Feeds:
Posts
Comments

Archive for the ‘Waffles’ Category

Maria Parr–Adventures with Waffles (2015) [translated 2013] [audiobook 2015–Luke Daniels]

Posted in Adventure, Audiobooks, Chickens, Children's Books, Cows, Death, Doctors, Foreign Books, Guy Puzey, Horses, Hospitals, Kindness, Luke Daniels, Maria Parr, Marriage (Happy), Norway, Radio, Translation, Waffles, World War II on August 13, 2017| Leave a Comment »

[LISTENED TO: August 2017] Adventures with Waffles

I saw this book in the library and the title sounded interesting. The blurb on the back when enticing as well, so I grabbed it for our family road trip.

I had no idea that the book was a translation of a Norwegian story (Vafflehjarte) nor that it had already been translated into English as Waffle Hearts (a much more accurate, and frankly much more satisfying title).  I gather from a little research that Waffle Hearts is a British translation and Adventures with Waffles is an American one (although they both have the same translator, Guy Puzey).

The story is about Trille and Lena, two kids who live next door to each other in the village of Mathildawick Cove in Norway.  Their village is small and there are only 9 kids in their grade.  Lena is the only girl. The bully Kai-Tommy wishes she weren’t in their class.  But Trille feels that Lena is his best friend (he hopes it is reciprocated, but is unsure).  She is wild, she is spontaneous, she is dangerous.  And she is a lot of fun. (more…)

Read Full Post »

Tony Abbott–Time Surfers series (1996-1997)

Posted in Adventure, Boredom, C., Children's Books, End of the World, Fantasy, History, Mad Scientists, NASA, Phineas and Ferb, Technology, Tony Abbott, Waffles on December 16, 2012| Leave a Comment »

SOUNDTRACK: PHINEAS AND FERB-The Twelve Days of Christmas (2009).

12daysTo get you in the mood for the holidays, I present The Phineas and Ferb Twelve Days of Christmas.  Each character gets a wish, even Perry.  And of course, Ferb’s wish on the 12th day is great.

Obviously, Doofenschmirtz is the comic relief of the song (although most of the wishes are funny in themselves).  Doofenshmirtz hilariously wishes for the entire tri-state area and then slowly backs down to one state, admitting he was overreaching at the beginning.

I can’t find a video from the show, but there are plenty cobbled together on YouTube.  Like this one.  Enjoy!

 

[READ: July 2012] Time Surfers series

We’re still working through all of the different Tony Abbott series.  And this series, Time Surfers, is another early collection of eight books about young kids going on adventures.  This series was also difficult to find (although it has recently come back into print (with much better illustrations).  The think I have yet been able to figure out about Abbott’s earlier series–they seem like he planned to do more.  Or more specifically, they seem unfinished.  I wonder if he gave up or if the publishers gave up on him.

So this series seems to have a few arcs in it.  New villains emerge, which is interesting, although as C. pointed out, what happened to Vorg from the first four books, he just seemed to go away.

Book #1, Space Bingo starts the series in an interesting way (Tony Abbott’s exposition is always interesting–indeed all of th ebooks open up with a scene the seems to be one thing but is revealed to be something else).  Ned Banks has moved to a new city far away from his home and his best friend.  He has to start a new school and he’s not too happy about it.  His sister has been calling him Nerd instead of Ned and the nickname is starting to spread, especially since such bad luck things are happening to him in school.  So he does what any clever kid would do–he creates a communicator (and tells his best friend Ernie how to make one) so that they can talk to each other whenever they want (and not have phone charges!).  When Ned turns the communicator on, however, it opens a time portal in his closet and two kids from the year 2099 come flying out. (more…)

Read Full Post »

Tony Abbott–Danger Guys series (1994-1996)

Posted in Adventure, Boredom, C., Children's Books, Chris Rock, Fantasy, Indiana Jones, Jurassic Park, Mad Scientists, Madagascar, Star Wars, Technology, Tony Abbott, Waffles on August 24, 2012| Leave a Comment »

SOUNDTRACK: “Neverending Afro Circus” (2012).

If you’ve seen the movie Madagascar 3, you’ll recognize this song as the earworm that you will be singing all the way home.  And that your kids will no doubt be singing for days.

I actually want to jump in and say that I saw Madagascar 3 without seeing Madagascar 2 and I was quite lost (and missed a lot of in-jokes, apparently) for the first 20 or so minutes.  Who would have guessed that a kids movie could do that to you?

Anyhow, back to this song.  C. and T. love it.  And it turns out that YouTube loves it too.  There are dozens of different videos of varying lengths (from 10 seconds to 59 minutes!!) repeating this wonderful nonsense.  But for real neverending Afro Circus, please visit AfroCircus.com and see how much you can stand.

For a measly ten minute loop, please enjoy this:

[youtube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_aELcXyjpts%5D

[READ: July 2012] Danger Guys series

We loved Droon so much we had to see what else Tony Abbott had written.

Turns out that he has written a lot of books and a bunch of series.  In addition to Droon he has written four books that are not part of any series, a series called The Haunting of Derek Stone and a brand new series called UnderWorlds.  UnderWorlds looks like a great series for C., although Haunting and the stand alone books seem like they might be a little too old for him.  He also has some older series like Don’t Touch That Remote!, Goofballs, Time Surfers and The Weird Zone.  (I think that’s all of them).

He also has this Danger Guys series, which I believe comprised his first novels.

My major complaint about the series is…why is it out of print?  Why was it so hard for me to find?  I had to do an Inter Library Loan and the copies I received were so beat up that we may wind up being the last people to read them!  This is a real shame because these books were fantastic!  The series is about two boys Noodle (the smart one) and Zeke (the athletic one).  They are best friends and do everything together.  I’m not exactly sure how old they are…I’m guessing middle school?  In each book they get into an escalating series of adventures which can be resolved by logic, brains, strength and sometimes a little luck.  The books are mildly scary (the Halloween one is the most scary but even that…not really), they’re not violent or gross, but they are full of adventure and they’re very funny (an Abbott specialty).  There were several moments that C. was laughing very hard at these.

There are six books in total in the series.  And because the books aren’t radically different from each other, I’m only going to say a few lines about each. (more…)

Read Full Post »