Jun11

T-rex’s Terrible Tooth by Kathryn England and Ben Redlich

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IMG_0445T-rex’s Terrible Tooth by Kathryn England and illustrated by Ben Redlich, paperback picture book, published by Koala Books in 2010.

Young Tyrone the T-rex has a toothache. A toothache so bad that he is unable to eat his normal meaty diet without horrendous pain. Convinced that he is about to die of starvation, he breaks down wailing. A passing Brontosaurus informs Tyrone that soft fruit and vegetables are plentiful, and by changing his diet he will certainly survive. Tyrone gives his new diet his full attention with unexpected results.

This is a delightfully humourous rhyming story featuring dinosaurs, one of my kids’ favourite topics, so it is a hands down winner in our house and has been read numerous times to both my preschooler and second-grader. We love reading this book out loud to make the most of the rhyming text, and it always makes us laugh. My preschooler likes the meat meals Tyrone dreams of but can’t eat, such as Triceratops lollipops, while I like his melodramatic response to his toothache. The ending is very satisfying and my kids think it is hilarious. A great book for preschoolers and lower primary school children, I highly recommend T-rex’s Terrible Tooth for every little dinosaur fan!

Jun11

The Pocket Dogs by Margaret Wild and Stephen Michael King

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IMG_0439The Pocket Dogs by Margaret Wild and illustrated by Stephen Michael King, paperback picture book, first published by Omnibus Books in 2000, this edition published by Omnibus Books in 2001.

Mr Pockets owns a big blue coat with two big pockets. His little dogs, Biff and Buff, ride in his coat pockets every day as he walks to the shops. A hole develops in Biff’s pocket, and it gets bigger and bigger until Biff falls right through it and is lost. Several people try to help Biff, but he runs away because he is Mr Pocket’s pocket dog and he just wants to be reunited with Mr Pockets and Buff.

This is a cute picture book that my kids really like, it is also popular at their school with the preschoolers and lower primary school children. The language is easy, the story interesting and the pictures are engaging. It shows that knowing who you are and feeling that you belong somewhere are important in life. Biff finds that he is a pocket dog and only a pocket dog, and he belongs with Mr Pockets and Buff, and that makes him happy. My preschooler likes to curl up in my lap to read this book together when she is tired. She likes Biff’s short adventure and his reunion with his best friends.

Jun10

Cupcake Bee Cake

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Cupcakes iced and ready for decoration.

Cupcakes iced and ready for decoration.

I was thinking about ways to make bee cupcakes, when I thought that perhaps I could make one big bee cake using cupcakes. I pondered this for a while, but finally came up with a plan. After baking two dozen cupcakes, I laid them out in a bee shape to see if it looked okay. It did, so I mixed up some yellow icing and some black icing, which is not perfectly black, but rather a dark grey. To get the icing really black, I would have needed some food colouring paste or gel, but I only had liquid colouring, so dark grey it is. This wasn’t an issue though, as the colours looked quite good together.

L icing a cupcake.

L icing a cupcake.

I got to icing, starting with the black head. The two cupcakes at the front are angled up a little to create the head shape. I used a couple of toothpicks to secure them into place against the single black cupcake behind them. L helped me to ice some of the other cupcakes, and was a big help whilst making this cake. The cupcakes that make up the stripey body are just placed into the correct shape. I ended up using fourteen cupcakes for this cake.

The head of the bee.

The head of the bee.

L made the antennae and stinger out of black pipe cleaners. I stuck one antenna into each of the head cupcakes, and then added eyes below them. The eyes are made from a single malteser chocolate ball with some white chocolate fudge writing icing blobbed on it. L stuck the stinger into the last yellow cupcake.

A wing.

A wing.

The wings of the bee were the trickiest part of this cake. They are made out of clear cellophane. I cut a double sheet into a rough wing shape, and then scrunched one edge together to create the shape of the wing emerging from the body. I separated the two sheets of cellophane slightly to give the wing some depth, and then wrapped half a black pipe cleaner around the scrunched section, and secured it between two of the body cupcakes using toothpicks. The toothpick slotted under the pipe cleaner and then poked into the sides of the adjoining cupcakes. I made another wing for the other side.

