Subversive Reader Reviews: Meet Lina (AWW2013)

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Book reviews and AWW posts can be found here.

AWW2013 – Book 28

Meet Lina

Adventures of a Subversive Reader: Meet Lina

Sally Rippin
Children’s Historical Fiction

Own book

~

Lina is an enthusiastic girl living in Melbourne in 1956. She’s a scholarship student at an exclusive private school where everyone knows she’s a good writer, but no one really understands what it’s like to be part of a large Italian family. Lina spends a lot of her time trying to balance her life – trying to fit in with the carefree lives of her school mates, full of afternoon visits, pretty dresses and parties; while fulfilling her family role – looking after her brother, helping her parents with chores as they work to provide Lina and her siblings with the best possible future.

This was a very evocative book, filled with vivid images of a Melbourne excited about the upcoming Olympics, but also a Melbourne where there’s a very real difference between those who have money and those who don’t. I really love the character of Lina, the way her temper can get the better of her at times, the way she’s pulled between her two lives. I also love that there’s some relatively minor characters who are so richly drawn – such as the teacher who minds the school library that Lina turns up to early each morning.

In some ways, there seems to be less at stake in Meet Lina (and Lina’s series) than there is in some of the other books and other times. We don’t have the desperate fight just to survive which you see in Meet Grace, Meet Letty or Meet Nellie. There’s no spectre of war that we find in Meet Alice or the loneliness and need for family that we find in Meet Poppy. There isn’t even the fight for rights that Rose is fighting for. Instead, this is a more quiet, more reflective book – shining a light on a time which is easier – at least on the surface. It’s what’s going on underneath which is much more interesting here.

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Crochet Post: Rainbow Nesting Bowls

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More and more Squirm is exploring different ways to use his hands. Most of his explorations are around meal times, but I wanted to create a small toy which would allow him to use his hands when he wasn’t eating. The answer? Nesting bowls.

What are nesting bowls? Well, they’re bowls which fit into one another. Sometimes they’re plastic, like these ones in a post from The Imagination Tree. Sometimes they’re brightly coloured. Usually they’re intended for cooking, and easy storage when you’re not cooking. But when they’re small, brightly coloured and crocheted, they make a fabulous baby toy!

These are ridiculously easy to make, and quite quick too. I only made five, using up yarn that I already had, but I could easily have made more.

Crocheted Rainbow Nesting Bowls

Adventures of a Subversive Reader: Crocheted Nesting Bowls

Use any yarn you wish. This was primarily cheap wool from the discount shops. I used a 3.5mm hook, but you can experiment with both yarns and hooks.

Step 1 – Crochet a flat circle to the size you want, using double crochet (UK/Aust terms) or single crochet (US terms)

Step 2 – Crochet one in each around the circle, in the back loop only

Step 3 – Continue to crochet in both loops, one in each, until the basket is the height you require.

Adventures of a Subversive Reader: Crocheted Nesting Bowls

 

  • I crochet flat circles by starting with a magic circle, then crocheting six stitches into it, then a slip stich. In the second row I crochet two stitches into each stitch, leaving me with twelve stitches. Third row, I crochet two stitches into one, then one into one, leaving me with 18. Fourth row, I crochet two stitches into one, then one stitch into the next two, leaving me with 24 – it’s all maths!
  • Start with the smallest bowl first. If you’re using the same sort of yarn, you should just need to increase the circle by one row, and the height by one row. If (like me) you’re using different yarns, just make a circle to a slightly bigger size (hold them against each other to work it out)
  • There’s another pattern at Seriously Daisies which crochets in a spiral. These bowls look fabulous, but I’m hopeless at crocheting in a spiral since I’m constantly interrupted by Squirm!

 

Adventures of a Subversive Reader: Crocheted Nesting Bowls

What can babies do with them? Well the bright colours are great to look at. Squirm spends good time working out how to take them apart, before manipulating them in his hands (he loves the feel of crochet). With older babies you can practice stacking them or putting them back into their ‘nest’ as well as looking at different colours and sizes.

