Short, funny, and illustrated - two chapter book reviews

I recently finished two short, easy-reading chapter books by two very popular authors - Kate DiCamillo and Jeff Kinney.

• DiCamillo, Kate. 2013. Flora & Ulysses: The Illuminated Adventures. Somerville, MA: Candlewick. (Illustrated by K.G. Campbell)

Kate DiCamillo is nothing if not unique.  Whether gifting us with the mystical, magical, Magician's Elephant, the breath of fresh air that was Mercy Watson, or the delightfully improbable hero, Despereaux, DiCamillo never shies away from a new horizon.  In fact, I feel as if she has as much fun writing her books as we have reading them.

How else, but in a spirit of fun and adventure, could she gather

• Flora - a "natural-born cynic," and avid reader of The Illuminated Adventures of the Amazing Incandesto
• Ulysses - a dreamy, poetic squirrel with a superpower (typing), garnered from the interior of a super-suction, multi-terrain vacuum
• William Spiver - a temporarily blind boy who prefers to be known by his complete name, so as so distinguish himself "from the multiplicity of Williams in the world."
• two loving, but flawed (aren't we/they all?) parents
• delightful neighbors

and 

• Mary Ann - a lamp

Humorous comic panels and sketches by K.G. Campbell are the perfect complement to this warm and funny, impossible story of love and poetry, friendship and family.

Flora &Ulysses resources:

• Teacher's Guide
• Discussion Guide
• Sample Chapter

• Kinney, Jeff. 2013. Diary of a Wimpy Kid: Hard Luck, Book 8. New York: Amulet.

(Advance Reader Copy)

Download your own Hard Luck wallpaper here.

In Hard Luck, Greg Heffley finds himself temporarily friendless when Rowley gets a girlfriend and no longer has time to spend with Greg.  Since all of his previous life decisions have led to bad ends, Greg decides to trust his fate to chance, allowing an old Magic 8 Ball to make his choices.  How much worse can it get? (If you know Greg Heffley, you know it gets worse – much worse!)

This is not the funniest of the Wimpy Kid books, but abandonment and loneliness are not funny topics, and I give Jeff Kinney credit for tackling them, and doing it with  humor and hopefulness. Kids love the Wimpy Kid series, and they’ll love this one, too. Sure, it’s funny, but it may hit a bit closer to home than others in the series, and I don't think that's by chance.

Monday Morning Miscellany v. 4

 Here's the latest version of  Monday Morning Miscellany. I hope you find some news you can use.

• If you haven't heard already, Diary of a Wimpy Kid: The Third Wheel will be out on November 13, 2012.  Get all the details on the Diary of a Wimpy Kid site.  Dog Days, the movie, will be out on August 3.  Jeff Kinney's website answered my earlier question - Why is the 3rd movie titled after the 4th book?  Apparently, the movie is a mashup of The Last Straw and Dog Days. Mystery solved. Enjoy!

• The best news of my day?  Catherynne Valente has penned a new Fairyland book: The Girl Who Fell Beneath Fairyland and Led the Revels There.  I have not see it as I write this post on Sunday, but rumor has it that The Book Rat will post the book's trailer on August 30.   I'll be checking that out for sure! The Girl Who Circumnavigated Fairyland in a Ship of her own Making was my favorite book of 2011.  It's going to be hard to wait until October, for this one! 

• Don't have time to check all of your favorite blogs every day? Have you tried the Carnival of Children's Literature?  Bloggers are invited to contribute their best or favorite kidlit-related post of the month. The July Carnival of Children's Literature is available now. Anastasia Suen of Booktalking is the host. 

• It's Nonfiction Monday again. Today's host is Check it Out.  If you're a regular reader or contributor, please note the new Nonfiction Monday "about" page.  It appears that Anastasia, our roundup coordinator, has finally found a place of her own on the Internet.  Best wishes with your new site, Anastasia!   Next week's Nonfiction Monday roundup will be here!  Please join me.

