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Divide and Rule #100Books

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I borrowed Divide and Rule from a friend’s last week (accidentally leaving my half finished review copy of O: A Presidential Novel there in exchange, so that won’t get finished and reviewed til next week now, *oops*). I like Jan Mark – as is obvious by the fact that I’ve already reviewed a couple by her this month, and this looked interesting.

It didn’t disappoint. It’s a psychological and philosophical novel about religion, the story of a young man’s experience living in a temple for a year, and tbh, nearly as deep and deeply worrying as something like 1984. It could easily be read on a lighter level, but there’s a lot going on – Jan Mark really didn’t hesitate to address the darker side of human nature and society in these books, ostensibly for teens. I can only say that any adults who turn away from them because of those labels are doing themselves no favours at all.

Book 55 of 100. [Read more…] about Divide and Rule #100Books

Off the shelf #100books

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A few more round up reviews of books that we’ve had around for ages and I’ve read again to Smallest.

The Whales’ Song is one of the batch of mini treasures that we picked up, but it’s also a book we’ve had for a while. It doesn’t seem like a first picture book somehow – it’s quite a deep story, and they are detailed, older pictures if that makes any sense. It’s a thought provoking tale at some levels, as well as being a quiet short story about a girl and some animals.

Thank You Kitty and Kitty Helps Out are large format pictures books with flaps that have survived two children so far, though may have to work quite hard to survive Smallest as she seems to take personal affront to anything stuck in books, like library labels or flaps. These are both somewhat moralistic stories in which Kitty discovers the virtues of helping her friends, most of whom are more often found on cat menus rather than Christmas card lists iyswim. So Kitty helps little Rabbit find his teddy, and shares her ball of wool with the birds and mice, and everyone lives happily ever after with smiling Cat looking on. That said, these books are really quite inoffensive, and have been favourites of our family for a decade now.

Book 52, 53, and 54 of 100. [Read more…] about Off the shelf #100books

Turning the Tide #100Books

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This was kindly sent to me for review by ChocLitUK for the 100 book challenge. I’m also going to enter ChickLitPlus challenge to read 12 chick lit books in a year, and this is number 1 🙂

Perhaps it’s because I’ve been reading so many books of such a varied type in such a short time, but I actually found this one rather hard to focus on. It seemed to just slightly miss the mark – moved a little too slowly to draw me in to the story, yet didn’t use the extra time to build the characters. A little superficial I guess I’m saying. A shame, as all the ingredients were right, and there is little obviously wrong to pick up on, perhaps it was all just a little too safe?

Nevertheless, I would look out for and give a go to others by this author, as overall it was certainly a pleasant enough read when I did get right down to it.

Book 44 of 100. [Read more…] about Turning the Tide #100Books

Doing the Animal Bop #100Books

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This was sent to us free of charge by Oxford University Press for our 100 books challenge.

Fun pictures and a great rhythm, this is a book that is crying out to be read to a group of toddlers so that they can join in with the actions – I suspect it’s destined to become a firm favourite in baby rhyme times at libraries up and down the country, and at the livelier book reading sessions in nursery schools. It romps along with strong rhymes, and if there is just the one that causes my dp to snigger, well that’s because he has a very evil sense of humour 😉

Book 43 of 100. [Read more…] about Doing the Animal Bop #100Books

Using our library for #100books

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A challenge that is working to build a library overseas really ought to do more than nod at libraries here. We are not in an area where libraries are particularly threatened by the coming cuts as far as I can tell, but if we were, I’d be thinking hard about what I could do to help them. I love libraries. They are wonderful resources for the community, not just in supplying books. Although that bit is pretty good too.

Sitting around here atm, we’ve got Tiger by Nick Butterworth, which is a great picture book just crying out for sound effects. (Oh come on, you resist ROARing along with the tiger if you can 😉 Or Miaowing with the kitten for that matter.) And the pictures in it are just gorgeous, I can keep looking at them all day long.

Then there are a couple more Elmer books, Elmer and the Wind and Elmer and Grandpa Eldo. Neither of them are as good as the original Elmer book, but both are enjoyable. Nice to know that the rest of Elmer’s family are just as bonkers as he is though 😉

A book that I wasn’t very pleased with is I’m Not Scary! (Touch & Feel). There are lots of niggly little issues with this. The grasshopper is too small to feel the sandpaper scratchy bit. The dragonfly is an odd colour. The snail isn’t particularly slimy, and as for the whole punchline of the book being that spiders are scary, well, that just makes me see red. But then, I have spent the last couple of years trying to talk Small out of an acquired phobia of spiders which has made life extremely difficult at times. So anything that encourages children to that kind of irrational fear winds me up. Not a book I’m recommending, which is a shame, as usually I love Rod Campbell’s work.

Orange Pear Apple Bear is just beautiful. Really simple – just those words (and ‘there’ at the end) with unfussy but gorgeous illustrations. And this morning when we were reading it for the umpteenth time, Smallest said ‘pear’ and I just melted. I’m keeping my eye out for other Emily Gravett books.

Not Now, Bernard is a cautionary tale that I feel all parents should take to heart, although monsters probably ought to read it carefully too. You never know what might happen if you’re not paying attention, or not having attention paid to you. I’m not sure which is saddest – what happens to Bernard, or what happens to the monster.

And finally on the library pile of books being returned today, Hairy Maclary’s Bone. If you haven’t come across Hairy Maclary, I highly recommend him and his mates – they are lovely read alouds for playing with sounds and ideas, and the pictures are good fun too.

So I make that another 7 books.

Book 35 to 41 of 100. [Read more…] about Using our library for #100books