Squirm’s Book Reviews: The Frances Watts Edition

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Each week I review books we’ve read with Squirm. Find other reviews here

Frances Watts worked as an editor for ten years before starting to write picture books. She has several award winning picture books, plus a couple of series and a trilogy which I’ve just tracked down to read. Recently Squirm and I read several of her books and we want to share them here

Kisses for Daddy

Adventures of a Subversive Reader: Kisses for Daddy

(AWW 2013 Squirm Challenge: Book 20)

Baby Bear is grumbly and very fond of the word ‘no’! Daddy wants to get him to bed, but Baby Bear doesn’t want to give him a kiss. Not a bear kiss or a giraffe kiss. Not even a crocodile kiss.

This is such a sweet bedtime book, the kind of book you’d probably read over and over again at bedtime. Although the story is relatively simple, going through the bedtime routine while looking at different animals and the way they might kiss goodnight, an added quality is added through the amazing illustrations by David Legge. One of the real strengths of Frances Watt’s books is the lovely descriptive language and it is evident throughout this book, with ‘cuddly, clingy kisses’ and ‘snappy, watery kisses’.

This is a book to spend time looking at, to find the hidden ‘clues’ in the pictures. You could also spend some time looking at the different animals that are in the book and the different ways you could draw them, or use them in art. It would also be a lot of fun to look at the relationship that different animals have between parents and babies. The tiles in the bedroom have lots of options for fun maths activities – you can create your own to rotate and flip and join together.

 

Parsley Rabbit’s Book About Books by Frances Watts

Adventures of a Subversive Reader: Parsely Rabbit

(AWW 2013 Squirm Challenge: Book 29)

There’s been a bit of a boom in books about books in recent years. This one is quite straight forward, looking at the different parts of books, but with a healthy dose of humour throughout. You start learning from the moment you open the book and are informed that you are looking at the endpapers. It talks about the role of the reader and how some books have flaps to extend the book – and once you learn about flaps, you start finding them through the rest of the book.

I really like this sort of book, which manages to ‘teach’ while keeping the tongue firmly in the cheek. There’s a lot more to books that people first realise, and this book does a great job of introducing these elements in a simple, easy to understand fashion.

This would be a great book to read before a visit to a library, or if you want to have a go at making books of your own. You could create some pretty professional looking books with your children by including some of the elements you find in actual books. You could also use the information in the front of books to set up your own library at home. An interesting thing would be to look at e-books and compare and contrast them, and talk about other ways you can enjoy books.

 

A Rat in a Stripy Sock by Frances Watts

Adventures of a Subversive Reader: A Rat in a Stripy Sock

(AWW 2013 Squirm Challenge: Book 28)

The rain poured down like misery, washing the city in grey . . .

Any book that begins with a fabulous sentence like that immediately gets my heart. This is the story of a grey rat who finds a stripy sock – a beautiful, bright, multi-coloured stripy sock which could take the grey rat anywhere. A grey rat could have the best house or eat in the best restaurants with a stripy sock. He could play beautiful music or follow his dreams. He could be happy.

This was a gorgeous, stunning, uplifting – but understated book. It shows you how just one bright and colourful thing can make everything look better, can take you out of your everyday existence and let you fly. The illustrations by David Francis only add to this, showing the contrast between the grey and miserable and the colourful and beautiful.

This is the perfect book for crafting for. You could practice drawing with greys (lead pencils or grey crayons/felt pens) and drawing the same thing with colours and look at how different they look. If you’ve got older children they might be interested in learning how to crochet and could make their own stripy sock (or a stripy scarf, if they’re a little younger) Younger children might like to decorate an old grey sock and make it into something beautiful of their own. I’d really love to try using an old grey sock (man’s size) to try and make a grey rat toy, which of course would mean that I’d want to create some of the other elements of the book 🙂 This would also be the perfect book for talking about dreams and how you can hold onto bright things on grey days. It would be a brilliant book to pair with Shaun Tan’s The Red Tree.