Shakespeare by the Sea

•  Last night I enjoyed a small-scale production of Shakespeare's "A Comedy of Errors," in a lovely nearby park.  The performance was preceded by a short lecture in which I learned the following: Although the average modern speaker of English has a vocabulary of approximately 7,500 words, in the time of Shakespeare, the average vocabulary was a mere 500 words!  (My husband, a man of few words, noted that he could probably get by with only 500. I believe him.)  Shakespeare, on the other hand, found it limiting.  So much so, that he added approximately 2,000 words to the English language.  Fascinating! 

And one final tidbit of "noteworthy" news ...

• In what may be the first and last instance of its kind, my daughter loved her required summer reading book, Nathaniel Philbrick's, National Book Award winner, In the Heart of the Sea: The Tragedy of the Whaleship Essex.   Personally, I can offer no greater accolade. Read a chapter from In the Heart of the Sea here.

Have a great week!

Tuesday odds and ends

A few odds and ends here  - hopefully, you may find something useful.

A head-scratcher:

• Why is Diary of a Wimpy Kid: Dog Days coming out on August 3, with an unofficial title of DWK 3?  I can see why they'd like to release it in the summer because of the storyline, but The Last Straw is book three, not Dog Days.  No matter, I guess.  Kids will like it, but it will annoy the die-hard fans, I think.

 

A tech-helper:

•  Not at all book-related, but if you're mourning the demise of Picnik for creating promotional materials, etc., take heart - PicMonkey may just win you over. Give it a try.

 

A couple of things to bring a smile:

• Check out this Non Sequitur comic from May 13, 2012.
• And don't miss the winners of LT's first Edible Book Contest! See them all here.

BTW, I keep all of my reviewed books (more than 500 of them) and others in my LibraryThing account.  You can search my books by date, title, author, "stars," etc., by accessing my LT library. http://www.librarything.com/catalog/shelf-employed/yourlibrary You're welcome to stop by and browse.

 

Diary of a Wimpy Kid: The Ugly Truth

Kinney, Jeff. 2010. Diary of a Wimpy Kid: The Ugly Truth. New York: Amulet.

Greg and Rowley are fighting.  And to make things worse, Rowley's getting taller and already has his first pimple! Pimples, sweat, facial hair, "the talk," and other unmentionable horrors are awaiting Greg this year in middle school.

Poor Greg. Everyone used to think he was so cute.  That is, until Manny came along,

See, when you're a little kid,nobody ever warns you that you've got an expiration date. One day you're hot stuff and the next day you're a dirt sandwich.

Of course, Rodrick's no help either.  Mom's taking college courses and the boys have new chores.

And the bagged lunch thing isn't working out, either.  This week Rodrick was in charge of making lunches, and he wrote a note on  my lunch bag, just like Mom does.

(sketch of lunch bag with the note, "Dear Greg, Make sure to change your diaper after lunch.  Love, Mommy")

 I didn't even bother eating the sandwich, since I've never seen Rodrick wash his hands even once.

Greg Heffley is growing up.  And that's The Ugly Truth.

Growing up is never easy, but with Jeff Kinney, it's always funny.  Kids will love this latest in the Diary of a Wimpy Kid series.

Host your own Wimpy Kid party with The Diary of a Wimpy Kid: The Ugly Truth: Wimpy Wednesday Event Pack.

Review copy provided by Amulet Books.  (It will be raffled off to a very happy child at my library's Wimpy Kid event party.)




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The Wimpy Kid Movie Diary

It's Non-Fiction Monday!  Check out all of today's posts at Rasco from RIF.

Kinney, Jeff. 2010. The Wimpy Kid Movie Diary: How Greg Heffley Went Hollywood. New York: Amulet.

With the success of the wildly popular Diary of a Wimpy Kid series, it was only a matter of time before Greg Heffley went Hollywood.  What's surprising is that he wasn't animated!  Perhaps it's cheaper to make a live action film these days, or perhaps the talented Jeff Kinney simply didn't have the time to draw an entire movie.  Whatever the case, Greg went to Hollywood (a.k.a Vancouver).

The producers searched for a place that looked like a typical American town. They considered Rhode Island, Michigan, and lots of other places in the United States. So it's weird that they ended up finding the perfect American town in Canada.

