After hearing stories, we made our own cartouches and mummies!
Rawr!
Thursday, July 25, 2013
Thursday, July 11, 2013
Monday, July 8, 2013
Summer Reading: In the Garden
Our second summer reading program took us In the Garden. Ms Beth led a few projects....
Beginning with GARDEN BINGO...
Next we planted bean seeds.
Even this leopard planted seeds:
Then we made fingerprint flowers:
We ended with edible compost (Oreos and gummy worms).
And everyone takes home a book.
See you in the garden!
Thursday, June 20, 2013
Cave Painting
Our Summer Reading programs started off with Cave Painting. Have you walked through the cave yet?
Beginning with a story about real cave paintings.....
.....we then headed outside to make our own:
At the end of the program, everyone takes home a gift book to keep.
And the cave is complete!
Stop in soon to explore the cave! More great programs are coming up!
Thursday, April 11, 2013
Book Review: Necromancing the Stone.
In one of my previous posts about Young Adult Reading material, I earnestly waved the flag of a title by new author Lish McBride in her debut book Hold Me Closer, Necromancer. It was a book with a fairly ridiculous premise that proved to be an interesting, fun, and side splitting read from page to page. Cover to Cover. My only real complaint is that the book eventually had to end.
Lucky for me, I've come to find out this was the first part of series. We've received our shiny new copy of the sequel Necromancing the Stone and I've wasted no time tearing through it.
Our tale picks up about 6 weeks after the closing of Hold Me Closer, Necromancer. Douglas has been defeated, Sam LaCroix and Brid Blackthorn have been rescued, and everyone is licking their wounds in the safety of Brannoc's werewolf pack. It's been a rough couple of months for Sam since he learned he was a necromancer, and he isn't exactly taken with is new role yet or what to do with his abilities.
He's getting really tired of everyone kicking his butt, he's fairly sure his new house and everything in it wants to kill him, he's assumed Douglas's place on the magic council in the Seattle area, his best friend has been infected and can turn into a were-bear, he's constantly getting bothered by spirits, and he's having a hard time fitting in with his new sort-of-girlfriend's were-wolf pack.
Things don't get much better when someone starts leaving ominous threats to Sam's family, and the group gets torn apart from the unexpected and unexplained death of a close friend. Sam tries to come to grips with his new powers and solve these mysteries, but doing so raises a terrifying question: is Douglas really dead?
My Thoughts: Its really hard to not love this series of books. Lish McBride's tongue and cheek style of writing makes it fun an easy to read. I like the style she uses when jumping from perspective to perspective. When the book follows Sam, the book is spoken in the first person perspective. But when it switches to the other characters, it takes a 3rd person point of view.
I love the new characters brought into this series, namely Brid's brothers and the rest of the council. They bring in new interesting dynamics to the story and makes it quite the ensemble piece. The series can easily break from Sam and use any of these fun characters as protagonists.
There were only two negatives I could come up with in this book. One, the pacing is really off. Chapters will shift from funny to sad tones back and forth rather sporadically It makes it hard to settle or build tension in certain scenes. My other issue is with the conclusion of the whole thing. It didn't fit logically for me. Perhaps it was how I read it and I don't want to play spoiler, so I'll leave that up for you to read.
That aside, I'm totally in love with this universe and can't wait to see what else McBride has in store. Here's hoping this series gets picked up for a movie or tv show.
Lucky for me, I've come to find out this was the first part of series. We've received our shiny new copy of the sequel Necromancing the Stone and I've wasted no time tearing through it.
Our tale picks up about 6 weeks after the closing of Hold Me Closer, Necromancer. Douglas has been defeated, Sam LaCroix and Brid Blackthorn have been rescued, and everyone is licking their wounds in the safety of Brannoc's werewolf pack. It's been a rough couple of months for Sam since he learned he was a necromancer, and he isn't exactly taken with is new role yet or what to do with his abilities.
He's getting really tired of everyone kicking his butt, he's fairly sure his new house and everything in it wants to kill him, he's assumed Douglas's place on the magic council in the Seattle area, his best friend has been infected and can turn into a were-bear, he's constantly getting bothered by spirits, and he's having a hard time fitting in with his new sort-of-girlfriend's were-wolf pack.
Things don't get much better when someone starts leaving ominous threats to Sam's family, and the group gets torn apart from the unexpected and unexplained death of a close friend. Sam tries to come to grips with his new powers and solve these mysteries, but doing so raises a terrifying question: is Douglas really dead?
My Thoughts: Its really hard to not love this series of books. Lish McBride's tongue and cheek style of writing makes it fun an easy to read. I like the style she uses when jumping from perspective to perspective. When the book follows Sam, the book is spoken in the first person perspective. But when it switches to the other characters, it takes a 3rd person point of view.
