Wednesday, March 21, 2012

Clementine's Current Favorite Books



Honors for "favorite book" change constantly in Clementine-land, of course, but some stick around longer than others. These current faves are great because Jim and I don't get sick of them! First, Crafty Chloe by Kelly Di Pucchio (who also wrote the adorable Zombie In Love, currently a CCBA contender), and illustrated by Heather Ross. 

It's a great book about the virtues of making rather than buying gifts for people. It's funny and wonderful, and Clementine knows it by heart. The illustration above shows the horror-reaction of the snooty girl, London, on hearing that Chloe is going to make a gift for their friend's birthday. So cute. (I also love *SPOILER ALERT* that London comes around, Chloe isn't vindictive when she could be, and it's all-around sweet in a non-cloying way. Yay!




Here's C with a friend's daughter, Kestrel, age 9, reading Chloe at Powell's:




(Heart goes pitter-pat.)


Continuing with the wonderful theme of craftiness, Holly Hobbie's Fanny books. Holly Hobbie is a house favorite. We have all of her books, and Fanny is currently edging out Toot & Puddle (though Everything But the Horse is a fave too.) Like Chloe, Fanny is a crafty kid. When her mom refuses on principle to buy her a "Connie" (read: Barbie) doll, she makes her own doll, Annabelle. Like London, her friends aren't too keen on handmade, though *SPOILER ALERT* they come around too.




Here's Fanny sewing. Love it:




It's fun to find the Puddle toy in Fanny's room, and also she has Calico Critters! :-)

Here's the sequel, Fanny & Annabelle, in which Fanny writes and illustrates a book starring her doll.
Also wonderful.




Love love love. Holly Hobbie's art is sooooo gorgeous. Incidentally, her Toot & Puddle book Let It Snow is also about making versus buying gifts for loved ones.

I hope Clementine will love crafts!


Next, up ... TOTORO! My Neighbor Totoro, I'm sure you know it.


Clementine hasn't seen the movie, though she did see her first-ever movie last week and it was The Secret World of Arrietty, also by Hayao Miyazaki (which I had seen and knew it wasn't too scary for toddlers) and she loved it. So when she and Jim spotted this great hardbound Totoro picture book at the comic book store they snapped it up, and it's been instant love. One reading and she was spreading her arms and crying, "Mei, we're the wind!" Love. So thrilled to hear the Northwest Film Center is having a Miyazaki Festival in May and showing ALL his movies. Yay! 


Last up for today, Sketch Monsters, a graphic novel for kids by Portland writer Joshua Williamson, illustrated by Vinny Navarette. This we also picked up at the comic book store (hi Cosmic Monkey!) though I take credit for the find this time.




In Sketch Monsters, Mandy is a young girl who bottles up her feelings, and when she draws them all as monsters in her new sketchbook, they escape! There's a fear monster, a love monster, a silly monkey monster, a sad monster, a grumpy-nasty monster, and the Happster, shown below left drawing on the wall. Love the Happster. 

Clementine knows alarming portions of this one by heart as well. What would you not give for a toddler memory? It's uncanny what the kid remembers after one reading. Yow. 


What are your favorite kids books these days?




24 comments:

chinese new year hamper said...

Excellent information here. This interesting post made me smile. Maybe if you throw in a couple of pics it will make the whole thing more interesting.

Faith E. Hough said...

My four- and two-year-old daughters adore the Fanny books...we are a very crafty family. :) Of course now I have daily pleas of: "Please, please, please can we make our own dolls today??"
But I hadn't heard of the Chloe book, so I'm definitely going to have to find it. Soon.
Thanks for the recommendations!

Lyra said...

Sketch Monsters looks fantastic.
Current house favorites:
Marcel the Shell with Shoes on-Jenny Slate, Dean Fleisher-Camp (and their YouTube video is fantastic) All 3 kids, 3, 6 and 11 years old love this one.
The Man in the Moon-William Joyce
Pete's a Pizza-William Steig
Rhyming Dust Bunnies-Jan Thomas
Franklin Richards:Son of a Genius

valerie thomas said...

oh i long for the days when i read to my daughter, who is now 9 and reads to herself! but we have a nice ritual of reading side by side on the bed. still...

Little Willow said...

I hope she enjoys The Borrowers books! :) I'm really hoping that the new movie gives the books a whole new generation of readers.

Dorine White said...

I've got to check these out. Thanks for the great pics and info.

carrierobinw said...

3-yr-old son loves the bear books by Karma Wilson. All the World by Liz Scanlon is great too. Gorgeous book that he quotes all day sounding very poetic. He looks at the rain and says, "all the world goes round this way."

