Matt MyersCritiques

New Year's Day family picture book read-aloud celebration! (Book 3 of 5)

For a mere nickel, Ben buys a piece of an exceedingly long piece of licorice that sets him off an a journey to circumnavigate the globe. But thanks to a little con artist, he finds that the original price is a little too good to be true . . . until a nice little twist at the end that thumbs its nose at capitalism.

Cole just got a new dinosaur, but he's so very small! His mom comforts him, saying to give it time because he'll grow. You remember those toys that you put in water and they grew...same concept here, only much MUCH bigger! Once Cole starts getting his new little blue friend wet, he creates a monster, or at least a rather BIG problem! It seems Dino-Gro can't get enough of growing bigger and BIGGER, so if there's water, he's bound to find it, and OOPS! There he grows again, until one day, he's too big for inside anymore, and though outside is a big BIG world, he's not happy there, so Dino-Gro gets up and goes. Cole is sad to see his friend is gone, but when trouble strikes, putting Cole in a VERY bad situation, someone big, someone tall, someone BLUE comes to the rescue, and this time size is definitely not an issue!

I loved how it showed both the ups and downs of size change. It made your short time with these big friends all the sweeter, and the emotional times that harder hitting. Watch for the ending that will bring not only Mom's wisdom full circle, but a chuckle worth the wait!


**ecopy received for review; opinions are my own

backyard adventuring

A really lovely book about creativity. Read with Viva Frida.

This is a very pretty tarot deck but the cards are slippery, which with my arthritic fingers means they are difficult to use.½

One of my favorite decks. The colors are rich and vibrant, making them beautiful and fairly easy to read in dim light. Also, a plus for me that my be a drawback to some people: the suits of swords and staves swap their usual air-fire imagery, aligning with the Wiccan concordances as I was taught them. (Blades, like fire, can either create or destroy, while wands and staves are symbols of authority and clear-thinking, thus airy.) Those more steeped in tarot lore than I may not like it, but I suspect there must be others who learned as I did.½