Seven Activities for a Curious Baby

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This post was inspired by the post Nurturing Creativity at Childhood 101

 

Squirm is one curious baby. It’s been a personality trait we’ve noticed from very early – he often got distracted from feeds when he was trying to find out what else was going on around the room, and he spent large amounts of times staring at all the new faces he met.

This curiosity has grown and changed as he’s grown older, (though he still finds himself being distracted from feeds). Of course, curiosity is a quality which we want to nurture in our little boy, but how do you encourage curiosity in a baby?

I feel that it’s important not to be too focused on ‘teaching’ things like curiosity. Instead we focus on providing materials and opportunities for Squirm to enjoy and which allow him to be his normal curious self.

Seven Activities for a Curious Baby

Seven Activities for a Curious Baby

 

1. Explore with different fabrics

We have a small box filled with different materials and Squirm loves it. At first he just tipped it over, but now he picks out one piece after another, spending significant time on some while moving onto another.

Additionally, my mother made a gorgeous fabric book for Squirm last Christmas. Each page has different fabrics on it, which he touches and inevitably puts in his mouth.

2. Treasure baskets

I’ve talked about treasure baskets before, but these are a brilliant way to satisfy the curious mind. Squirm had so much fun with a basket full of different sized balls – learning how they moved, how to pick them up and how to move them was a fantastic experience for him.

I also try to find the most interesting objects in our house for Squirm to explore – he’s a big fan of a whisk. Another favourite is a safe little torch which he’s worked out how to turn on – playing with light is another fun activity.

Adventures of a Subversive Reader:3 Ways to Play with a 6 Month Old

3. Exploration Tray

I got this idea from Laughing Kids Learn. It’s so very easy – simply grab a muffin or cupcake tray from your cupboard and put different items in the different cups. We’ve played with different coloured blocks, different shaped blacks and different objects all together, but all the different combinations keep Squirm occupied and studying the objects for ages.

4. Go out to the shops

It was a wet and miserable day yesterday, but we had our weekly shopping trip to get us out of the house. During the trip, Squirm was enthralled by the buttons on the ATM and the lights outside the shops. He engaged with the lovely staff at the cafe where we had lunch (he loves watching them polish cutlery) and some of the other patrons. We made a stop by the pet shop where all the kittens and puppies were asleep, but the birds and fish put on a fantastic show for him to watch. After a quick nap, he was fascinated by the guy at the register who even gave him the receipt. All these new experiences from a normal shopping trip.

5. Explore Your Food

We do Baby-Led Weaning, so the food is placed on a tray in front of Squirm. When he spots something unfamiliar he spends time looking at it, touching it, working out how to pick it up – all before it goes near his mouth. He’d exploring the world of food and how it works.

Even if you’re not doing Baby-Led Weaning, you can still spend time playing with food when your baby start solids. Before you start feeding, put a little puree or cereal on a plate or tray and let them explore it a bit. When they move to finger food they can continue this exploration similar to Baby-Led Weaning.

6. Establish a Safe Place to Roam

Once your curious baby gets mobile, they’ll want to go everywhere. Allow them to roam, but try to make it as safe as possible. Shops offer lots of different options for baby-proofing, or you can use the more interesting approach to child proofing (we’ve rigged up old chair pads to create a barrier in front of our DVD and CD racks . . .) I found it difficult at first to let Squirm head off on his own, but now – as long as he’s in sight – I let him explore his surroundings at length.

7. Everyday Objects Make the Best Play Items

While Squirm has a decent collection of toys, I’m sometimes amazed at what interests him the most. This week it’s the plastic container that usually holds his blocks. When the container was turned upside down, Squirm realised he could push it across the carpet to the lino. Once it was on the lino, he realised that he could stand up and push it around – cheapest walker ever!

Keeping  safe, every day objects within reach of babies and letting them explore can come up with the most amazing experiences. Who knows what the next amazing play item will be . . . 🙂

 

How do you encourage curiosity in your children? How do you encourage your own curiosity?

Subversive Reader Reviews: Alice and the Apple Blossom Fair (AWW2013)

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Book reviews and AWW posts can be found here.