I love the new characters brought into this series, namely Brid's brothers and the rest of the council. They bring in new interesting dynamics to the story and makes it quite the ensemble piece. The series can easily break from Sam and use any of these fun characters as protagonists.
There were only two negatives I could come up with in this book. One, the pacing is really off. Chapters will shift from funny to sad tones back and forth rather sporadically It makes it hard to settle or build tension in certain scenes. My other issue is with the conclusion of the whole thing. It didn't fit logically for me. Perhaps it was how I read it and I don't want to play spoiler, so I'll leave that up for you to read.
That aside, I'm totally in love with this universe and can't wait to see what else McBride has in store. Here's hoping this series gets picked up for a movie or tv show.
Thursday, December 20, 2012
Young Adult Reading
As some of you may or may not know, I am still technically a student trying to get his library degree. I am currently taking a class in Young Adult Literature and Materials and I had to read over 20 books in about 5 weeks. No small task to be sure, but it did give me an opportunity to start reading recreationally again. I would like to take moment to talk about some of the books that really stood out to me.
Hold Me Closer, Necromancer by Lish McBride
About: Sam LaCroix is a slacker, a skater, and college drop out. He works at a Plumpy's flipping burgers for a living. The job sucks, but he's determined to enjoy himself. But a little bit of fast food mischief leads to a busted tail light and caused Sam to have a chance meeting with Douglas. Douglas is a powerful necromancer and one evil dude. He seems to think Sam is too, and he's not happy about having any competition. This is all news to Sam, but Douglas makes him an offer: Learn to control his powers or die by his hand. Sam's life becomes flooded with the supernatural which doesn't make his decision any easier, but he's only got a week to figure it out.
My Thoughts: I found it incredibly hard not to laugh through this whole book. It paints itself as kind of a Comedy/Horror, but really its not much of the latter. Almost every scene in the book has some funny dialog exchange or ridiculous situation. I can best describe it as like watching a great B movie. Everyone in the book seems realize how ridiculous the situation is, so all the reactions are overblown and just as goofy. I laughed pretty much the whole way through it, it had some cool action moments, and even a few spots to tug at your heart strings. This was easily my favorite book of the project and I'm hoping this one gets picked up for a movie.
Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children by Ransom Riggs
About: Jacob's grandfather used to tell him stories of a place where children with superhuman abilities resided. Jacob took them as truth as a child, but start to pull away as he grew older and matured. But when Jacob turned 16 his grandfather was murdered by what seemed to be a monster. Nobody believes him. Overcome with grief, he tries to solve his grandfathers dying wish and find the home of peculiar children in the hopes of proving if the stories he had been told as a child were true, and hopefully solve the reason behind his grandfather's murder.
My Thoughts: I put this one off to the side a couple of times. By cover alone and blurb on the inside cover I was pretty much convinced I wasn't going to like this book. Oh how wrong I was. The book is full of interesting and fun characters, and has a interesting mix of emotional themes. There are points of mystery, action, romance, comedy all through out the book. It was just one of those stories where I genuinely sympathized with the protagonist, and fell in love with pretty much all of the characters. I couldn't put this one down and pretty much cover to covered it in a few hours.
Silver Phoenix by Cindy Pon
About: Ai Ling is a girl with troubles. On the day of her first betrothal... and rejection, she discovers that she has the ability to connect with someones spirit which allows her to hear their thoughts and dreams. Her troubles don't end there though, as he father goes missing. She take off for the emperors palace to find him, and learns that she is tasked by the divines to put an end to an evil that has lived on for more than 2 centuries. On her travels she meets Chen Yong, a man on a quest for his own father who's fate seems intertwined with her own, all they while battling demons on each step of the way.
My Thoughts: Another one I was just ready to write off on because of its cover. Mine was different than the image presented and the blurb made me thing this was just a run of the mill coming of age tale of a girl in China. So I was pleasantly surprised when within a few chapters Ai Ling is fending off demons with a magic pendant and a dagger. This story spans across all sorts of ancient Chinese mythology featuring demons, dragons, goddesses, and a giant monster constructed out of corpses. There is a lot of adventuring and action in the book so it provided to be anything but a dull read. If you are a fan of fantasy or mythology I would suggest giving this one a try.
That's all I have for now, I will be sure to make sure to post again with others from this project as there were many of them that I enjoyed reading. Each of these are the start of a series, and hopefully will have sequels in the near future.
Monday, October 29, 2012
We love Star Wars!
October 6 was the first ever STAR WARS READS DAY. We celebrated with costumes, light sabers, treats, and a Star Wars storytime.........
Darth Maul!
Star Wars fans.
Making light sabers.
And Yoda origami!
Even Spiderman came.
The Force was with us.
Light Saber snacks, Wookie Cookies, and Yoda Soda.
Star Wars storytime.
We can't wait till next year! May the Force be with you!
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