March 31st, 2017

It is very late on the 30th. (Well, at least very late for people and bears that have to be awake at 4 in the morning.) Mom spent the morning and afternoon working and the evening driving her sister home. So we’re all pretty tired.
But yesterday, Mom went shopping at a local thrift store. She found something that she thought you’d all find kind of interesting!

It’s three books in Dutch, in a thrift store, in Wisconsin! Who would’ve thought! There were some other children’s books there that she left. She picked the top one because the back said it was a Dutch bestseller (Lulu Wang), and the bottom two because she recognized the names. She googled them, because she didn’t recognize which Baldacci or Grisham books they could be. (Frankly, she could translate the first one, but the second one was out of her vocabulary.) It turns out that the Grisham is Bleachers and the Baldacci is Simple Genius! Mom did read Bleachers when it first came out, but not the Baldacci. (She’s honestly not much of a fiction reader any more.)
So when Mom feels up to reading an adult book in print, in Dutch, we have choices. (We’re going to try some classics on the ipad first!)
Time to go to bed!

August 12th, 2016

Good afternoon, everyone! Mom has been having a bad week, so she wants to go to bed soon.
Mom and I spend a lot of time reading. Mom mostly likes nonfiction books. We mostly read books on the ipad. We’re currently reading two books. One of them is called the Gene, by Siddhartha Mukherjee. It is about the discovery of DNA and what we have been doing with it. Mom thinks it’s really interesting—but I think it’s kind of boring. But she reads books with me that she thinks are boring, so it’s all even in the end! What are you all reading? We’d love recommendations! We’re also interested in reading books in Dutch!
Since a post isn’t the same without a picture, here is a picture of Oliver. He has been helping me keep Mom’s mood up!

I hope you’re all having a good day! Talk to you later!

May 13th, 2016

Happy Friday the 13th, everybody!

I’m not really superstitious. Mom has a thing about the full moon. She says that it brings out the craziest people at work. I just like posting things about holidays!
On Mom’s Google calendar, we keep track of all sorts of literary birthdays. Daphne du Maurier, who wrote the book Rebecca, was born on May 13th, 1907. They’re interesting things to look up. We’re lead on a path through Wikipedia where we find out more things about these people! Since Mom has been working retail for so long, neither of us are really into the big holidays, so these are nice holidays to celebrate!
Do any of you celebrate any interesting different holidays? Next time, Mom and I will talk about some of the different books we have been reading. Mom reads a lot of books! Hope you’re all having a great day!

May 6th, 2016

How is everyone!? It has decided to be spring this week in Wisconsin. Mom and Grandma have bought all sorts of plants! Mom also bought some plants—including a little tree—for our miniature garden. We’ll take pictures of that soon!
We spent most of the evening watching Parts Unknown with Anthony Bourdain on Netflix. Mom and I have binge watched all of the Layover and now we’re on the third season of Parts Unknown. Mom likes food shows and travel shows so it fits both! I mostly just like watching shows with Mom!
Mom has been back into collecting buttons. She finds them at thrift stores and antique malls. There are all sorts of different buttons out there!

Mom is especially fond of purple buttons. I really like the blue ones! There are a lot more blue buttons than purple ones though.
We finished a book today. It is called Jungle of Stone. It is about gentlemen in the 1840s who rediscovered the Mayan civilization. Both Mom and I liked it a lot. It was very much an adventure story with a lot of cool finds!

We read several books at a time. We replaced that one with a book called the Network, about the birth of the communication age.

Are any of you reading a good book now? Mom mostly likes nonfiction, but we’re willing to try anything!

December 11th, 2015

This is the second of hopefully many blog posts for Mom and I. Today, we’re going to talk about books! Mom could probably have a book blog of her very own! We could probably talk on and on about them here too!
One of my favorite authors, Blue Balliett, has a new book in her Chasing Vermeer series. It is called Pieces and Players. It is about the three children from the previous books, plus two new children, trying to find out what happened to stolen pieces of work across the globe.

Mom likes this series because the first book reminded her of a Da Vinci Code kind of book for kids, and the second one is about Frank Lloyd Wright’s buildings. (He was born in Wisconsin, so Mom has a soft spot for works by him—but he wasn’t a very nice person, so we keep our reading about him to references in kids’ books!)
Do you have a new book that you’d like to recommend?

January 17th, 2012

Time for another book review. Mom and I really liked sharing her children’s book collection, and I like picking out my favorites! We decided that we would go on with the book reviews! (She says that we’re probably not going to go outside for pictures any time soon! It’s cold here in Wisconsin!)

Today we are going to share our favorite Sandra Boynton book. It is called Hippos Go Berserk!

Foster read it to us today. It is a counting book. But it RHYMES! It is very bouncy and it has some grown up words in it! (Safe words, but big words!)

And it has Mom’s favorite Sandra Boynton characters--- hippos!

I hope you all are having a great day!