Anonymous said...

Hmm favorite books.. Daughter of Smoke and Bone of course!

Connie Onnie said...

I love reading to my nieces and nephews but I really love making up stories with them. It is so fun to see what they come up with.
While at my parents house my sister found a book we had loved as a kid, Christina Katerina and the Box. Man it was fun to hear her read it to her daughter and then to see her daughter love it too.

Connie Onnie said...

Oh and I think I need to see what these "Connie" dolls are all about.

Unknown said...

Crafty Chloe is right up our alley, looks brilliant. and Tortoro--very cool. My girls love Ponyo.
Right now their favourite book is Princess Matilda who is deliciously imaginative and a little wicked. ;)
http://www.amazon.com/Princess-Matilda-Meadowside-Picture-Books/dp/1445402793

Commander Kip said...

I remember watching Totoro at my Japanese grandmother's house when I was a kid. Love the story.

Life is Good(ell) said...

Such a sweet photo! Clementine (and her parents) have great taste in children's lit! Some friends of mine were recently complaining about being bored reading books to their kids. I was shocked until I found out they weren't reading actual books just marketing tie-ins for TV characters like Dora. The current favorites at our house are Ladybug Girl, Bedtime for Frances, and A Ball for Daisy, but they will change within a few days, I'm sure.

Carly said...

Have you seen The Tickle Tree by Chae Strathie & Poly Bernatene? Excellent illustrations in that one, very magical and whimsical, and swirly text! It's my favourite book of my two-year-olds, and I think he likes it too!

One Righteous Babe said...

I LOVE Miyazaki. Addicted to his movies since junior high. I'm currently in the process of collecting. My Neighbor Totoro, is a cute movie for kids. Also!!! Try her with Ponyo. Oh my goodness. Great movie. Wish they had used lesser known voice actors, but the ones they had were great!

Also, since Lennox is just a year and a half we're mainly doing Sandra Boyton. But I like to tell her stories too.

When I was C's age, my favorite books were Nate the Great. I just checked them out from the library recently. Love! Little detective kid named Nate (who's great) goes around his neighborhood solving mysteries. The best thing though, is that in every book he eats a huge stack of pancakes while trying to figure out whodunnit and his dog is named SLUDGE. Love it. Still waiting for an opportunity to use that one on a poor unsuspecting pet.

Woo. Blog post masquerading as a comment.

PS- I've been wondering this for sometime, but! Could Karou have used her wish beads to figure out what Brimstone wrote in his note before it burned? Or could she use them to read people's minds? Is that beyond the power of the little beads?

Lovies.
Bekka

Candice Westberg said...

Thank you for this post. I've been wondering what children's books you would suggest. We checked out Dragon Puncher from the library and my 4 year old loves it! It's been his top book to have us read the past couple of nights and even had me read it to him this afternoon. It tickles him silly and he smiles through the entire thing. Oh, and I put "Daughter" on hold at our local library but am number 21 on the wait list. *grin* I will read it, eventually! lol

Stephanie said...

"Big Rabbit's Bad Mood" by Ramona Badescu. Best. Book. Ev-ah.

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Amy said...

Have you ever seen this Cartier commercial? It's gorgeous and extravagant and majestic and the amazing settings really remind me of potential settings for Daughter of Smoke and Bone!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yaBNjTtCxd4

Jeni said...

My daughters (ages 3 and 4) love "When a Dragon Moves In" by Jodi Moore (great art with this one--the art tells a story all in itself), "When Egg Met Blue" (I suspect you would adore the art for this one, which is created in multimedia forms), and "A Dress for Birdie." Excited to check out these recommendations!

The Seventh-Born Chronicles said...

I've always gone with the classics: The Giving Tree, The Tale of Ferdinand, Where the Wild Things Are. But I think a really fun one is Pinkalicious, about a little girl who is basically in love with the color pink (obviously) and Ladybug Girl, where another little girl turns herself into the bug-related superhero. Thank goodness for babysitting, otherwise I wouldn't know anything current!

bronwyn said...

I just took my little one to see Arrietty last weekend! She proclaimed it the best movie ever and we are now reading The Borrowers. The favorites are always changing in our house but Who Will Comfort Toffel? may be an all time favorite. We read it every night for almost 3 months when she was nervous about starting kindergarten. Also, anything by Arnold Lobel is always a hit. Owl at Home is my favorite.

PS - I ordered a Brambly Hedge book for the Easter basket after reading your post about the series. Wow is it cute!

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