January 2012:

Pete the Cat: I Love My White Shoes: 01/27/12

My daughter and I have read Pete the Cat: I Love My White Shoes by Eric Litwin in two forms: picture book and audio. Both versions are a cute story about a tuxedo cat with new white shoes rolling with the punches when he steps in different messy things.

The book also teaches some colors, specifically red, blue and brown. Pete the cat ends up stepping in strawberries, blueberries and mud. He's got to be the calmest cat ever because he doesn't get upset. He just keeps on singing his song.

And that song, since I'm not all that musically inclined, is why I prefer the audio book. Really, I guess, it's more of a read along CD but we've put the CD in the car and the book's on the shelf at home. The song is more than catchy; it's an ear worm. And it makes my daughter laugh. As Pete would say, "It's all good."

Five stars.

Book Blogger Hop: January, 2012: 01/27/11

With the On My Wishlist meme being on what looks like permanent hiatus, I'm going to use the relaunched Book Blogger Hop as place to track how I'm doing with crossing books off my wishlist.

Back in July of 2010, I realized I was adding books to my wishlist but I wasn't making any effort to actually read them. In fact my reading was entirely haphazard. While I still like a little randomness to my reading for finding those hidden gems, I do want to make an effort to read the books people have recommended to me either in person or on their blogs.

Since I started specifically reading books from the wishlist I maintain on GoodReads, I have read 191 books. Most of these books I'm reading via my local library, but some of them I've also bought.

Books I've finished in the last month or so include:

0.4 by Mike A. Lancaster
The Ecco Book of Christmas Stories by Alberto Manguel
E-mergency! by Tom Lichtenheld
Empire State: A Love Story (or not) by Jason Shiga
Extraordinary by Nancy Werlin
Heat Rises by Richard Castle
The Hotel Under the Sand by Kage Baker
Mornings in Jenin by Susan Abulhawa
Penny Dreadful by Laurel Snyder
Queen of the Dead by Stacey Kade
The Storm in the Barn by Matt Phelan
The Weed That Strings the Hangman's Bag by Alan Bradley
Wonderstruck by Brian Selznick

Ex-wishlist books I am currently reading:

1Q84 by Haruki Murakami
Fairy Bad Day by Amanda Ashby
The Gathering by Kelley Armstrong
Incarceron by Catherine Fisher

Ex-wishlist books on hand to start soon:

An Anglo-American Alliance: A Serio-comic Romance and Forecast of the Future by Gregory Casparian
Bellwether by Connie Willis
Bigger than a Bread Box by Laurel Snyder
The Book of Tomorrow by Cecilia Ahem
Carmelo by Sandra Cisneros
The Child Thief by Brom
f2m by Hazel Edwards
Frankie Pickle and the Mathematical Menace by Eric Wight
The Glorious Adventures of the Sunshine Queen by Geraldine McCaughrean
The Golden Gate by Vikram Seth
Lady Susan by Jane Austen
The Metropolis Case by Matthew Gallaway
The Odyssey by Gareth Hinds
Outside In by Maria V. Snyder
The Pinhoe Egg by Diana Wynn Jones
Polly and the Pirates Volume 1 by Ted Naifeh
The Return of Sherlock Holmes and His Last Bow by Arthur Conan Doyle
Rin Tin Tin: The Life and the Legend by Susan Orlean
Serenity: Those Left Behind by Joss Whedon
The Water Wars by Cameron Stracher
Withering Tights by Louise Rennison

My wishlist stands at 1002. It was briefly down to 986 books but over the holidays I got carried away with adding up coming books.

Book Blogger Hop

Comments (0)

Permalink

Cat Secrets: 01/26/12

Books are a wonderful way to guide and mold children. It's also a way to help them expand their imaginations, play and pretend. Cat Secrets by Jef Czekaj is all about pretending to be a cat.

The cats inside the book are protecting their own book, a book of secrets. Their book is a handbook for being a cat — the stuff you'll need to know beyond purring, napping, and meowing. But before you can learn to extra special things a cat needs to know, you, dear reader, have to prove that you are a cat.

Now if this were a book about tricking a group of people to get their secrets, then it would be a book about lying. That wouldn't be cool. But this is about cats. Cats are silly creatures. I don't know about you, but my cats, are already convinced I'm a cat, or that they're people. So asking young children if they can pretend to be a cat, especially if they already live with cats, is both good and fun.

The interrogation by the cats in the book lends itself to group reading. I can easily see a room full of giggling children trying to be cats during story time.