Festivals Books

An old fashioned story with old fashioned charm. Makes you long for an era that is lost to children of this day and age. Simple and sweet.

A great book for younger readers and those with smaller children. The art is superb too!
Sincerely,
A.A. Riley
Author of The Key of Aramath

Tasha Tudor is classic. I am so thrilled to have purchased this book for my "bookworm" daughter - I purchased this charming book through Tasha's own web page and had it signed by Tasha...however it cost me LOTS more than what the price is listed here - this adorable Easter tale which is beautifully illustrated is one to add to your child's library....The Easter Bunny will be leaving it on Easter for my little girl...and surely it will be a special added treasure to her collection.

My daughters received this book for Easter and it is definitely MY favorite Easter book - it just took my breath away. Incredibly sweet and old-fashioned; no chocolate or hype. Just the essentials of this lovely Springtime holiday - new dresses, adorable baby animals, gentle little children and some colored eggs. I am enchanted and thrilled to have found Tasha Tudor. You will love her!

This is such a simple way to talk with a young child about all the things they like and are thankful for. The illustrations are wonderful and full of life and the story is all told in rhyme so it is a joy to read aloud. My two year old and I really enjoyed reading this together.

Wonderful book for teaching a young child the true meaning of Thanksgiving. Beautifully written and illustrated.

I bought this book for my (almost) three year old daughter. The illustrations are very nice and the story is sweet and simple, perfect for introducing a toddler to the meaning of Thanksgiving. I love that it gives thanks for everyday special things (family, friends, nature). A sure hit for young ones (and parents, too!).

I went to the bookstore to look for a book for my toddler on thanksgiving. While I wasn't quite sure what I wanted when I first arrived, after looking at several books, I quickly figured out what I didn't want. First, I didn't want a book with any TV characters. Second, I didn't want a book that mentioned pilgrims and American Indians; that bit of history just doesn't ring true to me and a meaningful discussion about that topic is simply not age-appropriate for a two-year-old. Finally, I didn't want a book that was shallow.

I was fortunate to find something that satisfied what I wanted: a meaningful discussion about being thankful that a young child can grasp. This book celebrates thanksgiving by showing appreciation for the big and small things that occur in a young child's life, from "playdates, swings, and slides" to "dancing, music, and art." It also celebrates this time of year, thanking for autmumn and sled rides. And, it states clearly, that we should be most thankful for family.

The illustrations are realistic, yet magical and captivating.

If I were to search for a complaint it would be that the children in this book are all white. I suppose they are all from the same family and the family happens to be white, but wouldn't it have been nice if the author and/or illustrator showed several different families of color? Perhaps this is a missed opportunity.

Still, I give the book five stars because the overall sentiment of this book is just right for toddlers and preschoolers. On the last page, there is a place to record your children's own thankful thoughts year to year. By first showing all the things one can be thankful for and then asking a child what he/she is thankful for captures the spirit of this holiday. The book, therefore, can be used as an opportunity to model, discuss, and share thanksgiving.

We bought this to teach our son about Thanksgiving (he loves books) and he really liked it. It's a cute little book to read around the holidays especially since there aren't a lot of Thanksgiving books out there. I would recommend it to anyone.

Loved the book, kids did too! Great to read all year long, but especially at Thanksgiving.

This is one of those special books that involve your children and actually makes them think about what are they thankful. For me Thanksgiving is a holiday where family and friends gather around a table full of wonderful food and this is where this book starts. I like that book includes different families and that it doesn't focus on the 1st Thanksgiving, but about things that each child is thankful for. Parents who love them no matter their actions, for books, cats, dogs, bright sunny days, friends and lollipops!

What a wonderful book that should also get everyone talking about what they are thankful for!

I buy my kids a new book every week .They both love this book my daughter is five and my son is seven.My son has autism so it's sometimes hard to find books that he can try to read on his own.Unlike other books this one has a few sentences on each page nice bright colors.He takes this book to therapy and the kids there like the book as well.

This story is quite quirky and has a ton of alliteration. It is fun to read and will definitely expand any kid's vocabulary.

