It’s up to Daddy to give his daughter an extra-special hair style in this story of self-confidence and the love between fathers and daughters.
Zuri knows her hair is beautiful, but it has a mind of its own!
It kinks, coils, and curls every which way. Mum always does Zuri’s hair just the way she likes it – so when Daddy steps in to style it for an extra special occasion, he has a lot to learn.
But he LOVES his Zuri, and he’ll do anything to make her – and her hair – happy.
Rating:
I got this book because I saw a mini trailer for the short film (?) that is being played before Angry Birds 2 (I have not seen any Angry Birds film and do not plan to). I thought it was cute and the animation was really sweet.
This is a short illustrated book but it packs a punch and it was just nice to read. I don’t have natural hair but I do have curly hair and some of this applies. Though I don’t think my dad ever really did my hair or not that I can remember.
But Zuri’s dad is ready to help and somehow get this special hair style just for the very special occasion.
Artwork is really cute and sweet, story is also lovely and makes me feel all cozy and warm inside. I just wish it was a bit longer. Because it felt too short (but I know it is a kids book and not meant to be long, so I am not demanding this or anything).
Chinglish: An Almost Entirely True Story by Sue Cheung
Jo Kwan is a teenager growing up in 1980s Coventry with her annoying little sister, too-cool older brother, a series of very unlucky pets and utterly bonkers parents. But unlike the other kids at her new school or her posh cousins, Jo lives above her parents’ Chinese takeaway. And things can be tough – whether it’s unruly customers or the snotty popular girls who bully Jo for being different. Even when she does find a BFF who actually likes Jo for herself, she still has to contend with her erratic dad’s behaviour. All Jo dreams of is breaking free and forging a career as an artist.
Told in diary entries and doodles, Jo’s brilliantly funny observations about life, family and char siu make for a searingly honest portrayal of life on the other side of the takeaway counter.
Rating:
I can’t remember exactly how I heard of this book but it had been on my radar for a few months and I had preordered it. For some reason I didn’t clock in that it had doodles in it *facepalm* so that was a wonderful surprise (and explains the competition of doodling yourself). So this copy came from a competition (as said before) during YALC and I kept trying daily to win it because I had to.
The book is very very funny, and extremely honest. I was giggling at the antics of Jo’s family and the doodles also help make this even better (I found them really cute and they felt like the right type of doodles Jo would do, which is an odd comment but sometimes the doodles are too young or too mature and you struggle to believe the “narrator” made them, but in this book it felt very much like they were hers).
I just have to mention that this book requires a couple of trigger warnings (maybe more than a couple but I can’t remember it all). There is child abuse (non sexual) peppered throughout the story, minors smoking, and abuse/violence in general. It surprised me because I wasn’t sure what to expect but I didn’t feel like I needed the warnings (which I usually do want in other books). Maybe because of the way it was narrated that it didn’t feel like a punch in the gut to move the plot, but more as the title says “an almost entirely true story” and when those happen, it is easier in a way to see where it is going. Anyway, in case you needed them, there you go.
Oh, and also, you may become hungry. I kept wanting Chinese food when they talked about some of it (there’s a lot of talk about chicken’s feet, which reminded me of a shildren’s song in Mexico that talks about eating the beak and the tail of the chicken so yeah, not that far off).
I would recommend it as a quick read, with fun doodles, hope and a window into life in a Chinese takeaway in the 80s (not that this is all takeaways!). I thoroughly enjoyed it and didn’t want to put it down!
A gorgeous and inspiring picture book about a young girl, Nell, who invents a machine to fix the pollution that is choking the city.
Rating:
I bought this after seeing (I may be wrong but probably not) Stephanie Burgis comment about it. It is a little on the pricey side, but it is good quality so it kinda balances it out.
We start with little Nell who is busy inventing something to help save the city from pollution and she insists she has to go show it to the people there (she lives far form the city).
When she arrives to the city, it isn’t as easy to be considered important. Nell is just a little girl and the adult men have things to discuss (like the pollution). But Nell doesn’t give up and she goes back to the drawing board (inventing) and works hard to help the city.
The artwork/illustrations are gorgeous and full of detail and I like the invention Nell does. And it encourages children to invent and to try to solve real problems.
What I didn’t like was that the ending was kinda left there without much. At the end I felt like there needed to be more, and there is a back pages illustration that hints at it, but story wise it feels a little incomplete.
