(Houghton Mifflin Company, 2004) Steve Jenkins does all kinds of creative and interesting books for children about the natural world. His book Actual Size lets children get up close and personal with wild animals in a unique way. The premise is simple but fascinating: every picture of an animal in the book is the actual… Continue reading Reading with Pearl: Actual Size by Steve Jenkins
Pearl's favourite books are the ones with the stock photos of babies. You know the ones, generic babies of various ethnicities doing generic baby things like taking baths and wearing hats. She loves them and coos over those babies like she's looking at herself. (Which I guess is the point.) I, on the other hand,… Continue reading Reading with Pearl: Home by Carson Ellis
Last summer, shortly after we bought our house, my parents also moved. Since we were moving into a larger place and they were down-sizing, they brought me a few boxes from my childhood, mostly books. Being in the middle of moving and having a newborn, those boxes went into our crawl space where I mostly… Continue reading Reading with Pearl: Puppies Are Special Friends
If you're not familiar with Miroslav Sasek's travel books for children, you should be. Filled with colourful pictures and facts about cities around the world, the books are beautiful and interesting. And not just for children. But children do enjoy them! A Czech writer and illustrator, Sasek was first inspired to write about Paris, condensing… Continue reading Book Review: Children’s Travel Books by Miroslav Sasek (Reading with Pearl)
As a parent, I look forward to the day when I can tell my kids that I remember the world before the Internet. That I can remember the first iPads, the days before everyone had an e-mail address, or the time when - if you wanted to have a telephone conversation - you had to… Continue reading Book Review: Telephone Time – A First Book of Telephone Do’s and Don’t’s (Reading with Pearl)
I was really excited about this book when I first heard about it. A modern day animal story, an adventure and a journey to reunite between a boy and his fox. I expected something like The Incredible Journey or The Trumpet of the Swan. I hadn't read Sara Pennypacker before but I love Jon Klassen's… Continue reading Book Review: Pax by Sara Pennypacker (Reading with Pearl)
I love Anne Michaels' novels (Fugitive Pieces and The Winter Vault) and so was excited to hear she had written her first children's story. The Adventures of Miss Petitfour is a slim book, comprising several short tales of Miss Petitfour, who lives with her sixteen cats and likes best to travel by tablecloth. The accompanying… Continue reading Book Review: The Adventures of Miss Petitfour by Anne Michaels (Reading With Pearl)
I'm Scottish in the way that a lot of Canadians are. Meaning, a couple hundred years ago some people came from Scotland and had children and they had children and on down the line until I was born. And, like most Canadians again, the Scotishness got mixed up with other Europeans and folks from around… Continue reading Book Review: Kidnapped by Robert Louis Stevenson (Reading with Pearl)
My year in books... What I Loved: Fiction: Half of a Yellow Sun –Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie (Vintage Canada, 2007) The Portrait of a Lady – Henry James (Modern Library A Very Long Engagement – Sébastien Japrisot (Plume, 1994) Beatrice & Virgil – Yann Martel (Alfred A. Knopf Canada, 2010) The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet… Continue reading What I Read – 2015
Have you ever wondered what people with babies do all day? Are you nosy and like to peek into other people's lives? (No? Just me?) Do you wonder how I read so many books while taking care of a 9-month-old? Do you want to see if your baby sleeps more than mine? (I bet she… Continue reading A Day
Karissa Reads Books 