How to Teach Your Cat Tricks (In Five Easy Steps) by Nicola Winstanley

February 23, 2023 By Leave a Comment


How to Teach Your Cat Tricks (In Five Easy Steps) by Nicola Winstanley
Publisher: Tundra Books
Genre: Humor, Childrens (Ages 3-7 years), Contemporary
Rating: 4 Stars
Reviewed by Nymphaea

In this hilarious and clever follow-up to How to Give Your Cat a Bath, a boy, a dog and a know-it-all narrator are thwarted by a cat who refuses to learn a trick. The perfect read-aloud for fans of Interrupting Chicken.

Step one: Decide on a trick
Step two: Get some treats ready
Step three: Hold the treat in your hand and ask your cat to do the trick
Step four: Watch your cat do exactly what you asked him to do
Step five: Reward your cat for doing the trick

Simple, right?

This spoof on an instruction manual features an increasingly bewildered human, a nonchalant cat, a very good dog and a know-it-all narrator . . . who really doesn’t know it all. How DO you teach a cat a trick? Read on to find out!

Trying to teach a cat to do much of anything is well…like herding cats.

I picked up this book because it looked cute, and it was. The little boy is trying to teach his cat to do tricks. Anyone who has cats know they can’t be taught (not much). Cats will do what they will. Then again, children will do what they will and if they think they can train their cat, then this is a funny way to show that not everything will work out the way you want and you have to make the best of what does happen.

This book is written in a cute manner and the story moved right along. I do have to say that I felt sorry for the dog because Einstein (the cat) was being a cat–he caused trouble, chased birds and didn’t take to any of the training. But the dog did. Noodles (the dog) is in the background cleaning up after the mess and following the little boy’s directions. What stood out was that sometimes the one you want to teach isn’t listening, but there are those you can. Kids may not get that, and kids might not be offended by the dog doing the grunt work in the background while the cat did nothing.

Still, it’s a funny story with animals being what they are, and kids should enjoy it. I know I did.

Filed Under: Mainstream Fiction, Reviews, YA/Middle Grade/Children's Tagged With: , , , , ,

Big Wig by Jonathan Hillman and Levi Hastings

February 22, 2023 By Leave a Comment


Big Wig by Jonathan Hillman and Levi Hastings
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Genre: Contemporary, LGBTQ, Childrens (Ages 7-10)
Rating: 4 stars
Reviewed by Nymphaea

In the spirit of Julián Is a Mermaid, this irrepressible picture book celebrates drag kids, individuality, and self-confidence from the perspective of a fabulous wig!

When a child dresses in drag to compete in a neighborhood costume competition, he becomes B. B. Bedazzle! A key part of B.B. Bedazzle’s ensemble is a wig called Wig. Together they are an unstoppable drag queen team! But Wig feels inadequate compared to the other, bigger wigs. When Wig flies off B. B.’s head, she goes from kid to kid instilling confidence and inspiring dreams in those who wear her:

Wig remembers what wigs can do.
Wig brushes the world,
bolder,
brighter
hues.
Wig hears whispered wishes…
and turns them into
something true.
The bigger their dreams,
the bigger Wig seems.

This wonderful read aloud celebrates the universal childhood experience of dressing up and the confidence that comes with putting on a costume. And it goes further than that, acknowledging that sometimes dressing differently from what might be expected is how we become our truest and best selves.

A wig that’s got some magical powers that aren’t so magical, but they’re just as dynamic after all.

Everyone has that one garment that makes them feel bigger or bolder. That special sweater that makes them feel like a million bucks or a dress that’s THE dress. In the case of BB Bedazzle, it’s their wig. The writing in this story is good and it’s easy to understand. It’s cute and the illustrations are colorful, which should bring children right in. The story shows the very important need for children to understand that being different isn’t bad and it’s wonderful.

Some will read this book and say it’s not for children because the little boy is dressing in drag. The thing I took away from the story wasn’t so much that the boy dressed in drag, but that the boy was able to explore different ways of dressing. He could use the wig and his clothes for his imagination and to explore who he is. Every child needs the chance to figure out for themselves who they are and if they can do it, like this little boy, in a place that’s safe and where they are loved, then that’s what matters.