December 27th, 2011

As part of my next book review, I thought I would show you something very interesting that my mom and I found. It is a foundation called We Give Books. For every e-book that you read on their website, they give a copy of it to one of three pro-literacy foundations. (Mom is very pro-literacy!)

You don’t have to be a bookseller or blogger to look at the books. Mom and I just signed up for an account and started reading.

One of the books that we read was called Good Luck Bear by Greg Foley. It is about a little bear who wants to find a four leaf clover for good luck.

It’s got cute illustrations! As you can see, it looks much like a regular picture book! You page through the entire book, and then at the end, a button appears that allows you to ‘give’ a book!

I imagine that Mom and I are going to have a lot of fun with this website! There are almost 160 picture books that you can browse through—and some of them are nonfiction books about all sorts of nature things too!

I hope you all enjoy this website find! Have a great day!

December 3rd, 2011

I’m trying to convince Mom to allow me to review the books she reads, but she says that the children’s books are much more interesting! (She’s currently reading this book on her nook, by the way.)

Today, Milton picked out the book for us to read. It is called Philadelphia Chickens: A Too-Illogical Zoological Musical Revue, and it is by the same lady who wrote Perfect Piggies, Sandra Boynton. One of Mrs. Boynton’s many hobbies is music. Along with her husband and a few various minor celebrities, they have made a CD of some songs. This book gives you the sheet music and lyrics along with the CD.

Milton only reads us the lyrics though. He says that he does not sing. Caleb will try to sing, but we usually don’t encourage that! (He’s just—well, a little loud for a bear his size!)

It’s got her wonderful illustrations-- dogs, and strutting chickens and such!

I hope you are having a great day!

November 27th, 2011

Mom and I are really enjoying picking out books from our collection to show you. Mom loves children's books, and has quite the collection.

This time, Foster is here to help me show you Just Plain Fancy, by a lady named Patricia Polacco. She has written lots of books, but this is Mom's favorite.

This book is about a little Amish girl named Naomi who is in charge of her family's chickens. One day, along with her little sister, Ruth, they gather the eggs and come upon a fancy looking egg.

They put it under a chicken, and it hatches! We won't say anything more, since we don't want to ruin the surprise. Mom says that this is a simple way to show the Amish way of life to children.

I hope you will enjoy this book as much as we do!

November 23rd, 2011

We’re doing pretty good about producing blog posts early. Mom says that this time last year we didn’t have any posts at all. Now we have some posts with some only moderately decent pictures! Maybe next year at this time we’ll have some posts with lovely pictures!

This blog post’s book is called You Are My I Love You, by a lady named Mary Ann Cusimano Love. It is a very sweet book about how much a parent loves their child. I love the fact that the characters are teddy bears!

Today, Pine, my dog, wanted to come and help me read the book. He is always a lot of help—even if sometimes he gets in the way a bit!

The book has a sweet rhyming rhythm in it. I think it would make a good lullaby.

“I am your push; you are my swing.

I am your audience; you are my clown.

I am your London Bridge; you are my falling down.”

He wanted to get right in there! He was helping me hold the book down in this picture.

Mom says that this book would make a great baby shower present, or for a beloved child. We bought our copy at Goodwill just because Mom liked it so much. (She saw it at work.)

And finally, because I can—a Princess picture. She was also helping Mom take the pictures, but she is too big to sit on my lap!

Talk to you all later! I hope you are having a great day!!

Later,

November 20th, 2011

Time for another book review! This time it is a children’s picture book called A Mother for Choco, by a lady named Keiko Kasza.

It is about a lonely little parrot named Choco. He is a yellow parrot who does not seem to have a mom. He goes to each of the animals that he thinks looks like him in some way and asks them if they are his mother. They all say no!

I don’t want to ruin the ending for you! Mom says that the book is sort of about adoption and accepting families of all shapes and sizes. We both like this book and think it is very cute and sweet. I think we like it so much because our family around here is from all sorts of different places, species, and makers. Everyone from the domos, to plushies, to the Monster High dolls!

November 7th, 2011

Our next book that we are going to review is one of Mom’s favorite books from when she was a little girl. It is called the Phantom Tollbooth and it is by a man named Norman Juster. Technically, the copy that we are showing you is brand new. It is the 50th anniversary of the original publication. It is annotated! This means that someone detailed all the little references hidden in the text. It is very fascinating to Mom, but not so much to us bears! We still let her point them out, because it makes her happy!

The Phantom Tollbooth is about a boy named Milo. He does not know what to do with his time—and he thinks most things are pretty boring.

He comes home from another boring day at school to a box waiting for him. Inside are a note, a map, and directions to assemble a tollbooth—and a little car to drive. It sends him onto a grand adventure where he meets all sorts of amusing characters. (Milton had to help me hold the book up—it’s a big book and very heavy!)

It is full of great words, literary connections, and lessons to learn. It is probably a book for eight to ten year olds. The grammar and choice of words makes it a great book for adults as well! Mom still has her original copy from when she was a little girl and cherishes it to this day! I hope you will go to your local library and give it a try!

