The Golden Compass movie

My husband and I watched The Golden Compass last weekend. Disclaimer:  I'm not a scholar of Philip Pullman's His Dark Materials.  I read The Golden Compass and liked it well enough; I started The Subtle Knife and abandoned it (if I recall correctly, its agenda was too obvious); I never bothered with The Amber Spyglass.  I didn't have high expectations for the movie version of Compass, either, all of which may explain why I liked it as much as I did (and more than the first Narnia movie).  I'm actually disappointed that the sequels to the movie will probably never be made.

Here's what I liked:

• The casting.  Dakota Blue Richards as Lyra and Nicole Kidman as Mrs. Coulter were perfect, as was Sam Elliot as Lee Scoresby.
• The concept of daemons.  This is what I remembered best from the book.  In case you haven't read it, or seen the movie, your daemon is an animal manifestation of your soul (there's more, obviously, but that'll do).  I spent the first part of the movie deciding what I would like my daemon to be, and had just settled on a hare when Lee Scoresby showed up with Hester.  What would your daemon be?
• The panserbjorne.  I'm not ordinarily a fan of CGI animals, especially ones that talk, but I liked the armored bears, too.  I do wish we could have seen Iorek Byrnison making his own armor, or at least putting it on: I'm always interested in how people (and polar bears, apparently) dress their parts.
• Lyra's knit cap.  If the knitwear in this movie doesn't inspire me to learn to knit (preferably by Christmas), then nothing will.  There's even a pattern available here.

Have you seen it yet?

Nonfiction Monday: Making Magic Windows

The night before Leo's third birthday party I stayed up late making banners of papel picado to decorate the house. I followed the step-by-step directions for folding and cutting in Making Magic Windows: Creating Papel Picado/Cut Paper Art with Carmen Lomas Garza (Children's Book Press, 1999). It was kind of like making origami snowflakes, only these papel picado designs (eight of them, rendered in cut paper on the cover of the book) are influenced by Mexican folk art traditions. They're festive and easy to make, even the one that looks like hummingbirds. Carmen's directions are excellent; you could use them to make papel picado with elementary school-aged children and get great results. All you need is brightly colored tissue paper, scissors, a pencil, and string.

We put up (and took down) Leo's banners for every household birthday from 2003 to 2007. After five years they were pretty tattered and faded, so I cut some new ones the night before Milly's birthday party last month.  It's not a birthday at our house without the papel picado banners.  Muchas gracias, Carmen!

[Making Magic Windows is the companion book to Carmen Lomas Garza's autobiographical Magic Windows/Ventanas mágicas (Children's Book Press, 1999), which won the 2000 Pura Belpré Award for illustration.]

Weslandia in Virginia

Yesterday Leo announced that he wanted to start a new civilization.  This didn't come as a complete surprise to me:  he's studying ancient civilizations at school; and, more importantly, he thinks big.  There's probably no better book for him to read as he embarks on this project than Weslandia by Paul Fleischman; illustrated by Kevin Hawkes (Candlewick, 1999).  Actually, I've been waiting for just the right time to read it with him since I first read it myself.  If you haven't, it's about Wesley's summer project:  "[to] grow his own staple food crop--and found his own civilization!"  (Maybe this is more of a common interest than I thought.)  Wesley uses all the parts of a mysterious and magical plant that he grows in his suburban backyard to provide himself with food, clothing, shelter, and recreation; he invents a counting system based on the eight petals of the plant's flowers and even a 80-letter alphabet which he uses to record the history of his civilization's founding.  His summer project is a spectacular success.  And, once a social outcast, Wesley now has no shortage of friends.

Leo checked Weslandia out of the school library today and, after (finally!) reading it together, he started wondering what his civilization's staple crop might be.  Wesley may have "found it thrilling to open his land to chance, to invite the new and unknown," but if we did that we'd probably end up with a lot of pokeweed.  Maybe we could grow sunflowers in Leo-landia instead?  This civilization is open to comments and advice.

And Maple Syrup Season

Happily, Pancake Week coincides with maple syrup season.  We didn't make it to a sugaring-off this year (they happen early in the mid-Atlantic), but at least we can read this book:  Maple Syrup Season by Ann Purmell; illustrated by Jill Weber (Holiday House, 2008).  We read Purmell and Weber's Christmas Tree Farm (Holiday House, 2006) many times last December:  it was a refreshingly different holiday book, one of my new favorites.  Leo and Milly were interested in how tree farming (as opposed to the more familiar vegetable farming) works, and they loved Weber's illustrations of pines, spruces, firs, and forest animals.  Like Christmas Tree Farm, Maple Syrup Season focuses on a family tradition--of sugaring, this time--and includes lots of back matter about what to pour on your pancakes.