If you’re looking for a children’s book that shows being different isn’t bad, but rather fabulous and that being true to yourself is important, then this book is for you.

Filed Under: Mainstream Fiction, Reviews, YA/Middle Grade/Children's Tagged With: , , , , ,

Five Fortunes by Barbara Venkataraman

February 16, 2023 By Leave a Comment


Five Fortunes by Barbara Venkataraman
Publisher: Next Chapter
Genre: Young Adult (14 – 18 y.o.), Romance, LGBTQ, Contemporary
Rating: 3 Stars
Reviewed by Astilbe

When five fourteen-year-old girls get their fortunes from an arcade machine just for kicks, it turns their world upside-down and their close-knit group of friends starts to fall apart.

Misunderstandings abound as allegiances shift and outsiders start to come between them. The fortunes seem to be self-fulfilling prophecies – whether the girls believe in them or not.

Do our beliefs color our perception of the world? Do we ever see ourselves the way others see us, and why is change so hard?

Budding romance, angry bees, teenage fashion influencers, and parents who just don’t get it make Barbara Venkataraman’s ‘Five Fortunes’ a fun story you won’t soon forget.

Fourteen is such a confusing age.

This was exactly the emotional rollercoaster I was hoping it would be! Not only are young teenagers dealing with the many changes that puberty brings, they’re also learning how to have friendships that are closer to the mature and complex relationships adults have than the ones little kids tend to have. It takes a lot of trial and error to make this transition, and the author captured that perfectly. I nodded along as the characters worked on their emotional regulation and figured out how to have more nuanced reactions to friends who disappointed or angered them.

I loved this story and all five of the main characters. My only criticism of them is how little time each character had to shine. This would have been a five-star read for me if it had either focused on only one character or been expanded into a full-length novel that could devote more time to developing all five protagonists and diving more deeply into their personalities, interests, and character development. There were delightful references to all of these things in this novella, but they didn’t have the space to show the audience enough of themselves for me to feel comfortable giving a higher rating even though I yearned to.

One of the other things I thought Ms. Venkataraman captured beautifully is how contradictory the expectations of teachers and parents can be of girls this age. Some of the characters were expected to look after their siblings or take on other adult responsibilities without also being given the freedom that generally comes with all of that extra work for the average adult. I remember feeling frustrated by that sometimes when I was their age, so it was nice to see it acknowledged and explored here. The author had some sensible things to say about the balance between responsibility and autonomy that I think some parents and teachers should take note of just as much and maybe even a little more than young teens should.

Five Fortunes was heartwarming.

Filed Under: Reviews, Romance, YA/Middle Grade/Children's Tagged With: , , , , , ,

Little Aiden – A Feelings Book for Toddlers by Albert Choi

February 9, 2023 By Leave a Comment


Little Aiden – A Feelings Book for Toddlers by Albert Choi
Publisher: Self-Published
Genre: Children’s (0 – 6 y.o.), Contemporary
Rating: 5 Stars
Reviewed by Astilbe

Have you always wanted to introduce emotions and feelings to your toddler, but don’t have the right book on hand? Or perhaps you have found a few books on emotions and feelings, but they aren’t enough to keep your toddler engaged throughout the entire book!

As Little Aiden explores and experiences different feelings and emotions, he shows other toddlers in his own little way the importance of expressing feelings. There are different emotions and feelings shown in Little Aiden including, but not limited to the following:

“Sometimes Aiden feels happy.”
“Sometimes Aiden feels frustrated.”
“Sometimes Aiden feels angry.”

Using Aiden’s simple, repetitive style, you can teach your toddler that all their emotions and feelings are okay (not just the positive ones).

Through engaging and vivid illustrations, Little Aiden’s reactions will bring joy and laughter to the entire family.

It’s never too early to promote good mental health.

One of the things I enjoyed the most about this picture book was that every scene appeared to occur over the course of a single day. Some days are a rollercoaster of emotions even for adults, and toddlers have much less experience handling that than grownups do. It was also interesting to me to see how the main character’s mood in one moment was often connected to the ones just before or after it. Aiden had good reasons for his reactions, and I enjoyed following him through a typical day for a mischievous kid his age.

