Reading & Books

The Circus Ship…and Some Unexpected Visitors

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Recently we went to one of my all time favorite bookshops, Keplers in Menlo Park, California.  Growing up this was one of my favorite places and I spent most if not all of my allowances there.  Being back in California brought back so many fantastic memories that I wanted to share with my petites, so of course it was only natural to share this fantastic place with my family.

Keplers

While browsing the children’s books one of their delightful sales people came up and asked us how we were, I asked her to show me some of her favorite titles.  She told me about her son and how he loves The Circus Ship by Chris Van Dusen, she said that he loved looking for the animals on the pages.  After a quick peak, it was clear that this book would be coming back to Seattle with us.

The Circus Ship

This is a tremendous story that is sure to become a favorite at story time.  It all starts five miles off the coast of Maine, where a circus ship is stuck in the fog.  On board this boat were fifteen circus animals that were heading to Boston for a show.  The delightful captain, Mr. Carrington was concerned about the weather and wanted to delay, however, Mr. Paine the circus boss has another plan in mind.

As you might have expected the circus ship didn’t make it to Boston, in fact it crashes and this is where the unexpected events unfold.  The fifteen anaimals swim all night long and soggily land on the shore, when the towns people begin to wake up they are in for quite the surprise.  This is where the amazing illustrations really come to life.  I found myself being excited with the turn of each page to see what the animals are getting into.  This story is filled with fun and adventure, the animals get into all sorts of trouble.  The rhyming flow of the story makes this a perfect book to be read aloud.  You cannot help but have a huge smile on your face as you search for the ostrich in an outhouse, a python in the pantry, and a tiger in the tulips.  This book also provides the perfect opportunity to discuss feelings of the towns people as they discover the different animals – I love this interaction it is so important to be able to discuss these small components of stories with petites.

Of course no story is complete without something really stunning happening, there is a fire and a little one who is trapped inside, the tiger acts just like he has many other nights with jumping through a ring of fire and he does just that and saves sweet Emma Rose.  After this brave act the towns people change the opinion about the animals and they lived together and it seems like this would be the perfect ending to a perfect book.

However, you may be asking yourself what about Mr.Paine?  Well, he comes back and he is mean as ever looking for his animals so that he can put them back to work.  The townspeople have had a change of heart, they love these animals and so they help to hide them.  Mr. Paine searches all over the town and cannot find his animals anywhere.  This is where your petite can see if they have better luck than Mr. Paine.

What I think is so terribly fun about this story is that it is based upon true events!

Circus Ship

What!  So this is the part where I get really giddy, as a teacher I love stories like this one and then where there is a non-fiction document to go with it, you have a fantastic teachable moment.

The Little Paris Bookshop…a complete delight to read.

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The Little Paris Bookshop a NovelI recently read The Little Paris Bookshop by Nina George (Crown, 2015) it is an absolutely wonderful read for book lovers.  This story is set in Paris, the main character Jean Perdu is a book seller, but more than that he has transformed a floating barge into the most perfect bookshop.  He of course sells books, but not always in the way that one would think.  He is phenomenal at choosing just the perfect book for the person who is reading it, his shop is a literary apothecary.  My biggest regret in reading this book is that I did not keep a list of the books that are referenced, because it would be so much fun to read all of them that Monsieur Perdu mentions.

This book is not just about selling books, or the perfect backdrop of Paris, it is a very detailed look at one mans life and the choices that he has made.  Perdu struggles with the fact that he loved deeply when he was younger and that relationship ended and he has never been able to move on.  He goes on this quest to resolve his lost love, picking up interesting characters along the way.  The friendships that he makes are fantastic in that they are not predictable, they are well crafted characters that all learn something from one another and all serve a really important purpose.  I absolutely love this book.  It is filled with friends, letting go of the past and being okay with moving on and loving again.  Nina George does a wonderful job of creating characters and a setting that transport you in time and place.

The Little Paris Bookshop is a delightful read that any one who loves a great story and a story about books will completely enjoy.  In fact this book was so interesting to me that I wanted to immediately know more about this idea of prescribing books to people to cure their ailments.  So I did a little research into this idea and found The Novel Cure, which is a book that contains recommendations for what ails you.  It is an A – Z of literary remedies created by Ella Berthoud & Susan Elderkin.  They started The School of Life in London, where they have been prescribing literary therapy for years.  You should definitely check out their recommendations and if you happen to be in London go The School of Life.

Blogger note: I received this book from Blogging for Books for this review, however the ideas presented are my own.

The Giveaway is complete! The Winner is Jennifer R!

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BabyLit Winner

I absolutely love giving books away.  There is something about getting new books that is so incredibly special.  Thank you to everyone who entered the giveaway.  If you didn’t win this time, don’t worry, I love giving books away so much that there will be another giveaway soon. 

