The Wolf and Little Red.

The Wolf and Little Red.

Into the woods and down the dell/
The path is straight, I know it well/
Into the woods and who can tell/
What’s waiting on the journey?









Happy Christmas from us to you!

tardis cookies



tardis cookie cutter

Tardis cookie cutter 1.0






CallitCourageI’ve given up hope of making good on my goal/bet to read ten consecutive Newbery winning books this year. Call It Courage, by Armstrong Sperry, brings my grand total to exactly three. The 1941 winner is a familiar title from my childhood, back when I was very much into survival books of the My Side of the Mountain, Julie of the Wolves, and Island of the Blue Dolphins variety. It’s funny how my thoughts on the book have changed since my ten year old self last read it.

Written in the style of a legend, Call It Courage is a coming-of-age story about a Polynesian boy named Mafatu who is afraid of the ocean. Because he and everyone in the village is dependent on the sea, Mafatu gets a lot of grief for his fear. (Although to his defense, as a toddler he almost drown during a massive storm, while his mother, who saved his life, died.) Nevertheless, Mafatu is a source of embarrassment to his father, the chief, and a disgrace to his namesake, Stout Heart. So one day, fed up by the taunts of the other boys his age, Mafatu decides to conquer his fear of the ocean by sailing into the ocean. His plan: to set off for a distant island and live there among strangers until he has proven his bravery, and then return home in glory. Instead, he gets shipwrecked on a cannibalistic island (the cannibals visit periodically) with no food, shelter, weapons, or means of escape. Continue Reading »


el deafo


peter panI know, sacrilege! Peter Pan, by J.M. Barrie, is so special, it’s practically untouchable, but I’m going to say it anyway: I don’t see why this book is so beloved. I wouldn’t have enjoyed it as a kid, and the only reason I pushed through as an adult was out of obligation.

But what kind of children’s book blogger would I if I were not familiar with the Great Pan himself? (The kind of blogger who had not read Alice until recently….cough, cough.) I’m pretty sure Pan references pop up more often than, say, Little House or Oz ones. Code Name Verity? Check. Peter and the Starcatchers? Check. Finding Neverland, the film and musical? Check.

While I highly recommend two of the three works listed above which reference Peter Pan over the original, here are the highlights from my reading of Peter Pan:

  • Famous opening remarks: “All children, except one, grow up.”
  • Mrs. Darling “tidies” up her children’s thoughts after they go to bed, like socks in a sock drawer, so the mean thoughts are folded away at the bottom, and the nice ones are on top. An intriguing idea.
  • Tinkerbell is “slightly inclined to embonpoint.” Also, being a fairy, she is so small she has room for one feeling only at a time. (This description is made of awesome.)
  • The number of Lost Boys on the island varies, “according as they get killed and so on; and when they seem to be growing up, which is against the rules, Peter thins them out.” If that doesn’t scream sinister, I don’t know what does.
  • Barrie establishes that children are rotten brats towards their parents on multiple occasions: “Off we skip like the most heartless things in the world, which is what children are, but so attractive; and we have an entirely selfish time; and then when we have need of special attention we nobly return for it, confident that we shall be embraced and not smacked. So great was their faith in a mother’s love that they felt they could afford to be callous for a bit longer.”
  • awkward narrator narrates sexist playtime: in Neverland, the boys play pirates and Indians. Wendy plays house with the boys. “Wendy would have a baby, and he was the littlest, and you know what woman are, and the short and the long of it is he was hung up in a basket.”
  • awkward narrator narrates racist interactions: After Peter saves Tiger Lily, the “redskins” take to calling Peter “the Great White Father, prostrating themselves before him; and he liked this tremendously, so that it was not really good for him.”
  • If Wendy allows her daughter to fly off with Peter so he can fulfill his selfish need for a “mother,” does that make her an enabler?





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