Book Review: Just in Case You Ever Wonder (OT)(children's book of love)

Just in Case You Ever Wonder, by Max Lucado (Tommy Nelson Publisher, 2019, 30 pp, $12.89 HC, up to grade 2) Review by Skye Anderson

The age-old story of a mama and her baby - in this case, a lovely Mama Bear who loves her little Baby Bear, just in case he ever wonders. . . . and also the story of God who loves them both, just in case they wonder.

A lovely little book with words that will keep you warm, with watercolor illustrations that will soften your heart. And a story to make your heart smile.

More than a million copies have been sold in just four years and no wonder. Wonder reads like Goodnight, Moon,

another perfect book with which to end the day, reflecting on the love you have encountered and the dream of even more unconditional love to come.

To every child: you are unique, you are special. And God chose me to love and protect you. And I am glad. And just in case you ever wonder, I will always love you, just as God loves you and me.

And now, in 2024, we have Just in Case You Ever Feel Alone!

Book Review: Mary Marianna, Great Owl, and the Chess Master (girls loses, regains happiness helping others)(OT)

Mary Marianna, Great Owl, and the Chess Master, by William Morkill (Brown Books Kids, 2023, 32pp HB, $16.99, ages 4-8, grades: Preschool - grade 2) Review by Skye Anderson

Wow, there is so much packed into this little book! And on so many levels with lessons for both adults and kids.

Her superpower: compassion. 

Her mission: helping others. 

Her game: chess. 

Her name: the amazing Mary Marianna!

Mary Marianna is voted the Happiest Kid in first grade and it's true - until she meets a homeless man with a chessboard. She runs into the forest to sit on 'her' tree stump and in flies wise old Great Owl who challenges her. Mary Marianna rises to the occasion with the surprise ending being the homeless man, homeless no more, coming to the elementary school every day to teach chess to the students. 

But just how this happens is a story to treasure in a book dedicated to Great Thunberg who first realized that little acts can make a big difference.

Lovely Words, Lovely Illustrations and Even a Chessboard!

". . . words dripping like tears, . . . " and "Happiness finds us when we help others." Knights hop, bishops glide, castles collide with timid kings and courageous queens. 

As an added bonus, the author has included chess pieces to cut out and use on a chessboard with instructions on his webpage.

Book Review: Obscura the Cat Sees Beyond (scaredy cat, green eyes shine in the dark)(OT)

Obscura the Cat Sees Beyond, by Ben Franchi (Brown Books Kids, 2023, $16.99, 32pp, ages 5-10) Review by Skye Anderson

Obscura the Cat is a cat to get to know at night, in low light, as you follow her emerald green eyes and search for her brown-black fur as she melts into the background. If. You. Dare. 

Her humans work on the top floor of their house but when Obscura wakes from a nap, the furniture chases her before a knight can hide her. Obscura, however, has to hurry and find her humans amidst the creepies and crawlies that pursue her in every room, every nook and cranny. And the reader will slowly look at all the details on each page, at the ghouls that seep out of the wallpaper, as Obscura runs into skeletons in the kitchen and scaries in the carpet.

Trace her travels (escapes?) throughout the house on the floor plan on the inside front and back covers and pray that she finds her humans in time to go outside for a picnic lunch.

The rhyming scheme reminds you of Edgar Allen Poe. . . . and as an added bonus, Obscura's eyes on the front dust cover shine in the dark!

Book Review: Lenny the Bulldog Goes to the Beach: The Bully on the Beach (Bulldog, that is)

Lenny the Bulldog Goes to the Beach: The Bully on the Beach, by Roxanne Dean (CreateSpace, 2015, $9.99 PB, 124pp) Review by Skye Anderson

Bulldogs don't swim. Or do they? Nobody told Lenny the Bulldog that Bulldogs don't swim, so he did -  even back as far as when he was a puppy. Because Lenny lives at the ocean shore both at Bethany Beach, DE, and St. Pete's in Florida, but though he is a bully, it is the good kind of bully (short for bulldog, not for the school bully)!

Lenny was a famous bulldog for ten years. Not only did he make therapy dog visits to the elderly but he wore a Marine Corps uniform when he helped collect Toys for Tots.

And like may dogs, Lenny (Leonard) lived for treats and petting. And for shoe chewing! The more expensive, the better.

Author Roxanne Dean even includes The Rainbow Bridge as well as a couple of poems starring Lenny that she has written along with chapters featuring a dog's life, the breed, Christmas spirit, the shoe thief and toys.

