Alexis Lampley's Blog, page 3

Maddie Moo Kids Book Review: Lovely Beasts, The Surprising Truth

Written by: Kate Gardner
Illustrated by: Heidi Smith

We were sent this book in exchange for an honest review.

So first of all, this is a gorgeous book. The artwork is so simple and beautiful. Each new animal that is introduced is a simple black and white illustration and a single word. Then you turn the page and the artwork is expanded with the animal and surroundings, and in color. And the muted color palette is so lovely with this style. 

The pages that expand about each animal show you another side of the scary or dangerous seeming animal, and explain cool facts about them. This is a really neat idea. I, for one, really enjoyed the facts. The only drawback right now for us is that the information was just a little but over her head as far as how it was worded. So I ended up having to simplify it a little bit. But as she grows, this issue will disappear, so I don't hold it against the book at all. She still enjoyed it, despite my stumbling to simplify the language as I read (I'm usually a really smooth reader so I'm sure it was unusual for her).

Overall, this is definitely a great addition to our bookshelf and is worth adding to yours!

Little Women

by: Louisa May Alcott
Generations of readers young and old, male and female, have fallen in love with the March sisters of Louisa May Alcott’s most popular and enduring novel, Little Women. Here are talented tomboy and author-to-be Jo, tragically frail Beth, beautiful Meg, and romantic, spoiled Amy, united in their devotion to each other and their struggles to survive in New England during the Civil War. {cover copy}
I'm almost positive I read this one when I was a kid, but I did not remember it at all. So while I'm pretty sure this was a re-read, I came at it totally blank. I actually enjoyed it. It was a cute story. I won't say it makes my top favorites, but I liked the sisterhood aspect of it and think it will serve well as a story-- when Madeline, being a sister herself now, is old enough to read it--that Madeline will enjoy!

"Christmas won't be Christmas without any presents," grumbled Jo, lying on the rug. {first line}
"Be comforted, dear soul! There is always light behind the clouds!"

"...it is always pleasant to be believed in."

"I want to do something splendid before I go into my castle--something heroic or wonderful, that won't be forgotten after I'm dead. I don't know what, but I'm on the watch for it, and mean to astonish you all some day."

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The Jungle Book

by: Rudyard Kipling
*No cover copy*
So, what surprised me most about this book was that the Jungle Book that we were used to seeing from Disney is not actually the entire book. This is actually a book filled with many stories. Some, obviously, like the Jungle Book we are used to, are longer than others. But I was so confused when a new story started and I still had pages and pages to go. Mind = Blown. I guess there are some surprises to waiting until you are an adult o finally pick up and read a children's classic! Haha 
That being said, I really enjoyed the format and the other stories. I especially liked the elephant story and the snake and mongoose tale. Both of those are almost more vivid to me than the Mowgli story as I think back on it.

It was seven o'clock of a very warm evening in the Seeonee hills when Father Wolf woke up from his day's rest, scratched himself, yawned, and spread out his paws one after the other to get rid of the sleepy feeling in their tips. {first line}
"Let them fall... They are only tears."

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The Wizard of Oz

by: L. Frank Baum
Follow the yellow brick road! Dorothy thinks she's lost forever when a tornado whirls her and her dog, Toto, into a magical world. To get home, she must find the wonderful wizard in the Emerald City of Oz. On the way she meets the Scarecrow, the Tin Woodman and the Cowardly Lion. But the Wicked Witch of the West has her own plans for the new arrival - will Dorothy ever see Kansas again? {cover copy}
I'm going to be really honest with you. I had never read this book before. I had seen the movie countless times (I'm originally from Kansas, after all) so I never thought to pick up the book. Which is weird coming from an avid reader, but there you go. Anyway, I knew there were some differences, and it was fun to finally see them in print! I love that there is so much more to the story with the book(s) as there are like several volumes to Dorothy's tale. Now that I have read the first one, I'm looking forward to reading the rest. I think I will choose to read the whole series together with Madeline when we start reading chapter books and experience the rest with her. 