Erin

It’s Giveaway Time

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I am so excited, I truly love giving books away.  Books are some of the best gifts that you can give to someone and this time I am thrilled to be giving away some of our absolute favorite books.

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I have mentioned before that I am madly and forever in love with BabyLit and the amazing designs and creations of Alison Oliver and Jennifer Adams.  There are so many stunning books, I have made it a mission to collect them all (I need to get my hands on four more at the moment to complete my petites set).

Baby Lit

Introducing petites to these primers is wonderful for so many reasons, the books are stunning introductions to the classics we have all grown to love.  With gorgeously illustrated pages, that help petites to learn about counting, colors or animals.  These books are gorgeously designed, they entice pre-readers with the bright colors and fantastic illustrations.  One of my favorite things about these books is that they are fun for parents to read too.  They also look amazing on a shelf.

Okay, let’s talk about the giveaway: the giveaway includes four of our favorite BabyLit books.

Romeo & Juliet: A Counting Primer

Romeo & JUliet romeo & Juliet inner

Alice in Wonderland: A Colors Primer

Alice and Wonderland

Alice and Wonderland inner

Moby Dick: An Ocean Primer

Moby Dick

Moby Dick Inner

Pride and Prejudice: A Counting Primer

Pride & Prejudice

Pride & Prejudice Inner

As you can see if you are not familiar with these books, they are a gorgeous homage to the classics, perfect for petites.  A special thank you to Gibbs Smith Publisher for the lovely images.

How to Enter and Rules for Entry

♥ Follow the Petite Stag on Facebook & Share the page with one friend

♥ Follow the Petite Stag on Instagram & Tag one friend in the comments of the giveaway post

♥♥ Make sure to enter following the steps above and  by clicking on a Rafflecopter giveaway, when you have completed the above steps.♥♥

This giveaway is only open to US residents at this time.

Best of Luck!

Erin

Orion and the Dark

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coverOrion and the Dark by Emma Yarlett (2015, Templar Books) is a book that is all about facing your fears and having fun along the way.  Orion is a young boy, who like many petites is afraid of quite a few things: wasps, dogs, monsters, spiders, girls and one thing that scares Orion more than anything else…the dark.  Because he is so frightened of the dark, he has tried everything to solve the problem, but nothing works.

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His room that isn’t scary during the day becomes frightening at night.  One night Orion notices something very peculiar happening, the Dark begins to come alive and then straight into Orions’ room.  The Dark is a beautiful slightly transparent figure adorned with stars and constellations.

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Orion remembers what his mother always says “remembers your manners” so he introduces himself and what do you know, the Dark – not so scary after all.

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Orion goes through a fantastic transformation, he realizes that the Dark is not exactly what he expected.  The adventure that Orion and Dark go on is to uncover all the scary places and see what they are really about.  What Orion learns through facing his fears is that some of the places that he thought where the most frightening, turned out to be really FUN!

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Together Orion and the Dark explore the darkness and all of the things that had previously scared Orion and together they conquered his fears.  Until they got to the scariest of them all the night sky.

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What Orion realizes through this journey with the Dark is that they are friends and that he doesn’t want the Dark to go far away.

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This book is perfect for petites who love a great story and maybe aren’t too fond of the dark.  After we read this book, I looked for some really fun activities that we could do to keep the fun going and talk more about the stars.  A special thank you to Templar Books an imprint of Candlewick for the images.

 

Since the girls so enjoyed reading Orion and the Dark I wanted to make sure that we continued to have fun discussing this topic.  I found this gorgeously done constellation book that is the perfect companion activity to this book from Quince & Quire.

Quince & Quire Constellation Book

Here is an amazing printable document of the Northern Hemisphere constellations courtesy of Mr. Printables, that might help you to complete your constellation book.

printable-summer-constellation-map-bw

 

Hope you enjoyed our fun activity, if you like what you read here consider following The Petite Stag on Facebook or Instagram.

If you liked this book here are some other posts that you might enjoy:

The Dark - Cover  Flashlight - cover

What we’ve been reading this week

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Since it is now summer time here in the Pacific Northwest, I thought I would share some of the things we are reading each week.  I also would encourage you lovely readers to tell me about what you’re reading too.  I love it when people send me links to interesting articles or links for new books that are coming out, it honestly makes my day.  So please, share what you’re reading with your petites on The Petite Stag face book page.  Also, if you love one of these books too, tell me about it.

Here is a snippet of what we are reading this week:

Claude in the City by Alex T. Smith 2011, copyright Peachtree Publishing.  This book is part of a series of delightful books, there are five in total right now.  These books are so much fun, Claude has a very best friend Sir Bobblysock and they go on all sorts of adventures.  Sometimes inadvertently saving the day.  This young reader chapter book is perfect for both boys and girls and its silly humor will even have parents giggling at story time.  Thanks to Lindsay, for introducing us to Claude, we are fast friends.

