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1cushlareads
I have a thread of my own in this group but also want to keep track of the books I'm reading with my kids this year. I am confident that we'll hit 75 several times over!
Teresa is almost 5 and isn't reading yet but loves books. Fletch is 7 and most of these books are ones he's reading on his own, although we still read to him (eg Harry Potter we mostly read to him). Till about 6 months ago he was a reluctant reader, but now he has got the reading bug and most days now he'll read for 2-3 hours. We're keeping the library in business.
I'll try to add comments as I go but I'll start with a catch up list. Hopefully Fletch will add some of his own book reviews too!
Fletcher's list
1. Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone (read together)
2. Charlie Bone and the Invisible Boy (CB book 3)
3. How to Catch a Criminal - Dominic Barker
4. Phineas and Ferb - Freeze Frame
5. Meet the Humansons - Knife and Packer (Freak Street series)
6. Captain Fact - Roman Adventure - Knife and Packer
7. A Shark Tooth Bay Holiday in the Life of Ozzie Kingsford - Val Bird - NZ book - Random House. 5 stars
Teresa's list
1.Miss Chicken and the Hungry Neighbour -Jude Wisdom
2.The Lorax by Dr Seuss
3 Pearlie and her Pink Shell by Wendy Harmer - for the millionth time; this is one of our favourite series! - 5 stars from me and Teresa
4 Pearlie and the Silver Fern Fairy
5 Mirror, Mirror - Karen Wallace and Cathy Brett - 2 stars from me, 5 from T
6. The Fabulous Fairy Feast - Sue Heap - 3 stars
7. The Adventures of Pinkie: Fancy Dress - 4 stars
8. Orange Pear Apple Bear - Emily Gravett - 4 stars
9. Mixed Up Fairy Tales - Hilary Robinson and Nick Sharratt - 4 1/2 stars
10. A Promise is a Promise by Florence Parry Heide
11. The Chimpanzees of Happytown by Giles Andreae - 4 stars
12. Theseus and the Minotaur - Hopscotch reader - Laura North - 5 stars according to Teresa
13. Arthur's Family Vacation by Marc Brown (and others) - have read this so many times we all know it off by heart!
Teresa is almost 5 and isn't reading yet but loves books. Fletch is 7 and most of these books are ones he's reading on his own, although we still read to him (eg Harry Potter we mostly read to him). Till about 6 months ago he was a reluctant reader, but now he has got the reading bug and most days now he'll read for 2-3 hours. We're keeping the library in business.
I'll try to add comments as I go but I'll start with a catch up list. Hopefully Fletch will add some of his own book reviews too!
Fletcher's list
1. Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone (read together)
2. Charlie Bone and the Invisible Boy (CB book 3)
3. How to Catch a Criminal - Dominic Barker
4. Phineas and Ferb - Freeze Frame
5. Meet the Humansons - Knife and Packer (Freak Street series)
6. Captain Fact - Roman Adventure - Knife and Packer
7. A Shark Tooth Bay Holiday in the Life of Ozzie Kingsford - Val Bird - NZ book - Random House. 5 stars
Teresa's list
1.Miss Chicken and the Hungry Neighbour -Jude Wisdom
2.The Lorax by Dr Seuss
3 Pearlie and her Pink Shell by Wendy Harmer - for the millionth time; this is one of our favourite series! - 5 stars from me and Teresa
4 Pearlie and the Silver Fern Fairy
5 Mirror, Mirror - Karen Wallace and Cathy Brett - 2 stars from me, 5 from T
6. The Fabulous Fairy Feast - Sue Heap - 3 stars
7. The Adventures of Pinkie: Fancy Dress - 4 stars
8. Orange Pear Apple Bear - Emily Gravett - 4 stars
9. Mixed Up Fairy Tales - Hilary Robinson and Nick Sharratt - 4 1/2 stars
10. A Promise is a Promise by Florence Parry Heide
11. The Chimpanzees of Happytown by Giles Andreae - 4 stars
12. Theseus and the Minotaur - Hopscotch reader - Laura North - 5 stars according to Teresa
13. Arthur's Family Vacation by Marc Brown (and others) - have read this so many times we all know it off by heart!
2lauralkeet
I so enjoyed Fletcher's reviews last year and I love hearing about what they are reading. This thread is now STARRED!
3PamFamilyLibrary
Oh cool. Got you STARRED. Me and mine love kidlit.
5LovingLit
Great idea Cushla, "Poo Bum" (no touchstone) is on heavy rotation at our house at present. It has spawned some fierce toilet talk in the realm of "poo bum fart". How did your kids like it? And your mother?! :)
6cushlareads
Yaaaay visitors already!
