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Text of the page (random words):
e s always tomorrow those are just a few of the very useful morals embedded in this story the book also includes for your enjoyment many latin phrases helpfully translated into english more or less accurately by the author a tree who may or may not grant wishes a lot of cursing interrupted before it can get started as in b and a very confused and incompetent author this entry was posted on 4 3 2026 in 2026 children s fiction fantasy fiction leave a comment saturdays and teacakes by lester laminack and chris soentpiet feb 24 i used to spend the night with my mema grandmother every friday night we watched jack benny together and ate pink beans pork n beans and hamburger patties for supper and on saturday morning i got to have sugar pops for breakfast those friday night visits were some of the best times of my childhood in saturdays and teacakes the boy narrator has a similar weekly date with his grandmother every saturday i got up early dressed and rolled my bicycle out of the garage the nine ten year old boy in the story pedals his bike all the way to grandmother s house and every saturday mammaw was there sitting on her old metal glider criiick craaack criiick craaack sipping a cup of red diamond coffee and waiting she was waiting for me no one else just me the boy goes on to tell how he and mammaw spent their saturdays eating breakfast mowing the grass working in the garden tomato sandwiches for lunch and baking sweet teacakes together this sweet and evocative story of a southern country boyhood never mentions the exact location or setting of the story but the author grew up mostly in alabama so i m choosing to think this is a story about an alabama boy and his alabama grandmother the illustrations in the book are full color paintings showing all of the activities that the boy and his grandmother do together these vibrant pictures really bring the rural southern small town and the boy s family life and love to life and if you want to extend the story and the learning a little more peachtree publishers has a recipe for mammaw s teacakes at their website you can find a read aloud version of this story on youtube or you can check to see if your library has it if you live in houston you can check out s aturdays and teacakes from meriadoc homeschool library it s a great story for all boys and girls who have a close and loving relationship with their mema or mammaw or grandma or whatever you might call her this entry was posted on 2 24 2026 in alabama picture book states leave a comment the nine moons of han yu and luli by karina yan glaser feb 23 chang an china 731 han yu sells steamed buns in a bustling market full of whispers about his ability to summon tigers chinatown new york city 1931 luli lee gazes out from the roof of her parents restaurant dreaming of dim sum and chinese art two places two times and two main characters it could be confusing but author karina van glaser does a masterful job of telling and intertwining the stories of these two children both of whom are trying to help their families through a hard time han yu must travel the trade routes silk road to learn money for his quarantined family and find the healing grasses that might heal his little sister from her life threatening illness luli s family is about to lose the restaurant that is their dream and livelihood as the great depression squeezes all businesses in its financial collapse the story has a slight amount of magical realism as a secretive ghostly guardian tiger appears and disappears seeming to protect han yu on his journey for me the tiger is reminiscent of the figure of aslan in the narnia books but that may be my own eccentric reading for the most part however the stories are engaging well written and well researched straight historical fiction the histories of han yu and luli intersect in a believable way and the story becomes a sort of ode to chinese food especially dim sum chinese art chinese history and chinese culture this book would be a great read aloud each chapter ends on something of a cliff hanger which impels the reader to hurry on to see what will happen and the chapters switch back and forth between han yu s story and luli s a device that adds to the suspense and interest i can see why this book won a newbery honor i would have chosen it for the newbery award this entry was posted on 2 23 2026 in 1931 2025 children s fiction china newbery project leave a comment once a castle by sarah arthur feb 17 i found this second book in the carrick hall series hard going at first but perhaps i just started when i was tired and not in the mood when i finally got several chapters in i began enjoy this story sequel to once a queen which i reviewed here in this book frankie the gardener boy s younger siblings jack tilly elspeth and georgie addison take center stage along with the mysterious and silent arash tasbari an immigrant refugee from iran whose shakespeare quoting grandfather owns a bookshop in the village more characters join the cast charlie and aurora heapworth tilly s crush and elspeth s best friend respectively paxton and mrs fealston the family servants or perhaps guardians and from ternival a fisherman and his granddaughter zahra indeed there are so many characters and so much movement from scene to scene and setting to setting that i almost got lost several times as i struggled to remember who was who and where they all were and who knew what and when and i wasn t the only one in a muddle the characters themselves lose each other and find each other an amazing number of times before the story is resolved the only stable but actually unstable and crazy character is the evil enchantress mindra who always shows up where she is least wanted with the singular purpose of reclaiming the crown and the gems of ternival along with her power in order to make a mess of everything i suppose what else do archvillains want power for even mindra travels back and forth between worlds a few times but wherever the crown and the gems are there she is too a map and a list of characters at the beginning of the book help the reader to make sense of it all and it is a grand adventure talking animals dryads giants dwarfs centaurs and a whistle pig fill out the cast of characters and the plot moves along at a fast pace i would recommend reading the first book in the series before tackling this one but once a castle can stand alone i know because i couldn t remember much of anything from the first book when i sat down to read this one and i managed to enjoy this rather rollicking fairy tale fantasy anyway there is to be a third book titled once a crown and i look forward to reading and enjoying that one too it s not the lord of the rings but it will do this entry was posted on 2 17 2026 in 2025 children s fiction england fantasy fiction leave a comment the black fawn by jim kjelgaard jan 30 jim kjelgaard was a prolific author of over forty novels for children and young adults mostly animal stories his most famous and best selling book was big red the story of an orphan boy and his beloved irish setter the main character in the black fawn is also an orphaned boy allan bud sloan bud comes to live with gramps and gram bennett in an attitude of guarded fear and determination with his little bundle of belongings wrapped in a spare shirt and tucked under his right arm the orphanage did not furnish suitcases when they farmed you out bud started up the drive