Interstellar Cinderella by Deborah Underwood

Interstellar Cinderella by Deborah Underwood, illustrated by Meg Hunt

Rating: 5 stars

Chronicle Books

Earlier this year I forced (yes, forced!) my kids to watched the movie "Cinderella." We were heading to Disneyworld for the first time, and I felt they needed to know the story before arriving at the Magical Kingdom. I argued that it was a classic, and they'd have to know the story to appreciate some parts of Disneyworld and also dozens of books they'd read in their lives. When an author compared their character to Cinderella, I wanted them to know what s/he was writing about.

I was priming them for stories like the one Deborah Underwood has written.

Interstellar Cinderella turns the classic Cinderella tale on its head in some fantastic ways. Cinderella lives with her unkind stepsisters and nasty stepmother--on a different plant, and she's the family mechanic this time, not maid. When her stepsisters get invited to a royal space parade, Cinderella is told she can't attend. Her stepsisters grab her ever-handy toolbox to make sure she doesn't fix her way into going.

"But wait!" the price called after her
"Please tell me how to find--"
The girl was gone--but she had left
Her socket wrench behind.

But her stepsisters didn't count on Cinderella's godrobot, who hooked her up with a new space suit, complete with some handy tools. Cinderella zooms through the galaxy in time to see the parade. She's gets to see the ship of her dreams fly past...and watches it shoot up a cloud of grit and smoke!

The driver and owner of that ship, the prince, is helpless; his chief mechanic has just quit. Interstellar Cinderella comes to his rescue and fixes his ship in a jiffy. He's impressed and smitten! They "talk for hours of rocket ships," but suddenly it's midnight and she has to go home--as she flies away, her wrench falls out of her space suit. He grabs it. You see where this is going...

The next day he goes out looking for her. Girls from all over the galaxy try to fix the ship he's in with the wrench he's got, but they all fail...until Interstellar Cinderella gives it a try and makes it run smoothly.

Then he proposes marriage. Yikes!

(And this is the best part.)

She thought this over carefully.
Her family watched in panic.
"I'm far too young for marriage,
But I'll be your chief mechanic!"

Hip, hip hooray for Deborah Underwood's go-girl spin off of Cinderella! (And hooray for common sense prevailing for child brides!)

Doug Unplugs at the Farm by Dan Yacarrino

Doug Unplugs at the Farm by Dan Yacarrino

Rating: 5 stars

Review for Washington Family Magazine:

Meet Doug. He’s a robot. He’s a young robot whose parents want him to be the smartest robot ever. His robot mom and robot dad accomplish this by plugging in Doug for lengthy downloads full of facts and figures.

We first met Doug in Doug Unplugged, published in 2013. In this book, Doug’s parents plug him in to learn about the city before they head off to work. Doug is happy to learn a bunch of facts about the city, but a pigeon on the windowsill makes him feel something he doesn’t often feel—curiosity—and when he reaches for the pigeon, he unplugs himself. And suddenly, he’s free to explore and experience the city in a more meaningful way.

In Doug Unplugs on the Farm, Doug and his parents drive to visit his grandbots in the country. As they are still interested in Doug being the very smartest robot, his mom-bot and dad-bot plug him in to learn about the farms he’s driving past. He learns some neat facts (that my three kids liked, too):

• Cows need to be milked every day.

• Sheep tend to follow each other.

• A baby pig is called a piglet.

• Horses can pull plows.

His downloading is interrupted when a whole flock of sheep runs across the road, causing his dad-bot to veer into a ditch and for the whole family to become unplugged!

To find out what happened and read the rest of the review of this fantastic book, click HERE.

Doug Unplugged by Dan Yacarrino

Doug Unplugged by Dan Yacarrino

Rating: 5 stars

We picked up and checked out Doug Unplugged by one of our favorite authors, Dan Yacarrino, yesterday.  I read it four times in about six hours.  A curious thing happens when I start reading it to one of my kids: the other two hear me and come over.  Did Dan Yacarrino install a kid-magnet in this book or something??

I love this book--just love it!  I love the message it sends to kids and grown ups alike, and I think Yacarrino tells this message in the most perfect way.

So we've got Doug.  He's a robot.  Every morning his parents plug him into a giant machine to teach him facts and figures.  They want him to be the smartest robot around.  After they've plugged him in, they pat him on his head, walk away, and go to work.