I loved seeing all of the extra space Mr. Choi left for adult readers to explain things to the toddlers and preschoolers this was written for. The illustrations and text provided the basics, but all of it could be easily modified for more specific conversations about certain emotions as well if desired. This is exactly the sort of flexibility I was hoping to discover in a story on this topic.

It was refreshing to see every emotion treated identically. Whether Aiden’s feelings were negative or positive, the reader was always reassured that it’s okay to feel that way. I grew up in a time when some people were expected to hide certain emotions and not show any signs that they were angry or sad. Teaching kids that it’s perfectly fine to acknowledge how they truly feel is such an important part of raising people who will become emotionally healthy adults, and I’m thrilled to see this change in society.

Little Aiden – A Feelings Book for Toddlers was perfect.

Filed Under: Reviews, YA/Middle Grade/Children's Tagged With: , , , ,

So Much Snow by Kristen Schroeder

February 8, 2023 By Leave a Comment


So Much Snow by Kristen Schroeder
Publisher: Random House Studio
Genre: Children’s (0 – 6 y.o.), Contemporary
Rating: 3 Stars
Reviewed by Astilbe

A beautifully illustrated, rollicking read-aloud about forest animals who are caught—literally up to their ears and antlers—in a snowstorm.

On Monday, it starts to snow.
Silent swirling.
How high will it go?

Follow seven forest creatures, from a tiny mouse to a giant moose, as they hunker down in a snowstorm. As the week progresses, the snow piles up and up–even past Moose’s antlers!

On Sunday, the sun starts to melt the snow, and it seems that, as the next week passes and it grows sunnier, spring has finally sprung. But wait…is that more snow?! This cumulative picture book is at once beautiful and lyrical and playful and joyful, with charming illustrations by a highly acclaimed illustrator.

Anything can change in an instant on a winter’s day.

The repetition was well done. I found it soothing to repeat the same themes and even some of the same words in multiple scenes. It was almost like listening to a lullaby about characters who might temporarily be in a little danger but who you somehow just know will live happily ever by the end. I’ll leave it up to other readers to figure out if that prediction of mine was correct!

I would have liked to see more attention paid to developing the storyline. The basic outline of it was there, but Ms. Schroeder could have done so much more with her ideas about what wild animals think of snowstorms and how they survive in them. I would have happily given this a higher rating if those questions had been better answered.

With that being said, I enjoyed the gentleness of this story. The characters were playful creatures who adored the first day or two of the storm. Seeing them invent new games to play as more snow kept falling made me wonder what they’d come up with next. It was a delight to watch them explore their winter wonderland and figure out how to deal with more snow than they were expecting.

So Much Snow was a peaceful look at late winter in the woods.

Filed Under: Reviews, YA/Middle Grade/Children's Tagged With: , , , ,

Catlumbus by Franny Plaia

February 7, 2023 By Leave a Comment


Catlumbus by Franny Plaia
Publisher: Self-Published
Genre: Children’s (0 – 6 y.o.), Mystery/Suspense/Thriller, Action/Adventure, Historical
Rating: 4 Stars
Reviewed by Astilbe

Meet Catlumbus, a cat who loves to sail on his ship and go on adventures. When Catlumbus discovers a treasure map, he sets sail on a journey to find buried treasure on a tropical island. What will Catlumbus find on this island? Who will he meet along the way? Join Catlumbus on his adventure!

Anything can happen out on the ocean.

This was an exciting and fast-paced adventure. Catlumbus was prepared for all sorts of possible trouble, and I smiled as he tackled every challenge that came his way. One of my favorite scenes happened later on when he had a problem, he didn’t know how to fix that involved his boat. After how prepared he was earlier, it was nice to see him finally meet a problem that was a little trickier for him to figure out. That scene only made everything I already loved about this story even better.

A lack of detail was what held me back from giving this a full five-star rating. I found myself wishing that the narrator had spent more time explaining what the characters looked like and how being in these settings would affect what the characters heard, saw, touched, and smelled. This is something I’m saying as a reader who enjoyed everything else about it.