Still, a cute book witha girl as the heroine and encouraging to invent and create.
I got this gorgeous colourful book from my birthday elf box (we do a birthday box like a secret santa) Tracey, and I was really happy.
This is the paperback version as there is a hardback one, but I am a paperback human through and through. The book is big and colourful and full of imagination.
It is like the perfect imagination box inside, and with a story about a little girl who prefers to doodle than do her homework or pay attention in class (I was the kind of person who needed to doodle to pay attention or she just couldn’t concentrate). And then she meets a new girl at school and she seems to like her drawings. But maybe it isn’t all good…
It has a creepy/scary element in it but it reminded me a little of the Book of Kells style of artwork (it isn’t the same I know) and type of story. Highly recommended as a story book and just to enjoy the artwork.
I am at YALC this weekend so hopefully if you are around you can find me (bright blue hair, cosplaying each day).
My short tip list is to:
Be kind. Your attittude will help you get the help you need.
Hydrate. It is hot and you are excited and you forget. A few of us “veterans” are well prepared, so reach out to us.
Eat. Snacks are the very least but there’s places to eat or bring your own food (again, find veterans who can help if in a pinch).
Do a recon of the area. I sometimes go a bit crazy and do everything the first day. Depending on which days you’re going, try to make it last as long as you’re there.
Don’t rush. Yes, there’s a lot to see and do, but you’ll enjoy it more if you take it easy rather than rushing around.
Sunday near closing time is when crazy offers happen (stock is too small to take home, etc). If the risk is not too big for you, it may be worth waiting. I snagged some wonderful deals on Sunday that I wouldn’t have otherwise.
Authors sometimes walk the area and will happily chat to you and sign books (not all of them, be polite when you approach them and don’t expect them to be at your beck and call, they’re humans too). So don’t over fret.
Divide and conquer. If you’ve got friends (or made queue friends) who can help you queue or get a ticket or something, ask. Most of us are a friendly bunch and diviing bits and asking for your highest priority and helping others get theirs is win win.
I could go on and on but there are other helpful guides around, so I’ll leave it there. I will be posting a selfie or some kind of picture of my costume each day so you can find me (I am very bad at names, so I forget, even if I recognise your face don’t take this badly). Be aware that at social gatherings I go on overdrive and I am talkative and overly extroverted (my Mexican side shows up). I am not trying to be annoying.
Informal review because it isn’t on Goodreads yet (it will be, just not yet). This is another Orgo book (and I am facepalming myself right now because I have Trey and she should’ve been in this picture but it didn’t cross my mind when I took it. In my defense I had a head splitting migraine).
Back to Oscar, this is a picture book of Orgo, rather than a read with some illustrated pages sometimes kind of book. And it is in a very watercolour style.
It features Oscar a new orgo that has been born and that can’t stop singing. I mean, babies crying is one thing, but a little Orgo that keeps singing and singing? I am not sure that’s much better (I mean, I like music, and songs abut I don’t think I’d put up with it non stop).
Anyway, the story progresses as Oscar keeps singing and it does end well, with Oscar finding a good purpose to his song. It is a cute little story to read with your children (or to them?). And introduces them to the world of Orgo.
I enjoyed it and it was light read for a day that was defined with a headache.
Hermelin is a noticer. He is also a finder. The occupants of Offley Street are delighted when their missing items are found, but not so happy to learn that their brilliant detective is a mouse! What will happen to Hermelin? Will his talents go unrewarded?
Rating:
A few years back, when I used to live in Oxford, I went to a museum that had an exhibition about Mini Grey. And Hermelin caught my eye, but somehow I didn’t end up buying it. (I enjoyed the exhibition a lot as it was meant for children and adults and it was about all her books).
But now I have got it and read it! The artwork is still gorgeously cute and I just find this is the type of book you read once and notice certain things in the scenes. And then the next time you read it, you see something different. I love that, because it makes the book be so many stories in one single story.
Each page is packed full of artwork and little clues to what will happen in the story or how, like the scenes tell the story without words. But the words are also there and they are good.
Hermelin is a cute mouse and he keeps trying to help others, but it may have put him in a spot of trouble. Things do end up well (it is a children’s book, they really don’t ever end up badly, except maybe for villains).
The story is cute and the words help tell it, but definitely it shines in the illustrations and I am just on repeat because it was really cute and made me smile and want to read it again as soon as I had finished it.