with his head held high and with what he hoped was a fearless manly tread but his insides felt like jelly that has stood too long in a warm place and his feet seemed to weigh five hundred pounds each if he had been sure no one was looking he would have burst into tears he could not be sure and not for an instant must he forget that weakness made him easy prey for whoever saw it slowly over the course of the novel bud responds to the open hearted love and care of gram bennett and the measured and careful teaching and example of gramps and the three become a family even as bud learns to be a man the black fawn is something of a touchstone that bud first saves when the fawn is almost orphaned in infancy and then watches in brief glimpses as he grows to be a mighty buck that bud reluctantly hunts along with gramps so the book showcases the love of animals but also the thrill of hunting and the satisfaction to be found in farming and animal husbandry bud learns the ways of nature and the meaning of true sportsmanship it s a balanced view of all three of these ways that man interacts with nature and the animal world i m just starting a re read of james herriot s all creatures great and small and i couldn t help comparing the two books herriot s yorkshire farmers care for their animals but they also know that farm animals are meant to be of use sometimes for food the attitude in kjelgaard s story is the same the deer are meant to be respected and admired for their beauty and animal sense but also to be hunted for food and for sport as well gramps sees the black buck as a magnificent and wily adversary and himself as an elder with lessons worth teaching to young bud some of those lessons come through the medium and process of deer hunting the ending to the story is perfect for hunters and animal lovers both although animal welfare activists and vegetarians might not love it so much kjelgaard balances a respect for wildlife and nature with a deep appreciation for the sport of hunting and the lessons that it teaches this blog post by daniel schmidt a deer hunter explicates the basic idea contained in this story humble appreciation a deer hunter s prayer this entry was posted on 1 30 2026 in 1958 children s fiction general young adult fiction 1 comment incident at hawk s hill by allan w eckert jan 14 benjamin macdonald is the six year old younger son of william and esther macdonald the year is 1870 and the place is somewhere to the north of winnipeg manitoba canada in this prairie land the macdonald family own a farm and ben a child who in today s parlance would certainly be called neurodivergent has lived his life so far on that farm exploring those prairie lands in 1870 folks just say that ben is dreadful queer some sort of monster or throwback an animal boy ben seldom speaks to people even in his own family and he has a strange attraction to and affinity for all sorts of animals farm animals wildlife even birds and insects he spends most of his days following observing and mimicking the creatures he finds on the farm and out on the prairie and the animals seem to respond to ben and accept his overtures of friendship even kinship so this newbery honor book from 1972 is a nature story with lots of close description of wild creatures and how they live although the newbery award and newbery honor are intended to be awards for children s literature incident at hawk s hill was originally published as an adult novel many older children would still appreciate the book however sensitive readers should be warned that the nature pictured is indeed red in tooth and claw eckert doesn t shy away from describing in detail predators hunting and eating their prey animals fighting and and defending their young and eventually the deaths of some of those predators at the hands of men the author prefaces his story with this note the story which follows is a slightly fictionalized version of an incident which actually occurred at the time and place noted an historical magazine manitoba pageant in 1960 published an article entitled the boy who lived in a badger hole the article tells about an 1873 reported incident of a lost boy found after ten days living in a badger hole eckert may have based his ben s story on this magazine report in the book one day in june ben becomes lost on the prairie and the story becomes a tale of his survival it s a somewhat grisly and nearly unbelievable survival story as a wild badger befriends ben and shares its den and its food with him and ultimately ben almost forgets his humanity as he becomes absorbed in badger life the ending is a bit disturbing too with a fight between two men almost to the death if violent death and threats of death for both animals and people are too much for you or your child reader this book is not for you nonetheless i found this 1972 newbery honor book to be fascinating thought provoking and quite well written the language is descriptive and evocative of a prairie world almost a fantasy world in fact at one point in the story the storyteller writes about ben s getting lost it was certainly well past midafternoon now but still nothing looked at all familiar to him and he had the momentary panicky feeling that somehow like the little girl in the story his mother had read to him he had stepped into another world alice in wonderland published in 1865 the cover blurb calls incident at hawk s hill a poignant story of human courage and change a simple fable rich with wonder i m not so sure about the fable part but the story is rich with wonder several characters call ben s survival a miracle and attribute it to god s intervention i like the way the story points without preaching toward tolerance and understanding for people whose engagement with the world does not fit inside the normal template those readers with an interest in nature wildlife and natural history will also find the descriptions of the habits and ways of various animals in the story to be quite engaging and informative this entry was posted on 1 14 2026 in adult fiction canada children s fiction general literary fiction young adult fiction leave a comment marge s diner by gail gibbons oct 28 gail gibbons has written and illustrated a multitude of nonfiction picture books about everything from road building to quilting bees to spiders penguins and trucks oh my i have many of her books in my library and i love them all but my favorite gail gibbons book is marge s diner the story of a simple small town diner restaurant run by a lady named marge everyone in town knows marge she runs marge s diner the book continues after these opening sentences to tell about and show how a twenty four hour day at marge s diner plays out it s not only a book about how a restaurant works and about the people who work in a 24 hour diner but also about community and how all different kinds of people come through marge s diner the diner is an old fashioned community hub and readers get to see how a small business like a diner can be a service to people as well as provide jobs and support to the people who work there it s capitalism in action as an adult i like to see how businesses and organizations work behind the scenes i think children enjoy that kind of story too which is why marge s diner is one of the books in week 45 food of picture book preschool marge s diner is as i said about more than just food but it does give children a bit of an idea of where our food comes from and what it takes to run a restaurant maybe reading this ...