the 'Gone' series


Cinder - Marissa Meyer, a new book that's been getting a lot of hype, a cyborg version of Cinderella


Bewitching - Alex Flinn, a prequel to Beastly, this one focuses on Kendra, the witch that transforms Kyle


Winterling - Sarah Prineas


The Enchantress - Michael Scott, 6th in the Nicholas Flamel series


Thumped - Megan McCafferty, sequel to Bumped


And these are the listings with no cover pics as of yet:

- Ebon by Robin McKinley, sequel to Pegasus
- Crown of Embers by Rae Carson, sequel to A Girl of Fire and Thorns

End of the Year Review - Best of 2011

Continuing from my post back in June where I posted on the best books from the first half of 2011 , this is a list of the best books I've read in the second half of this year. Again, since I read more YA than other genres, there will be more of those listed than in any other category. Since I don't have a rating system (ratings are subjective anyway), you'll have to skim the reviews to see if these will impress you as much as they did me. These are in no particular order, and the books aren't all necessarily published in 2011 (but most are), I just happened to read them in 2011.



Children's



1. Breadcrumbs - Anne Ursu

2. One Crazy Summer - Rita Williams-Garcia

3. A Tale of Two Castles - Gail Carson Levine



Adult



1. When She Woke - Hillary Jordan



Young Adult



1. A Monster Calls - Patrick Ness

2. Marcelo in the Real World - Francisco X. Stork

3. Nothing - Janne Teller

4. Cleopatra's Moon - Vicky Alvear Shecter

5. Forbidden - Tabitha Suzuma

6. Bumped - Megan McCafferty

7. The Girl of Fire and Thorns - Rae Carson

When She Woke - Hillary Jordan

Title: When She Woke
Author: Hillary Jordan
Publisher: Harper Collins, 2011 (Paperback)
Length: 341 pages
Genre: Adult; Dystopian Fiction
Started: December 3, 2011
Finished: December 15, 2011

Summary:
From the inside cover:
I am red now. It was her first thought of the day, every day, surfacing after a few seconds of fogged, blessed ignorance and sweeping through her like a wave, breaking in her breast with a soundless roar. Hard on its heels came the second wave, crashing into the wreckage left by the first: he is gone.

Hannah Payne’s life has been devoted to church and family. But after she’s convicted of murder, she awakens to a nightmarish new life. She finds herself lying on a table in a bare room, covered only by a paper gown, with cameras broadcasting her every move to millions at home, for whom observing new Chromes—criminals whose skin color has been genetically altered to match the class of their crime—is a sinister form of entertainment. Hannah is a Red for the crime of murder. The victim, says the State of Texas, was her unborn child, and Hannah is determined to protect the identity of the father, a public figure with whom she shared a fierce and forbidden love.

A powerful reimagining of The Scarlet Letter, When She Woke is a timely fable about a stigmatized woman struggling to navigate an America of the not-too-distant future, where the line between church and state has been eradicated, and convicted felons are no longer imprisoned but chromed and released back into the population to survive as best they can. In seeking a path to safety in an alien and hostile world, Hannah unknowingly embarks on a journey of self-discovery that forces her to question the values she once held true and the righteousness of a country that politicizes faith and love.

Review:
Yay, first review post-baby! I picked this book because it received a lot of hype during the summer and it peaked my interest. Even though it's adult and I don't tend to enjoy reading many adult books, I couldn't turn down the dystopian plot of this one, and I was pleasantly surprised by it.

When She Woke is a creative re-imagining of Hawthorne's The Scarlet Letter, in which heroine Hannah Payne's skin is dyed red to mark her crime of murder (abortion). Hannah's world is a futuristic USA, one marked by a horrific STD outbreak that essentially renders women infertile. With this outbreak, church and state become closely infused, and abortion becomes a crime. Under the new penal system, convicted criminals have their skin dyed different colours depending on their crime: red for murder, yellow for misdemeanors, and blue for crimes against children, among others. This eliminates the need for prisons since most Chromes find themselves at the mercy of the outside world after conviction and their life spans greatly shortened. After Hannah's release from the Chrome Ward, she must find a way to live as a Red; rejected by society, her family, and the father of her aborted child.

I liked the world-building and themes of When She Woke, a place where church and state are nearly one in the same, where women's rights have gone back a hundred years, where Hannah questions the religious values that she's been brought up to believe. The elements from The Scarlet Letter were woven in quite nicely, so that aspect was well done.

The only thing about the book that I wasn't fond of was the fact that it loses steam towards the end, it rushes into the ending and doesn't have the same feel as the first half of the book. Up until Hannah leaves the Henley's cloistered little halfway house for Chromes the pacing was great and took its time to explore and savour all the elements that make the novel great (the religious hypocrisy and cruelty, the dystopian elements), but afterwards when she ends up on the little Underground Railway-esque journey to Canada (yay for Canada being the cliche safe haven yet again) things feel rushed and the care taken to explore things in the first half just isn't there in the second half.

Recommendation:
Love the premise and the set-up, but things start to fall apart towards the end. Still an excellent book though, and the Scarlet Letter elements are nicely integrated into this dystopian tale.

Thoughts on the cover:
I like it, the black background works well with the red profile view of Hannah's face, it's a very sophisticated cover.

Sorry things have been slow, but here's my cute reason why...

Hello all,

First off, I apologize for the lack of reviews recently. I know I haven't been up to my usual pace, but pregnancy did a number on my eyes and by the time I had down time at the end of the day, sleep won the battle over reading ^^;

Then, on the day I posted my most recent review, I found out i was going to be induced the next day at the hospital, and my baby daughter was born the day after that ^__^

So things are going to be slow for the forseeable future until I get used to my new routine and learn to work things like reading back into my schedule, but in the meantime, here's a picture of my daughter, Anastasia, to tide you over (hopefully the cuteness will make up for the lack of reviews ^_^)