Arlene Peterlin's Blog
February 5, 2017
Book Review – Waiting
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Title: Waiting
Author/Illustrator: Kevin Henkes
Publisher: Greenwillow Books
Waiting tells the story of four objects who sit on a windowsill. Each of them is waiting for something different. The owl waits for the moon, the pig waits for rain, the bear waits for the wind, the puppy waits for snow, and the rabbit just likes to wait.
This book takes something mundane and turns it into a gentle story. It has all the waiting related lessons you could ask for: different things take longer than...
January 31, 2017
Book Review – Disney Baby My First Words
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In Disney Baby My First Words you will find pictures of things accompanied by the word that describes them. There is no plot, no sentences, just pictures with names. This is a book geared for very young children, and many babies, including my own, love to sit and have each picture pointed out and to hear the descriptive word. This is not the first book to use the pictures and words concept. In fact, we own several books like this. What makes this one unique is that it comes with a gener...
January 22, 2017
Book Review: Hand, Hand, Fingers, Thumb
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Title: Hand, Hand, Fingers, Thumb
Author: Al Perkins
Illustrator: Eric Gurney
Publisher: Random House Childrens Books
This book is an oldie but googie, and I’m reviewing it because my one-year-old son loves it so much. He loves it so much, in fact, that he cries when he thinks that we have finished our readings. Yes, that’s readings, plural, because we must always read this one more than once. “One thumb, one thumb, drumming on a drum,” the text reads. The first few times, until eventual...
January 18, 2017
Book Review – Bubble Trouble
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Title: Bubble Trouble
Author: Margaret Mahy
Illustrator: Polly Dunbar
Publisher: HMH Books for Young Readers
In the book Bubble Trouble, a little baby is swept into the sky in a big bubble. It’s up to his sister Mabel to rescue her little brother. Along the way, the bubble floats over the town and assorted eccentric characters react to the baby in the bubble. It’s a fun read with quirky illustrations, but what truly sets it apart are the tongue-twisting rhymes.
This book is a model of e...
January 17, 2017
Book Review – The House in the Night
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Title: The House in the Night
Author: Susan Marie Swanson
Illustrator: Beth Krommes
Publisher: HMH Books for Young Readers
The House in the Night uses few words and illustrations that are primarily black and white to tell a simple story where each page builds on the next. It won the Caldecott medal in 2009, and I found it very deserving. The reason that I love this book so much is that it’s a book geared for very young children, but it’s also one that has some emotional depth to it making...
January 4, 2017
Review – Chameleon Art Markers
Chameleon art markers are art markers with a gimmick. By using the toner included with the pen, you can create gradients that go from a very light color to the true, deep tone of the markers’ pigment. I have the Nature Tones 5 pack, and the gradients look like this:
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Each Chameleon marker has three different nibs: the brush nib, the detail nib and the toning medium nib. The brush nib allows you to create a line of varied width as well as color large areas with color, and the detail nib is...
