Cool Stuff I Like

Hello friendsies. Are you well this Friday? I surely hope so. Are you loving the textile explosion that my kiddo was sporting the other day? Is this fantastic or is this fantastic? I've never in my life worn anything so fantastic, and that makes me a little sad.


COOL STUFF to delight and amaze you! Or to keep boredom away for 2 minutes. Whatevs.

How to Entertain Your Children For Hours. (this is way cool)

I want to have a sandwich party now.

Might this be the next series to replace Julia's beloved Junie B.'s? (she's read them all and is so sad there aren't any more.)

DIY Dreamcatchers.

I want to send out cards like this!

You won't believe these pictures. You just won't believe it.

It's been a long time since I found a blog and just kept scrolling and scrolling, reading the back posts....

Also loving this online mag, The Chalkboard, which is kind of about everything good for you.

Check out the trailer for this movie. I can't wait!

How cute are these tiny little paper bags?

Sundaes on a Spoon.


Cool Book of the Week: My daughter has checked out Jan Brett's 'On Noah's Ark' from her school library for me three weeks in a row. She said, "Mama, I know you like Jan Brett's art, so I got this for you, and maybe you can write about it on your blog." BLESS HER LITTLE HEART. And I just hadn't gotten around to it because I am more scatterbrained than the wind, and now, HERE IT IS.

It's such a great rendition of the story! There is no mention of any religious aspect. Just one day, one of Noah's grandkids hears him say that there is going to be a lot of rain coming and they all need to get on this big boat with a bunch of animals. As usual, Jan Brett's art amazes with its intricacy and vibrant beauty. I had no idea she had even written a version of this story, until my kiddo came home with it! Gorgeous. And it makes the Noah story accessible and fun, without any scary overtones of guess-what-everyone-else-dies-because-they-are-wicked.

Have a lovely weekend! Oh my, it's Memorial Day weekend, isn't it? I forgot! I have a post ready for Monday, so if you're bored, please do stop by!

~Melissa

Pot-San's Tabletop Tales

Some days are just good days. Like coming home to find a package just sitting on the doorstep. And I'm racking my brain, because I can tell that there's a book inside the envelope, but for the life of me, I can't recall ordering any new books! (this week)

Turns out my pals at Independent Publishers Group had sent me a copy of 'Pot-San's Tabletop Tales' to review. They were the kind folks who heard me ranting and raving about how much I wanted to read 'The Great Big Enormous Book of Tashi' and oh so kindly sent it over to me. ANYHOO, someone over there apparently has a spy-cam in my house, because they sent over a picturebook about a JAPANESE TEA POT.

Let that sink in for a moment, those of you who really know my likes by now. Children's books. Tea. Japan.

This is just the sweetest little picturebook! And just right for toddlers and preschoolers. The stories are adorable and simple ~ in the last mini 'chapter', Miss Salt arrives in Pot-San's household (he's a little teapot learning to make new friendships with various cups, as well as trying to have ceramic adventures that don't involve getting broken), and discovers no one wants needs her salty assistance. Until Chips Bigbowl arrives on the scene. Hurray! Chips Bigbowl would love some salt!

The trials and tribulations are scaled perfectly for a small person's imagination. Will Pot-San get along with the new tea cup? How much fun can a tea pot have on a flying tray? What happens if he spills his tea? (no worries, that scary scenario was all a dream!)

And award-winner Satoshi Kitamura's ART. See HERE for more of his work. Definitely the cutest I've seen in awhile. Colorful, cheery, and bold in an easy to digest size for smaller kids. Graphic and fresh, I felt like this was fun art that I hadn't seen a million times over in other picturebooks. There are so many books out there....when the art pops at you in way you haven't seen before, you know you're onto a keeper of a book!

Delightful.

~I received a cop of Pot-San's Table Top Tales for review purposes, but all opinions expressed in this post are my own.

Let's Discuss Benedict Cumberbatch.

Hello my friends. This is supposedly to be primarily a children's book blog. But if I only discussed books all day long, I would go insane, and I'd pull you all down with me. As entertaining as it would be for me to chronicle my descent into madness here (and it would be entertaining), I'd rather just talk about my various media culture obsessions from time to time. Or all the time. But for that, I'd have to be an entertainment reporter and I could never ever be a great as Lainey, my idol from Lainey Gossip, so I'll just leave that to the professionals.

As some of you know, I have a British Man Obsession. See here. And here. My husband is very kind and understanding about my British Man Obsession. He just pats me on my shoulder and lets me prattle on about whoever is the latest obsession on the list. So today, we have to chat about the newest entry into my pantheon of English-dudes-with-whom-I-am-fascinated.

BENEDICT CUMBERBATCH, yo. Am I alone in my Benedict Cumberbatch obsession? No I am not. My adored Lainey gossip site has written countless articles about him, this being one of my favorites.

Can we all agree that this is the greatest name ever to be found in the history of grand-and-over-the-top English names? Could this be the greatest name EVER to hail from the British Isles? What were his parents thinking? Or were they geniuses? Is there anything greater than this dude's name? There is nothing greater.

Ok here's the thing about him. He's a bit odd looking. But holy cow, did you see his 'Sherlock Holmes'? That is a Very Good Show, that you really need to see immediately.

Sherlock Holmes is smarter than everybody.

Also, THE VOICE. Seriously, his voice is amazing. Apparently he does a lot of audiobook narration. I would happily listen to his voice reading menus and appliance informational pamphlets. Here, I am very helpfully providing you with an opportunity to listen to The Voice.

