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Archive for the ‘Children’s Books’ Category

[LISTENED TO: April 4, 2015] The Penderwicks

penderEverything about this book feels like it’s an old story–from the cover (which is consistent in all versions as far as I can tell) to the tone.  It feels like a book that was set in perhaps the fifties or even the seventies.  Until we learn that the father has a computer and you see that the book was written in 2005.  Then you realize that Birdsall has simply captured an idyllic moment for a family and that although there are some trappings of modernism, it could be set at (nearly) any time (the computer is not really significant to the story).

Sarah had read the story and really liked it so she brought home the audio book and we all enjoyed listening to it.  (How upsetting to have about 30 minutes left in the 6 hour story when we got to the airport for our vacation and had to wait a week to finish).  The reader, Susan Denaker had a good selection of voices.  Sarah didn’t like her voice for the littlest girl, but I thought it was cute.  I was also impressed by her male voices–all similar (since they were from the same part of the country) but with enough different inflections so you could tell them apart.

So what is this story about?  Well, it is about the Penderwick Family.  Mr Penderwick is a scholar (he says Latin phrases to the girls all the time and they are not translated–so brush up!).  He has four daughters: Rosalind (12), Skye (11), Jane (10) and Batty (4).  The girls’ mother died shortly after giving birth to Batty (but not because of giving birth to Batty, she had cancer).  I always think it’s weird when a parent is dead in a story, especially if it said death is designed just to give the living parent a romantic interest.  But that doesn’t happen in this story. Their mother is dead, and the girls have to move on without her, but it also brings them together.  Rosalind more or less falls into the mothering role (poor girl) and their mother’s loss is felt throughout the book. (more…)

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zooboxSOUNDTRACK: THE NOT-ITS-“Nose in a Book” (2014).

notitsIs it okay for parents to enjoy children’s music?   Like, even if your kids don’t really care about it?  I heard this song on the radio the other day and I thought it was so much fun.  My kids weren’t even in the room but I sang along anyway.

The song starts out with an interesting bass riff and feedback!  The guitar is nicely fuzzy–this is not a typical kids song.

Then the lyrics start–“Dad told me to turn out the light, but I just wanna read a couple more pages.”  The music in the verses is cool and even a little dark.  The chorus, on the other hand, is very poppy and fun to sing along with.

The bridge is a chant of Chapters 1-8, and the end of the song really rocks out.  It’s a totally great song, and clearly, I can relate.

Check it out at their bandcamp site.

[READ: March 26, 2015] The Zoo Box

As part of my decision to read all of the First Second publications (which I have been doing I just haven’t had a chance to post many of them recently), I knew that I wanted to read this book.  But I was delighted to see that Sarah brought it home to read to the kids.  And it seems like a good book to talk about for Easter.

The Zoo Box opens with two parents going out for the night.  They leave their older daughter in charge of their younger son.  There’s no fighting–the daughter is happy to be in charge, but the son isn’t upset by it.  And if they promise to be asleep when the parents get back, they will go to the zoo the next day.

As soon as the parents leave, the daughter suggests they play dress up in the attic.  I love that this is the idea she has and that he is excited by it.  And I love even more that dress up consists of full sized tiger and ape costumes.  It’s fantastic.  The kids growl and play (the attic is locked, but it seems very nice with a bed and plenty of space) and then they discover a box that says Do No Open. (more…)

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sardineSOUNDTRACK: CENTENNIAL SECONDARY SCHOOL MUSICAL THEATRE-The Story of Harmelodia (2000).

Cover-CSSMT-HarmelodiaAs mentioned in yesterday’s post.  The Centennial Secondary School and Choir released their version of The Story of Harmelodia. This CD (which to the best of my knowledge is no longer available for purchase anywhere) is newly available from the Rheostaticslive website.  While the (very cool) cover is there, there’s no information about the musicians.

The disc is about 35 minutes long and it recreates most of the music from the original CD.  For reasons which I’m sure have to do with rights, they do not include “Monkeybird” (everyone’s favorite song) and the songs about the Wingophone.  Those songs were all written by Kevin Hearn. I’d be very surprised if Hearn didn’t give them the rights to the songs, so there must be something else at play.

They also do not include the narration.  This of course makes the story a lot less clear–although at this point I feel like the songs are just fun and sweet, even if they story is lost.