And he really does learn a lot!  Today's lessons focus on the city.  Doug learns how many manholes are in the city.  Doug learns how many emergencies firefighters respond to every day.  Doug learns how tall the highest skyscraper is.  Doug learns how many miles of subway tracks exist.  Doug learns how many pigeons live in the city.

Here's all that Doug learns by unplugging and exploring the city...

Then, something interrupts all this learning.  A pigeon.  A real, live pigeon.  His first observation: he didn't know they cooed like that.  Doug stretches to follow the pigeon and SNAP! Doug unplugged! He is now unattached from his learning machine. He looks at the pigeon and wonders what else he can learn from actually experiencing the city.  So he follows the pigeon (a jet-pack is handy here) out over and then into the city.

From his exploration, he learns that manholes are dark.  Fire engines are loud!  Skyscrapers are so tall they offer a fantastic view of the city. Subways zip through those miles and you have to hang on extra tight around the curves. He even meets a friend, and learns how to play--including how many ways there are to play! Teeter-totters!  Smelling flowers!  Slides! Hide and go seek!  Swinging!

Doug learns not from words or books or downloads but from being there.  Experiencing it.  Using his senses.  What a great message, especially for this tired mom at the end of a jam-packed summer: Unplug.  Go outside and roam.  There is so, so much to experience and learn!


(A sequel to this book called Doug Unplugged at the Farm was released just three weeks ago...will try to get my hands on it! Read all of my reviews of Dan Yacarrino's books HERE.  My favorite is Every Friday.)

Robot Drawing Book by Ralph Masiello

Robot Drawing Book by Ralph Masiello

Rating: 5 stars

This book was on display behind the circulation desk last week.  My kids are so comfortable at the library that Ben saw it and promptly asked the librarian if he could check it out.  Invite us to your library: we'll take your displays apart.  That's how we roll.  (From a different perspective, that display sure worked!  Ben and Lorelei each threw in a couple of art books into our bag.)

And the even neater thing: When we got home, all three kids sat around our kitchen table, fighting for a spot that gave them a good view of this book.  They sat and drew--even little Kiefer!--for 20-25 minutes while I got dinner ready.  I admit that there was a little elbow action as they vied for better positions.  Such is life when you've got three kids who want to look at the same book.

There isn't much to read, so these books
are great for older not-yet-readers, too!

Ben was the most enthralled by the book.  He took the book up to his room at bedtime and sat drawing robots during his quiet reading time.  Robots surrounded him!  And the neat thing about this book is that the robots are all made of lines and shapes--nothing more complicated than that.  There are step-by-step directions and, if you follow them, your robot REALLY looks like the picture!  Anyone attempting any art--whether it's watercolor or a poem or stick figures or a book--would agree that the end result is rarely what you first see in your head.  And I think for kids that's true even more frequently.  Wonderfully, they are not hung up about it as often as we perfectionist adults are.  But Ben was very proud of himself when his robot was a solid twin of the artist-author's robot.

Ralph Masiello has a bunch of these step-by-step drawing books, including Dinosaurs, Halloween, Fairies, Bugs, Dragons, and On the Farm.  I think we're going to have to check them out.  All of them.  So if you're in Fairfax County and you're interested in checking them out of the system, well...you might just want to wait a few weeks.  Or I'll race you for them!

Some of Ben's robots.  Or, his Ben-bots?

Fix This Mess! by Tedd Arnold

Fix This Mess! by Tedd Arnold

Rating: 4 stars

I like books about messes.

Growing up, The Berenstain Bears and the Messy Room was one of my favorites.  I must have read it a million times.  I loved the idea of taking a really messy place and organizing the bajeezus out of it!  When Mama freaks out and starts throwing EVERYTHING away and Papa hears the shouting from his workshop and comes in to restore calm and order...  Then, Papa listens to the problem and helps the kids work towards a solution that involves well-labeled boxes and a cool peg board and a snazzy toy chest.  All of the illustrations in this book make me feel all warm and fuzzy inside!

Note: I loved the IDEA of taking a really messy place and organizing the bajeezus out of it. I still love the IDEA of it.  But...actually doing it is a totally different thing.  One step in any room in my house and you will get exactly what I mean.  (I really, really, REALLY hope that you are nodding an empathetic nod while glancing around YOUR messy house rather than looking down on messy me from your perfectly clean and orderly abode!)