Later,

October 28th, 2011

My mom’s work is starting to get crazy busy, so we are trying to think of ideas to make posts that we can plan ahead. We use a program called Windows Live Writer to post on the blog. It has the ability to post entries on schedule. Mom says that it actually has something to do with Blogger and the way that it makes them appear on schedule. All I know is that this Christmas season, Mom and I are going to do our hardest not to disappear into the black lagoon of Christmas crazies!

We thought that books would be interesting and something that is not dependent on Mom taking one of us outside to take pictures. Our friend Sullivan McPig and his friend the Voodoo Bride have a reading blog called Pearls Cast Before a McPig. Mom says that we don’t need another blog, so I will post our reviews here. We’re going to start out with children’s books, because Mom has plenty of those!

Our first book is in honor of Sullivan. It is by a lady named Sandra Boynton. It is called Perfect Piggies.

Sandra Boynton is a very funny writer. She writes for mostly the under three year old set, but they’re also funny for the adults reading them. For her more recent books, she has recorded a song along with the book. You have to visit a special website to download it.

It is about how practically perfect pigs are! Mom and I tend to agree! We’re also very fond of it because it has rhythm and rhymes.

I hope you like my book review—I’m afraid I don’t want go to into too much detail—since it’s such a short book to begin with. Maybe as time goes on, Mom will review the books she reads! (They’re much longer!)

August 4th, 2011

My mom has been spending her time online doing other things then helping me update my blog. She says that some of humans who read my blog will understand the appeal, although I’m not quite sure.

A long time ago—well, at least a few years ago, Mom’s grandma was moved into an assisted living place. Her mom and dad found a packet of photocopied bible pages—of her dad’s family. All the way to her great-grandparents. She went to a website called MyHeritage.com and started entering the information. Soon, through her grandfather’s mother, she got literally thousands of relatives that lived in Europe—mostly the Netherlands. Through a little work using US Census records and googling, she’s expanded her family on all sides. (It turns out that she’s distantly related to a bunch of Quakers! And that her Mom’s side is mostly English!)

So she’s been using a program that came with the website and been adding people ever since. I don’t know if you can see the landing page, but here is the fruits of my mom’s online time. It seems to just sap up all sorts of time. She says that it will change once the weather’s not so hot and humid outside. (She admits she’s a bit of a wuss when it comes to the humidity!)

I think that she ought to do my genealogy, but she says that she doesn’t know where in China I came from. I know I came from a gardening store nearby, but she says that’s not where I was born. Maybe she can google that!

On an unrelated note, a few days ago, my mom used her nook-color to look up her sister’s name. Her book (which we knew about) is finally available as an ebook!

It’s called Medea in the Waters. Mom says that it is not a book for small bears or children. (It’s a link to amazon.com, since the place she bought it doesn’t do international stuff.) It’s supposed to be available as a paper book soon, but Mom bought it for herself anyways.

Talk to you all later!

March 22nd, 2011

Things around here have been pretty calm for me, but exciting for my mom. My mom is a real book nerd—and one of her favorite things in the entire world is to meet her favorite authors! (You might remember Neil Gaiman and the House on the Rock.) Well, last week, Mom and one of her friends from work went to Minneapolis, Minnesota to see Jasper Fforde, the author of one of her favorite contemporary fiction works, the Eyre Affair.

This is Mr. Fforde. Mom says he was very funny. Caleb, who traveled with her in her purse, said that he didn’t get a lot of the jokes. Mom said that he probably would have to read the books to understand.

This is my mom with Mr. Fforde. She was kind of nervous and mostly giddy.

This is my mom’s signed copy of his newest novel, One of Our Thursdays is Missing. This made my mom a very happy person indeed!

She has the next few days off from work, so as long as the weather improves, I’m hoping to talk her into another trip outside. Right now Wisconsin is experiencing some very un-spring-like weather. I hope that will change soon. Hope you all are having a good day!

November 4th, 2010

I’m sorry we haven’t posted lately. Mom has been busy with work. Last weekend, as a break from the Christmas crazies, Mom and a few of her friends from work went to the House on the Rock to the American Gods Anniversary Party and met Neil Gaiman! (He’s a famous author, who happened to also write a book named Coraline, which Mom LOVES!)She said that I was too big to bring with, so Caleb went with instead.

That guy in back is Neil Gaiman. Mom and her friends went to listen to him talk. They got to sit up front.

And then he talked. Mom and her friends got to sit up front. This made her very happy.

So after that, they waited in line for a while, and then he signed Mom’s book. (That’s my mom!)

This has made Mom a very happy camper. I’m hoping her good mood carries on for a while and she will help me post some more. If you want to see more pictures of the House on the Rock, they are at her DeviantArt page, along with Facebook. Her pictures are much better then the ones on their webpage!

We received some great mail that Mom has to process the pictures for! It’s bedtime, but Mom thought she’d say something so everyone would know. I’ll get her to process the photos tomorrow after she gets out of work.