AWW2013 – Book 27

Alice and the Apple Blossom Fair

Adventures of a Subversive Reader:Alice and the Apple Blossom Fair

Davina Bell
Children’s Historical Fiction

Library Book, Moreton Bay Regional Libraries

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There may be spoilers for Meet Alice, the first book in the mini-series, in this review

 

The second of Alice’s stories takes a definite turn towards sadness, as Alice deals with her decision to give up ballet and the departure of her brother, Teddy for the war front. Just when things seem bad enough, Alice gets on the wrong side of her friend Jilly’s mother. Jilly’s mother forbids Jilly from having any contact with Alice or her family, and then goes out of her way to make misery for Alice’s family. And on top of all that, there’s a mysterious vandal ‘wrecking’ the town.

I really, really, really disliked Jilly’s mother. Some people might say that it was unreasonable for a grown woman to have such an attitude towards a bunch of children, but (sadly) I can totally see that, especially in a small town and under the stresses of war. Jilly’s brother was also particularly nasty, and I don’t really buy the ‘shell shock’ explanation, since Alice disliked him before the war started. With Alice no longer doing ballet, you can see her need to throw herself into other things. She goes out of her way to make their stall a success at the fair and when it comes to uncovering the real identity of the Vandal. (There’s also a cameo appearance by Lionel Logue – although apparently that’s a little historically inaccurate)

It was really interesting to read the second book in the series – all of the other Our Australian Girl books I’ve read have been the first books in the series, so it was great to watch the story build and the characters be extended. I’ve been thinking about social history and the recognition of women and children in history recently, particularly after reading Gold, Graves and Glory. This series is very good at mixing the big events with the every day – and by necessity the every day involves women and children. The every day, the social history and the people involved in it, need to be out there – visible for both boys and girls.

 

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Subversive Reader Reviews: Gold, Graves and Glory (AWW2013)

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AWW2013 – Book 26

Gold, Graves and Glory (Fair Dinkum Histories)

Adventures of a Subversive Reader: Gold, Graves and Glory

Jackie French
Children’s History

Owned Book

~

I was looking through my boxes (and boxes) of books left over from my upper primary school teacher days, when I came across this one and another from the Fair Dinkum Histories series. This series, the Australian ‘answer’ to Horrible Histories, are actually much funnier, more interesting, and less reliant on comics to ‘teach’ history to children.

This particular book tells the story of Australia from 1850 to 1880. This time period was particularly vital to European Australian growth as new settlements were created throughout Australia, a number of colonies became states in their own right, masses of exploration was done and gold was ‘discovered’, resulting in gold rushes, bushrangers and union activity.

It would be very easy to tell the ‘traditional’ white, European (or English) male story – after all, it is a time period which is dominated by male explorers, male bushrangers and male gold diggers. But Jackie French makes sure that that is not the only story we hear about. The struggles and achievements of women, and the social history they were involved in are highlighted throughout the book. There’s also information on the Aboriginal and Torres Strait people, on the Chinese settlers who faced massive levels of discrimination, and on the ‘Afghan’ people (who were often from all around South Asia) who arrived in Australia as camel wranglers.

It’s very clear to the reader that Jackie French loves Australian history (and in case you’re not sure of that, check out her extensive historical fiction book list!) She loves the stories, the parts that really make Australian history interesting. I was definitely amused and interested reading it and finding out about how men would hide from police under the big skirts women wore, about how valued the Chinese settlers were for the gardens they could cultivate and about how some of the explorers (*cough* Burke *cough*) managed to do everything wrong when they set out to explore, despite the riches which were often bestowed on them.

As I mentioned at the beginning of my review, this series benefits from not only being about Australian history, the stories which are interesting, no matter how much our teachers tried to ‘uninterest’ them for us, but from being well written and engaging. The illustrations continuously support the history, giving us portraits, maps, comments and bad puns, rather than pages and pages of comics, which every child reads rather than reading the history (as in Horrible Histories). I know I had two or three of these books in my classroom, where they were moderately popular, but if I do head back to the classroom in the future, I’d definitely be doing my best to ‘sell’ these books to the students.