We love whales in this house, a lot.  So when the petite saw, The Blue Whale by Jenni Desmond copyright 2015 Enchanted Lion Books, we knew this one was clearly going in our overflowing book bag.  Although the petite was drawn to the enchanting cover, this book is more geared toward pre-k and up.  It has really interesting facts about blue whales and delightful illustrations that make reading this books so enjoyable.  What I love the most about this book is that it starts with intrigue and a little one who started to read a book.  I am sure if your petite loves whales or learning interesting facts you will thoroughly enjoy.
If: A Mind Bending New Way of Looking at Big Ideas and Numbers by David J. Smith with art by Steve Adams copyright 2014 Kids Can Press.  This is a really fun book, perfect for petites who crave knowledge.  For example you will learn about the events of the last 3000 years of history as if they were condensed into one month.  You will learn about inventions, continents, water, money, species of living things, population, food and more.  This is a perfect book for 2nd grade through middle school.  However, with some explaining I was to share it with my petite who will be a first grader next year.  This book would also be perfect for any teachers classroom library.
Who isn’t a fan of a crow in a scarf and matching sweater?  Counting Crows by Kathi Appelt with art by Rob Dunlavey copyright 2015, Atheneum Books for Young Readers, will delight your tiny mathematicians.  The sweater wearing crows go about their day but in a counting way.  This book is perfect for toddlers through pre-k.  Also perfect for beginning readers to read to their younger siblings.

Water is Water, by Miranda Paul with art by Jason Chin copyright 2015 Roaring Brook Press is gorgeously illustrated.  In this book your petite will learn all about the water cycle and what that looks like with lovely rhythmic language that just rolls off of your tongue.  This book is really fun to read.  If your petite is enjoying some time this summer in a lake or happens to get caught in summer rains you will want to check this one our right away and take the opportunity to learn more about the water cycle.

Now it’s your turn, tell me what you are reading this week?  Please share with us at The Petite Stag on Facebook.

Happy summer reading!

Erin

Little Kunoichi The Ninja Girl

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photo A few weeks ago we happened upon Little Kunoichi, The Ninja Girl written and illustrated by Sanae Ishida copyright 2015 Sasquatch Books.  This book features a determined young ninja named Little Kunoichi who, at first struggles at school, thinking it is too hard, she sneaks away to her hideaway and cries about how it is hard. This strikes a chord with me, because my petite struggles in school.  I’ve mentioned before that she has epilepsy and this causes challenges for her in class, and she often times comes home feeling very sad that she wasn’t able to focus or do her best work.  This is something that as a parent is heart wrenching to watch.  The reason I wanted to share this is that, Little Kunoichi is a book she can relate to.  Through reading this book she made a connection to Little Kunoichi. What is so remarkable is that Little Kunoichi finds a friend, Chibi Samurai, he too struggles at school, but together they work really hard and practice and practice and then practice some more.  What the darling duo finds is that to find success they need to persevere and shugyo (train like crazy). This book will become a fast favorite among your petites for many reasons.  First, the story is gorgeously illustrated, my daughters love looking through the pages and seeking out new things within the very detail illustrations.  Another reason that my girls love this book is because Little Kunoichi and Chibi Samurai are exceptionally relatable – they struggle, are innovative, creative, fast friends and best of all they are hard workers and their shugyo style mentality leads them to success. I feel I would be remiss if I didn’t also mention that this book, according to my five year old, smells amazing!  So if you have a petite who likes the smell of books, then this is yet another reason this book is amazing. Read more about the amazing author Sanae Ishida in an interview here with Sasquatch Books.  Here is another interview with NW Books, where Ishida tells us about some of her favorite books, you’ll want to check out her book recommendations they are fantastic.

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A Princess, A Sonic Socket Wrench and a Whole Lot of Ingenuity

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A few weeks ago I went to a bookshop I’ve never been to before and they had these most amazing displays of books.  Within this amazing wall of books, all of which I need to just magically appear on my bookshelves, was Interstellar Cinderella.  Interstellar Cinderella by Deborah Underwood with illustrations by Meg Hunt copyright 2015 Chronicle Books.

As the mom of two small girls, I know how important it is to have lots of books around, but more so to have books that feature strong female characters.  Characters that show gumption, ingenuity and curiosity about a myriad of topics.  I love these books, they are treasures and books I want to surround my girls with – Interstellar Cinderella is just this type of book.