The riddles were well written and interesting. I haven’t noticed many riddles in the many picture books I’ve read these past few years, so it was refreshing to find them here. It’s such a fun way to introduce the mystery genre to little ones.

Catlumbus was a thrilling adventure.

Filed Under: Mystery/Suspense, Reviews, YA/Middle Grade/Children's Tagged With: , , , , , ,

Angie and Me by Sam Telpin

February 6, 2023 By Leave a Comment


Angie and Me by Sam Telpin
Publisher: Shalchufa Books
Genre: Middle Grade (8 – 12 y.o.), Contemporary
Rating: 3 Stars
Reviewed by Astilbe

Sam loves his home and social life but hates his new teacher, Ms Brown. She enjoys humiliating Sam and his friends (or, at least, he believes she does). After a classroom incident, Sam’s best friend, Angie, decides to take matters into her own hands. Angie knows it won’t be easy for her to get Ms Brown fired, but, whatever it takes, she’s determined to make it happen. Even if it means lying to adults, deceiving parents, bullying friends and stealing money from a charity. Sam has to reconcile his desire for Ms Brown’s downfall with his conscience as Angie hatches, reveals and executes her ruthless plan.

Justice can only be delayed for so long.

Even one year with an awful teacher can seriously damage a student’s self-esteem, grades, and interest in learning. I loved the way this book showed how all of these things can happen and why it’s so important to recruit kind and emotionally stable teachers who love spending time with kids and teaching them. Readers had plenty of opportunities to discover why Sam and his classmates disliked their teacher and why she should have never been hired to work in a school.

I found myself wishing for more descriptions in this book. For example, it was hard to imagine what the characters looked like because of how little time was spent on that topic. The settings were given more attention, but even some of them were difficult for me to picture in my mind as well. I would have happily gone with a higher rating if this hadn’t been the case as the storyline itself was humorous and memorable.

While I totally understood Sam’s anger about how terribly his teacher was treating him, I also found it interesting to see how his behavior affected someone whose patience for the typical antics of kids his age was already paper thin. His mischievousness could be disruptive in class, and he didn’t always listen the first time he was told to do something. This is in no way a defense of the horrible way Sam was treated, but it did show off memorable portions of both his personality and his teacher’s personality in ways that I don’t think either of them were necessarily aware of. It’s cool to discover stuff like that in stories, and it made me curious to check out more of the author’s work.

Angie and Me made this reader smile.

Filed Under: Reviews, YA/Middle Grade/Children's Tagged With: , , , ,

The Artist’s Page by Debra Rufini

January 24, 2023 By Leave a Comment


The Artist’s Page by Debra Rufini
Publisher: Paragon Publishing
Genre: Inspirational, Children’s (0 – 6 y.o.)
Rating: 5 stars
Reviewed by Chamomile

What would your response be to a group of small people, overlooking you,

to look at the masterpiece you’d lovingly made for them?

How would you feel by their admiration of your magnificent creation,

as they ignore your wonderfully creative hands?

Would you feel sad? Frustrated? Angry?

Imagine your relief when they leave your invisible side.

Picture your joy and gratitude with their replacement –

and appreciative group marvelling at your masterpiece,

undoubtedly produced by your love.

Would you feel glad,

grateful, relieved, believed,

like the Artist in this story felt?

The Artist’s Page by Debra Rufini is a wonderful children’s picture book that can be enjoyed with readers both young and old! Beautifully illustrated by Dina Kalo, this story tells of God’s love and His incredible gift. Rufini takes readers on a journey of looking at how different people might see of respond to this magnificent gift, and how sometimes they also choose to reject it.

This story is suitable, but the focus of the story might be slightly lost on younger children, and will have more meaning for those who read it more than once and over time.

I loved reading this story, and really felt it brought the story and lessons to life in a unique and beautiful way! Filled with creative imagery and enticing colors, The Artist’s Page is a pleasure to read!