A creative story with a great typesetting and a good amount of alliteration. The best part about this book, however, isn't the story, the prose, the way the type is set up, but it is in fact, the illustrations. It's set in darkly toned colours and fairly simple drawings, each of which are extremely adorable.

This book is a cute read, even if you're older than four!

The illustrations of Thirteen O'clock are enough of a reason to buy this darling of a book. In simple white, black and a shade of green, the scene comes to life in a marvelous way. A simple story that will have your tongue rolling in fun, and plant a smile on your face. A heart worming book that will set the stage for, what I hope will be, more books by Mr. Stimson.

I love the illustrations in this book and its innovative concept: a quirky clock that actually chimes at thirteen, quite unlike the ordinary timekeeper, that only runs from one to twelve. Stimson's brilliant illustrations remind me of my favorite animated films, The Nightmare Before Christmas and James and the Giant Peach, with the eccentric faces of unusual characters that pop out at the chime of each hour: "a spiteful FRIGHT who would have seemed more at home with his name on a tombstone"; a skeleton with a skeleton's key to "unlock the odd clock's small door to free his MONSTROUS friend, the THING"; "four ghosts with frightening groans (in their stomachs)"; and "with each haunting clue there came another, more horticulturally hideous than the other".

With dense illustrations featuring lots of black, dark green and huge letters for emphasis, each page is filled with images as the clock unleashes a series of "things" and tongue-twisting alliterations, "hollow and echoey, and exceedingly eerie". This wildly imaginative book will delight anyone who appreciates oddball humor and the joy of language (even adults!), a vocabulary stretcher to trip the tongue and leave you laughing. My one criticism, and it is very minor, is that at times the type is difficult to read against the black page. But who cares? This book is a delight. Luan Gaines/ 2005.

In these days of mass commercialization of Christmas, it was a lot of fun to read this book in December with my two children, ages 6 and 3. They couldn't wait to get to the "sticker" book each night! We alternated who got to put the sticker on the page. The stories were not preachy and were appealing to my children's ages. In fact, several times the story was pertinent to what happened in school that day and led to further discussion. The kids especially liked the short prayers and repeating them after me. The layout of the book was excellent. We did find 1 error in the book where the sticker and the words did not go together. Our biggest disappointment was finishing the book. I hope the author writes 1 for Lent. I was nervous that the book was going to be too religious and force feed religion but I was very happy to find it pertinent to my children's lives. I definitely recommend this book.

This tri-fold hardcover book is wonderful in its simplicity. Our children take turns each night on who gets to put the sticker on, and we do it at the dinner table before eating/before lighting the Advent wreath. It also helps spark conversation about the season (whethr about Jesus' time or the present) during the meal. This is a nice way to strengthen the family.

This is our all-time favourite family advent calendar and we have given it to many friends with children over the years because our children enjoyed it so much.

The book is a hardback and has two covers that open out to make a 19" tableau that is free-standing. Dry-cling stickers are provided for each day of December and small fingers will enjoy finding the right sticker and applying it to the appropriate space on the tableau. In the centre are spiral-bound pages that flip over the top of the tableau, one for each day, with a reading from the nativity story, a short, simple meditation and a prayer. Brilliant! We re-use it each year, just about to peel the stickers back on to the backing ready for December 1 (tomorrow)...

This unique book is a hands-on story book . One part of the Christmas story is presented each day in December. The kids place a sticker on the "mural" for each day. Every day's story sparks great family conversation based on biblical information. Helps kids understand what it may have felt like living during the time of Jesus's birth, what it may have felt like having an angel visit your home, how Mary may have felt carrying the child of God, etc. Written in easy, conversational tone. The kids couldn't wait to get to the next night's page.

What a beautifully illustrated book about the Pilgrim & Indian Children who celebrated that first Thanksgiving Day and dinner! We too like the other 2 reviewers love to find the hidden turkey and bunnies! Each page alternates between the pilgrim children and the Indian children showing them playing, gathering, working and eatting! The children are drawn so well, and you almost feel them moving about on the page! It is also nice that this book is a counting book as well! Three cheers for the illustrator and author!