Have any of you seen the new 'Star Trek' yet?

It is AWESOME. Better than the first one. I don't even recall what the first one was about. All I remember was that Winona Ryder played Spock's mother and I was so happy to see Winona, because I love her. Hey all you people who were teens in the '80's. Who did you love more? Molly Ringwald or Winona Ryder? I began as a huge Molly fan, but then she kinda stopped making movies and Winona sort of replaced Molly in my heart.

Well maybe. I still really love Molly. I love that she has three kids, and gardens, and is still around and living what seems to be a nice life.

I'm sad that Winona never had any Winona babies, with giant anime eyes. Maybe she still will? I really really want Winona to be happy. Don't we all want that? For Winona not to be sad or stressed out by life, but to be happy and living in Provence?

ARE WE STILL SUPPOSED TO BE TALKING ABOUT BENEDICT CUMBERBATCH??

Molly and Winona > than the Cumberbatch. As cool as he is, he can't compete with the combined awesome of those girls. And they will always be girls, in my mind. The coolest girls. They are the forever girls.

(can you believe Winona's face? She'll be 42 this fall! That bone structure just.will.not.stop.)

Isn't this a cool poster? Oh and you need to see these gifs of The Cumberbatch doing his thing in 'Star Trek'. Ok so back to The Cumberbatch and 'Star Trek'. The whole film is really very good, but anytime The Cumberbatch is onscreen, you can't watch anything else. He IS the movie, and that's saying something because everyone else was really great.

Sometime I'll rank my British Man Obsessions for you. We haven't even discussed Ewan McGregor (yes, Scotland and Ireland counts), or Ioan Gruffudd or Mark Strong yet.


(Image credits: benedict cumberbatch photo#1 via wikimedia commons - bellaphon/ molly ringwald photo via wikimedia commons - panio gianopoulos/ winona ryder photo via wikimedia commons - karen liu)

Paul Bunyan Swings His Axe

Not until 11pm last night did I fully grasp what had happened with the tornadoes in Oklahoma. I don't have cable and I don't follow the news very much, because...I just don't anymore. When something awful happens to children, I can barely process it. I'm so sorry for those who lost their lives and their homes and who must have been so terrified.

I don't know what to say. But I'd like to share a story that is uniquely American today.

We've been reading 'Paul Bunyan Swings His Axe' by Dell J. McCormick and my very girly-girl has been LOVING IT. Confession time: I never read any Paul Bunyan stories when I was little. I had vague half remembered bits of his tales stuck in my head, like Paul's creation of the St. Lawrence River, and I had heard of his pal, Babe the Blue Ox. But I had never actually read any of these most American of folk tales.

That's the greatest thing about reading with your kids...you get to have a second pass at the stuff you missed during the first go-round....

These stories, best for ages 6-10 I'd say, are the funnest. I truly believe that should be a real word. Paul Bunyan and his men eat pancakes cooked on a griddle 10 acres wide, and they go ice skating on bacon strips to grease the pan. They grow beards six feet long in the winter that they have to tuck into their boots. They eat twenty pounds of biscuits and jelly. (We're been greatly enjoying reading about the huge quantities of food they eat)

There are popcorn blizzards. Blue snow. Shovelfuls of dirt that become islands. Felled trees that are used as toothpicks. When Babe the Blue Ox wears out his iron shoes on his hooves, Paul and his men have to create and then dig out an entirely new mine to find the iron for Babe's shoes.

Julia adored the stories ~ And she thought that Paul Bunyan was "very handsome".

Friends. You must read the Paul B. stories, if you haven't already. I never really felt like I was really living in America when I was growing up in Hawaii. Thus I remain fascinated by all stories of Native Americana type lore. The tall tales in this book are so tall, they had my kid laughing out loud at their ridiculousness, but then in the same breath she wanted to know if it was all true.

I love that about myths and legends. In the back of your mind, you always feel like they might be true.

Homelife

Pie is pretty, don't you think? So is cake. Dessert is SO PRETTY. Can I tell you something? Looking at pictures of my life on the blog is way more awesome than looking at it in real life. Real life has been filled with some blah lately. Aging parents. Hard. Aging body parts. Bleh, you can have it.

But there's always pie. Which Andrew's mother made for us...TWICE. Hurray! I made the crust for this one you see here, but she did the lattice work because I Do Not Know How. I didn't realize you're supposed to WEAVE those babies. In case you're wondering what the hey kind of pie this is, it's Rhubarb Custard and I don't even want to HEAR ooh that sounds gross. Because it's the awesomest thing, I'm telling you. It's the perfect storm of sweet-tart. My mom-in-law makes this recipe, but sometimes to make extra filling, she throws in a couple of extra eggs and then bakes the whole thing an additional 20 minutes. IT'S DIVINE. The type of pie one just doesn't ordinarily have, you know? Or at least I had never had it, until she made it for us.

When the bed gets made around here, it's such a rarity, I have to photograph it.

Also, beaches around here are not like beaches in Hawaii, but beaches are still cool.

I'm excited for a LOT of movies. I feel like maybe I saw three movies in the past year (not true, but it seems that way), and now suddenly there are a ton I want to see. So I'm going to do a post on that soon, Movies I Want to See, and that will show you that basically, I will watch anything.

I planted some lettuces, and peas, and sweet peas, and marigolds and thyme. There is a small bunny that has been regularly visiting us. That bunny is going to eat my lettuce. What should I do? How do I protect my lettuces from this cute little bunny??