The school’s version is quite good.  The band sounds great (with a whole host of instruments).  While the opening music on the first track sounds a bit high school bandish (perhaps because it so spare) as soon as the choir kicks in it really ratchets up the quality of the music.  And it stays high throughout.

The choir is outstanding, and the variety of instruments (I can hear all the brass, an autoharp, synths (there’s some fun spacey keyboard sounds on “I am Drummstein”) and some electric guitars) makes for a really compelling collection of songs.

One of the biggest difference is that many of the songs have horns playing the main melodies. “Invisible Stairs” has a flute as the lead instrument.  It’s very pretty and I like that it plays the “twinkle twinkle” melody as a counterpoint to the proper melody. It’s a very pretty version.  I also love the way “The Music Room” came out.  And the mostly instrumental “The Sky Dreamed” sounds really lovely.

I don’t know how many lead singers there are (or what their names are, although judging by the concert, I assume it is the same kids).  The female lead as featured on “Home Again” is great.  I like the male lead a little less.  He sounds a but too stiff to me.  Although I do like that on many songs he gives his own reading of the material.

The final song, “Song of the Garden,” sounds terrific.  I love the way the two singers harmonize and the way they place a cool horns section (which reminds me of The Beatles) as the song trails out.

I am of course curious why the couldn’t release those missing songs.  But I’m more impressed that the school (presumably with different people) performed a stage version of the show in 2004 which was played live in several places.

[READ: December 5, 2014] Sardine in Outer Space 2

Sardine is a children’s book published by First Second.  It was originally published in France (and in French) and was translated by Sasha Watson.  There are six Sardine books out.

This time the inner flap says “No Grownups Allowed (Unless they’re pirates or space adventurers),” and I found that I enjoyed book 2 quite a bit more than book 1. Perhaps the jokes just appealed to me a bit more–there were a number that I thought were very funny.

I enjoyed the double cross (well they pretty much all have a double cross) in The Brainwashing Machine.  But I really got a kick out of The Cha-Cha Fly.  When the fly bites you, you get stupid dance songs stuck in your head.  Nice premise–even funnier that the flies are named Britney, Christina, Justin and Clay. (more…)

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deafoSOUNDTRACK: RHEOSTATICS-Centennial Secondary School, Toronto, ON, (November 30, 2000).

martin-anthonyYes, the Rheostatics played a show at a high school.  What I love about this show is that the Centennial Secondary School’s band plays along with them.

Why?  because the School band had recorded a version of The Story of Harmelodia and the Rheos came to play with them.  It is amazing what a few extra instruments (and voices) can do to a song.  This show is utterly unique in the Rheos’ live catalog.  And that is apparent right during the first song, “Saskatchewan,” when the school choir joins in on the “Home Caroline Home” refrain–it sounds amazing!

The next surprise comes during the next song, when the school’s horn section plays the riff of “Soul Glue” (and there’s a sax solo too).  The surprises get bigger when they play “Rain Rain Rain” and the band plays the opening drum/handclap melody (that’s never really done live).  They play “Claire” which gets a great treatment from the choir.  This is the first song where I wish the choir was louder–perhaps Tim is too loud on the song?  I wish you could hear the kids doing the “Ba Ba”s more.  Although overall the volume of the band and the choir is just right.

The final huge surprise comes when they play “Shaved Head” and there is flute accompaniment–it sounds tremendous, bringing a totally different feel to the song.

From that point on, they play a bunch of Harmelodia songs.  And they let the school band really shine–there’s guitar solos from the kids, there’s vocals from Tim Crawford on “Monkeybird” (and he holds a note for 25 seconds!).  Lauren Moorehouse sings lead on “Loving Arms,” and Janine Plott (I don’t know how to spell any of these kids’ names, sorry guys), sings on “Home Again.”

There’s a fun addition of accordion on “What’s Going On?” and more flute on “Take Me in Your Hand.”  The final song, “Legal Age Life,” brings back all the kids for various solos–guitar, sax and the like.  It’s a super fun night.

The more I thought about this the more emotional I got about it.  How cool to have a high school band do a version of your record.  how cool to then be the band that shows up to play with these kids.  And imagine if you were in the school band and really liked the Rheostatics ahead of time, and here they are playing with you.  What a cool night.

