Review: Froodle

Froodle by Antoinette Portis

My rating: 4 of 5 stars
(see below for detailed rating)


Something to know about me: words make me laugh. And oh my gosh, did this make me laugh. Right away, I knew my son would appreciate it too. I called him over from his trains and said, "Seriously, you have to hear this book." I was right. His response upon reading it: "Can we buy that book? It's my favorite book ever!"

Watch the book trailer here.

This is a book (illustrated by the author of NOT A BOX) about bucking the trend and choosing to be an individual, and how the others in one's peer group might react to it. The crow resisted the longest, but even he decided words were awesome too.

There's a lovely connection to seasons here, and sounds animals make. The first grade teacher in me is clamoring for curricular connections, but the librarian in me is just saying, "They are going to ask for this one over and over."

Antoinette Portis talking about imagination in 2008.

Ratings start at 5 out of 10 (perfectly acceptable) and go up or down from there.

Awesomeness: 9. A great concept, fabulously executed.

Wordsmithing: 8. Quirky and clever, and full of puns and references that older readers will relish.

Personages: 7. Each bird has its own personality, which I love.

Mesmerizitude: 8. I will totally read this book again.

Illustrations: 7. Sweet and simple and beautifully balanced.

Other reviews: Waking Brain Cells | Pass the Chiclets | Jean Little Library | Books for Little Foxes | Books Books Everywhere

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Review: This One Summer

This One Summer by Mariko Tamaki

My rating: 3 of 5 stars



The best thing about this book was the non-sequiturs. The dialogue and overheard conversations were totally believable. Tamaki nailed the awareness of a preteen of the experiences of both teens and adults - the fear, the fascination, the befuddlement and longing to understand. Reading it as an adult, it made me wonder what the target audience might be. I was thinking teenagers, even though the POV is from a preteen.

Graphic novels make it hard to get to know characters. This book solved that problem by developing strong visual exposition. I was able to write entire paragraphs in my head about the sensory experiences of being on the beach and watching horror movies.

The setting is perfect: ephemeral summer, never quite as good as you expect it to be, but when it's over, you realize how much you'll miss it.

Rating (they all start at 5 out of 10 (perfectly acceptable) and go up or down from there):

Awesomeness: 6. Disturbing, but still a light read.

Wordsmithing: 8. Turns of phrase will stick with you, especially the characters' awareness of sex.

Personages: 7. I felt for all the characters, even the ones I didn't particularly like.

Mesmerizitude: 5. I liked it, but it won't be one I'll read again.

Illustrations: 6. They were clean and simple, with great movement.



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Bloggiesta Mini-Challenge: Organizing My Books

Thanks to Cover2Cover, I'm participating in a Bloggiesta mini-challenge to organize my books and conquer my TBR pile. Planning and organizing are skills I am good at, but prioritizing I am NOT. So finding time to organize my fiction collection has been very low on my list. I have culled my print book collection so many times, and I think it is time to do it again as I alphabetize my fiction for the first time in two years. (My library shelf, my professional shelf and my craft shelves, at least, are in good shape.)

I have three big sets of built-in bookshelves. The one upstairs in my middle room is all fiction. The one downstairs is the largest and is a conglomeration of a whole bunch of things, mostly books. I think I'll move my graphic novel collection upstairs and my fiction downstairs, and plan to alphabetize it as I cull.

This is my TBR shelf and professional shelf. Books on the upper left I'm using as reference titles for stories I'm writing. Upper right are library chapter books and audiobooks. Second and third shelves are professional books, library picture books (and chocolate). Fourth and fifth shelves are craft materials.

Below, with the two doors, you see the rest of my craft materials. I spent a couple days over the summer organizing them by topic. You can't see my beautiful Mowati tileworks on my front windowsill. Cookbooks are on the bottom right near the door. I haven't figured out what to do with the long shelf at the top of the room - maybe some ornaments can go up there eventually. In any case, that's outside the scope of Bloggiesta...

Now we get to the shelves that need help. My middle room is painted dark red. My son insisted on photobombing the second half of the shelves. I must say that when I moved into this tiny 460-square-foot home from my 1500 square foot home, I reduced my fiction significantly. Since then I've culled at least twice more. Here's what's left. The bottom couple shelves are kids' books, but the rest is a hodgepodge of fiction. It drives me crazy, so I'm grateful for this encouragement to reorganize.

I'll take all my fiction downstairs and bring the graphic novels upstairs -- they might fill this space, actually -- and if they don't, I'll fill the rest with children's books.

While I'm at it, I'll figure out which of my fiction I haven't yet read (lots of it) and put those on my TBR shelf.

I have a little shelf at the bottom of my stairs which has some canning stuff and some books. I can add books from my unpacked boxes of classroom books to the bottom couple shelves.

This is my giant wall of books, 8 feet floor to ceiling along my inside corridor downstairs. It's completely a mess. I just put everything up there when I moved in and never bothered to organize it. There would have to be some major sorting. It'll be too much for one weekend, but I can definitely switch the fiction downstairs.

Whew! Now, if I didn't have a full day of teaching tomorrow, a ceremony to attend on Friday night in another city, and house guests coming over on Saturday night, I might actually be able to accomplish other things in addition to this. =)

Fall Bloggiesta, September 18-21

I'm mostly excited to be participating in the 2014 Bloggiesta this weekend. I've been such a blog slacker these past couple years, but I'm determined to get started again. So here are my goals:

• Clean up my tags.
• Unify my review structure.
• Review at least five of the books on my to-do shelf.
• Post all my draft posts, including the next part of my Easy Reader leveling post.
• Prep next week's posts.
• Do at least one meme.
• Catch up on my school blog.

I think that's probably enough. My hope is that I'll be done by Saturday.