fangsgiving

I find the picture book world vast and intimidating – do you? It seems as though at least fifty new picture books are released each week. Only the strong could survive such an onslaught (not me, I am not that hardy)! Still, I need to keep up a bit, if only so that I have new titles to recommend to friends and gift to the littles in my life. Ethan Long’s Fangsgiving is a fun monster-mash of a Thanksgiving book that will be a hit year-round, but especially during the autumn months.

It's the fourth Thursday of November, and the members of Fright Club are cooking up something spooky… a Thanksgiving feast!

But when Vlad's family arrives unexpectedly, they put their own spin on each of the dishes. Now, the rolls are as hard as headstones and the turkey has been cooked to death. Vlad loves his family, but they've made a mess of their meal!

Can this monster-filled family come together to save their feast and celebrate what the holiday is truly about?

Did you know that monsters celebrate Thanksgiving too? Vlad the vampire and his friends (a werewolf, a mummy, a ghost, and a witch!) are getting together for the holiday in Vlad’s treehouse. They’re nearly ready to sit down to eat when… Vlad’s whole vampire clan descends! Vlad’s family have their own ideas about what food looks good – from lump-kin pie with maggot meatballs to completely charred turkey. Will Vlad have a meltdown and kick out his family? In the end family and friends combine efforts to prepare and celebrate a Thanksgiving (Fangsgiving) worthy of the name.

Long’s loving mash-up of Halloween and Thanksgiving elements makes for fun, if predictable, picture book success. Fangsgiving includes themes of family vs. friends, “ruined” holiday plans, and working collaboratively to save the day. Long livens up the text with monster puns that will delight adults, while children will love the slapstick humor and seeing familiar Halloween-staple paranormal creatures in a new context. It’s not scary, though there are some gross-out food combos that will make kids scream “yuck!”

The art is a huge highlight, with appealing nighttime scenes (they’re creatures who go bump in the night, after all!) done in dark purples (graphite pencil, colored digitally), funny sequences rendered with care, and fantastic details (like skull-printed potholders) on each page. Long gives every character googly eyes – even the spider hanging from the ceiling, and this only adds to the enjoyment. With monster-ific food prep depicted on almost every page, kids should have plenty of questions and opinions to share, especially about the vampire family’s idea of cuisine.

In all, Fangsgiving is a cute, lighthearted holiday tie-in picture book that will delight readers young and old, especially at group storytimes in October and November.

Recommended for: children ages 5-7, and for classroom, library, and bookshop storytimes.

my bed is an air balloon

When I was a little one, prime read-aloud hours were from 6-8am, when my mother read to us before the day truly started. Those are some of my favorite memories – the world not quite awake, snuggled in and listening to a story’s twists and turns. Now that I’m an adult I can see that my mom was bribing us to wake up with a story! And it worked. That said, I know that storytime for most families is at bedtime, and there’s a whole subset of picture books produced just for the end of the day. Julia Copus’ and Alison Jay’s My Bed is an Air Balloon is just such a bedtime tale, and its poetic flights of fancy will delight both parents and children.

When night falls my bed is an air balloon.

I sail through the slipsiverse, close by the moon.

I float above treetops where fluttertufts are sleeping

And flowering hills where the whifflepigs go creeping;

Ponds strung with starlight that glitter like glass,

A floog with her velvet nose bent to the grass.

Such treasures I spy on! My bed in the trees

Swings me up high, like a circus trapeze.

Now the cool, night-rustling air

Slips through my finger-gaps, ripples my hair;

Now we glide over water, the moon’s silver light

Blown by a cloudpuff into the bight,

Adrift on the sea where the dream-shapes float;

When night falls my bed is a sailing boat.

A beautifully presented picture book with two front covers, the text can be read from front to back and vice versa. The mirror form poem meets in the middle in a stunning centerpiece image as the two children in the story (twins, one in an air balloon, the other a sailing boat) meet in the clouds!

My Bed is an Air Balloon imagines a world of nighttime travels and adventure, where children’s beds turn into air balloons and sailing boats, floating over a land full of whimsical imaginary creatures. Told in poem form that may be read front to back, or back to front, the format of the book will engage readers as much as the text, and prompt many requests for rereads.

Julia Copus’ poem employs wide-ranging vocabulary, invents new words for make-believe creatures, and charms with its lyricism and rhythm. It’s curious and at the same time lulling – reading through it twice (in different directions!) in the space of the book’s pages should encourage little listeners into dreams. The fantastical nature of the poem may also inspire further storytelling, as kids and adults alike discuss what a whifflepig or floog is, or how cloudpuff might live.

And the art! The art is truly a highlight. Alison Jay has taken the format and the poem and created gorgeous dream landscapes that fit this fanciful story. The book is a beautiful, dreamlike/real mash-up of the familiar and the imaginative with soft edges. The details are delicious, and each page has something to savor, be it boat slippers, floating teapots, or flying laundry. Jay’s art perfectly melds the bizarre and charming for dreamscapes we can identify with and wonder at, and on top of that it’s adorable.

In all, My Bed is an Air Balloon is a slightly strange and all the way wonderful picture book that’s destined to be a bedtime classic. I can’t wait to gift it to the little ones in my life.

Recommended for: bedtime reading for children ages 3-6, and anyone who likes fantastical picture books filled with exquisite art.

Fine print: I received a copy of this book from the publisher for review consideration. I did not receive any compensation for this post.

the language of spells

I, like almost every other reader in the known universe, can be swayed by a pretty book cover. And when a pretty book cover also happens to have the words “language” and “spells” in the title, and a DRAGON on it, well. Shut the front door, as the saying goes. I came in to the reading experience ready to love Garret Weyr’s middle grade fantasy The Language of Spells. I cried-at-the-end ADORED it.

