...and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day

Alexander must have moved into our house.  We’ve had several Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Days lately.  When relaying the latest calamity (phone battery dying while on a 75 minute call to the insurer as our car windscreen had been hit by a flying rock as the Council brush cut the road verge), my colleague asked what I did to unwind.  I read.   

My recent YA and adult reads have been anything but light and frothy (Hannah Kent’s Burial Rites, Maggie Steifvater’s Dream Thieves and Laurie King’s Bones of Paris).  A trip to the picture book shelves was long overdue.

 

Jenny Bornholdt and Sarah Wilkins A Book is a Book (Gecko) This beautifully produced small hard cover book celebrates books and reading.  

A book is to read.

Books can be true and not true and sometimes they can be both at the same time.

Reading a book of pictures is still reading.

If it’s Sunday and raining, a book is the perfect thing.  Even a small book, because boredom can be very big.

 

Margaret Wild and Ben Wood Bush Book Club (Omnibus)

Bilby can’t sit still long enough to read a book but when he’s locked in the library, there was nothing else to do, he picked up a book....

Bilby read the first sentence. Then the second, the third, the fourth.  He turned the pages, slowly at first, then faster and faster.  It was a scary story to read at night.  His eyes grew big, he shuddered with fright, but he couldn’t stop reading.

 

 

Kathy Stinson and Dusan Petricic The Man with a Violin (Annick Press)

This book is based on the true story of Joshua Bell, the renowned American violinist who played in the Washington D.C. subway. More than a thousand commuters rushed by him, but only seven stopped to listen for more than a minute. A heart-warming story reminding us to stop and appreciate the beauty that surrounds us. This book won the award for best Ebook Fixed Format/Enhanced – Children at the Digital Book Awards in January 2014. 

 

 

 

Irena Kobald and Freya Blackwood My Two Blankets (Little Hare)

Cartwheel has left her war torn home and come to Australia. She wraps herself in a blanket with sounds and memories of home.

When I went out, it was like standing under a waterfall of strange sounds.  The waterfall was cold. It made me feel alone.

A girl in the park smiles and waves and brings Cartwheel new words, new sounds, friendship and hope. With these, Cartwheel is able to weave a new blanket.  A timely book.

 

Tom McLaughlin The Story Machine (Bloomsbury)

 

Elliott discovers a story machine. He isn’t very good with letters and words. But some words look like pictures... An inspiring picture book about the simple joys of a typewriter.

 

 

 

 

  

And last but not the new book by last but not least award winning author/illustrator Rebecca Cobb Aunt Amelia (MacMillan)

Mum and Dad are going out and the children are not happy.  Mum has left a long list of instructions for Aunt Amelia. Thankfully Aunt Amelia is not what they expected. A funny and warm story.

 

How do you cope with the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day?

 

Nella Pickup