I read this to my second grade music classes and had them play a drum pattern after every page. The rhyme scheme is catchy, and the pictures are ADORABLE and highly detailed. The children all loved this book and wanted to try to find all of the hidden details besides the turkey. On the 1 page, for example, there is one canadian goose and 1 racoon hiding in the background; the 2 page hides 2 mallards and 2 rabbits in the background, page 10 hides 10 rabbits... All of the pages contain a hidden turkey (sometimes live and sometimes roasted!). The pictures look just like Plymouth Plantation if you've been there, and they show people of both cultures working and helping and getting along. This book has become one of my favorites to share with children.

In reading this, I am captivated by the illustrations more than the writing. Mark Buehner, the illustrator, drenches the two-page spreads in warm autumnal hues: rusts, browns, and honey colors. We see falling leaves, and dozens of frisky woodland creatures jumping about the pages. The kids are happy, well fed, and playful as children should be. The colors are bright, bold and appeal to the eye.

Melmed's writing's a little forced in places, and I get caught up on a few of the verses when reading aloud. I'm not sure if it's the writing, or my delivery, but it's annoying. The First Thanksgiving Day: A Counting Story is a short book. It takes a little over a minute to read, but the artwork enthralls little ones, especially when they realize there's all sorts of hidden surprises. There's a well-hidden turkey on nearly every page, and it's fun to seek for him. Children will enjoy counting all the animals, or if they look further, they might detect some prehistoric creatures blended into the scenes as well.

This book is recommended to children 3 to 8 years, but I say 2 to 6 is more accurate. I did have to explain a few things to him like why the Wampanoag are hunting rabbits, and why they are weaving cattail reeds. He thought they were making baskets out of cat tails, and this upset him. The illustrations are beautiful, and the hide-and-seek qualities are a blast. Overall, The First Thanksgiving Day: A Counting Story is an enjoyable holiday read.

I bought this book last year for my daughter who was two at the time. She loved this book so much that we have been reading it all year. This is a counting book with a Thanksgiving theme. The illustrations are so beautiful. It makes me miss New England in the fall. There are pictures of Native Americans and Pilgrims working and playing with their family and friends. This book was a great way for me to explain what Thanksgiving is all about to my young daughter. This is the pefect book to read on Thanksgiving but it it so beautiful that you will want to enjoy it all year long.

Great book about the Pilgrims with lots of historical detail about the different families. Cut-away of the Mayflower with labels and drawings of each of the passengers with their names, makes the story come to life.

This is a wonderful and informative book for children and adults that tells the story of the Allerton family as they travel to America. Readers will enjoy both the illustrations -- detailed cut-aways of the ships they sailed in -- and the text which does not mince words about the difficulties of the journey. For anyone who has relatives on the Mayflower, this is a lovely story of how our ancestors first came to this country. It reminds us of how brave they were.

Cheryl Harness has produced the most unusual gem of the Mayflower story that I have yet run across. The story, by adult standards is choppy in its progression, but is quite charming in its childlike perspective of the harshness that the pilgrims must have faced both on the Mayflower and in the founding of Plymouth including the time of the Thanksgiving feast. The story is sandwiched between pages that give interesting details of the ship, the voyage, and the people and events of the time that would be certain to satisfy the curious reader or listener. The artwork was beautifully illustrated in watercolor, gouache, and colored pencil and has been wonderfully reproduced in colored ink. This is both a wonderful holiday and historical book that should please all ages.

Crazy James

I discovered Three Young Pilgrims by accident and had to have it. Beautifully told believable story that brings history alive for all ages and illustrations are detailed and excellent. I recommend it for ages 7 to 107!

First time i saw this book, it gave me a shock! It's so beautiful and neat with those complicate stencils! therefore, really want to own one and look at it whenever i like! \(^o^)/

This book is one of the best pop-ups I have ever seen. The graphics are bright and fanciful. If you were fortunate to see the film, you will certainly enjoy looking at this book for many good times to come. The ultimate coffee table book.

This book represents the pure genius of Tim Burton. It is a beautiful and fun book to open. Every page is a story into itself with the delightful grphic pop-ups. A real treat for adults.

