Claire Here! I Am Back In The Kids Store Again At The Bookstore. And The First Thing I Read Yesterday
Claire here! I am back in the Kids store again at the bookstore. And the first thing I read yesterday morning was Vikki Vansickle’s new picture book. And I am so glad that JoAnn brought it over to me! (JoAnn, you have me hooked. If I Had A Gryphon is going to be my big story time book next week.)
If I Had A Gryphon is written by Vikki Vansickle and illustrated by Cale Atkinson. It is about Sam, a young girl who has just gotten her first pet: a hamster. Sam thinks hamsters are not nearly as exciting as some of the mythological creatures she reads about in her books. So she starts thinking of some other pets that might be a bit more fun, but also perhaps a lot more work. Maybe hamsters aren’t so bad?
Ohmygoodness this book! I adore this for a multitude of reasons: the illustrations are adorable, there are mythological creatures everywhere, Vansickle’s rhymes are bouncing and delightful, and Sam is both whimsical and practical in an entirely enchanting way. Also that too cute kraken happily playing with a dismal blue whale and a sunken steam ship. That page cracked me up!
The mythological creatures in this picture book make me so so pleased. I loved mythology as a kid. I had all the giant collections of Greek and Egyptian myths I could get my hands on. And later I added Celtic, Norse, and Japanese myths to my collection as I found them. If there were beautiful illustrations, that made them all the better. Myths and the heroes, monsters and enchanted creatures depicted in them fed my imagination. And I have never entirely grown out of that phase. Vansickle makes me slightly nostalgic for those times when little 8 year old Claire was curled up on the couch with giant mythology books, much like Sam. And I really love that Vansickle and Atkinson are introducing these mythological characters to younger readers in such an accessible and fun way.
Vansickle’s rhymes are rhythmic and skip along as Sam considers what she could do with her more exciting pets and what their potential downfalls might be. The kraken one is honestly, pure gold. “If I had a kraken/ We’d swim and deep-sea dive/ But I would need a scuba suit/ In order to survive.”
Also Cale Atkinson’s illustrations just fill me with pink bubbly happiness. He manages to make manticores, kraken, jackalopes, and gryphons look equally joyful and cuddly. I just realized today that he also wrote and illustrated To the Sea, about a lonely boy named Tim who has to take a lost whale named Sam back to the ocean. (If you have not read it, you should, it is just as cute as If I Had A Gryphon.)
PLEASE go check out If I Had A Gryphon. You will love it. At the very least, it should make you giggle.
More Posts from Thebookwenches-blog and Others
Here’s a list of what us wenches are reading right now!
Under a Painted Sky by Stacey Lee & The War that Saved My Life by Kimberly Brubraker Bradley
Whatcha reading, Brett?
Wing & Claw by Linda Sue Park
By Break of Day by M L Buchman
Indeh by Ethan Hawke and Greg Ruth
Whatcha reading, Jo Ann?
Burn Math Class by Jason Wilkes
Passenger by Alexandra Bracken & Ninth Key by Meg Cabot
Whatcha reading, Tori?
Hi all. I’m JoAnn and, at the tender age of 30, hold the position of Crone in The Book Wenches. I split my work life between managing the operations of the bookstore and being a massage therapist. I split my personal life with reading, gaming, various crafting, and pounding back movies/shows/anime.
I have fairly eclectic reading tastes, but my go-to comfort zone is genre fiction (sci-fi, fantasy, mystery, horror, and romance). I also read a bunch of YA and graphic novels.
I’m a giant nerd so that is my wheelhouse and probably going to be really evident in the bulk of my posts.
bork bork
(psst, it tiles seamlessly)
Hello! :) Bookwench #2 reporting in. Here’s a little about me...I’m Alia, I’m 27 years old and I love books, cake and Korean food. I used to be an elementary school teacher in Daegu, South Korea for about four years. Daegu is famous for being hot (it’s in a valley), has lots of great food and people there have the best Korean accent ( it’s like a tough southern accent). With a background in teaching and experience in children’s bookselling, my contributions to The Bookwenches will mostly be children’s literature related. I specialize in Picture Books. You have questions? I have answers. Need a suggestion? You got it. You like looking at pretty pictures?...WELL ME TOO! I also read quite a bit of middle grade and some YA. I like a little bit of everything; fantasy, historical fiction, sci-fi, fairy tale, realistic fiction, romance, coming of age novels, graphic novels etc. One of my favorite books of all time is Zel by Donna Jo Napoli. Like Tori, I like that medieval, princessy but AWESOME story stuff! In 2016, I’m looking forward to Sherman Alexie and Yuyi Morales’ new book Thunder Boy Jr. It’ll be Alexie’s first picture book!! If you don’t know him, just check out The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-time Indian. You won’t regret it. I’m also looking forward to Pugs of the Frozen North by Philip Reeve and Sarah McIntyre! You can also check me out at my blog readitrealgood.com and I have a twitter @readitrealgood. On my blog I share diverse and excellent reads. It’s intended to be a resource for people looking for great kids books, especially ones focusing on diversity. I also discuss diversity in literature and publishing and share my thoughts from time to time.
Nice to meet you...만나서 반갑습니다! 촣은 하루 되세요! ^_^
H! Alia here.
I’m holding an OMG-I’m-going-to-TRY-to-read-all-these-books-this-weekend reading party by myself for these books in time for the American Library Association (ALA) Youth Media Awards on Monday morning! These are just a few of the books being considered RIGHT NOW in secret meetings by the Newbery Committee…
Follow this link for a live webcast of the awards on Monday (8am) and info about every award up for grabs!