[Newbery note:  One of my favorite Newbery Medal winners, in memory at least, is 1957's Miracles on Maple Hill by Virginia Sorenson; illustrated by Beth and Joe Krush.  I'm rereading it now, the same copy I read as a girl; and I'll post about it here and at the Newbery Project site if I can come up with something that is more review than just happy reminiscence.]

Taro Gomi Squiggles and Doodles Creativity Contest

Our copy of Scribbles:  A Really Giant Drawing and Coloring Book by Taro Gomi (Chronicle, 2006) is filling up really fast.  Leo draws in it occasionally, but now that Milly has discovered it, we might need to buy a copy of Doodles, too.  I think Taro Gomi's open-ended drawing and coloring books are the best:  thick-and-thin line drawings accompanied by picture prompts (Who is looking out the windows?), sometimes arranged in a series (It's a beautiful day today/Today it's not so nice/Today there's a thunderstorm!).  There are some things to color and cut out (masks; stationery and envelopes), and a few puzzles and games, too; but most of Scribbles' 368 pages, like those of Taro Gomi's other coloring books, are made especially for drawing.

You can print out some sample pages from Scribbles and Doodles here.  And fortunately for us, Chronicle Books is releasing two new Taro Gomi drawing and coloring books:  Squiggles and Doodle All Year (in a smaller, square format featuring spring, summer, fall, and winter scenes).  Be sure to check out Chronicle's Taro Gomi Squiggles and Doodles Creativity Contest celebrating the release of the new books, too.  You'll need to print out one of four pages from Squiggles and follow the prompt to complete the picture.  I like Let's play in the mountains! best.  Good thing the contest is open to scribblers and doodlers of all ages, so Leo and Milly--and maybe even me and you!--can enter.

Apples in winter

We read most of our apple books in the fall, but somehow we've managed to read four in the last week.  I love this kind of reading coincidence and am always on the lookout for it: it's the idea behind bookstogether.  In this case, the apple books aren't about picking apples or making them into apple pie (both good things that happen a lot in apple books), but about making apple friends (slightly more unusual).  Here are two of them:

   

• In A Friend for Dragon by Dav Pilkey, a snake tricks Dragon into thinking a shiny red apple is his friend.  The two spend a wonderful day together ("You are a good listener," says Dragon).  But Dragon becomes concerned when the apple won't talk to him the next morning ("Maybe it's a crab apple," suggests the doctor).  What happens next is tragic and hilarious and ultimately very satisfying.  This is the first of five early readers featuring Dragon; we love them all, but A Friend for Dragon is my favorite.
• In The Apple Doll by Elisa Kleven (Farrar Straus Giroux, 2007), Lizzy is worried that she won't make any friends at school.  She turns an apple from her favorite tree into a doll she names Susanna, but her new friend isn't welcome at school, either (no food or toys allowed during class, except on sharing day).  Lizzy keeps Susanna at home, until she finds a way to make her into a real doll--and make new friends at school, too.  Instructions for how to make an apple doll are at the back of the book (thankfully, because both Leo and Milly now want to make one.  So do I!).  And I love the endpapers in this book:  apples in the front, apple dolls in the back.

In the other two books, Miss Hickory's body is made of an apple twig, and Little Little Sister grows from an apple seed.  Really, how many books about apple people can there be?

Poetry Friday: If You'll Be My Valentine

I think the best Valentine is a poem.  Preferably one written just for you.  The little boy in this book by Cynthia Rylant (illustrated by Fumi Kosaka; HarperCollins, 2005) writes a simple Valentine poem for everyone in his family, plus the cat, the dog, his teddy bear, and the bird that sings outside his window.  Each of the poems (there are ten of them) has the same format:  they all begin with "If you'll be my valentine" and go on to say, in four short lines, what the little boy will do with or for the recipient in return.  The one he writes to his mother is (not surprisingly) my favorite:

If you'll be my valentine
I'll pour our tea at three.
Spicy cookies
and an orange
just for you and me.