And there I had my cupcake bee cake. It was very difficult to photograph, but I’ve done my best. The cellophane didn’t show up very well in the photos, and it was difficult to get one good shot of the whole cake, so the photos don’t really do it justice. It did look much better sitting on my dining table!

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Jun10

When Henry Caught Imaginitis by Nick Bland

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IMG_0442When Henry Caught Imaginitis by Nick Bland, paperback picture book, first published by Scholastic Australia in 2008, this edition published by Scholastic Australia in 2010.

Henry was an unusual child, neat and tidy and always serious. Then a strange thought popped into Henry’s head, and suddenly he was off on a pirate adventure, and wrestling with dragons. This didn’t seem right to Henry, so he looked for a good sensible book to read instead, and discovered he had caught imaginitis. There’s only one cure for imaginitis, and he has a long wait to fill.

Another wonderful book from Nick Bland. I love his style of illustrations, with black and white tones moving into more and more colour as Henry’s imagination is sparked. Children don’t need to be always serious and sensible, they should relish their imaginations and play and pretend for as long as possible, that is the joy of childhood. Henry finds out that he shouldn’t be in a rush to grow up, his imagination can take him anywhere and let him be anyone. This is a nice message for our children.

This book is suitable for lower primary school children to read and for sharing with preschoolers. My preschooler is very fond of this book, she likes the things that pop into Henry’s head, especially the big red dragon. The illustrations are lovely and the story is different and I enjoy sharing it with my kids, and then discussing some of the things we would like to pretend to do.

 

Jun10

The Bus to the Zoo by Mary Murphy and Josh Lee

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IMG_0441The Bus to the Zoo by Mary Murphy and illustrated by Josh Lee, paperback picture book, first published by Omnibus Books in 2009, this edition published by Omnibus Books in 2011.

The big blue bus is on its way to the zoo, picking up passengers at every stop along the way. The passengers waiting for this bus are a bit unusual though, there are seagulls in school ties, a donkey with earrings, a goose in a party hat, and many other animals. The bus driver is a penguin, and she wants the passengers to keep moving down the bus to make room for more and more passengers, but it’s getting pretty crowded, and it’s looking very chaotic. Who is the last passenger to get on the bus?

The bus to the zoo is also the bus carrying the zoo, a bit of a Noah’s ark on wheels. It quickly becomes packed with an assortment of interesting creatures. While the story is fun, and it rhymes, it is the illustrations that make this book so engaging. My preschooler loves to study the pictures, finding different animals, and strange things that the animals are wearing or holding, such as the monkey’s camera, or the toad’s snow globe. When we read this book together we like to try to name and count as many of the animals as we can. This is a great book for sharing with preschoolers, and for independent reading for lower primary school children.

Jun10

Pete the Sheep by Jackie French and Bruce Whatley

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IMG_0443Pete the Sheep by Jackie French and illustrated by Bruce Whatley, paperback picture book, published by HarperCollinsPublishers in 2004.

Shaun is a shearer, and Pete is his pet sheep. Pete helps Shaun in the shearing shed. The other shearers have sheepdogs to help them, but when Shaun and Pete come along, suddenly all the sheep want to see Shaun. The shearers kick Shaun and Pete out of the shearing shed. Shaun doesn’t know what to do then, as shearing is his life, but Pete has an idea to start a Sheep Salon for funky sheep-cuts.

This is a very Australian book, and we love it. The illustrations are amusing, and we love the special hair cuts the sheep get. The story is fun and different with simple language. Until I’d read this book I’d never thought about sheep (or other animals) getting such unique hair cuts. And it has a happy and inclusive ending, where everything works out just right, which is important to my kids, they like their books to end well.  My preschooler particularly likes that when Pete says “Baaaaa!” he’s actually talking to the other sheep, but Shaun can understand him too. Suitable for young children such as preschoolers and lower primary school children, we like to read this book together.

Jun10

Book Review Index

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IMG_0436I was staring at the pile of books I’ve read but haven’t had a chance to review yet, and realised that I have written quite a few book reviews for Today We Did now. Going to the book review category I also realised how difficult it was to navigate them, so I decided to compile a Book Review Index.

I split the books into novels, chapter books, pictures books and non-fiction to make it easier to look at reviews from these categories. Within each section I have listed the books in alphabetical order based on the authour’s last name. I will try to add each new book to the index as I publish its review, if I miss one, please point it out to me!