The kids loved Poo Bum Megan, but I don't know where it is - I think it is in a bag at Mum and Dad's place. And Mum has yet to hear it! But they are coming over tonight and I have already warned her that Teresa is likely to be saying "Shut up you boob" because of the latest library book, which I am about to add to the list. It's called A Promise is a Promise by Florence Parry Heide and it was a really funny one about a boy who wants a pet. He brings home a huge dog, a shark, two breeding mice, and finally they relent and tell him any bird is fine - so he brings home a parrot. Good for about a 3-7 year old audience I'd say.
The kids loved Poo Bum Megan, but I don't know where it is - I think it is in a bag at Mum and Dad's place. And Mum has yet to hear it! But they are coming over tonight and I have already warned her that Teresa is likely to be saying "Shut up you boob" because of the latest library book, which I am about to add to the list. It's called A Promise is a Promise by Florence Parry Heide and it was a really funny one about a boy who wants a pet. He brings home a huge dog, a shark, two breeding mice, and finally they relent and tell him any bird is fine - so he brings home a parrot. Good for about a 3-7 year old audience I'd say.
7cushlareads
Pam, have you got a thread on here? I haven't seen it. I'll have a look in the threadbook now.
8phebj
Cushla, Heather recently got me interested in Florence Parry Heide. Has Teresa read Princess Hyacinth? I loved that one as well as The Treehorn Trilogy which Heather recommended.
9cushlareads
I knew her name was familiar from on here - no, she hasn't but now I will look on our next visit. Thanks Pat!
10Georgia1
What a fantastic idea! I really look forward to Fletcher's next review. Alice has just got the reading bug too over Christmas, so as well as her school books, she now wants to go to the library every few days to get new books. Have limited the girls to 3 books each visit at the moment or I'm going to completely lose track of what we have, so I've no idea how you're going to keep track of 24!!
11cushlareads
#10 Fantastic about Alice!! (And good morning. So weird being in a different timezone from you.) Have you had a look to see if your library's on www.libraryelf.com ? If it is, it might save tons in fines...
12LovingLit
oh and btw, we are reading Snake and Lizard to Wilby at the moment, I wasn't sure he'd sit through a whole chapter (2 -3 pages), but hes RIGHT into it! Yay, looks like I underestimated the power of me doing silly voices to keep him engaged. Thanks for the recommendation.
13PamFamilyLibrary
11>I'm glad you found me, Cushla :)
Gotta find all the kidlit folk.
Gotta find all the kidlit folk.
14gennyt
Ooh, just found this thread and looking forward to hearing about Fletcher's and Teresa's next reads!
15cushlareads
A few more (I have taken a huge pile back to the library and didn't get a chance to enter them...)
Teresa's rating scale:
1 star bad
2 stars ok
3 stars good
4 stars really good
5 stars - all time favourite!
Teresa 13. Anne The Gorilla Nanny - 3 stars (Teresa) - 2 stars Cushla - an Orchard Books reader without a touchstone. Annie the Nanny is great with monkeys. A rhyming book, but the rhymes were a bit forced (food and good), jokes that flew over T's head (Tarzan and Jane), and black and white pictures. Meh.
Teresa 14. What Mona Wants, Mona Gets - Dyan Sheldon - Walker Stories series for early readers - Teresa and Cushla 4 stars. Mona is a really whiny girl who wants everything all the time. She gets her comeuppance and it's quite funny. 3 short chapters, funny black and white pictures - good for an early chapter reader or a read-aloud to a 4-5 year old.
Teresa 15. Viking Vik and the Troll by Shoo Rayner - 4 stars. We've had 4 of this series out of the library and they're a good mix of fiction (3 kids in 874 AD) and a little bit of Viking non-fiction. Vik, Freya and Wulf (who is always mean to Vik) go looking for cloudberries and encounter 2 trolls. Both kids like these - early chapter books and read alouds - ages about 4 to 8. (Oh yeah and it is brilliant to see Teresa asking for Viking stories instead of girly girly ones all the time!!)
Back later when I have sorted out the latest altercation downstairs... "Don't tell me what to do!" "Go AWAY!"
Teresa's rating scale:
1 star bad
2 stars ok
3 stars good
4 stars really good
5 stars - all time favourite!
Teresa 13. Anne The Gorilla Nanny - 3 stars (Teresa) - 2 stars Cushla - an Orchard Books reader without a touchstone. Annie the Nanny is great with monkeys. A rhyming book, but the rhymes were a bit forced (food and good), jokes that flew over T's head (Tarzan and Jane), and black and white pictures. Meh.
Teresa 14. What Mona Wants, Mona Gets - Dyan Sheldon - Walker Stories series for early readers - Teresa and Cushla 4 stars. Mona is a really whiny girl who wants everything all the time. She gets her comeuppance and it's quite funny. 3 short chapters, funny black and white pictures - good for an early chapter reader or a read-aloud to a 4-5 year old.