This book is a play on the traditional Cinderella, but with an updated twist, this Cinderella dreams of fixing rockets and her wicked stepsisters are going to The Prince’s Royal Space Parade and not a ball.  Cinderella also has a lovely fairy godrobot that is illustrated to perfection.  There are many similarities that will have you thinking about the traditional Cinderella, but the part that I love the absolute best is that it is this Cinderella can fix her own problems, she doesn’t need a prince to help her do it, and she knows what she wants.  The ending is one that makes you want to applaud.  Instead of the book ending with a marriage and a carriage, Interstellar Cinderella ends with her turning down a proposal and offering one of her own!

This book is perfect for everyone, however, if you have a daughter, niece or granddaughter this is a book you will want to add to their shelves.  The illustrations are wonderful and the message is so needed.  I hope that this author illustrator duo have something else in the works, because this book is perfection.

If you like this book you might also like Rosie Revere Engineer, read more here.

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Beachy Reads for Petites

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This last week we enjoyed some incredibly warm Seattle weather.  We ended up spending some time at the beach and the lake getting some freckles on our noses.  Of course when we were packing up my girls grabbed books.  I wanted to share these two fantastic beach reads with you.

Sea Rex

Sea Rex written and illustrated by Molly Idle copyright 2015 Viking.  Is a book I have been waiting to read for months.  I love Molly Idle’s art, she is so incredibly talented and this book is just yet another example of her stunning vision.  This book will have your petites giggling and planning their next picnic at the beach in no time.  This is the story of Tea Rex and his family who are on a picnic at the beach, my girls loved that this story included the steps you need to do at the beach, including gathering your friends, using sunscreen, collecting shells and of course a picnic.  What the petite loved the most about this book is a text to self connection that she made when the seagulls steal their picnic basket; she was so excited because we had an incident last summer, that made a huge impression, where some crows ate our entire picnic lunch while we were playing the water. We love that Tea Rex is so versatile in his activities, whether it is a tea party, a camping trip or a day at the beach.  This book will delight even the tiniest of petites with its vibrant illustrations.

  Chu's Day at the Beach

Chu’s Day at the Beach written by Neil Gaiman and illustrated by Adam Rex copyright 2015 Harper Collins.  Let me just start by saying I love anything written by Neil Gaiman and that statement applies to the Chu books as well.  My girls love Chu and this book certainly did not disappoint.  Chu is an adorable panda who goes to the beach with his family for a fun day in the sun.  Unfortunately, he has a really disastrous sneeze.  What happens next are quite a few really silly things that had my girls fake sneezing as well as trying to predict how Chu could fix the problems.  The illustrations of all of the beach goers are so beautiful, my almost two year old loved looking at all of the different animals and especially the merpandas.  I am sure your petites will enjoy these wonderfully written and stunningly illustrated beach reads.

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Now I need your help, what are some of your favorite beach reads for petites?  Tell me in the comments below.

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Elliott the Otter: The Totally Untrue Story of Elliott, Boss of the Bay

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Elliott the OtterI sure do love a story that takes place in my hometown, there is just something so special about a story that showcases the place you love.  Elliott the Otter: The Totally Untrue Story of Elliott, Boss of the Bay is a fantastic story about an otter who lives in Elliott Bay, he is one very busy otter making sure that all the happenings in the bay are happening on schedule as planned.  This story by John Skewes and Eric Ode with illustrations from John Skewes copyright 2015;  will be the perfect addition to your petites shelves.

The illustrations are so fantastically done that my five year old kept say, hey, I know where that is.  The cover art is just gorgeous, yes, another thing I love about this book is that even the spine has a picture of Elliott waving at you just saying hello, come and read me please.  Elliott has a lot of responsibilities, ensuring that the cargo containers arrive safely at the port, that they are unloaded and loaded quickly.  Elliott even helps to direct the ferry boats as well as some of our favorite visitors here in the Pacific Northwest, Orcas and of course the salmon.  This book does a wonderful job of relating just how critical Elliott bay is, not only for the port of Seattle, but the ecosystem of the bay as well.

There are so many things I love about this book –  one really fun aspect that my petite took to heart is Elliott’s incredible amount of responsibilities.  Elliott has a lot of responsibilities in his bay, even if some of them are completely untrue, the petite kept saying wow, he is really busy, we loved that he has a clipboard.  Shortly after we read this book, my daughter dug out a clipboard and made a list of things she needed to do.

Time management, oh my goodness this is something that is so critical for future success and this book and Elliots’ punctuality will help petites start to think about being on time and keeping track of what you need to do.  I love that Elliott is constantly checking his pocket watch to ensure everyone and everything is on schedule.  I love a book that provides you with an opportunity to talk about bigger things like time management and responsibilities, but in an incredibly non-invasive really fun way.

Hooray, she found it

I did want to mention in case you did not see the previous post, this book was given to us through a book hunt, of sorts, check out the blog to find out how we tracked down this treasure from Sasquatch Books.  As you can see my petites adore this book and I am sure, even if you aren’t a resident of this incredibly fine city, yours will too.