Grisha is a dragon in a world that’s forgotten how to see him. Maggie is a unusual child who thinks she’s perfectly ordinary. They’re an unlikely duo—but magic, like friendship, is funny. Sometimes it chooses those who might not look so likely. And magic has chosen Grisha and Maggie to solve the darkest mystery in Vienna. Decades ago, when World War II broke out, someone decided that there were too many dragons for all of them to be free. As they investigate, Grisha and Maggie ask the question everyone’s forgotten: Where have the missing dragons gone? And is there a way to save them? At once richly magical and tragically historical, The Language of Spells is a novel full of adventure about remembering old stories, forging new ones, and the transformative power of friendship.

Benevolentia Gaudium, or Grisha for short, is the youngest dragon alive, in a world where magic and dragons have become obsolete. Maggie (Anna Marguerite, properly) is a girl of eleven with a famous poet for a father and an even more famous, though dead, painter for a mother. Both Maggie and Grisha live in Vienna, and it is there that a friendship forms, a mystery unspools, and an adventure is undertaken. The Language of Spells is necessarily about magic, but it’s also a little bit about history, a lot about friendship, a smidgen about education, and a tiny bit about heartbreak. In other words, it is marvelous.

After reading the official summary I was under the mistaken impression that this book was about invisible dragons. It took me a few pages at the beginning to realize that that was *not* the case. No, instead it’s a coming of age story for both Grisha and Maggie, with a lot of fun dragon lore and magical creatures, historical bits, anecdotes about living in a hotel, and talking cats, among other delightful elements. It is (I would think) almost impossible not to fall in love with Maggie and Grisha. They’re very different characters, yet very kind to each other, and it has been too long since I read such a lovely portrait of friendship.

Theme-wise, The Language of Spells is about finding what is special or different about yourself and celebrating it (in Grisha’s case), making friends, and finding ways to solve problems and do the right thing (in Maggie’s case). It also has several fable-like messages woven in about judging people based on their “usefulness,” the innate dignity of rational beings, remembering the past, as well as some musings on freedom and happiness. It could have been quite complicated, but the author’s skill and touches of humor kept the tone cozy and the story moving.

As any good middle grade story is, this one is true (even if it does feature magic and dragons and talking cats), and at the same time absolutely heart-wrenching at the end. It’s the perfect read for a rainy day, with a cat at your feet and a mug of hot chocolate at hand. It’s also a great pick for a chapter-or-two-at-a-time storytime or bedtime, or independent reading for the 9–11-year-old crowd.

I can’t close out my review without mentioning the gorgeous art! At the beginning of each chapter there are illustrations by Katie Harnett (also the artist of the gorgeous cover!) which complement the text. The overall book design is just fabulous as well – the end papers, mustard-yellow boards, and gold foil on the dust jacket all make for a delightful keepsake of a book.

The Language of Spells has a timeless feel and quality to it, and is sure to earn a permanent spot on many shelves with its gentle, quiet brilliance.

Recommended for: fans of Catherynne Valente’s Fairyland books and Laura Ruby’s York, and anyone who likes cozy, imaginative books that are perfect for curling up with on wintery days.

Are you interested in other reviews of this book? Check out the TLC Book Tour! Or you can learn more via the author's website, Instagram, Facebook, or Twitter.

Fine print: I reviewed this book as part of a TLC blog tour. I did not receive any compensation for this post, and I bought my own copy of the book.

how to make friends with a ghost

In general I am not a Halloween sort of person (didn’t grow up celebrating it, never really caught the fever), but I will make exceptions for spooky + funny and/or spooky + cute. Rebecca Green’s picture book How to Make Friends with a Ghost fits firmly in the latter category – it’s an adorably illustrated guide to ghostly friendship, tailor-made for this time of year.

What do you do when you meet a ghost? One: Provide the ghost with some of its favorite snacks, like mud tarts and earwax truffles. Two: Tell your ghost bedtime stories (ghosts love to be read to). Three: Make sure no one mistakes your ghost for whipped cream or a marshmallow when you aren’t looking! If you follow these few simple steps and the rest of the essential tips in How to Make Friends with a Ghost, you’ll see how a ghost friend will lovingly grow up and grow old with you.

A whimsical story about ghost care, Rebecca Green’s debut picture book is a perfect combination of offbeat humor, quirky and sweet illustrations, and the timeless theme of friendship.

Ghosts are attracted to people who are sweet, warm, and kind, according to Green’s guide to lifelong (and beyond!) friendship. While directed at the reader who might want to make a cute ghostly friend (the illustrations really do make it seem desirable!), How to Make Friends with a Ghost also contains many friendship insights even if you plan to keep your pals strictly among the living.

With themes of friendship and supernatural sweetness, and sprinkled with funny anecdotes and properly cited “tips” from fake guides, this delightful picture book is sure to be a hit with the 7-10 year old set, adults, and aspiring artists. While a friendship guide is not your typical ghost story, this one charms with notes on care and feeding, growing together, hiding places, hazards, and even a recipe (a gross one, but still)!

While the text will win over many readers, it is the whimsical, witchy illustration style that elevates this book to something special. Green’s pages are filled with colored pencil, gouache, and hand-lettered text, and the clear pencil strokes can be studied/copied with ease. The whole book brims with love and care. I especially loved the busy endpapers full of spooky ingredients (Halloween-friendly)(and the “friendly” bit really is true!).

So, if you’re in the mood for a cute, cuddly ghost story that is not scary at all, How to Make Friends with a Ghost is the book for you. It is made with love, and perfect for autumnal reading.

Recommended for: independent picture book readers, aspiring artists, and anyone who likes Halloween (minus the creepy stuff).