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Subversive Reader Reviews: Violent Exposure (AWW2013)

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Book reviews and AWW posts can be found here.

AWW2013 – Book 25

Violent Exposure

Adventures of a Subversive Reader: Violent Exposure

Katherine Howell
Adult Crime/Detective Novel

Owned Book

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This is the fourth book in Katherine Howell’s Ella Marconi series, and the one directly after Cold Justice which I reviewed a couple of weeks ago. This time, Ella is back in the ‘regular’ squad and shares her story with a three person paramedic team – part time paramedics Carly and Mick and their trainee (and part time model) Aidan. The mystery gets going when Mick and Aidan discover a woman stabbed, her (rather mysterious) husband missing and the inescapable fact that not only did Aidan and Carly attend a domestic call out at the house the night before, but Aidan slept with the murdered woman earlier in the day.

I found this particular book was a bit harder to get into than Cold Justice. Cold Justice jumped straight into the action, and you needed to fill in the gaps yourself, which actually made it pretty satisfying when you worked out what was going on. Violent Exposure gave a lot of exposition near the beginning, almost to the point of over-explaining things before the story really got going. The mystery was compelling, though, pulling in lots of different threads (and more than a few coincidences) to eventually be solved.

I didn’t quite get into the paramedic’s story as much as I did with Cold Justice, maybe because the story was divided between Mick and Carly and to a lesser extent, Aidan. Carly didn’t feel as fleshed out as some of the other characters, while Mick made decisions which annoyed me, so it was harder to care about him. Their story (particularly Mick’s) was also wrapped up in a story from one of the earlier books which I haven’t read yet, which might have contributed to the feeling that I really didn’t get into their story.

I’ve got Silent Fear – the fifth book – to read sometime soon, then I really need to track down book 1 and 2 – it seems silly not to have read those and to have read the later ones!

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Subversive Reader Reviews: Salt Rain (AWW2013)

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Book reviews and AWW posts can be found here.

AWW2013 – Book 24

Salt Rain

Adventures of a Subversive Reader: Salt Rain

Sarah Armstrong
Adult Contemporary Novel

Kindle ebook

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This was a short novel (maybe more of a novella) telling the story of the curious teenager, Allie, her somewhat reclusive aunt Julia and the story of Allie’s mother, Mae, who has gone missing, presumed drowned in Sydney Harbour. There’s not a huge amount of actual story here; although things happen, they don’t seem to happen fast and there isn’t a lot of happenings. Instead we get images, of the small northern New South Wales community which Julia lives in and takes Allie back to; of the family members who remain in Allie and Julia’s diminished family; of the life that Allie and Mae had been living for so long; and the history which haunts Julia no matter how hard she tries to let things grow over it.

At the heart of this novella is the concept of family. How do we make family when we get a choice? Who do we include in our family? How do we remove thos parts of our family which haunt us or scare us. There’s also the idea of history – the history which people see on the outside and the history which is hidden by those who might see it.

The whole book is centred around the darkness and strength of water. Mae is a strong swimmer who often heads out on Sydney Harbour for a swim at night, before going missing in the dark waters. There’s a lot of talk about water, in the form of flooding, holding people where they are or as something which needs to be overcome and defeated. Then there’s the tears that fall, or threaten to fall – the salt rain.

It really is an interesting read, though some of the ‘shocking’ parts feel a little muted  -almost like you’ve got your head under water and can’t hear them properly. The sense of place, and the vivid descriptions of setting throughout make it worth reading alone!

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Subversive Reader Reviews: Meet Alice (AWW2013)

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Book reviews and AWW posts can be found here.

AWW2013 – Book 23

Meet Alice

Adventures of a Subversive Reader: Meet Alice

Davina Bell
Children’s Historical Fiction

Own book

~

Another one in the extensive Our Australian Girl series. Can I just pause here to say how much I like the way that different girls (or mini series within the larger series) are written by different authors. It’s a great way to expose readers to different authors and different styles of writing, while under the same umbrella of a series. I also like that there’s no ‘hiding’ behind one single author name, like there is with other children’s series.

