cinderella

Fairy tales abound this month for #littlelitbookseries and we have quite a few to share.

The age-old story of Cinderella needs no introduction—this edition is retold by Cynthia Rylant with art by Mary Blair, who painted the original pictures for Disney’s animated film.

“Cynthia Rylant’s stories about hardscrabble lives have won not only awards and honors, but hearts.  Who better to take a young girl from the darkness of her garret room to the the light and brilliance of a ballroom?  Together these two great artists have created a Cinderella that is breathtaking, heartrending, and joyous—both for those who are coming to the tale for the very first time and for those who know it well. “

To see the rest of our fairy tale collection, check out #littlelitbookseries on Instagram.

hoot owl, master of disguise

I don't know why, but I love #bookfacefriday.  Here's one from us, a day early.  We finally read Hoot Owl, Master of Disguise, this week.  Every once in awhile while playing, Nate has been calling out, “Disguise!”

Hoot Owl is ravenous, but unfortunately clueless.  He dubs himself the "master of disguise" but fails miserably each time he dons a costume to hunt down his prey.  In the end, he somehow manages to get a bite to eat, in a restaurant of all places.  A dryly hilarious, tongue-in-cheek story from Sean Taylor and Jean Jullien.

penguin dreams

Penguin Dreams by J. Otto Seibold and Vivian Walsh.  It’s a story of a penguin who has a dream that he can fly—the most awesome dream ever.  I was pretty excited to find a copy of Penguin Dreams at Green Apple Books when I was living in San Francisco.  In between spending innumerable studying hours and working when I was in grad school, I loved making a quick stop at Green Apple whenever I got the chance.  You just never knew what you would find—part of the magic of secondhand bookstores.

california: a sketchbook

Elisha Cooper's Calfornia: a Sketchbook is like a love letter to the Golden State with undoubtably hours upon hours put into the creation of it.  The story behind it:

“Elisha Cooper, new to the state, embarked on a search for California, visiting remote and popular locations alike.  He met colorful people, from the Mayor of Oakland to a gardener in San Diego, an archaeologist in the Mojave Desert to a snowboarder in Tahoe.  He wrote down their stories, exploring what makes California unique.  Cooper’s observations are wry, insightful.  His paintings capture the state’s natural wonder, its soaring mountains and crashing waves.  After traveling North, South, East, and West, he finds that the heart of the country’s most populous state is not in one single location, but everywhere.”

a good night walk

“Let’s go for a walk, along the block, and see what we can see, before it’s time for bed.”

What do you all see on your evening walk?  Dusk is one of my favorite times of the day, especially during the summer.  Our current bedtime read is A Good Night Walk—a quiet, serene and lovely way to wind down at the end of the day.  There’s always a great story behind a great book—here’s Elisha Cooper about the beginnings of the book.

“When my daughter was an infant she cried in the evenings so I took her for walks. I walked along our street in the Berkeley hills and pointed out things, from recycling bins to sprawling oak trees. The walks calmed her, and me. After half an hour she fell asleep and we came home to bed. That was the start of this book. Before we left California, I sketched our neighborhood — trees and houses — and tried to write about the shifting sights and sounds of a place as it approached bedtime. This book is about small changes, and also about the big change for me as I became a father.”