In short sections with titles like "A Wimp is Born," "Action!," and "Faking It", Jeff Kinney walks the reader through the complicated process of creating a movie.  Of course, he does it with the humor that readers have come to expect.  In the chapter "Double Trouble" detailing the casting of little brother Manny, Kinney writes,

One of the trickiest roles to cast was Greg's three-year-old little brother, Manny. You may have noticed that in the books, Manny looks sort of like a buck toothed alligator.  Unfortunately, there aren't many kids who look like that in Vancouver - or anywhere else for that matter.
So the casting director looked for the next best thing, which was a cute kid with a memorable face.  After a lot of searching, the perfect Manny was found. Two of them actually. The trouble with three-year-olds is that they don't always do exactly what you want them to do, so it's a good idea to have a backup in case one of them decides not to cooperate.

The Wimpy Kid Movie Diary is the same size and format of the previous books, a printing font on diary-style pages liberally accompanied by hilarious artwork (from The Diary of a Wimpy Kid as well as new drawings created especially for this book).  The difference here is the addition of photographs, costume sketches, movie stills, actors' family photos and more.

This book will appeal to fans of Greg Heffley as well as those interested in the film making industry.  Casting, directing, set design, costumes, acting and editing are explained in a manner that is both informative and funny - a great way to learn.  The WK Movie Diary is a winner!

Diary Of A Wimpy Kid Teaser Trailer

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Dog Days

Kinney, Jeff. 2009. Diary of a Wimpy Kid: Dog Days. New York: Amulet.

It's Dog Days as in the dog days of summer (the timing of this book's release could have been better) and Greg Heffley is looking forward to some quality indoor time, but unfortunately, his Mom's idea of the perfect summer vacation does not include horror movies, video games and TV. In Dog Days, Greg woefully recounts his misadventures at Rowley's country club, the public pool, his summer job, and the cabin at the beach. Rodrick, Manny, Gramma, Mom, Dad, the Jeffersons, and Fregley, all make appearances in this latest installment of the Wimpy Kid series. However, the true stars of Dog Days are Greg and his Dad, who learn that father-son bonding may not be the same in every family. Sometimes hating the same comic strip is all that you need.

Dog Days may not have as many "laugh out loud" moments as earlier installments, (Rodrick Rules is still my favorite) but it remains comic genius, hilarious sketches seamlessly integrated into the story, often acting as the "punchline" in place of words.

Usually, I can relate to Mrs. Heffley. In Dog Days, I completely empathize with Greg. As a child, I also dreaded the trip to the "public pool," although my experiences (thankfully) were not the same as Greg's,

"I didn't want Manny to have to walk through the shower area and see the things I've seen. So I got a towel out of my bag and was gonna put it over Manny's eyes when we walked past the shower guys. But in the two seconds it took me to get my towel, Manny was gone. And you'll never believe where he went."

You'll have to imagine the sketch of the diminutive Manny, whistling and washing in the men's shower, surrounded by hairy knees and ankles!

"I knew I had to rescue Manny, so I closed my eyes as tight as I could and went in to save him... When we got to the other side, Manny seemed fine, but I don't think I'll ever totally recover from that experience."

And although I never watched a movie with "the muddy hand," I do remember one with a charred, black hand, and can completely relate with Greg's feelings in this passage,

"My new fear is that the hand is gonna crawl up on my bed and get me in my sleep. So lately I've been covering my whole body with the blanket and leaving a hole so I can breathe. But that strategy his its OWN risks. Rodrick got into my room today, and I had to spend the morning trying to wash the taste of a dirty sock out of my mouth."

And finally, I have to agree with Greg on this one,

"There's this comic about a dog called "Precious Poochie," and it's been running for about fifty years. The guy who wrote it died a long time ago, but they're still recycling his old comics. I don't know if they're funny or not because, to be honest with you, most of them don't even make sense to a person my age."

Well, Jeff Kinney does make sense to a person of Greg Heffley's age! In fact, based on the phenomenal interest in his books, he makes sense to kids of all ages - from 9 to 99.

Check out The Diary of a Wimpy Kid website for the Dog Days Event Kit.