Archive for Category: "book reviews"
nikki giovanni tops our list
April is National Poetry Month, and while my adult poets and I struggle to produce a poem a day, children in and out of school are naturally writing and enjoying poetry in all senses of the word. Poetry can have a beat, it can be spoken aloud or savored in silence on the page, and [...]
comic book spurs food fight!
Amid the variety of foods, crafts and flowers that makes Reading Terminal a sought after experience in Philly, there is a spot, Miscellanea Libri, which satisfies appetites with the rarest titles, hard to find and never heard of new and used books. My visit to the Reading Terminal seven years ago, led me to one [...]
showing all kinds of love through children’s books
Valentine’s Day doesn’t have to be about chocolate overload or mylar balloons or Hallmark’s version of what true love is. Classic children’s books celebrating love are wonderful, but there is more than enough love to go around. Here’s a list of five books to share with children that present a wider perspective of what love [...]
kids book review: 11 Experiments that Failed
11 Experiments That Failed by Jenny Offill and Nancy Carpenter. (Schwartz & Wade, $16.99) Reviewer: Maleka Fruean Here’s another sassy picture book by Jenny Offill and Nancy Carpenter, who also created 17 Things I’m Not Allowed to Do Anymore. The main character, a highly mischievous and utterly curious little girl, becomes a home scientist and [...]
Monday Mix: Me…Jane Book Review
Me…Jane by Patrick McDonnell (Little, Brown, $15.99) What an amazing and beautiful picture book written and illustrated by the creator of the Mutts comic strip Patrick McDonnell. It’s a simple story about the true childhood life of Jane Goodall, a curious girl who loved nature and discovery, started a club called the Alligator Society, and [...]
Monday Mix: Frida Kahlo Coloring Book and Hundertwasser Create Your Own City
Frida Kahlo has been one of my favorite artists throughout my life for her bold choices in life and art. Her magical realism partnered with identity explorations of what it means to be a strong woman, especially in the art world, is so compelling. Friedensreich Hundertwasser is another personal favorite- his art and activism were [...]
CHICKEN!
Nope, not nuggets. And not the flinching game. This post is hereby dedicated to our new family favorite picture book: Interrupting Chicken, written by David Ezra Stein (2010). This is one of those magical children’s books that is as entertaining for the adults reading it as it is for the children for which it was designed. [...]
Monday Mix: The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian Book Review
The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian by Sherman Alexie (Little Brown, $9.99) I finally got a chance to sit down and read this book, which has been on my to-do list since it won the National Book Award, became one of the One Book, One Philadelphia choices, and was talked about in length [...]
Monday Mix: To Market, To Market Book Review
To Market, To Market by Nikki McClure (Abrams Books for Young Readers, $17.95) I will admit right away that the entire Big Blue Marble Bookstore are big fans of artist/author Nikki McClure. She’s a self-taught artist and mama, interested in capturing the beauty in motherhood, the changing of the seasons, and living a sustainable and [...]
Introducing the Monday Mix: Book Reviews, Quotes, Neighborhood Fun, and More Mishmash
Greetings Germantown Avenue Parents! It’s Maleka Fruean, mama of three, events coordinator at Big Blue Marble Bookstore in Mt. Airy, and Germantown resident. I’m introducing a new series of GAP posts I’ll be doing on Mondays called the Monday Mix, filled with book reviews on new and older children’s and parenting books arriving at the [...]