This book...is a must for any Nightmare collector. Along with a summarized version of Tim Burton's genious story, the charazters and scenes pop up along with a few movable pieces and "hot spots" that when you touch them something appears!!! The only thing wrong is that it's too short!!

Excellent book - since we are new Heirloom Tomato growers and are working on a TomatoFare in Washington State, this is a great reference, beautifully illustrated book for review.

Compiled and organized by Lawrence Davis-Hollander (Founder and Director of the Eastern Native Seed Conservancy), The Tomato Festival Cookbook showcases 150 recipes each of which focuses upon culinary creations featuring heirloom tomatoes as a principal ingredient. Along with the "kitchen friendly" recipes, The Tomato Festival Cookbook offers informed advice on selecting the very best heirloom tomatoes, reveals how to grow great-tasting tomatoes in your own garden, provides historical tomato lore, as well as profiles of notable tomato growers and thematically appropriate regional festivals. From Tomato and Corn Salsa; Stuffed Mussels with Tomatoes and Almonds; Spicy Tomato Cocktails; and Heirloom Tomato and Goat Cheese Salad; to Robert Gurvich's Pizza with Fresh Tomato Sauce; Spanish-Style Fish with Tomatoes and Potatoes; Tomato Jam Tart; and Tomato-Rice Casserole with Poblanos, Beef, and Melted Cheese, The Tomato Festival Cookbook will prove to a welcome and much appreciated addition to any tomato lover's personal cookbook collection!

If you love tomatoes, this will give you some fresh ideas for preparing them.

This first-time author brings together reknowned chefs and tomato connoisseurs who share over 150 mouth-watering receipes ranging from common preparations like spaghetti sauce to fancy creations like West African Chicken. Sidebars of information are included giving growing tips and historical lore for selecting the best-tasting heirlooms for each recipe. Davis-Hollander uses carefully selected and saved tomato seeds to produce exquisite tomatoes for his exotic recipes. This is a good source for specific information on heirloom tomatoes and a variety of tasty dishes.

I first checked out this book from our public library, among other books with a Christmas theme. My five-year old daughter loved the story and the pictures, that she asked me to renew it twice. I decided to purchase it for her. We still read it although Christmas has passed. This is the story of a little boy who learns about Christmas (when trees are decorated with lights and ornaments) from his mother who grew up in the Unitied States before coming to Japan where they now live. The illustrations are beautiful, you learn about a number of customs. For example, the connection between oragami and wishes, the food that he little boy eats, that his parents planted a tree to symbolise and as a wish that he lives a long life. They make a snowman, in Japan their snowman has two balls, not three like here in the United States. The book has a timeless quality.

I loved this book enough to, in pre-Amazon days, put in two special orders (both failed) through Crown Books and finally, after two years, find a children's specialty book store that could get it for me. It is the story of a small boy learning to obey his mother as well as the story of his first Christmas. The book's strength is its astonishing illustrations. The luminous pictures of the family's Japanese home, the small pine tree with the silver origami cranes and candles, and the emotion on the face of the little boy captivate my son, who is not yet two and a half. Even at his age, which is much younger than this book is intended for, he really responds to the poetic text, the relationship between the boy and his mother, his struggle to obey his mother and deal with her disapproval of his misbehavior, and the beauty of the tree of cranes. This is a peaceful and gentle text, and I am grateful that I can finally read my son this story that both helps to build his character and exposes him to the beauty and grace of Japanese form.

There is a distance in Allen Say books, a calm and separate peace.

Using his beautiful artful pieces with children is always an interesting moment. I read this today with my 1st graders. We are studying Asian works, cultural experience. We are folding paper cranes, making kites. We are trying to articulate the experience of cultures. We are living the experience of growing up figuring out who we are in "this" moment. And so this book suggested its way into my afternoon between a bluegrass band from Alaska with my returning from an AM test rather loopy and the need to have a lovely Friday.

I went looking for a book to speak through which I could convey feeling and thoughts not entirely within my grasp verbally or in written form.

That led me of course to Say. His work unique for children.

