Wow! Link via Maquette

No Vacancy Gallery Christmas Market starts tomorrow.

Publishers Weekly have announced their Best Books of 2009. The children’s list is fantastic and I think the children’s fiction section is the most outstanding group of novels. I have just finished reading When You Reach Me which is one of the loveliest and most imaginative intermediate novels I have read in a long time. 

Two of our favourite picture books are listed. Duck! Rabbit! by Amy Krouse Rosenthal and illustrated by Tom Lichtenheld and All the World by Liz Garton Scanlon and illustrated by Marla Frazee.

You may remember that we posted this gorgeous clip of Duck! Rabbit! from Chronicle Books…

Amy K Rosenthal is one of the most creative and inspirational picture book authors. Her books are fun, they are a joy to read aloud and they are always totally unique. Duck! Rabbit! is laugh out loud funny and it challenges both children and adults to think about the way they see things.

All the World is a stunning picture book that we fell in love with and have imported from the US. Is has been an Indie bookshop favourite in the US and there is no doubting why. The text is a gentle rhyme, like a lullaby that washes over the reader. It highlights the connections that exist in the world between all of us and nature, all the big and little things that relate. The warmth and the intimacy in the illustrations match the text perfectly making this one of the most beautiful books to share with a child. The illustrator Marla Frazee has this written on her home page …

‘There’s an inherent belief in children’s publishing that if the book comes from the heart of the creator, it will speak to the heart of the child’

… I think All the World definitely lives up to that quote.

Chronicle Books posted this lovely clip this week…

The Ivy and Bean series of books are about two spunky and smart seven year old girls. They have very different personalities…

 ’Ivy was always reading a big book. Bean never read big books. Reading made her jumpy’.

The author of the Ivy and Bean series is Annie Barrows who wrote the bestselling adult novel The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Society. What I love about her writing for children with Ivy and Bean is how natural the characters and  story lines are. There are no big challenging issues in these stories, they are fun and playful. She makes the stories funny and children really relate to them, the dialogue is just fantastic to read aloud.

Ivy and Bean are often and rightly compared to the Ramona books by Beverly Cleary.  

The illustrations are by Australian Sophie Blackall who lends a beautiful spirit to Ivy and Bean. She really makes the characters come alive.

I love how the boys in the clip enjoy the books too.

We have the first two Ivy and Bean books available in our store and will be receiveing the rest of the series soon, including the new book Ivy and Bean: Doomed to Dance.

We have a birthday party to attend on the weekend and I have bought this lovely book for the little fellow who is turning three. His parents have spent a bit of time in New York and adore it so I thought this picture book would be an apt choice for them to enjoy, as well as the birthday boy.

A Walk In New York is a gorgeous large format picture book that, as the title suggests, follows a boy and his father on a walk around Manhattan. Each page spread highlights a different part of the city and even the endpapers are a map so you can follow the journey the boy and his father take. Included, almost hidden, amongst the illustrations in a subtle font are little facts about the landmarks they visit; did you know? - ‘More hot dogs are eaten in New York  than anywhere else in the USA’ or that ‘The library lions (at the New York Public Library) are called Patience and Fortitude. They’re made of pink marble from Tennessee.’

I didn’t know either of those facts or many of the others that author Salvatore Rubbino includes in the book. His painting are gorgeous, colourful and funky – as illustrations of New York should be! He really gives the reader a sense of being on the ground with the boy aand his dad and conjurs up the smells and the sounds of the city. The scale he creates in his paintings is also wonderful with a fold out page of the Empire State Building a definite highlight.

Rubbino has created a book which captures the spirit, the history and the excitement of a beautiful city. I’m sure the little boy whom I have bought this book for will fall in love with the city and dream to visit it one day in the future.

Bring on Book Week! Thanks for the Wow factor of a Youtube clip CBCA.

I’ve had a couple of emails from people requesting more details on how we made the fortune tellers for Cara’s booky baby shower. Organising the games was a true team effort between my good friend Lisa and I. The fortune tellers were not hard to make, but did require a little bit of thought (and a girl’s night to brainstorm the fortunes), so hopefully these instructions will be helpful. We made two different fortune tellers so that a couple of games could take place simultaneously around the table.

1) First you need to construct an origami fortune teller – if you are anything like Lisa you can challenge your partner/husband to make one with knife-edge corners…  It’s best to try to make a fairly large one, so that you have plenty of room to write. So use a large sheet of paper or card.

How To Make A Cootie Catcher/Fortune Teller

2) On the outside of the folded fortune teller you need to think of 2-4 questions whose answers could be any of four colours.
Examples might be: What colour should this baby be dressed in? What colour wll the baby’s eyes be?
Write the questions on the outside edge and the four colours as answers in the middle of each section.

3) For the inside section, you need to think of eight questions whose answers could be a range of numbers – choose questions for which the answer could be a limited range of numbers (i.e. the answer could be any number between 2 and 10, or 10 and 20 – don’t go over 20 though otherwise your players will be counting forever…)
Examples might be:  How many weeks old will the baby be when he/she first smiles? How many times will mum be asked ‘Is she sleeping through yet?’ How many times will mum be stuck without a spare nappy/diaper?
Write the questions along the top edge and randomly write the possible answers in digits in the centre of each section. It’s best to have as many odd numbers as possible, as this increases the variety when you come to play the game. (You might want to write the numbers in pencil first and then test the game to check the combinations are working as well as possible.)

4) For underneath the flaps, you need to think of 16 ‘fortunes’ for the baby. We tried to include some funny fortunes as well as some sweet ones. They can be written randomly on each flap.
Examples might be: This baby will be a champion tap dancer. This baby will baffle the Supernanny.
Ones that work really well are personal ones that start with ‘This baby will inherit his/her mum’s (or dad’s) … ‘

5) TO PLAY
Person A reads out one of the questions from the outside of the folded fortune teller and shows (or reads out to) Person B the possible colour answers. According to the chosen colour, Person A spells out the colour letter by letter, moving the fortune teller to open alternate views of the inside.
Next Person A reads out one of the questions from the inside and shows (or reads out) the possible number answers. According to the answer chosen, Person A counts to that number, moving the fortune teller to open alternate views of the inside.
Person A then reads out a further question from the inside. (If it falls back to the same view, pick a different question.) This time, the chosen answer determines which flap to open, and which fortune to read out.

The fortune teller can be used multiple times by the same people given the variety of possible combinations. It also makes a nice keepsake for mum and bub.

We also played a game that involved folded cards which named a potential item for the pregnant mum’s hospital bag. The outside of the card had the name of an item, and inside was the reason why you would need this item. The person holding the card had to first guess what the item might be for, and then read out the ‘real’ answer inside. What made this game funny was that Lisa sourced the list of items and reasons why you need them from a real-life forum, and lots of the things suggested were quite bizarre. Ever thought of taking a brown paper bag, a colouring book and a green reusable shopping bag in your labour bag? And why?

As we found, it’s not easy to find ideas for tasteful and entertaining games that aren’t daggy and naff. We were greatly inspired by the impeccably classy Inchmark (here and here). If anyone knows of any other good ideas, please leave a note in the comments. I’m sure the people who have asked me for these instructions would love you for it as they organise imminent showers.

Gorgeous Girl…

Hope everyone had a lovely Easter. Rowan understood the egg hunt idea better this year – although he kept talking about the Easter Bunny laying the eggs. Oof – can you imagine? Poor bunny…