A Children's Series by Mark Helprin? Yes!

I'm super excited by a book I stumbled upon while browsing at my local Barnes and Noble store: a children's book by Mark Helprin with illustrations by Chris Van Allsburg. Now you understand my excitement. The book's title: A Kingdom Far and Clear: The Complete Swan Lake Trilogy. How have I not come across this before?

Helprin is the author of the (adult) novel Winter's Tale,  an incredibly vivid and beautiful novel I read several years ago. You would have to live under a rock -- and not have ever come into contact with any child's room or children's book collection -- to convincingly say you don't know who Van Allsburg is. If you are peeking at this screen from under a rock here are a few clues: Jumangi, Zathura, The Z was Zapped: A Play in 26 Acts (one of my kids favorite alphabet books), and The Polar Express, among many others.

After doing a little research I learned that the book was commissioned and intended to be an interpretation of  Tchaikovsky's famous ballet similarly named Swan Lake. Apparently the two authors spent years working on this project, a three part series about the great themes of literature of course -- love, devotion, evil and greed. The first part of the trilogy was published back in 1989, with the second part released in 1996, and the final installment in 1997. I would have been in high school and college when these books first appeared, completing loads of mandatory readings so perhaps that explains why these books bypassed by universe without my knowing.

Of course I immediately purchased the book on Amazon after returning home and they will arrive in two days time...counting down the minutes! You'll very likely see a review in the not too distant future.

--Mom

From www.amazon.com

Finding new books with a fairy theme (a mom post)

As Ella continues to breeze through the Rainbow Magic Fairy series by Daisy Meadows I've started to look for some new books (or a new series) with fairy or whimsical other worldliness themes. To say Ella loves the Rainbow Magic series would be an understatement. They are short and breezy with similar plots but they also make her laugh. That's a winning combination for keeping a 6-year old reading and at this age my main goal is to encourage a love of reading, the sitting-down-with-a-book-for-hours-and-staying-up-late kind of love that has already taken root in just the last two years of reading every day.

And I'm happy to feed her desire to read books with fairy/magical themes so I've begun to gin up a list of new books, mostly through Amazon searches and cross references. The Rainbow Magic series is a bit easy (in terms of the level of reading) so I've also been looking for books that are a little more advanced in terms of vocabulary and plot.

I've generally skipped books that I think have a scary element or would make my kids sad. Ella especially likes happy and silly reads. If the kids stumble upon books they want to read that have heavy or serious topics, I'm willing to let them give it a whirl but for now my purchases have generally detoured around books that present issues like missing parents, ill children, lost siblings and frighteningly evil villains even though I know  this means we are skipping some great classics for now.

Below is my list of new possibilities.

Fairy Tales by E. E. Cummings

The Night Fairy by Laura Amy Schlit

Fairy Dust and the Quest for the Egg (Disney Fairies Series) by Gail Carson Levine

The Flower Fairies Chapter Book Series by Pippa Le Quesne -- Books include Zinnia's Magical Adventure, Sweet Pea's Precious Promise, Buttercup and the Fairy Gold, Wild Cherry Makes a Wish.

The Last of the Really Great Whangdoodles by Julie Andrews Edwards (Yes THAT Julie Andrews!)

My Father's Dragon by Ruth Stiles Gannett (recommended by a classmate's mom)

The Indian in the Cupboard by Lynne Reid Banks

 We'll let you know what we think of these as Ella begins to read some of these and posts reviews!

A Halloween Special

Title: Trixie the Halloween Fairy


Author: By Daisy Meadows


Pages: (Digital/No page count. Guesstimate: 165 pages)

Rating: ***


Ella's Comments: I really liked this book because it has a lot of action for Halloween. Another reason I enjoyed this book a lot is because the three magic items are candy I like. In the book there are ghosts, which are the spirits of dead people.

From www.amazon.com

My First Review on a Fairy Book

Title: Lizzie the sweet treats fairy 

Author: Daisy Meadows 

Pages: 65 Rating: ** (and 3/4) 

Summary: I liked this book because it had a lot of funny parts.One example is when Kirsty and Rachel shot a goblin with icing from an icing bag. At first the goblin was angry that the girls shot him. But then he tasted the icing and he became happy because it tasted yummy.

From www.amazon.com