Dorothy lived in the midst of the great Kansas prairies, with Uncle Henry, who was a farmer, and Aunt Em, who was the farmer's wife. {first line}
"You have plenty of courage, I am sure ... All you need is confidence in yourself. There is no living thing that is not afraid when it faces danger. True courage is in facing danger when you are afraid, and that kind of courage you have in plenty."

"Brains are the only thing worth having in this world."


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Maddie Moo Kids Book Review: French Fries in the Park

Written by: JM Sheridan
Illustrated by: Jamie Forgetta

We were sent this book in exchange for an honest review.

This is going to be a book where the opinions of the kid and that of her mother don't line up. 

I will say that I love the intent of this book. I think it's important for kids to know and understand, as much as they can, about kids with autism. I can vividly remember my one and only (though recurring) encounter with an autistic child when I was a child myself. He was the older brother of one of my classmates, and we rode the bus home after school together. I found him odd, but interesting. He was not great at speaking with us, unless we started asking him to tell us what word was before or after a word we gave him in the dictionary. He could tell us, plus the definition, ad if he was reading it there from a book. I never connected the word autistic to him until I was much older. We never teased him, at least from what I can recall, but I do remember laughing when he would tell us the definitions. For me personally, it was an awed and impressed sort of laugh. But I wonder now if that come off to him the same way. I hope he enjoyed his time on the bus with us, and thinks back not with hurt by those days. Nowadays, I am much more aware of autism and still find it quite fascinating. But I also recognize the struggle it is, due to having seen it represented on a few shows I've watched on Netflix. (Parenthood and Atypical). So I really appreciate this book for introducing this concept to my daughter so that hopefully she recognizes it and is never cruel, as I know some kids can be, in her interactions with anyone who is on the spectrum.

That said, I also happen to be kindof a snob when it comes to children's book design. The illustration style of this book is just not my cup of tea. This book is self-published and the design shows its hand for that. As a self-published author myself, I don't mean to be overly picky, but you aren't going to have a team of designers or access to top illustrators who make a book become a work of art, unless you have a lot of money to pour into it yourself. It shows. There are some editing choices, word-wise, that also show here, though for the most part I have no qualms with the writing.

But here's the thing. I finished reading it to Madeline and she immediately wanted me to read it again. She, as a member of the audience this book is aiming for, enjoyed it. She didn't care about the illustrations (it's better drawn than she could do at this point, so she doesn't have any bars set for art style) and she enjoyed a story about some kids who played together and ate french fries in the park. I mean, it's a pretty great subject to read about when you are a kid. 

So basically, my recommendation for this book comes down to your personal preference. If the subject matter is more important to you than the look of a book when you choose to read to your kid, then this one is worth looking into. While it is not personally one I would have sought out, I am glad that we have it in our bookshelves now, so that Madeline can learn a little bit more about the world and the people in it, and hopefully be a better person as she grows because of it. 

A Little Princess

by: Frances Hodgson Burnett
Sara Crewe, an exceptionally intelligent and imaginative student at Miss Minchin's Select Seminary for Young Ladies, is devastated when her adored, indulgent father dies. Now penniless and banished to a room in the attic, Sara is demeaned, abused, and forced to work as a servant. How this resourceful girl's fortunes change again is at the center of A Little Princess, one of the best-loved stories in all of children's literature.
. {cover copy}
I had never read this book in my childhood. I had seen the movie, so I figured I knew the story, but I am SO glad that I finally read this one. It is easily one of my favorite children's classics now. The amount of bookish love in this story just resonates with me. I mean, just check out the quotes I pulled. I was also surprised by the ending because I do believe it is different from the movie ending. Maybe I'm wrong, but I don't think so. Either way, it was so great to dive back into this story and to experience the book for the first time. I can't wait to read this one aloud with Madeline when we start reading chapter books! It'll be one of the first ones I pick.

Once on a dark winter's day, when the yellow fog hung so thick and heavy in the streets of London that the lamps were lighted and the shop windows blazed with gas as they do at night, an odd-looking little girl sat in a cab with her father, and was driven rather slowly through the big thoroughfares. {first line}
"She liked books more than anything else.

"She is always sitting with her little nose burrowing into books. She doesn't read them ... she gobbles them up as if she were a little wolf instead of a little girl. She is always starving for new books to gobble, and she wants grown-up books--great, big, fat ones.