These awards are where they announce the Newbery, Caldecott, Geisel, Pura Belpré, Printz, Sibert, Odyssey, Stonewall, Coretta Scott King, Schneider Awards and more…That’s a lot!! And I’m SO EXCITED for it.
Also, the ALA Midwinter Conference is underway in Boston. Ah a land of Book Talk, ARCs, F&Gs and cool people…
Teachers! Holding Mock Caldecotts and Mock Newberys are GREAT ways to get your kids excited about reading. Woo!
Yay for books! Yay for book awards!
This is just to say that there’s a number of ways Rowling could’ve made her Magical North America work without causing real harm to a lot of real people. That would be for her to have treated American peoples — all of us — with the same respect that she did European. Pretty sure she would never have dreamt of reducing all of Europe’s cultures to “European wizarding tradition”; instead she created Durmstrang and Beauxbatons and so on to capture the unique flavor of each of those cultures. It would’ve taken some work for her to research Navajo stories and pick (or request) some elements from that tradition that weren’t stereotypical or sacred — and then for her to do it again with the Paiutes and again with the Iroquois and so on. But that is work she should’ve done — for the sake of her readers who live those traditions, if not for her own edification as a writer. And how much more delightful could Magic in North America have been if she’d put an ancient, still-thriving Macchu Picchu magic school alongside a brash, newer New York school? How much richer could her history have been if she’d mentioned the ruins of a “lost” school at Cahokia, full of dangerous magical artifacts and the signs of mysterious, hasty abandonment? Or a New Orleanian school founded by Marie Laveau, that practiced real vodoun and was open/known to the locals as a temple — and in the old days as a safe place to plan slave rebellions, a la Congo Square? Or what if she’d mentioned that ancient Death Eater-ish wizards deliberately destroyed the magical school of Hawai’i — but native Hawai’ians are rebuilding it now as Liliuokalani Institute, better than before and open to all?
N. K. Jemisin
http://nkjemisin.com/2016/03/it-couldve-been-great/#sthash.YYqbnjzj.dpuf
(via absintheabsence)
A Feminist Reading List for the Holidays: Books by strong, spirited, whip-smart, flawed, fantastic, human, devastatingly talented women for anyone - female, male, or otherwise - on your list.
My Life On The Road by Gloria Steinem
We Should All Be Feminists by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
Hissing Cousins by Marc Peyser and Timothy Dwyer
Isabella: The Warrior Queen by Kirstin Downey
Hunger Makes Me a Modern Girl by Carrie Brownstein
A House Of My Own by Sandra Cisneros
Fates & Furies by Lauren Groff
Vanessa and Her Sister by Priya Parmar
The Gracekeepers by Kirsty Logan
Missoula by Jon Krakauer
Let Me Tell You by Shirley Jackson
The Mare by Mary Gaitskill
You Don’t Have to Like Me by Alida Nugent (@thefrenemy)
Peruse all of our holiday lists here!
Image Credit: Pottermore/Warner Brothers HARRY POTTER AND THE GOBLET of NOPE! Dear JK Rowling,
Alia here. There’s no denying you’re one of the most brilliant minds of our era. You’ve created worlds that we get lost in and complex characters that we love dearly. But with MAGIC IN NORTH AMERICA, something went wrong. Maybe it’s that you’re not from North America? But surely you did your research into the complexities that are the native peoples of this continent...Maybe it’s that you didn’t grow up constantly bombarded by stereotypical images of native people on TV, in movies, as Halloween costumes, etc.? Maybe it’s because you didn’t go to school here and didn’t receive an incomplete history of native peoples that basically stops after “First Contact” & “Thanksgiving” and ignores modern native people? Perhaps...
There are real issues here. You’re dealing with real people, cultures, traditions and religions and with that comes a lot of responsibility. Native people are already heavily stereotyped around the world as “Magical Beings” and now...they’re in your magical canon! Not only do you refer to them as a monolithic group (there are hundreds of nations in the US alone), you *seem* to imply that native wand-less magic is powerful but not as refined as European magic (due to the power of a wand).
I encourage you, Ms. Rowling, to respond to native academics, fans, etc. who are asking you tough, but important questions. Debbie Reese, Dr. Adrienne Keene and many others have tweeted at you. Here, here, here & here are some EXCELLENT articles that delve into your work from a native perspective. This one is excellent as well. I ask you to check out Debbie Reese and Dr. Adrienne Keene’s websites in general. Just look around. They do great work.
Let’s get this discussion going and please let us know who you consulted for this project because we’re SUPER CURIOUS. (at least I am...) Representation Matters. It really does and yes, anyone CAN write a story, but I’d hope they LISTEN and learn as much as possible before releasing it to the world, especially when you’re dealing with living people, religions, and NATIVE KIDS. There’s a long history of misrepresentation, exploitation and stereotyping of native peoples. There’s also the fact native writers already have a difficult time getting published. They have a hard time telling their own stories. MAGIC IN NORTH AMERICA is problematic and we await your response... Sincerely, A Fan **SIPS TEA (out of the Goblet of Fire)**
Meet the Book Wenches: Alia, Brett, Claire, Jo Ann, Marita, Melissa, and Tori. We're booksellers and friends, staying in touch through our love of books. We'll let you know what's good.
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