Pete is taking a train trip with his mom and brother to visit his grandma. On the train, he gets a tour and makes friends. Pete the Cat is always a faPete is taking a train trip with his mom and brother to visit his grandma. On the train, he gets a tour and makes friends. Pete the Cat is always a favorite in this house. It's been a while since we read our last one and my six-year-old read has been practicing her reading skills lately so we found 'I Can Read Shared Reading' title to read together. Truth be told, she read most of it and I listened/helped with some words. This is a great book for beginner readers to read, someone who has mastered the CVC and CVCC words and are beginning to recognize sight words....more
The Lago family is shopping for a new couch when their old couch gets ruined from daily wear and tear. While driving home with their new couch, it fliThe Lago family is shopping for a new couch when their old couch gets ruined from daily wear and tear. While driving home with their new couch, it flies off their car and lands near a llama, who is utterly captivated by the couch.
This is a very cute and funny story with lots of hilarious llama antics. Who doesn't like reading about llamas? This llama isn't sure about the couch at first - it this something to eat? something to play with? something that can talk? But very soon it figures out that it is something to lounge in and get very comfortable with. ...more
Priyanka Das didn't know a lot about where she came from or what happened to her father. Her mother wouldn't broach these topics or take Pri to India Priyanka Das didn't know a lot about where she came from or what happened to her father. Her mother wouldn't broach these topics or take Pri to India so one day, when Priyanka comes across a pashmina in an old suitcase, she wraps herself in it. With that, she is instantly transported to an India of the guidebooks - picture perfect and colorful. As she soaks in the sights and sounds, she comes across a shadow figure that seems to be calling out to her.
I didn't know what to expect when I started reading Pashmina. But I loved the cover and wanted to find more about this book. There is a lot here that I liked - Priyanka's expectations of India and what India ends up meaning to her, her mother's reluctance to talk about her family and Priyanka's determination to learn for herself. And then the whole deal with the pashmina and the imaginary India. The graphics are gorgeous and I enjoyed the many elements explored here.
If you haven't gathered yet, there is some magical fantasy in here, which I find works very well in a graphic format. That said, as the story progressed deeper into the myths and fantasies around the pashmina, I found myself enjoying it a little less. This book tries to do a lot - tell Priyanka's mother's backstory and her relationship with her sister, that sister's relationship with her husband, the story of the pashmina and the shadow figure, a family friend's struggle with getting pregnant and then going through a period when the baby is very sick, her attempts to fit at school, learning to drive - all this in just 176 pages. In the end, I felt it struggled to tell any story well as most ended abruptly and in some cases, didn't make a point anywhere....more
When a cow says 'Moo', it can mean one of any number of things. There are so many ways to say moo and they mean different things at different times.
TWhen a cow says 'Moo', it can mean one of any number of things. There are so many ways to say moo and they mean different things at different times.
This is a fun book to read with kids as everyone can try sounding out Moo in many different ways - high, low, long, loud, etc. It's a good way to teach kids how tones can make the same word mean different things. But beyond that, there wasn't a whole lot to it....more
Anvar's father decides in 1995 that he has had enough of the fundamentalist fever gripping his country and moves his family to the US. Not everyone inAnvar's father decides in 1995 that he has had enough of the fundamentalist fever gripping his country and moves his family to the US. Not everyone in his family were in favor though. While Anvar and his father thrive in their new home, his mother and his brother remain extremely devout and often critical of those who weren't like them. Still Anvar and his family lead a relatively comfortable life; on the other part of the world, Safwa and her family are trying and failing to survive in war-torn Baghdad. She and her father eventually make it to the US but not before accumulating heavy losses that forever alter their lives. When her path crosses with Anvar's, they each have something to learn from the other while also battling the bonds that hold them back.
I know my summary is extremely vague but there's so much about this book I cannot give away. Before I go into that, I will say that the cover of this book does not do it justice. I was expecting a hilarious rom-com. Yes, half the book is funny but the other half will make you weep and hold your loved ones close. There is romance but it is not even front and center of the story. It is so far from a boy-meets-girl as that cover may lead you to believe.
The Bad Muslim Discount alternates between Anvar and Azza's POV. Although the novel is entirely in third person, the two perspectives also reflect their very different personalities and experiences very well. Anvar jokes a lot, sometimes at other people's expense. As a result, he is often in situations that he needs to dig himself out of. Safwa, on the other hand, has seen so much tragedy that I often had to put aside the book at the end of her chapters. The kind of decisions she had to make even before she hit the double-digit age made me cry for little kids everywhere who don't have anyone looking out for them - no child should ever have to make those decisions. You can feel the weight of that in her every action as she grows older.
It will be hard to read, but I promise the book still pulled me in. In some ways, Anvar's sarcasm and humor makes it easier to stomach.
The war is what leads both families to make certain decisions but you can see how it has barely touched one family and hardly left the other one alone. It is to the author's credit that this is portrayed very well. Through it all, I thought that the Muslim communities were represented well. There is so much about faith without it really being about faith. Who is a good Muslim? Does that even matter? Depends on who you ask. On the one hand, there is Anvar who is by his and others' definitions, a bad Muslim, and then there is his brother Aamir, the model Muslim. Along with parental doctrines of religion come theirs and societal expectations of what thou shalt and shalt not do. Both Anvar and Safwa struggle to fit in the molds designed for them, and it is in some ways their reluctance to follow the path laid out for them that brings them together and helps fight their demons. For Safwa, this is her father and for Anwar, his feelings for his old flame.
This is not to say that I loved it without a fault. I was disappointed in how the women in this book were portrayed. There is certainly a lot of sexism, which unfortunately is not unusual for either Iraq or Pakistan (or almost every country in the world, for that matter), so you need to know this going in and also realize that real women from many of these countries are often treated as property. However, the sexist attitudes (whether it is limiting women's freedom or glorifying their sex appeal) are kept unresolved and treated as matter-of-fact, and so I felt we lost an opportunity here to show how better attitudes could prevail.
One thing that I enjoyed tremendously in this book is how it is structured like a checkers game. Anvar and his grandmother are huge fans and the chapters in the book are organized as an homage to the game. There's a whole section that reads like a fast paced game. All this made the geek in me extremely happy.
All in all, this wasn't perfect but it was good and I very much appreciated the fast pace and how there was never a boring moment in the story....more
Read this book with my five year old who is very proficient in her numbers and loves math (at the moment). We looked at each page like a puzzle - counRead this book with my five year old who is very proficient in her numbers and loves math (at the moment). We looked at each page like a puzzle - counting out various objects to see which matched the number featured on that page. This book provided a good 30 minute entertainment for her.
Received this book via Dolly Parton’s Imagination Library....more
A cute read about a little girl whose invitation to have a unicorn club party does not see any human attendees but instead sees plenty of unicorns attA cute read about a little girl whose invitation to have a unicorn club party does not see any human attendees but instead sees plenty of unicorns attending. What follows is a fun evening of crafts, snacks, and games.
While I did wish that the girl did see her human friends as well (my daughter is old enough to understand real vs pretend play), it was nice to see the unicorns come to her rescue. Of course, another perspective was that a small misunderstanding of her invitation is what caused it. ...more
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