I’d also love to hear what you thought about these books too 🙂 And if you have a suggestion for a book you think I might like, let me know, if I can find it, I will read it!

Jun9

At the End of the Rainbow by A H Benjamin and John Bendall-Brunello

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IMG_0428At the End of the Rainbow by A H Benjamin and John Bendall-Brunello, paperback picture book, published by Little Tiger Press in 2004.

Badger and Fox see a rainbow in the sky and try to follow it to find the treasure at the end of the rainbow. Along the way they meet some animals, all with a different idea as to what constitutes treasure, and it isn’t gold or jewels. Badger and Fox discover that friendship is a far greater treasure than any material goods could ever be.

This gentle story about friendship and what is really important in life is a very nice picture book for sharing with young children from preschool age. I particularly like Old Hare with his half-spectacles, and his wisdom. Both my children like this book, and it has been read many times in our house. When my eldest daughter was three she even took this book to playschool to show for news because she liked it so much. She said it makes her feel happy.

 

 

Jun9

Choc Mini Meringues

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Ingredients.

Ingredients.

A is very fond of meringues, so when I did the groceries last week I bought a box of rainbow mini meringues for her (Woolworths Select Rainbow Mini Meringue Drops). On the side of the box was a recipe for transforming these mini meringues into bitesize chocolate rainbow treats. As we had all the necessary ingredients in the cupboard we gave it a go.

Dipping a meringue into the chocolate.

Dipping a meringue into the chocolate.

It was really a very simple process. I melted the chocolate in the microwave, stirring every 30 seconds or so, until it was smooth. Then the kids dipped the meringues into the chocolate, and put them straight into some hundreds and thousands. The hundreds and thousands stuck to the chocolate, making the meringues very colourful.

Covering the chocolate in hundreds and thousands.

Covering the chocolate in hundreds and thousands.

Setting on the bench.

Setting on the bench.

We also tried using some rainbow star sprinkles, but they weren’t quite as effective as the hundreds and thousands. The stars were bigger and didn’t make as neat a layer as the smaller hundreds and thousands, but I still liked how they looked, and the taste was similar.

L and A enjoyed making these treats, and eating them even more!

A star meringue.

A star meringue.

 

Jun9

Freak Street: Meet the Zombiesons by Knife & Packer

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IMG_0424Freak Street: Meet the Zombiesons by Knife & Packer, paperback graphic chapter book, 93 pages, first published by Scholastic Australia in 2008, this edition published by Scholastic Australia in 2013.

The Zombiesons live on Freak Street along with some other unusual families. Within their family, there is Mr and Mrs Zombieson, their children Zigi and Zoey and the baby Zee. They also have a three headed dog called Zlobba. They are all bright green with red hair and their brains exposed, they also have an interesting house and yard, including a man-eating hedge that likes mouldy pizza. Granny Zombieson is coming to stay and celebrate her 500 year birthday with her family. She is a whiz in the kitchen at making the most delicious pizzas, such as Haunted Hawaiian, for which she guards the recipes closely.

Zigi plays soccer with the Freak Street School team, and whenever Granny Zombieson comes to watch, the team never loses, so it is important to Zigi that she attend the big final. On the morning of the final the whole family goes to the theme park Danger World for Granny’s birthday. Matters are complicated when Granny has her brain stolen, but by whom and why, and will she still make it to the game to be Zigi’s lucky charm?

This was a funny story filled with amusing colour illustrations. The faces of some of the characters captured their nature extremely well. Granny Zombieson was my favourite character, with her skateboard and attraction to terrifying rides, despite her age. Her friends from the Ridiculously Old Age Zombie Home also made me laugh, especially when Scary’s eyeball fell into the fish bowl. Even though the Zombiesons were zombies, they were mostly just like any other family, though maybe with a few more rather unusual quirks.

My second grader enjoyed Meet the Zombiesons so much that she has asked for more b0ooks from this series, and she is looking forward to meeting more of the Freak Street families. Meet the Zombiesons was a simple yet exciting adventure best for lower and middle primary school students, though I liked it well enough too. It makes zombies seem not very frightening at all, so younger readers shouldn’t be scared to give this book a go, especially with an adult.