Filed Under: Reviews, YA/Middle Grade/Children's Tagged With: , , , ,

Pebble by Jane McKay

January 16, 2023 By Leave a Comment


Pebble by Jane McKay
Publisher: Self-Published
Genre: Young Adult (14 – 18 y.o.), Sci-Fi/Fantasy, Action/Adventure, Contemporary
Rating: 3 Stars
Reviewed by Astilbe

The small drone sped away from its dying star.

It did not look back at the doomed orb as it traveled through black space. It had a single mission – find a new viable planet and report. Many years of travel later it saw a possible candidate for its mission. The drone spied the blue-washed planet ahead. Would it find a world for its people or be doomed to a lonely existence on a faraway world?

Read the exciting story of Pebble as it helps to battle for its new family on its new home world, Earth. Can it help protect them from a menace from outer space?

Kindness is essential.

It’s always nice to meet characters who think logically and plan ahead. Some of the dangers they faced could be predicted far in advance, and they did a good job of predicting what might happen and figuring out the best ways to respond if their first few attempts to deflect the antagonists or escape didn’t work out so well. This kind of common sense is a breath of fresh air, especially in the young adult genre.

I had trouble keeping track of the large cast of characters in general. Not only were there a lot of them, their character descriptions and development weren’t always strong enough for me to read a familiar name and immediately know who the narrator was referring to. If only this had been easier to figure out.

With that being said, I enjoyed the many exciting plot twists in this book. There were multiple subplots that wove themselves together in all sorts of attention-grabbing and also surprisingly kind ways. This was especially true when it came to Pebble’s backstory and how its programming tipped the scales into surviving dangerous circumstances over and over again.

Pebble was an adventurous read.

Filed Under: Reviews, YA/Middle Grade/Children's Tagged With: , , , , , ,

Bloodstone by Rebecca Henry

January 10, 2023 By Leave a Comment


Bloodstone by Rebecca Henry
Publisher: Finch Books
Genre: Young Adult (14 – 18 y.o.), Paranormal, LGBTQ, Sci-Fi/Fantasy, Romance, Contemporary
Rating: 4 Stars
Reviewed by Astilbe

There’s something wicked in the wind on Ambrosia Hill and strength is held within a stone.

Zinnia knows nothing is as it seems in the witching world, and she realizes the aunts calling her back to the Fern House was not without consequences. Zinnia must embrace her witch abilities and undergo her biggest test yet. Can she learn to rely on her personal magic, the strength in others, and trust that what she sees isn’ t always reality? There’ s something wicked in the wind this Halloween on Ambrosia Hill and Zinnia must fight for those she loves most.

What might you find if you peeled back the stereotypes and looked at who someone really was?

The romantic subplot made me smile. I’ve enjoyed seeing it gradually develop from a friendship into a heartwarming romance since first meeting these characters in Amethyst. Not only was the slow burn approach perfect for them, it also gave me plenty of time to notice all sorts of similarities between them that make me think they’d be a great match. I can only hope that any sequels in the works will include more of this storyline as it’s such a nice contrast to the sometimes-scary work a witch must do.

Once again, I would have liked to see more character development. Yes, it is happening slowly, but I found myself wishing that Zinnia especially would be given more opportunities to show the audience how she’s changed as a result of coming out of the closet as a member of the LGBTQ community as well as accepting her identity as a witch. This was the only thing holding me back from choosing a five-star rating.

I know I’ve mentioned the beautiful world building in both of my previous reviews of the first two books in this series, but it continued to impress me this time around. Ms. Henry has been doing a wonderful job so far of feeding the audience exactly enough information about witchcraft and witch culture in this universe to keep my interest levels high. Just when I think I have it all more or less figured out, she adds yet another layer to it that deepens my previous understanding of how it all worked and makes me eager to see what might happen next. As far as this reader is concerned, there’s still a ton of ground to cover for these characters, and I hope for many more updates to come in the future.

While the plot itself could technically function as a standalone work, this is the third instalment of a series that should be read in order to best understand the complex and memorable world the author is building here.

Bloodstone made me yearn for more.

Filed Under: Reviews, Romance, Science Fiction/Fantasy, YA/Middle Grade/Children's Tagged With: , , , , , , , ,
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