Crenshaw's Books & Decks

I came across this Korean comic series by accident, and bang! Pow! Shsss! It is awesome.

Suee -an independent, aloof, intellectually developed cynical 12y.o.- has just moved to the suburbs with her workaholic father. Their new house and suburb is a bit miserable, her father is never present or caring, and her glorious days at her posh school are over. The Outskirtsville's school is mediocre by all means, as well as its students - a group of stereotypical people that Suee dislikes because they are too plain and predictable. Isn't she adorable? Things start to get interesting when, a series of events have her shadow talking to her. Why is her shadow talking? Why it comes and goes? Why aren't other people's shadows talking? Why are guys becoming mentally zombified? Why has the Exhibition Room been closed?

This is a mystery series, very addictive and intriguing. It is initially for early teens, but both the style and the script are good enough to enthral most adults, because there is a lot of delicious delightful dilettante darkness. Beyond the intriguing factor, I I thought that it is great that the way Suee's shadow is depicted is very Jungian! Like explaining the shadow to teens without having to go through the nitty-gritty of what the shadow is. Another element that had me glued.

The visual style of the comic is very much my liking: crispy-clean sleek images, interesting characters, with a masterful use of shadows, composition and colour. The images are dominated by black, white and different shades of grey, with the use of cut-out coloured elements in a glorious red (for action, aggression, rage, hits, attention) and pastel colours for the skin and dresses of some characters.

This is traditional comic storytelling at its best, coming from two unknown Korean authors (plus the translator, who has done a terrific job!).

To be continued...

This is a wonderful collection of short stories published by Dr Seuss in different publications. The stories, as all Seuss', are embedded with wonderful messages about ethical behaviour and good life values for the little ones, but made fun by Seuss' fanciful rhymes and illustrations. Most of them are enjoyable for adults as much as for kids.

My favourite stories, are the Bippolo seed (a modern retake on the European Folk Story of the milkmaid and the pail, but with a focus on greediness), The bear and the rabbit (an hilarious tale, very Aesop's fable in a way, about the power of your intellect to win over brute force, and also on the power of perception to condition your behaviour) Gustav the goldfish (follow the rules, even if they look silly, or you might find yourself in big trouble), and Steak for Supper (about the dangers of bragging and speaking what you are up to when you are with certain people).

I find Tadd &Todd an OK story, while The Strange Shirt Spot and The Great Henry McBride are blah to me, and to adults, but they might be appealing to children.

The application is fantastic, as all of the Seuss stories that Ocean House and Hay House has turned into electronic interactive format. The app is interactive if you choose the read yourself option; you can click on any image on the page and the word will pop up on your screen and will be pronounced. The app is a sort of animated mini-movie. From the main menu (where the icons of the different stories are shown), you click the story you want to read and then select the way you want to read the book, on your own, read-to-me option or or auto-play. The app automatically uses the landscape setting and rotates your screen, and uses the original illustrations of the book (in this case very few), closing up and down to focus on the action and speeches of the characters. Background noises and musical notes have been added to enhance the experience, but you can switch them off in the settings. You can browse the pages on your own using your fingers and the pages flip as if they were the ones in a real book.

The main downside of the application is not the application, but the fact that the accompanying illustrations were very limited originally, so the mini-movie effect is somewhat washed out. Also, one of the stories was unstable and kept crashing.

The Lorax is a metaphoric tale about the dangers of aggressive economical practices and consumerism done at the expense of the environment. The Lorax is also a call to bring forward common sense and tp respect Mother Nature as the only Mother Nature we have. If we destroy it, there is nothing left but devastation. The message of the Lorax is as relevant as ever in our world, and kidos and adults will benefit from reading the book or using the application.

The application is great. Kudos to Oceans and Hay House for doing such a great job with Seuss' books. The app is a sort of animated mini-movie. From the main menu, you select the way you want to read the book, on your own, using the narrator's voice, or you just to leave it on auto-play. The app automatically uses the landscape setting and rotates your screen, and uses the original illustrations of the book, closing up and down to focus on the action and speeches of the characters. Background noises and musical notes have been added to enhance the experience. You can browse the pages on your own using your fingers and the pages flip as if they were the ones in a real book.

Moreover, the app is interactive if you choose the read yourself option; you can click on any image on the page and the word will pop up on your screen and will be pronounced. This being the case, the app is perfect for small children learning to read.

The narrator's voice and interpretation are wonderful, and he uses different voices and intonations for each character, so the whole book is really enjoyable.

A few things that I would have liked to have available in this app are:

1/ Option of female and male voice.