[READ: March 11, 2015] El Deafo

Sarah brought this home and then Clark read it and now I read it (Tabby, who is reading like a fiend will likely read it next year).  And we all really enjoyed it.

It is the true(ish) story of Cece Bell who is El Deafo!  Okay, she is actually a woman who lost the majority of he hearing at age 4 (circa 1976) from spinal meningitis (which is really scary).

She could hear sounds (if they were loud enough) but couldn’t really understand words.  The doctors outfitted her with a box with cords (that fit into her ears) and after adjusting the knobs, she is able to hear.  Which is pretty awesome (but she is very self-conscious about those cords).

And indeed being self-conscious is one of the main themes of the book.  I assume that anyone wearing this strange contraption would feel awkward and ungainly (especially in the mid 1970s).  But Cece was extremely anxious about it.  She believed that everyone was staring at her.  And they probably were, although more out of curiosity than malice, I’d imagine. (more…)

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graveyardSOUNDTRACK: MARAJ-“Gettaway” (Tiny Desk Contest Runner-Up 2015).

maraj Last week, a Tiny Desk Contest winner was announced. This week, All Songs Considered posted ten runners up that they especially liked.  And I want to draw extra attention to a couple of them.

I know very little about these bands, but I assume that these folks are all members of Maraj.  They are from Kalamazoo MI and they do hip hop with a twist. I loved that there was a live upright bass player. And that the music had a steel drum sound (although it was all electronic).

The verses were done by two different rappers Motor Cit Kam–whose flow is incredibly fast and clear (even if I didn’t actually know what he was saying, the style was great) and Dari G who has a very different flow (and also sings a beautiful backing vocal later).  I enjoyed that there were two rappers, but I liked even more that the third verse (or perhaps bridge) was sung by two of the women in the band.  They totally change the tone of the song—an excellent mix of rap and singing.

What I thought set this song apart was that the chorus–while the music was the same, the slower singing gave a very different sound to the song.  It really changed the flow from the fast first verse.  And the singers–all six of them–all sing well together.

[READ: December 23, 2014] The Graveyard Book

Back in 2009, I read the prose version of this book.  Now in 2014, it has been re-imagined as a graphic novel.  And it’s funny, now that Gaiman has well established himself as a novelist, that I forgot he was originally a graphic novelist.  So this format works for him quite nicely.

As I said, I read the book five years ago, but I didn’t remember all the details.  Naturally the most exciting parts came back to me as I was reading it, but the little details has been lost to time.

I gave a rather detailed review of this book here and there’s really no reason for me to rewrite what I thought about it because it is pretty much unchanged.

But in sum: the story is about Bod Owens.  His family was murdered when he was 18 months old. He escaped to a graveyard (while the killer tried to track him down) and he was raised by ghosts.  They keep him safe from Jack, the killer, whose superiors want him to finish the job.  (more…)

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axe4SOUNDTRACK: ENORMODOME-“I’m Gonna Love You” (Tiny Desk Contest Runner-Up 2015).

enormodomeLast week, a Tiny Desk Contest winner was announced. This week, All Songs Considered posted ten runners up that they especially liked.  And I want to draw extra attention to a couple of them.

I know very little about these bands, so I don’t know if they are on the trend (opposite of yesterday) of two guys playing really loud music.  And man, they rock the office.  Sometimes a gimmick makes you want to watch a video, but the song has to be good for you to watch it more than once.

This video was filmed in the office of the Mayor of Flagstaff–what a good sport!  I love that they have his employees coming around and working as usual while these two guys are making an unholy racket.

I’ve been very impressed with most of the two person bands who really make a very full sound.  And this one is no exception.  I was sure there were more than two guys playing along.  And their voices gel nicely.  The only weak spot is during the solo, when the rest of the  guitars drop out so it’s a little too spare.  But aside from that the song is a great rocker.  I like the simple blues riff, but I really like the way the middle section (before the solo) messes with that riff somewhat–it’s very cool.

[READ: February 22, 2015] Axe Cop Volume 4

axechopLike Volume 2, Axe Cop Volume 4 is a full length story.  This one pushes the idea that came up in a previous book that Axe Cop is President of the World.  For the writing of this book Malachai was 8 years old.  It was at this point that I started to wonder how different the stories of an 8-year-old would be from those of a 5-year-old.  Since my son is nine, I know that he understands the logic of storytelling a bit more and he even understands the internal logic of stories, so I assumed that Malachai’s stories would be more linear and less surreal.