Teresa 15. Viking Vik and the Troll by Shoo Rayner - 4 stars. We've had 4 of this series out of the library and they're a good mix of fiction (3 kids in 874 AD) and a little bit of Viking non-fiction. Vik, Freya and Wulf (who is always mean to Vik) go looking for cloudberries and encounter 2 trolls. Both kids like these - early chapter books and read alouds - ages about 4 to 8. (Oh yeah and it is brilliant to see Teresa asking for Viking stories instead of girly girly ones all the time!!)
Back later when I have sorted out the latest altercation downstairs... "Don't tell me what to do!" "Go AWAY!"
16alcottacre
I love the idea of listing the books your kids are reading, Cushla! I am glad to see that Fletcher is reading so much after being a non-reader.
18cushlareads
Lisa I had to read all three Viking Viks last night, and they are just long enough for that to be annoying... Think they might be disappearing through the slot today. Karori library is 2 minutes' walk from Teachers' College so it is going to be really easy to churn through their books.
stasia, yes, it is so great about Fletcher reading!
stasia, yes, it is so great about Fletcher reading!
19souloftherose
I will also be following along Teresa's and Fletcher's reading and enjoying their reviews :-)
20cushlareads
Aaagh, I have loads of books to add!
OK, here are the next pile, with some comments.
The prize for the grossest funny picture of the week goes to The Gruesome Truth about the Romans, in which we see three Romans sitting on a row of toilets with their togas hitched up around their waists, and a yellow sponge on a stick getting dipped into a little channel of running water. Both kids thought this was excellent. I haven't seen this series before - it's from Wayland books - but it's really good, and pitched a bit lower than the Horrible Histories books.
Teresa has rediscovered our Arthur treasury - Arthur's Family Vacation, Arthur's New Baby and Arthur's Birthday - all by Marc Brown. This was a present from Paola (aluvalibri) in the Virago Secret Santa group a couple of years ago, and it's really funny. Of all the cheesy American series out there, Arthur is my favourite and I was so glad when I could stop the pious Berenstain Bear stories coming into our house from the school library and have Arthur and his little sister DW instead.
We've found some new Pearlie books in the library and they're all great. In one of the books we haven't read yet, Pearlie apparently gets appointed Best Fairy In the World or something like that, and gets to go round the world visiting other fairies. So far we've read the Paris one and the Kyoto one, and the New Zealand one. I went on about these books last year - they're Australian, by Wendy Harmer, and Pearlie is the fairy in Jubilee Park in I guess Sydney or Melbourne. She wears pretty clothes so Teresa likes her, but she has tons of spunk. The two rats in the series, Scrag and Mr Flea, are very funny.
Fletcher's finished another Ozzie Kingsford and really liked it - A Shark Tooth Bay Holiday in the Life of Ozzie Kingsford - no review forthcoming but apparently 5 stars (and his friend in the story is called Fletch).
OK, here are the next pile, with some comments.
The prize for the grossest funny picture of the week goes to The Gruesome Truth about the Romans, in which we see three Romans sitting on a row of toilets with their togas hitched up around their waists, and a yellow sponge on a stick getting dipped into a little channel of running water. Both kids thought this was excellent. I haven't seen this series before - it's from Wayland books - but it's really good, and pitched a bit lower than the Horrible Histories books.
Teresa has rediscovered our Arthur treasury - Arthur's Family Vacation, Arthur's New Baby and Arthur's Birthday - all by Marc Brown. This was a present from Paola (aluvalibri) in the Virago Secret Santa group a couple of years ago, and it's really funny. Of all the cheesy American series out there, Arthur is my favourite and I was so glad when I could stop the pious Berenstain Bear stories coming into our house from the school library and have Arthur and his little sister DW instead.
We've found some new Pearlie books in the library and they're all great. In one of the books we haven't read yet, Pearlie apparently gets appointed Best Fairy In the World or something like that, and gets to go round the world visiting other fairies. So far we've read the Paris one and the Kyoto one, and the New Zealand one. I went on about these books last year - they're Australian, by Wendy Harmer, and Pearlie is the fairy in Jubilee Park in I guess Sydney or Melbourne. She wears pretty clothes so Teresa likes her, but she has tons of spunk. The two rats in the series, Scrag and Mr Flea, are very funny.
Fletcher's finished another Ozzie Kingsford and really liked it - A Shark Tooth Bay Holiday in the Life of Ozzie Kingsford - no review forthcoming but apparently 5 stars (and his friend in the story is called Fletch).
21PamFamilyLibrary
My kids are seriously into the Horrible Histories videos. And I must say, I heartily approve of them doing so as I've now got a 9 year old who thinks it's outrageous that Shakespeare and the Tudors so maligned poor Richard III. :D