2/ Unlike other books by Seuss, the vocabulary he uses here is more fanciful and creative, not as simple. Some of the words are invented and part of Seuss' wonderful world. A sort of Seuss Wiki would have been a good addition as an appendix section or extra added to the app.

3/ I agree with other reviewers that the application could be more interactive, but Dr Seuss' books are wonderful for the message they convey and, to be honest, I would not want the app to be turned into a video-game either.

I hurried up to my local bookshop to buy this book as soon as it came out, as there were some autographed stickers and a bag given as a token, and I am a fan of Tan's artwork.

Rules of Summer is a book about the summer in the life of two young boys. Tan depicts what a summer feels, underline feels, to these two kids. The illustrations are not about what they did or what happened to them, although that is also clear in some of them, but is more about how these kids felt and interpreted what happened to them, and what the highlights of their summer in their memories were. If you depart from this principle, the book immediately makes sense and the narrative pops up. For example, this is perfectly clear in the images associated to: "Never eat the last olive at a party" and "never leave the back door open overnight". The rest of the illustrations work in a similar way, but some of them are more difficult to understand or decipher than others.

The images in the book are wonderfully painted, with Tan's great sense of lighting, chiaroscuro and colour, and the use of the same to create wonderfully simply but evocative atmospheric images that require little words to be appreciated. The landscape of his native Perth WA is perfectly captured in this book: blind white light, quiet neighbourhoods, over-present crows, the always crooked power lines, among others, which are incorporated into his wondrous magic world.

I love everything that Tan does, but this is, perhaps, his less inspired book. My opinion. It is still wonderful, but way too short and not as original or fulfilling, to me

Matilda is a modern tale that has many elements of the old folk European stories, with angelical vs evil people who you immediately love and hate, and an air of defiance of the adult world that hooks up children. What separates Matilda from old fairy tales is that, despite the character being a female heroine, the story doesn't want to turn her into a princess,  into a girlfriend, or into a male character's attachment. Matilda is brilliant because she is an individual and knows what she wants.

The book speaks about the importance of family values and being brought up properly, and about the importance of your willpower and education to overcome any struggle and become your best self. Also, you get in life as much as the effort you put in achieving your goals, you get what you focus on, your willpower moves mountains.

The book reads effortlessly and fast, and it is truly enjoyable. A classic of children literature, and very important to reinforce positive female roles in a world that wants to turn little girls into little empty dolls.

I like Quentin Blake's illustrations style but they don't resonate with me with regards to Matilda, perhaps because I imagine Matilda very different from the character we find drawn in the book. This is a personal preference of course.

I read this book when I was about 13-14y.o. and is still one of my favourite fiction books ever. It is supposedly a book for children, but it is not. It is a book that looks at the world from the point of view of adults and children at the same time. The story might be simplistic, but it is actually embedded with so much wisdom that one needs to be blind or deaf not to hear it.

The Little Prince is about the hidden magic hidden within ourselves, and I agree with other reviewers that it is very Zen, in the "ridiculous" nonsensical meaning of its wisdom. If you read it to a child be ready to the surprise, the multitude of questions, or perhaps none, as a child will get it more easily than an adult. As the Little prince would say, perhaps you have to explain it to an adult, as adults need anything explained to them otherwise they don't understand anything.

Especially in books like this the translation really makes the difference, not at translating what the book says, but what the book oozes, the feeling, the lyricism. I think the translation is decent, and the reading enjoyable the same. If you can read French, well, grab you Kindle copy instead of this.

There are other versions of the Little Prince in Kindle format, but I find this great for the quality of the translation, the quality of the illustrations, and the bargain price it has.

A classic of the World Literature

22 Books, 660 Illustrations, Peter Rabbit, Benjamin Bunny and Many More!

What is not to like about this collection? Having Beatrix Potter's 22 books all in one, in electronic format, with the original illustrations is just a treat for any reader, child or adult might be. One of those authors that you want to read to yourself to remember your childhood, or to read to your own children, or anybody else's.

The stories are charming and adorable, but without the illustrations the book would lose a bit of its soul. You will enjoy them if you have a Tablet, Kindle Fire or you read your books in your computer, therefore the illustrations display in its original wonderful colours.

Each story starts with the cover of the original book in it.

To the delight of the reader, the book offers the possibility of downloading a narration of the stories in mp3 audio-book format (thanks to Timeless Reads). What at treat!

Mind

+ If you have a normal Kindle, the images display in black and white, not as neat as the colour ones, but acceptable in neatness and quality image.

+ The downloadable audio-book is compressed in zip format. Therefore, you will need to have a Zip app in your mobile device to extract the files and listen to them.

Price of the book (plus audio-book) not even 4 bucks. Go and grab your copy!