And of course, the nature of a big graphic novel like this is that it must be linear and coherent.

I liked that the book opened with something we hadn’t seen before–Axe Cop is having a recurring nightmare about a talking gorilla.

But then we get down to business.  As president, Axe Cop is going to live in the Gold House in the real Washington (not DC). But his real business comes down to one question–since he got rid of all the bad guys, the people want to know if they will ever come back.  Axe Cop talks to God (!) and is told that they will come back in 1 million years, but until then it is time for peace in the world. (more…)

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axe3SOUNDTRACK: SPIRITS OF THE RED CITY-“Halfway Poem” (Tiny Desk Contest Runner-Up 2015).

spiirtdLast week, a Tiny Desk Contest winner was announced. This week, All Songs Considered posted ten runners up that they especially liked.  And I want to draw extra attention to a couple of them.

I know very little about these bands, but I assume that this folkie collective uses this kind of instrumentation all the time, although I have to suggest that two upright basses and a viola seems excessive.  The beginning of this video shows an early aborted attempt with different instruments (accordion, banjo, flute, drum and ukulele), so that sounds promising–and honestly the overload of large strings doesn’t sound bad at all in the final product.

It’s interesting that bands with lots of members are a kind of trend–it’s so impractical.  And yet when done well, it’s quite lovely.  And when these seven folks starts singing along near the end of the song it’s really pretty.

The story of this video is also interesting.  They had planned to film their video outside.  But on the day of their video shoot it was 33 degrees below zero (in Minnesota).  They have some brief footage at the beginning and then the video switches to them inside a quite cozy cabin.

It’s hard to tell from just this one song what kind of folk collective Spirits of the Red City is, but I enjoyed this song quite a bit.

[READ: February 20, 2015] Axe Cop Volume 3

Axe Cop Volume 3 returns to the format of Volume 1 (the one I liked better) with a mix of shorter comics and the return of Ask Axe Cop!

The first comic we see features the return of Bat Warthog Man and features the practical science of Chemist M (whom Axe Cop buys for ten dollars). It also has a chihuahua who was a soldier that was turned into a chihuahua when the soldier’s dog bit him (Malachai’s understanding of how transformations work makes me hope he never gets bitten by anything).  The dog can turn back into a man “only when I am not ready to fight…which is almost never.”  There’ also a hilarious scene where Axe Cop is inside the imagination of a mouse which is in color and is “full of unicorns and cheese.”

The Ask Axe Cops are more intense in these later variations, like the one that asks if he ever got in trouble (he got in trouble with his mom when he chopped the head off a rabbit who was not following rabbit rules).  We also see the introduction of head trash–a place where all the heads that axe cop has removed are disposed.  There’s dating advice (very sound); a jumping competition and a hilarious bit about Halloween (where he gets 1,051 candies to share with his friends, but the bad guys have poisoned 1,040 pieces of it.  There is also Axe Cop’s strangely violent generosity on Thanksgiving (yipes).  (more…)

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axe2SOUNDTRACK: REINA DEL CID-“The Cooling” (Tiny Desk Contest Runner-Up 2015).

coolingLast week, a Tiny Desk Contest winner was announced. This week, All Songs Considered posted ten runners up that they especially liked.  And I want to draw extra attention to a couple of them.

I know very little about these bands, so I don’t know if this is Reina del Cid’s normal band or what.  But I love the sound of this orchestral chamber pop.  There are plenty of chamber pop bands, but there’s something about the melody of this song that works so perfectly with the strings.

There are seven people in the video (Reina is the singer).  I love the way the song starts out with some pizzicato guitar and slowly building violin strings.  I also love the starts and stops that the song has–very dramatic.  And it all works so well with Reina’s voice which doesn’t soar or hit super high notes, rather it is just powerful and strong and very pretty (even when she does an occasional mmm mmm).

When the song builds to its climax, the violins switch to pizzicato and the drums grow louder.  It’s quite lovely and I’d like to hear more from her (them).  I gather that the new album is coming out in May!

[READ: February 19, 2015] Axe Cop Volume 2

I enjoyed Axe Cop Volume 1 so much I couldn’t wait to jump into Volume 2.  But something was different.