I LOVE this book, these illustrations,
how cheerfully they organized everything!

So this very simple, very funny, very easy-reader-y book was right up my alley.

And all my kids love Tedd Arnold's Fly Guy books with the funny, bug-eyed characters who are wonderfully silly and creative and nice.  So, when we saw this new book on the New Book shelf at the library, one of us grabbed it.  (I can't remember which one of us--we all grab a lot of books.)  We read it over dinner that same day.

Jake receives Robug (a robot that cleans) in the mail.  He turns it on, points to a chair covered with a whole lot of junk, and tells it, "Fix this mess!" Robug replies "I will fix this mess!" as his arms move impressively quickly, smoke clouds around his action.  When he's finished, the chair is clean.  But the TV now has a whole lot of junk--wait a minute, it's the SAME whole lot of junk!!--on it.  Jake repeats his order, Robug repeats his cleaning (which is just moving the mess...ah, this is my kind of cleaning...)  The whole lot of junk moves from room to room: into the bathtub and even onto the roof!  (Enter lots of kid giggles here.)

Finally, Jake himself cleans it all up.

"Jake missed a spot," Robug points out on the last page.

Boy + Bot by Ame Dyckman

Boy + Bot by Ame Dyckman, illustrated by Dan Yaccarino

Rating: 5 stars

I love a good list.  And at this time of year, there are plenty of them.  And as my friends and family know that I'm a serious book-lover (well, actually, I'm seriously goofy a lot of the time), any list that is close to "Best Books of 2012" finds its way to my inbox.

This book was on the list at goodreads.com.  We've checked it out a handful of times before; it definitely earned its title of being one of the best children's books of 2012.  I love the simple story, but I really love the illustrations by one of my favorite illustrators, Dan Yaccarino.

A boy and a robot find each other and, oblivious to their differences, instantly hit it off.  As they roll down a grassy hill, the robot's switch turns off; the boy realizes he must help him.  So the boy helps him in boy-ways: gives him applesauce, reads him a story, tucks him in.  But the robot doesn't wake up until his parents peek in on him and accidentally switch on the robot's switch.

"Want-to-play-tomorrow?" asked Bot.  And the friends did.

And then the robot sees the boy "turned off" (a.k.a. asleep in bed), and the robot realizes he must help him.  So the bot helps him in bot-ways: he gives him oil, reads him an instruction manual, and brings him a spare battery.

After the boy wakes up, they see each other in a new light.  they now realize their differences, but they still hit it off.

The pictures reflect the story: sweet, simple, whimsical.  The story and the illustrations--oh gosh the whole book--just gets under my skin in the best way.

This is a book worth buying!

Hello, Robots! by Bob Staake

Hello, Robots! by Bob Staake

Rating: 3.5 stars

Another good one by Bob Staake.  Here's a tale of four hard-working metal robots who have four different jobs around the house.  They happily do what they're programmed to do all day long.  (I'll take Zip, the cleaning robot, please.)  Halfway through their day, they are all outside when it starts to rain.  They get drenched and go haywire.

Enter a very giggle-worthy page: The baking robot is baking a birdhouse in a tree, the fix-it robot repairs an apple pie, the gardener robot rakes the window glass, and the cleaning robot shines a mound of grass.  As you can imagine, these things are pretty funny to little ones.

Blink, he bakes an apple pie. / Zinc repairs a birdhouse high.
Blip, he rakes a mound of grass. / Zip shines up the window glass.

In order to fix each other, they switch heads!  Funny images help out the funny concept...and the frowns from the metal robots turn to smiles as they go back to their normal tasks, the right way.  They end up smiling bolt to bolt, despite the miscolored, mismatched heads.

My kids are not robot-obsessed (yet?) but we like robots.  Mostly because my husband's one and only dance is the "robot dance," which you can imagine gets rave reviews.  Normally not the goofy type, he cracks up Lorelei and Ben and Kiefer with his moves.  They of course love to join in, doing their best impersonation of Daddy but also doing their own version.  They become "Lo-bot" and "Ben-bot" and "Kief-bot."

And me?  "Mom-bot," of course!

(If you're an educator or librarian or super-over-achiever parent, click here for cute storytime idea.)