Okay, it's a simple poem (a little boy is supposed to have written it, after all).  But I love the specificity of it:  tea is at three (the illustration of the boy and his mother having tea shows the clock in the background); the cookies are spicy.  Also that the boy is doing something with his mom that she would particularly like, although he is certainly enjoying it, too.  This is true of all the poems:  in another, the boy promises to pull his little sister in the wagon so "we can sing and talk."  Milly, a little sister herself, likes that one best.

I had planned to write an acrostic poem for each of the kids and my husband this Valentine's Day.  I still might (even though my husband's name has an X in it, and it's hard to work an x-ray or a xylophone into a Valentine).  Or maybe I'll write these instead:  5 lines, first line "If you'll be my valentine," last four lines ABCA and a promise to do something special together.

Poetry Friday: Mother Earth and Her Children

The illustrations in this rhyming picture book won an unusual award:  Best in Show at the 2006 International Quilt Festival in Houston.  They began as a single quilt inspired by quilt artist Sieglinde Schoen Smith's favorite children's book, Etwas von den Wurzelkindern ("Something About the Root Children"). Written by Sibylle von Olfers, it was originally published in Germany in 1906.  Mother Earth and Her Children:  A Quilted Fairy Tale (Breckling Press, 2007) is the English translation of that book, illustrated entirely with details from Smith's award-winning quilt.  Yes, that cover image is from the quilt.

Renowned fairy tale scholar Jack Zipes translated von Olfers's short text about the changing seasons into English rhyming verse for the first time.  Here are the Root Children getting ready for spring:

"All are quick and ever ready
To sew spring clothes. Their hands are steady.
With needles, scissors, spools of thread,
They measure and cut, full steam ahead.

And when the children's clothes are done,
Kind Mother Earth admires each one."

I like the way these lines now recall Smith's work "with needles, scissors, spools of thread" as well as the Root Children's.

[This is the English edition with the original art by von Olfers (Floris Books, 1980) that inspired Smith; plus an article about copyright responsibility re: Mother Earth and her Children.  In case you're inspired to recreate your favorite picture book in some other medium.]

Bella Dia's Christmas Book Advent

Cassi Griffin is celebrating Christmas Book Advent on her craft blog, Bella Dia.  She'll post a book (or two) and a corresponding project to do with your kids on each day leading up to Christmas.  The first book is Snowflake Bentley by Jacqueline Briggs Martin (illustrated by Mary Azarian; Houghton Mifflin, 1998); the project:  cutting snowflakes, of course.

Today's post features my favorite Robert Sabuda book, Winter's Tale (do I have to note that it's a pop-up book? It's Robert Sabuda!).  This one was inspired by the artist's walks in snowy Michigan woods.  I love the woodland birds and animals he recreates in these intricate white paper pop-ups:  owls and foxes, reindeer and squirrels.  Learn how to make some simple pop-up cards at Sabuda's website:  my favorites are the Christmas Tree and Bird House (the bird flies away when you open the card).  Paper magic!

Carnival of Children's Literature: Making simple books

The theme for this month's Carnival of Children's Literature, hosted by MotherReader, is tips.  I have one to add to the list of great tips posted on Jen Robinson's Book Page and at The Miss Rumphius Effect for parents who want to encourage their kids to love books and reading:

• Make your very own books.

The simplest books you can make consist of nothing more than 3-4 sheets of copy paper with a construction paper or cardstock cover, folded widthwise and stapled twice.  Make a stack of them to have on hand.  I think this size is perfect for most of the books younger kids will want to make.  It also makes a good journal for short trips of all kinds (you'll want to pack some colored pencils and tape or a glue stick, too).

[I made journals like these for myself and the kids the night before we left for Philadelphia.  They were inspired.  I wish I had a photograph of Leo's journal to share:  it's filled to bursting with hand-written notes, drawings, and trip-related paraphernalia.  He loved the process of putting it together.  Milly did, too:  she wrote her name across the first two pages of her journal, and drew a picture of the dog "because I miss him" on the next (Milly's three).  We keep both journals on the travel shelf with the other guidebooks, for the next time we go to Philadelphia.]

This website is (or rather will be, among other things) about making book-related things with and for your kids.  These little staple-bound books are one of my favorites.  I'll post some variations on them (using different kinds of paper for the text block, experimenting with sewn bindings) in the coming weeks.  Thanks for visiting!