This book was made for Dark Horse as a three issue arc.  It’s in color and it’s all one long story.  Ethan is super proud of it, and I think he should be, it’s pretty impressive that he and his brother (now aged 6) were able to come up with such a huge story.

But I found that like the longer stories in volume 1, I got a little bored by the end of this book.  Indeed, I let Clark read the first book (it was placed in the YA book section, but I figured if it was written by a  5-year-old, my nine-year old could read it).  He liked the first book but only gave this one a few pages before he gave up.  He likes Ask Axe Cop best too. (more…)

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axw1SOUNDTRACK: COLD BLUE MOUNTAIN-“White North” (Tiny Desk Contest Runner-Up 2015).

cbm Last week, a Tiny Desk Contest winner was announced. This week, All Songs Considered posted ten runners up that they especially liked.  And I want to draw extra attention to a couple of them.

I know very little about these bands, and I seriously hope that the guys from Cold Blue Mountain look like this when they play all the time.

This may be the best set up and reveal of a joke that actually contains an awesome song.  The video is 4 and a half minutes long, but the music doesn’t start for nearly a minute and a half as the set up proceeds.

When the music starts it is heavy, like really heavy, but beyond heavy there’s a great riff mixed into the music on the second guitar–it’s a great sound.

But the “joke” isn’t over, since at 2 minutes the music stops for 20 seconds until the next reveal comes in.  It’s pretty awesome.

My only gripe is that I don’t like the vocals (growly cookie monster type)–they work pretty well with the music, but it’s not something I want to listen to, which is shame since the song really really rocks.

And the video is awesome.

[READ: February 15, 2015] Axe Cop Vol. 1

After watching Archer on FX the other week I saw a few minutes of an animated show called Axe Cop which looked weird and silly and starred Nick Offerman as Axe Cop.  I only watched a few minutes of it and then went to bed.  A few days later I was in the library and saw four volumes of Axe Cop books.  Well, I had to check that out right away.

And here’s what I learned.  Axe Cop is a web comic that was drawn by Ethan Nicolle.  But the best part is that Axe Cop was written by Ethan’s younger brother who was 5 at the time.  That’s right, five.  So Axe Cop comes from the delightfully twisted imagination of a (rather precocious in my opinion) five year old.

This book collects the beginning web comics, including the first slew of Ask Axe Cop, perhaps my favorite feature of the comic.  It also has a forward by Mystery Science Theater 3000’s Kevin Murphy!

In the beginning, there was Axe Cop.  No, in the beginning Ethan tells about how he was visiting his younger brother over a Christmas break and they started playing with action figures and what not.  And one of the guys was a firefighter with an axe.  Malachai didn’t want to play fireman, so he called this guy Axe cop.  Ethan decided to make a comic out of it and it all started from there. (more…)

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[LISTENED TO: December 29, 2014] Jasper Dash and the Flame-Pits of Delaware

delWe are now hooked on the Pals in Peril series.  This, the third book, promised to be the funniest and weirdest yet.  I mean, look at the title.

But this book proved problematic for us for two somewhat related reasons.  The first is that we usually listen to longer books like this when we have a lot of driving to do.  We didn’t have any major big drive ahead so we wound up listening in small chunks, which was a little confusing.  The kids were able to follow quite well, but after a couple of weeks some details are bound to get lost.  The second reason is that this book is long.  It was a 6 hour audio book as opposed to the 3 hours of the other two books.

The brevity of Whales on Stilts was a real treat.  In it, Anderson wrote that he didn’t like to write action scenes because they were all the same.  Same with chase scenes.  But in this book, he has our heroes slogging through the wilderness for literal days (and almost an entire disc).  It got a little samey, I feel–especially since we were listening in small chunks at a time.

This is not to say that the book wasn’t enjoyable. There were hundreds of hilarious moments in it.  Even in the duller sections, he often threw in an absurd joke (or ten) that made me laugh.  So maybe if we had listened all at once this would have held up better.  But honestly it was only the middle that was kind of trudging (when they were trudging) because the beginning and end were great.

This happens to be another book where reading it would have been entertaining in other ways–the characters of Delaware have virtually no vowels in their names.  Mark Cashman (who did another awesome job reading) does a fine job saying their names, but I had to find a print copy in the library because I needed to know how these crazy words were spelled.

So, what happens? (more…)

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