"I know you by heart. You are inside my heart.


"You don't forget, but you bear it better.


"...stories belong to everybody.


"Never did she find anything so difficult as to keep herself from losing her temper when she was suddenly disturbed while absorbed in a book. People who are fond of books know the feeling of irritation which sweeps over them at such a moment. The temptation to be unreasonable and snappish is one not easy to manage.


"Perhaps there is a language which is not made of words and everything in the world understands it. Perhaps there is a soul hidden in everything and it can always speak, without even making a sound, to another soul.


"When people are insulting you, there is nothing so good for them as not to say a word--just to look at them and think. ... When you will not fly into a passion people know you are stronger than they are, because you are strong enough to hold in your rage, and they are not, and they say stupid things they wish they hadn't said afterward. There's nothing so strong as rage, except what makes you hold it in--that's stronger."


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All Over the Map; A Cartographic Odyssey

by: Betsy Mason & Greg Miller
Charting real and imagined worlds.
Whether etching lines into animal skins or manipulating pixels on a screen, people have been creating maps to describe, recall, and comprehend the world for thousands of years. Now, award-winning journalists Betsy Mason and Greg Miller, creators of the popular National Geographic blog All Over the Map, share their passion and take you on journeys back in time, forward into the future, around the world, and out in the heavens--all through the fascinating art and science of cartography.
In these vivid pages, see the Pacific coastline of South America as it was pictures in an early Spanish atlas, with which a 17th-century English pirate bargained for his life. Study the detailed maps made just after the 1906 San Francisco earthquake: the keys to our modern understanding of earth science and plate tectonics. Follow your nose through the urban smellscape of Kiev with a modern map that explores the ever changing scents of the city.
Brilliantly colorful and intricately details, with hundreds of maps, graphics, and in-depth comments from leading cartographers, curators, and scholars, All Over the Map will capture the imagination of anyone hungry for knowledge about our world--and the many ways we have found to picture it. {cover copy}
I was sent this book in exchange for an honest review. 

And let me just say, that this bad boy is an absolute visual delight. A feast for the eyes. A map-lovers dreamscape. I got so giddy looking through this book, because the maps are so incredibly cool and immersive. The stories that accompany them make them that much better! I love what a wide variety of maps are covered in this book. Different map styles, themes, subjects... its really a great overall look at the art and science of maps and mapmaking. 

As a letterer, I was hoping to see some maps done mostly with words, which happen to be my favorite kind (no surprise there, really). That was the only thing that disappointed me with this book. It would have been such a neat section to add. Perhaps if they update it in the future, they can add that section. Despite the lack of heavily-lettered maps, I was overall extremely pleased with this book. 

My favorite sections were the beautifully wave-like winding visual representation of the Mississippi River and how it has changed over the years. I also loved the color-coded visual of Amsterdam's buildings from oldest to newest. It was really cool to see the progress, but also it just looked like an awesome piece of contemporary art. The spiderweb tangle of lines showing tourist vs local traffic in New York was stunning. The farming landscapes of the United States was a gorgeous blending of colors and textures. The maps of the ocean floor had me so enthralled that after a while I felt like I was looking at a terrain map for another planet! The Trump vs Clinton voting map was so interesting I actually took a photo and sent it to my family group text like the giant map-loving nerd that I am. And last, but certainly not least, was the fact that this book also totally tipped it hat to us nerds out there and featured the Westeros map AND the plans to the Death Star! I mean, come on. How cool is that? 

Overall, this was nearly everything I hoped it would be, and more. It's a book I want to share with other people. One that made me want to text pictures to group chats, or make a note to bring it over to my parents house and look through it with my dad. It's a perfect coffee-table book, which these big ol' books are made to be. And it even had me imagining my living room re-decorated to include a spot to shelve this and the other NatGeo books I own! 

