I have been looking for a good children’s book to give my niece for Christmas. In looking through my own bookshelf, I came across one of my favorite children’s books, The Velveteen Rabbit or How Toys Become Real, by Margery Wiliams. It is a classic story that should read by adults and children. I enjoy [...]

I decided to listen to this delightful little memoir thanks to a glowing recommendation from my favorite book blog, Vintage Kids’ Books My Kid Loves.  Andrew Sachs gives such a fantastic performance that it’s easy to imagine that Roald himself is telling his quaint and entertaining stories, which range from charming to funny to horrifying [...]

Shiver is another Young Adult choice, and I have to say, if the characters hadn’t been teenagers, I would never have guessed YA. The depth of emotion was a lot deeper than any other YA book I’ve read. Fans of Twilight will gobble this up!
So our story begins when, as a small child, the main character, Grace, is [...]

I got very lucky a couple of weeks ago - I was at a party for my boyfriend’s mom and my boyfriend’s cousin showed up with a pile of books written by his friend Michelle, which he was handing out.  Having just finished a book that morning, I was ready for a new book to [...]

If you’re interested in seeing some of the world’s smallest creatures ultra-magnified, this book is for you.  There are a few too many insects for my taste, but at least dust mites were thoughtfully excluded (and of course I skipped all spider pages.)  While my favorite subjects include the axolotl, the giant prickly phasmid, and [...]

This review isn’t about the classic children’s book from 1963, but rather the movie based on the book.  I recently saw the much anticipated movie about a lonely and rebellious child that escapes to an island inhabited by monsters. The movie is close to two hours long, but the book takes about ten minutes to [...]

This unusual little book on the philosophy of travel was a 2002 impulse buy from my days as a Harvard Coop trade book supervisor.  I almost never read hardcovers (excluding picture books, of course), but this one’s jacketless nature and understated faux gold embossment appealed to me.  I read somewhere recently that this type of [...]

Where do men win glory in our modern society? In sports, in battle, in service, in academics, in friends, in family? Author Jon Krakauer examines this and more through the prism of one man’s life and death in “Where Men Win Glory: The Odyssey of Pat Tillman”. Krakauer takes us beneath the surface images of [...]

I am an artist and a packrat. My art space at home is almost full.  So I have to start using what I have collected or decide what to throw away.  My creative urges kicked in.  I searched for and found a book that had some good craft ideas,  Earth-Friendly Crafts: Clever Ways to Reuse [...]

So I’ve realized of late that a surprising number of folks don’t find cats to be utterly appealing.  If that’s the case with you, I suppose I shouldn’t be too offended if you skip all my feline-related reviews.  However, you might just want to peek at this one anyway if you’re at all interested in [...]