Wednesday, July 16, 2008

Three Favorite Books


My friend Tara talked about one of her favorite books...How do Dinosaurs say good night (which is great) and I was thinking about some of our favorites. But mostly I just have adult ADD and can't look at my own posts for too long. The Big Orange Splot is one from my childhood...all about being different and not conforming to the man....errr..or something like that. If I ever have an empty hallway or kids wall, I would love to frame the pages of this book in sequence so you could 'read' it.... in cool black frames...do you dig it?

"What have you done to your house?" they shouted at the man.

"My house is me and I am it. My house is where I like to be and it looks like all my dreams," said the man, who had always loved ships.

"He's just like Plumbean!" the people said. "He's got bees in his bonnet, bats in his belfry, and knots in his noodle!"

Then, one by one, they went to see Mr. Plumbean late at night. They would sit under the palm trees and drink lemonade and talk about their dreams--and whenever anybody visited Mr. Plumbean's house, the very next day that person would set about changing his own house to fit his dreams....




This is another one from my childhood, one I won in the straw when Lindsey and I were picking through my mom's books. I have a little Viola Swamp in me...which is no surprise to my family. About a nice teacher whose alter personality whips everyone into shape.

"I am Coach Swamp!" said the lady in the black sweat suit. The teams fullback tried to pussyfoot away.

"Not so fast Mr. Smarty!" said Coach Swamp.

"Wow," said one of the guys, "Did you see that tackle?"



This is a recent McCoy edition. When I saw the title, I knew Darby had to have it. For every girl with a big brother. For everygirl who can fight like a sword like my daughter, but who never seems to be big enough. Cause my daughter who raises her sword above her head and says, "By the power of grayscull, I HAVE THE POWER!" (name that old cartoon). Or just maybe for Luke to show him girls are cool too, even though I tell him that everyday anyway This book is about a princess who kicks butt...this is an important theme in our family I think.

So, while her brothers grew as tall and strong as King Wilfred's knights, Violetta, who stayed quite small, got better at fighting and riding everyday. And her father's horses loved to carry her on their backs.

Violetta became so nimble and quick that when her three brothers practiced joustin with her, their spears and swords just hit the empty air. And the princes soon stopped laughing at her. and they stopped calling her 'Itsy-Bitsy-Little Vi!'

9 comments:

Heather said...

Isn't that from Heman? I have a collection of books that I loved as a child. The actual ones I had as a child didn't survive my 4 younger siblings, so I had to go looking for new ones. I was a big Dr Seuss fan. Marvin K Mooney Will You Please Go Now was my favorite. Christy found some of the out of print ones for me on e-bay. I also loved The Mysterious Tadpole by Steven Kellogg. My Mom's librarian friend ordered that one for me.

brookeisacrazylady said...

Heather! You are correct! And I'll have to look up those books too!

Kira =] said...

Great Post! I'll have to check out those books. I really like the idea of framing each page to read in the hallway. "Won in the straw" I sometimes don't even include my siblings when it comes to the childhood stuff. When I'm at Mom's I just go looking and ask her if I can have it. She'll tell me yes unless another sibling has already put dibs on it.

And I still have my He-Man blanket. =]

Amber said...

Cool! I'm always on the hunt for good kids books!

Anonymous said...

You have my vote to be a judge on So You Think You Can Dance. I think you would be TERRIFIC! I love those books too. Little Brute Family was a favorite of mine too.
xoxomom

Nathan and Emily said...

Oh you are the buckiest! Thanks for tonight I was jonesin real bad! You're on the hot tamale train wooohooo!

christy said...

i love so you think you can dance too. i'm sad comfort is still on the show and kherington went home and i love gev. so sad he's off the show. should've been mark even though i like him too. all the guys are so awesome.

Sarah Heder said...

Mark and Chelsea were good partners, but who's to say they would be back together because they pick their partners out of a hat. I do love Joshua. I love Katee and Chelsea too. I think I'm really starting to root for those one of those girls to take it all!

Lindsey said...

I don't have any of those books! I totally want to read them now. So fun. I forgot about the little brute family that Mom said. xoxo