The Stacks: October 2018

So I'm late to posting this wrap-up of October's reads, as it's the 8th of November already. But given the fact that I didn't even post a wrap up the two months prior and only just now realized it, I'm doing okay! The reason I didn't post the stacks the last two months was a combination of being super busy at work and handling the baby. The reason I'm late now is work and baby also! I was pretty slammed with work until the 4th and then I've been a bit preoccupied with Maren starting daycare and us not knowing whether she was going to take a bottle. But it seems she will tolerate just enough of it to survive until I pick her up in the afternoons (lol*sob*) but at least she's doing well aside from her boob-snobbery, as we like to call it! Anyway, thanks to the magic of Audiobooks on 2x speed, I was able to tackle a LOT of books in a short amount of time. So this was quite a successful month of reading! I will be really excited when I finally catch up on my reviews and these posts stop being windows into the future where you can see all the books you will get reviews on in seven months (lol*sob*) But that won't correct itself until at least January. The good news is I'm just doing a lot of re-reading this month and the next, so I won't be doing reviews on re-reads (unless you want me to?) so I have a chance of catching up!

In other news, we will be switching over the blog in a month or so, so I'm not going to be listing the books with links like I usually do on these wrap-ups as we will be doing things differently on the new blog. I'm really excited about it because it will be expanding. So it's actually super important that I catch up on my reviews. So you can expect many more in the coming month as I go through all the books I read this summer!

The Little Prince

by: Antoine De Saint-Exupery
A pilot stranded in the desert awakes one morning to see, standing before him, the most extraordinary little fellow. "Please," asks the stranger, "draw me a sheep." And the pilot realizes that when life's events are too difficult to understand, there is no choice but to succumb to their mysteries. He pulls out pencil and paper... And thus begins the wise and enchanting fable that, in teaching the secret of what is really important in life, has changed forever the world for its readers. {cover copy}
I had never read this book. I finally saw the film on Netflix and loved it, so of course I had to finally read the book. I mean, if it was so iconic, then it was one our kid library needed to have in it and the girls needed to hear at some point in their childhood. So I'm happy to say that they now have the book in their library and I have now read it. I really enjoyed it. Possibly because I had already seen the film. But still. It was such a lovely story and I will be reading it very soon to Madeline. I just need a night where the baby actually goes to bed  earlier than her so I can have enough time to read it to her!

Once when I was six I saw a magnificent picture in a book about the jungle, called True Stories. {first line}
"One sees clearly only with the heart."

"The only things you learn are the things you tame. People haven't the time to learn anything. They buy things ready-made in stores. But since there are no stores where you can buy friends, people no longer have friends. If you want a friend, tame me!"

"I need to put up with two or three caterpillars if I want to get to know the butterflies."

"That's the way they are. You must not hold it against them. Children should be very understanding of grown-ups."


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Matilda

by: Roald Dahl
Matilda is a little girl who is far too good to be true. At age five-and-a-half she's knocking off double-digit multiplication problems and blitz-reading Dickens. Even more remarkably, her classmates love her even though she's a super-nerd and the teacher's pet. But everything is not perfect in Matilda's world. For starters she has two of the most idiotic, self-centered parents who ever lived. Then there's the large, busty nightmare of a school principal, Miss ("The") Trunchbull, a former hammer-throwing champion who flings children at will and is approximately as sympathetic as a bulldozer. Fortunately for Matilda, she has the inner resources to deal with such annoyances: astonishing intelligence, saintly patience, and an innate predilection for revenge.

She warms up with some practical jokes aimed at her hapless parents, but the true test comes when she rallies in defense of her teacher, the sweet Miss Honey, against the diabolical Trunchbull. {cover copy}
So I have seen this movie like a hundred times. I love it and always have. But I must admit that this was my first time ever reading the story! Crazy. I know. But it is what it is. And I'm not sure what it is exactly, but there's something I love so much about the movie that I actually can't say that the book was better in this case. There seems to be a bit more suspense and higher stakes in certain parts with the movie. Perhaps that is what it is. Plus, Danny DeVito is fantastic. But i digress. I still really enjoyed this book and I will 100% be reading this one to Madeline when we start chapter books! I know she will love it.

It's a funny thing about mothers and fathers. {first line}
"She travelled all over the world while sitting in her little room..."

"I'm wondering what to read next. I've finished all the children's books."

"The whole object of life ... is to go forwards."


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