A good book for children as they can tell their own story from the pictures, or have the story read to them, or read it to someone and keep finding new things that will delight them!
I couldn’t find a Goodreads summary or anything, but I bought this book at Eastercon as I like flowering tea and tea in general.
The artowrk is simple but it is a cute story about the children loving visiting their grandmother and her garden. They talk about the fact that she makes them flowering tea and that they want to learn about it.
So granma teaches them to choose and pick herbs for the tea, how to dry them and then how to sew them together to make a flowering tea ball.
Made me want to make my own. And of course, this one is a very short book but good for children and maybe as a preactivity book, to have alongside some nice tea.
“I wish I could fly, and breathe fire, and fill the sky with great gray, sooty clouds,” Maud said to her friend, Mouse.
Maud is picked on by the other dragons, so stays cooped up in her cave, sad and lonely. But when the chance comes, will her friend Mouse help her pluck up the courage to fly? A beautiful picture book about individuality and friendship.
Rating:
This book caught my eye with all the colours and the style of the artwork so I got it alongside a few other illustrated books. I do not regret this.
Maud is a cute dragon, all rainbow coloured, and she lives with a bunch of night dragons who every night they puff big clouds of smoke to obscure the sky and bring in the night. I loved the concept of why nightim comes and that it is dragons puffing smoke clouds. Made me smile.
But Maud can’t fly and puff clouds like them, she is taunted a lot by the other dragons. But one day they have a party and none of the usual night dragons can fly. So Maud’s little friend, Mouse encourages her to try flying.
After a bit of encouragement and a “what have you got to lose?” Maud jumps off and hopes she can fly. And she can. And her own special magic shows.
It was cute and intiially I thought it was going to be a specific type of power but it was differnet and it was still super cute. The artwork was a delight and I am glad to have read this, plus dragons and a cute mouse.
Another informal review because I couldn’t even add this book to my Goodreads challenge, woops.
Lydia Fenwick is an illustrator I have been following for a while, so whne she offered her Galaxy Girls as a Kickstarter, I only had one question and it was “what tier should I choose?”. [I am pro supporting artists/creators, so I try to spend in Kickstarter, Etsy, other small businesses when I can.]
I actually can’t remember what the tier I chose exactly was, but somehow I ended up with an amazing amount of goodies (I love the whole “unlock new bonuses for everyone if we go past our goal and this amount”). Amongst them, the original book with gorgeous holographic pages and a “this is how I do it, and this are the materials” plus I am in the backers page at the back :). There were was also a collection of postcards, as you can see, there are so many they have holographic stuff and foiled too, best quality (it was so hard to take a good picture because of all the shiny). There’s also a collection if gorgeous stickers, a print of the cover illustration, a bookmark (bottom center, it has gold around her head) and a pin (on top of the bookmark).
The quality fo everything is top notch and I couldn’t ask for more. And the artwork as you can already see is wonderful. I wish I could draw and paint as gorgeously as that.
Hope this small review/showcase makes you follow her as she’s an awesome artist (plus she keeps chameleons and other critters, they’re really fun too).
Five mysterious, spine-tingling stories follow journeys into (and out of?) the eerie abyss. These chilling tales spring from the macabre imagination of acclaimed and award-winning comic creator Emily Carroll. Come take a walk in the woods and see what awaits you there…
Rating:
This book is gorgeous and creepy. Probably the best way to describe it in a single sentence.
The artwork sticks to a very red, white, black and sepia palette (with a few pops of colour) but still manages to convey very well the stories and sometimes the phrase “an image is worth a 1000 words” applies perfectly here.
One of the reasons this hasn’t got more stars is that most of the stories are left open ended or rather, in a confusing ending where you keep second guessing what exactly happened and why. I know that the attempt is to scare you and be creepy, but it also left me very unsatisified at the end of each story. I think if I had known this would be a very “just a tidbit of story, without a proper ending” kind of book, I wouldn’t have minded as much, but from the blurb it seemed to have proper short stories.
My favourite is probably the first one which at least seems to have a start and potential end, but it is still very much in the air with lots of maybe, and what if.
I’d probably say that if you like horror and creepy stuff, this is a nice illustrated book to have around. But if open endings aren’t really your thing, avoid this. Or go at it with caution. The art is still super gorgeous and the stories are different and “refreshing” in their own way.