But perhaps the most important idea the reader will come away with is that even they can write a book about their favorite dog and his antics, be they chewing or swimming or even napping with tongue hanging out!

Book Review: Saltwater Mittens (colorful knitting patterns from Newfoundland)(OT)

Saltwater Mittens: More Than 20 Heritage Designs to Knit, by Christine Legrow and Shirley Scott (Boulder Books, 2018, $29.95, 192pp PB) Review by Skye Anderson

First in a series of four lovely and entertaining knitting/touristy wish books, Saltwater Mittens has its origins in Newfoundland, Canada: a lovely collection of colors, photos, history and geography, traditional knitting patterns and even literary extracts. A book you will use but also will simply open and page through, to gaze upon the cliffs as well as the zigzag mittens and caps (instructions are also included). 

Colors you never thought would go together, do. Stripes and diamonds, scallops and arrows and squares and wrist ribbing  but always in contrasting colors. And, as with the other three books, Saltwater Mittens can stand alone. But, trust me, like potato chips, once you get one of the four,  you will want the others.

Saltwater Mitten Wheel

We love some of the titles in the bibliography: Don't Have Your Baby in the Dory, Fox & Geese & Fences, Flying Geese and Partridge Feet.

Samples of the Writing

"I was late in life learning to knit. I was eight. . . . " (p 13) and "In days gone by, knitters were not unduly worried about the size of the finished product. In large families, any garment was likely to fit some family member." (p 27)

Each of the four books has the same creative levels of difficulty labels (along with abbreviations and definitions): "Easy Does It" for beginning knitters, "Tangly" for intermediate skill levels and "Over the Wharf" for the advanced knitter.

1. Saltwater Mittens: More Than 20 Heritage Designs to Knit

2. Saltwater Classics: Caps, Vamps and Mittens from the Island of Newfoundland

3. Saltwater Gifts from the Island of Newfoundland: More than 25 Fashion and Home Styles to Knit

4. Saltwater Socks, Caps, Mittens and More

Book Review: A Lucky Dog: Owney, US Rail Mail Mascot (1800s, trains)

A Lucky Dog: Owney, US Rail Mail Mascot, by Dirk Wales (Great Plains Pr, 2003, 32 pp HB, ages 4-9, Preschool - grade 3, $15.95) Review by Skye Anderson

A True Story: A Huge Book about a Huge Story

A Lucky Dog: Owney, US Rail Mail Mascot, is a huge book that tells the huge story of a little mutt, many years ago, who jumped onto a box car that happened to be carrying the US mail and that was the first day of the rest of his life - as a mascot for the US mail.

It was a Dark and Stormy Night. . . . For This Mail Pouch Pooch

It was a dark and stormy night, that night in 1887 that our hero-mutt jumped onto the box car to get out of the rain in Albany, New York. He quickly became the pet of the local post office but soon also caught the travel bug. So, he hopped on the next mail train and hopped off at a distant station to stay a while.

Then he took about hop and another until he made his way across the country and into the history books of the US Postal Service for 9 years, guarding the mail. From Baltimore to Washington, DC, to Chicago and even on a ship that sailed round the world, Owney became famous as the pet of thousands of postal workers. One postal worker found him a coat and others affixed mailbag tags to it, starting a collection of Owney's itinerary that rivals Gulliver's travels.

Owney's book is mostly true but since Owney didn't tell his story to the author (the author wasn't around yet) we have only the recollections of postal workers across the county and across the world. Some of the story is what probably occurred to Owney as well as what did happen.

Illustrator of this edition (the book at the top of this review), Diane Kenna, uses brown-tinged water colors to depict a nondescript terrier-type - any dog (and every dog). Her full-page pictures are soft and friendly.

And it is only fitting that Owney now has his own postage stamp! Forever!

Book Review: Annabelle Bee and the Butterfly Tree (OT) (children's book, friends working together to find solutions)

Annabelle Bee and the Butterfly Tree, by Debra O'Connor (Brown Books Pub Group, 2023, ages 5-8, 32 pp HB, $12.74, Kindergarten -  Preschool) Review by Skye Anderson.

What a lovely little book with beehive cells (hexagons, where bees sleep in the hive and also deposit honey) completely covering the inside front and back covers. And can you imagine a bee being best friends with a butterfly?

If you are my age (or thereabouts) or live in Baltimore, you will automatically say "Annabelle Lee" rather than "Annabelle Bee" - but your first-grader will correct you!