This story is beautifully/distantly told (and I'll try hard to capture that here) through his artwork and speaks to a child's ability to take an experience from childhood that shapes him through perhaps a mistake, or a discomfort, a broken request, an intrusion into things unknown and maybe a bit frightening. It reads as an auto-biographic work. It does touch a child's guilt through the commission of a wrong that is translated then into their life as an avoidance, an impression, it symbolizes I think in a concrete way a door being shut.


The child does what the mom has requested he not do, she fears, has always feared, he will drown in a carp pond. He then is drawn to the pond, falls in and lives of course. But immediately he is sick needing her comfort feels her withdrawal. He has physical care but senses an emotional distance. It is a symbol-laden piece. My children sat riveted, utterly riveted. Able to talk to me a great deal about this disappointing a mother with his exploration.
When Say relates the child's impression of his mother's response to his falling in the carp pond, the feeling of disapproval breaks all over you.

Sometimes I think coming out of my work with children, and my own past, sometimes I'm not looking for books about perfect harmony and comfort, compliments and the falseness of the etiquette systems that separate us from truth. Sometimes I am grateful and want to shout my thanks as a roar, or adoring and want the weeks of wagging my tongue on the ground in lapping love, sometimes I'm feeling a dissonance and want the strangeness wearing my hats, sometimes I am wanting to look at artwork by Dali, or the images of Close. Sometimes a Philip Pearlstein with the blue veins of a headless nude draped in a kimono in a rocker looking heavy and liquid is the type of concretization of this internal place I'm in and I want to look for a long while at an ugly thing. Say manages I think to catch a feeling that children do know. They would like I think to examine it a bit.
We know the relationship to other, be it in a mother or in the partner we ultimately are drawn to know better. A space, distance, curtain is drawn to our finding perfect understanding. My girl friend and I were speaking of the receiving of the female the holding and as I felt I understood for a second what becomes a oneness in the two partners male/female in the relationship it rose right out of my mind and fled. Seeking wholeness and unification I am lost in the way. Cannot intellectualize to knowing.
But not necessary to our acceptance. And that I think is important.

In this story the child feels the mother has withdrawn from him in someway from his actions and then time moves this into learning something more of her unexpectedly.
She later that evening folds paper cranes to decorate a Christmas tree. A kind of combining who she was, her-ness with the very different place they are in now. He senses from this there are currents underground in his mother. She is an "otherness."
And she is sharing this with him within this particular context so that it can be known. He has a second of awareness.


Two times in particular in my childhood I recall in the relationship to my mother and several more with my father incidents where the situation almost of my innocence lead me unexpectedly into a territory beyond my ability to process or speak about. Just found out something. And the resultant feeling of being left alone there with that, of being fully alone, a being separate was uncomfortable. But I recall it viscerally. In one particular incident when I learned of my mothers first marriage and her life before me just mildly asking her about a ring in her jewelry, it brought me a sense of disassociation. It is to this Say allows into his work here.

They suggest this is falling out of finding way to address his two-culture gap that certainly would fit here, a Mom of California with Christmas traditions and a life in a traditional Japanese home. This would fit my feelings I think a bit marrying into a very different kind of family, moving across a country, working in very different cultures than my Appalachian one in a South Central or a Salinas Valley Migrant town and then having my children while struggling to interpret "me" to them in these different contexts. My sense of them unable to "know" me and my own struggles with the roles, responsibilities, the carrying of my background, my talents, my feeling of the challenges has been so much like the experience of art. I understand it through art but that was my background.

The audience of an artwork receives within an other, an audience, a "themness." It is not the place that made the work but there may be echoes or ripples in the lake. Sometimes the work made cannot speak through all of these veils. I recently read a long involved review of a painting. Long explanations of the artist's circumstances, life, loves, techniques, developments of style, their historical context, actually the writing was a showpiece of encyclopedic and interpretive writing of a critic. As I read I felt less and less confident, more and more unworthy of looking at this piece, further and further removed from the meanings. With so little knowing to this level I thought perhaps I have no right to look and be with this work at all. I almost lost my stance in front of the work as if falling through the floor. Tilting.
And looking up I thought of myself as I paint and make. Thinking of my own meager work. But still considering the process and the pieces. Would I want all of that life and that evaluative interpretive critical layer really to be known by someone looking at the work? Could that be the way it should be seen? The evolution of my style, my statements or what I am deeply saying? Could anyone know, do I know? Was my making just there because I had no way to speak to things I do not know how to say?

