Debi Gliori

With a delightful rhyming text that is meant to both entertain and reassure - "Then should the oceans roar and rise / and dark clouds race across the skies / I'd hold you tight and close and warm / and keep you safe all through the storm. / If thunder tore the night in two / and lightning played at peekaBOO, / we'd watch the storm pass overheard, / then curl up safe and snug in bed." - and colorful watercolor and ink illustrations in her trademark style, Debi Gliori's Stormy Weather is a show more charming bedtime book, ideally suited for soothing childhood fears, when the weather outside is stormy.

The creator of No Matter What - one of my all-time favorite reassurance tales - Gliori triumphs again in this lovely follow up, which seems to feature the same foxy parent-child duo. I simply adore Gliori's artwork, which somehow manages to be entirely cute - I loved all the images of parent animals enfolding their offspring in protective embraces - without ever being precious. The color palette she uses work is deep, and the overall effect of the illustrations enchanting - paired with the reassuring narrative, this book is a winner! show less

Oh me! Oh my! This was a fun read! Roald Dahl writes Mary Poppins!

The Strega-Borgia family is not your typical family. With a yeti, a griffin and a dragon living in the basement, a crocodile living in the moat and a talking spider in the attic, you could say this family is a bit different.

But this family pulls together, with the help of their unusual nanny, Mrs. McLachlan, when their father goes missing, the baby is sent careening onto the information highway in an e-mail and their home is show more invaded by gangsters.

A fun read for 5th grade, adults will get some good laughs too! show less

Titus and Pandora Strega-Borgia have problems. Their father has left the family, their mother is preoccupied with her witchcraft classes, and they have a no-nonsense new nanny. When they manage to accidentally shrink their baby sister and zap her into cyberspace, can they find a way to get her back? And has their father really left them, or did something much more sinister happen?

It's hard to summarize the plot of this book, because it's so wacky and interconnected. I can see kids really show more liking this series, as there's lots of action and gross humor. It's not one of those children's books that I'd recommend to other adults -- there's little character development, and the plot leaps around a bit in ways that don't always make logical sense. I won't be continuing with the series, but I'm glad to have read it so now I know what it's about. show less

Scots children's author and illustrator Debi Gliori - best known for her series of adorable picture-books featuring Mr. Bear, and for her series of spooky middle-grade fantasies about the Strega-Borgia family, which began with Pure Dead Magic - also happens to be the author of my all-time favorite reassurance tale, No Matter What. When Small, a little fox who feels "grim and grumpy," wrecks the living room, Large knows something is wrong, and a back-and-forth exchange begins, with Small show more posing a series of questions: Would Large still love her, if she were a bear? What about a squishy bug? The answer, of course, is always that Large will love her, "no matter what!"

Like so many books of its kind, from Guess How Much I Love You to Love You Forever, this is a story meant to reassure young children, to teach them that parental love is unconditional, and won't be withdrawn because they make a mistake, move away, or grow up. Unlike some of these other titles, however, Gliori's No Matter What is deliberately vague, when it comes to the gender of both parent and child - no pronouns, other than "you" are used in the text, and the illustrations are inconclusive - meaning that it can be interpreted in a variety of ways: as a mother-son, a mother-daughter, father-son, or father-daughter story, depending. The rhyming text itself is simple and sweet, making for a good read-aloud, and the adorable illustrations are colorful and appealing. All in all, it's a winner, and one I highly recommend to anyone looking for this type of story. show less