Queen Bee Mom gently wakes Annabelle  in the morning and her first view is of the nearby butterfly tree - so full of beautiful orange butterflies who dry their large beautiful wings in the morning sunshine. Annabelle meets Benjamin Butterfly and they fly around together all day, sampling flowers, dipping and sipping, until something bad happens and Annabelle has to save Benjamin! In turn, Benjamin has to save Annabelle and then another scary thing happens - Queen Bee Mom says most of the the bees (family and friends) have to move to another location, so the bees start their search for a new home. But Annabelle and Benjamin don't want this to happen. What can they do? Can they find a new home for the bees in time?

Learn about bee dances and what they mean, learn about swarms and read a page full of bee facts before the book closes. But perhaps more importantly than bee facts is what young readers learn about friendship and working together. All in all, a truly lovely little bee book!

Book Review: Adversity Road (children's poetry book about hope)(OT)

Adversity Road, by Kendall Newell (Xlibris US, 32pp PB, $9.99) Review by Skye Anderson

Three kids, two girls and a boy are on a journey together; one gray backpack, one pink over-the-shoulder bag and one blue backpack that fell into the river, seemingly lost forever. Sometimes the boy leads, sometimes the blonde leads. Sometimes it rains. Sometimes they stop to pick and eat apples along the path. Sometimes something blocks their way. Sometimes they leave the path to cross a river or saunter through a meadow. But, nevertheless, they continue on under a cotton candy sky.

Thus, the lesson for our children: Keep going. There will be stones and sometimes rocks or even boulders in the way to step over or walk around. Sometimes we lose something tangible or even lose our way temporarily. But if we are with friends, they can encourage us on. And on the last page, they see their goal in the distance.

Could this be an allegory for life? We saunter along with friends, sometimes taking a detour and sometimes facing unexpected adversity but with friend always with us we persevere and help each other when necessary - that way all of us win in the end.

Author Kendall Newell also wrote A Star Upon a Dream about a girl who wants to become a zoologist (onoe who studies animals) that sounds lovely to this former zoology major.

Book Review: Junior and Bob - The Beach Bulldogs: Let Sleeping Dogs Lie (a bulldog scrapbook)

Junior and Bob - The Beach Bulldogs: Let Sleeping Dogs Lie, by Roxanne Dean (Create Space, 2020, 110pp PB,$9.99) Review by Skye Anderson

A ton of fun in one little book for Bulldog lovers - and everyone else - starting with history and a quiz: I am a dog trainer and only got 5 out of 10 questions right! Did you know Bulldogs are the 4th most popular dog breed in the US?

Author Roxanne Dean has packed a wallop into Junior and Bobo - The Beach Bulldogs. Since most bulldogs are not swimmers, Dean emphasizes the point that these Bulldogs live near two beaches  year 'round - Bethany Beach, Delaware, in the summer and St. Pete's Beach, Florida, during the winter. But their favorite sport, besides being petted by every human they meet, is napping.

Junior, being raised from puppyhood, merits his own chapter as does Bobo, a rescued Bulldog with quite a story all his own. Other chapters feature mascots and logos, cartoons and movies - and include a list of Bulldog rescue organizations and breeders with questions to ask.

All in all, Junior and Bobo will give you ideas to create your own dog's scrapbook and story!

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Roxanne Dean also writes about sheep.

Book Review: Spy Ski School (Junior high, spy school, Colorado, nuke, Chinese romance)

Spy Ski School, by Stuart Gibbs (Simon and Schuster, 2016, $18.99 HC, 9-12 years, grades 3-6, 384 pp, $8.99PB ) Book 4 of 11. Review by Skye Anderson.

Our Hero

Spy Ski School, 4th in a series of 12, reads both fast and slow. Slowly revealed yet accelerating, the plot seems to go fast and faster. And so intriguing that you will want to read the first book in the series, Spy School,

to find out how our young hero-in-training was recruited to be a junior spy by the CIA.

Ben Ripley is 13 years old, a student in a school so secret that even his parents are not told the truth: they think he goes to a special nerdy science school, instead of the Washington, DC, based (somewhere) middle-school/highschool.

The very prolific author, Stuart Gibbs, has really struck it rich in the Spy School stories and the covers are simply priceless: bright backgrounds, a spy in black silhouette in the foreground with some object in color, like footwear.

The Plot

Ben enrolls in a ski school in Colorado over the Christmas holidays and has mere days to uncover a Chinese bad guy, find out what he is up to - Operation Golden Fist - and stop it. Along with his buddies including heart-throb Erica, another student spy who is cool, calm and collected, Ben's task is to befriend Jessica Chang and find out what her father is up to - without getting killed himself.