Art is a separation in the talk. It is frozen time, it walks into the evoking of responses in the viewer. But what happens then often surprises me. When I looked again at this piece , about which I read, regaining myself I preferred my set of connections, though I was not hurt or disturbed by the interpreter/critic piece. I just heard something from an artist and it was special to me too. It is that dissonance I always find in Says' stories. It speaks to me very privately and my private feelings we hold alone.


Origami cranes brought me to this book too, expressions of flight, of folding them for the celebrations of the fleeting nature and beauty of a life. I like to make them. I like to touch paper. It is a kind of religion for me.

I just received beautiful gifts donated for my class. The gesture of this very moving to the whole school, or those that know of it, with many aware. It was the loveliest of things to do I'm actually shocked. And I did disassociate really. I connected to the kind of feeling that my children in my class know a teacher that speaks a language they are just learning, experience daily the discomforts of interpreting me, a very different person, the school, the differences from home. They know there is a world, but not yet if it is a town or a country, not really where a friend might be thinking of giving them a gift.
But I watched. They know the concrete joy of playing with the blocks, or setting up the reptile habitat, or the joy of hearing a book. But they grasp fleetingly something more than this. They are able to grasp that I hold something "else" that comes into play as I share these special gifts with them. We sense the things speak other languages to me. I am honored. And in my way these things honor for me the importance of my children.

Like the paper cranes that are folded within this story to decorate the Christmas tree of this child's mother with her distances, the cranes are folded as symbols beautifully dimensional, momentarily alluding to the ideal of the gesture. The flight, the crane as it lifts up and into the sky. A paper to say my heart lifts to you dearly; your kindness is folded into the totality of where I am now, lifting you into the mind's eye.

Or so it is for me.

Say's child senses that his parent is him, yet not him. They have been united; he was inside of her womb and shares their past but that their flights are their own. As soon as we hold the painting to go to something I can use to explain, in the time of our looking, in our flash of insights it escapes us into a kind of flight. Our next meeting, our next experience to be both familiar but also the possibility of a different, refreshed, unknown newness for us.

This child carries sadness from this day and a joy, something felt as his mistake, he could not know playing in the carp pond again without feeling that he would evoke disappointment from his mom. I relate this a bit to my gifting, I would like to be able to share with these friends something that might be worth their kindness, my class being so dear to me I share them as the beautiful and special persons that I hope will live in their world touching the lives of others as positively.
I wish almost with wistfulness that these children could really be known as expressions of the miracle of life, the possibility in life. I had a child last year so dear to me. I look at her photo knowing that I shared her with a friend, writing of her adventures, to try to give something of myself and this place we live within lacking anything else really of worth to ever give.

Ah. Maybe I am not up to the expression in words of Say. He made a book that I find unique in children's literature It asks of us a willingness to be uncomfortable, to be changes, to speak to deep rivers running through us. As we reach the sea a part of the humanity of the life we have experienced a book such as this allows us to say that there is so much we will not know, never explain, that affected us profoundly and moved through us. A part of the water, the river the sea and yet held within the self, our concrete self. A drop. Look at his cover as a child tries to understand who he is.

This autobiographical story of author Allen Say's discovery of Christmas is gentle and beautiful. As a little boy in Japan, he wasn't supposed to play near the neighbor's carp pond, but he did, and fell in! Mother was a little mad at him, but she was preoccupied with making origami cranes. She put them on a tree that she brought in from the garden, and explained to her puzzled son that this was called a Christmas tree. (She had lived in California as a girl.) The boy asked for and received a Samurai kite as a Christmas gift. He never forgot that day, because it was the first time he learned about Christmas, and he never played in the carp pond again.

This lovely story introduces us to a traditional Japanese family and to a child who experiences two cultures. The illustrations are quite unique and are almost shiny. The simple text is easy to read and children aged 6-8 love this book.