Wallace, Amelia, and Spud are off on another set of minor adventures in the woods and creeks around Snug Harbor. They spend their days hunting the Sasquatch, tracking a prehistoric turtle named Gramps, playing basketball, making blanket forts, eating pancakes in the shape of a top hat, and ducking out of their schoolwork.
I love how imaginative Wallace is! He can take the smallest bit of nothing and turn it into a wild adventure, dragging his friends along with him.
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The one reason I enjoyed reading this book is the possibility for pointing out so many fun details in the illustrations. There is a ladybug hidden on every page, and it’s so delightful to search for it in the pictures. When reading with a child, it would be really fun to point to each picture and ask them “What is that?” or “Who is that?” and teach them about various people, places, and things.
All the illustrations are bright and colorful with a cartoonish look. The pages vary from simple and clean to extremely busy with complicated pictures of various things all jumbled together. I prefer the clean style, but I can also see the appeal of the jumbled images since it would be fun to point out each thing on the page while reading with a child. Continue reading
I really enjoyed reading this book! It is written for young children, so many business concepts that a child wouldn’t know like “Revenue,” Investments,” or “Board of Directors” are explained with definitions for the bigger words. There are also “Fun Fact” boxes within the text that give extra tidbits of information about how the Nike company was built.
There are funny anecdotes about how the company received its name, designed the classic Swoosh logo, and developed its rapport with athletes, then began reaching out to pros for endorsement deals. Continue reading
As a musician, I enjoyed this story so much. The writing is quite accurate about how one feels about learning music, and embracing it, and connecting with the composers; how you can make yourself crazy practicing too much, how your nerves will go haywire before or after a performance, how music shapes everything you do and everything you are.
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I loved this hilarious story, and read it all in one sitting! The madcap plot is full of surprises, and the snappy dialogue makes every page interesting. I enjoyed the magic system and how it interacts in strange ways with the modern world.
I thought Jennifer was sweet and REAL and beautifully awkward. Her family is quirky and weird, and her friends are peppery and unreliable. The best part of the book was Jennifer’s various relationships with her parents, siblings, and school friends, and of course, her magical talking toad.
I adored every chapter! Can’t wait to read more from this series.
If you are a big fan of the Iliad, you might like this, but I did not enjoy reading it. Usually I love classical literature, and I have read The Iliad before, so I was happy to be revisiting the story of the Trojan War with all the drama. But this book does not deliver drama. It feels stale and static, like the characters are all made of stone.
Disappointed in this one. Continue reading
The one thing I did NOT enjoy was the actual story. It was not exactly clear what the relationship was between Ruth’s chipped tooth and the broken cup. Did she chip her tooth on the cup? Or is she just comparing her tooth to the cup?
The story is told in really terrible poetry. The meter is off. Some of the words don’t rhyme. I don’t know why people think children’s picture books should be in rhyme. It would be a much better story if they just told the story, instead of painfully attempting to rhyme “beach” with “feet”, and “sea” and “dream”. *cringe*
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