Leo Chang rents an entire hotel in Vail, Colorado, for a week for his daughter and himself, and a few bodyguards, but what is his nefarious purpose? And if you can follow which of the girls have crushes on which of the boys and vice-versa, you are way ahead of me.

Like other Stuart Gibbs' books*, the Spy School stories star a young boy whose sidekick, Erica, is just about perfect in every subject, every sport while bumbling Ben somehow also manages to save the day.

With some 13-year-old romances (among 13-year-olds, that is) along the way, a nuclear bomb, helicopters and, of course, 'smores, Ben's missions involve not only cliffhangers and spine-tingling scares but the value of friendship between both boys and girls. 

The reader may also be inspired to look up geographical locations and perhaps even start paying attention to world news.

Oh, and a golden retriever IS mentioned. . . . 

A few books in the series are now in graphic novel form! And soon to be a movie!

And what about Poached!?

We also especially  love the similar Teddy Fitzroy zoo-based Fun Jungle mysteries. starting with Belly Up!

*The titles (so far!):

1. Spy School

2. Spy Camp

3. Evil Spy School

4. Spy Ski School

5. Spy School Secret Service

6. Spy School Goes South

7. Spy School British Invasion

8. Spy School Revolution

9. Spy School At Sea

10. Spy School Project X

11. Spy School Goes North

12. Spy School Goes Wild, available September 24, 2024

Book Review: Saltwater Classics (Caps, Vamps, and Mittens from the Island of Newfoundland)(OT)

Saltwater Classics, (Caps, Vamps, and Mittens from the Island of Newfoundland*) by Christine Legrow and Shirley Scott (Boulder Books, 2019, 250 pp paperback, $29.95) Review by Skye Anderson

Love the Cover! Front and Back!

"Tradition is a curious thing." And so begins this lovely book of color and patterns and history and lore in 'all about caps and vamps and mittens.'

Stunning photography on every page - of the ocean coast and, of course, of mitten patterns that reflect the needed colors of winter by the sea. With pages of terms and abbreviations, and, as in Saltwater Socks, cute descriptors of the levels of difficulty** (page 31).

Be Bold!

What makes a Newfoundland mitten?

A ribbed, striped wrist. a thumb gusset, a salt and pepper pattern, a round or picket-fence top, and an optional trigger finger, all illustrated beginning on page 39. The patterns are all the same yet different at the same time. Knitting simply with different colors make a different mitten!

Stitches alternate colors and sometimes the front and back of the mittens differ! What fun!

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*The Canadian province, Newfoundland and Labrador, is composed of the island of Newfoundland and a mainland portion called Labrador.

**Easy Does It, Tangly, Over the Wharf (easy, intermediate, advanced, respectively)

Book Review: Saltwater Socks (Caps, Mittens, and more from the Island of Newfoundland)(OT)

Saltwater Socks (Caps, Mittens, and more from the Island of Newfoundland*) by Christine Legrow and Shirley Scott (Boulder Books, 2022, 250 pp paperback, $29.95) Review by Skye Anderson

The latest of four knitting books in the Saltwater series, Saltwater Socks is well-worth waiting for if only for the colors and the patterns and the history which is interspersed in between 25 patterns.

Vamps and Sleep Socks and Play Socks - What are Those?

Beginning with a history of socks (would you believe socks have a history?), Socks is a book to drool over. Your children will want socks with whales on them,

or osprey, or cod or caribou (degree of difficulty - Tangly). . . . 

The Humble Sock

Plus coordinating fingerless mittens, watchcaps, scarves, headbands, gloves, warm-ups. . . . with traditional knitting patterns

and, of course, stories galore.

They Also Serve Who Only Sit and Knit

Just as good food was important to me when I served in Afghanistan, perhaps color is crucial during the long winters of Newfoundland. Regardless, the colors of these socks are simply to die (dye) for - worth the price of the book for the history and photos, even for non-knitters. 

But beginning knitters will get a kick out of Saltwater Socks and learn with the introductory patterns labelled "Easy Does It (Think of this as a gateway pattern - the next one will be much easier. Keep calm and carry on. Best foot forward.)" 

Soon, with more experience under your belt, you will graduate to the "Tangly" patterns and finally to "Over the Wharf" socks (Rough road ahead. There will be tears before bedtime. It's time to fish or cut bait.).

And remember, the puffins sent you!

Long may you knit!

*The Canadian province, Newfoundland and Labrador, is composed of the island of Newfoundland and a mainland portion called Labrador.