Meet Alice is set in 1918, with World War One affecting every part of Alice’s Western Australian community. Most of the men she knows are overseas serving in the war, while the rest of the town are wrapped up in supporting them. However, things are a little different in Alice’s household. Although her father is serving overseas (and is currently missing), her mother doesn’t like to hear about the war. Alice and her siblings are forced to follow war news in secret, while her older brother, Teddy, is wrestling with his own decision about whether to join up or not. Meanwhile, Alice’s life is devoted to her ballet, with a special teacher coming soon to watch her dance. But then things start to unravel, and Alice isn’t sure what she’ll be left with at the end.

Davina Bell does a lovely job of setting up a small town feel during this book, the way everyone knows everyone’s business and how people feel like they can comment on this business. It also points out how it feels to be different from other people – Alice is different from the other girls in town thanks to her devotion to ballet, while her whole family is different since they’re not as involved in the ‘war effort’ as other people and since her mother is French.

This is probably one of my favourites in the series, which Heidi at Heidi Reads totally knew it would be when she recommended it 🙂 I’ve read the next one, and will be reviewing it later today, and I can’t wait to get into the third in the series.

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Squirm’s Book Reviews: Time For Sleep Edition

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Each week I review books we’ve read with Squirm. Find other reviews here

Goodnight, Mice! by Frances Watts

Adventures of a Subversive Reader: Goodnight, Mice!

(AWW 2013 Squirm Challenge: Book 21)

Mitzi is weary and Billy is sleepy. Clementine’s teary and Oliver’s weepy.

The four little mice are tired and worn out, and it’s time to start their bed time rituals. We watch them as they kiss Grandpa goodnight, and then as they are suddenly wide awake, scampering up the stairs. We see bath time and teeth time and getting into pajamas time, before the mice hear their bedtime story and drift off to sleep.

This is the second Frances Watts book we have read (we were given Kisses for Daddy as a baptism present for Squirm) and another one which deals with bedtime. The four mice are very cute, but also very like children – wanting to do things on their own, begging for another story and generally causing a little bit of chaos. It’s very easy to get wrapped up in the story and forget that you’re reading about mice, until you get to the end and you’re once again reminded that this is a cute, fairy style house in the woods. It would be (and has been for us) a wonderful bedtime story, just the right amount of magic and realism.

This would be a great book to read if you’re talking with your children about a bed time routine. You could do role play with dolls or stuffed animals, or take photos of the steps you do at bedtime and make your own book. There’s also some gorgeous descriptive language in this book and it would be great to make a list of that language and try to use the words in different ways, particularly some of the alliteration.

 

Let’s Go Visiting by Sue Williams

Adventures of a Subversive Reader: Let's Go Visiting

(AWW 2013 Squirm Challenge: Book 22)

Let’s go visiting. What do you say?

This is a very simple repeating, counting book, each time starting with a simple command and question – let’s go visiting. What do you say. From there we are introduced to the animals on the farm, as the small child (could easily be a boy or girl) collects different colours around the farm, before falling asleep in the hay.

The words and concept are quite simple in this book – the repeating phrases, the counting and the different colours and animals build through the book. There’s a lovely rhythm to the repeating, it definitely keeps the listener engaged each time it’s repeated. I love Julie Vivas’ illustrations and the way that there’s almost a whole other story being told by them – you see the child engage with the animals and generally tire themselves out – although this story isn’t in the words, without the pictures, the ending wouldn’t make sense – it’s the perfect example of words and illustrations working together!

This book would be great for talking about animals, numbers or colours! If you’re working on simple addition, adding up strings of numbers, you could use this book. You could draw pictures of the animals for colouring in, could count them and order them. You could make patterns with the cut outs. You could learn about farms and the different animals which are on them. It would be particularly fun to learn about different types of farms – fish farms, emu farms, food farms – and to create your own stories.