Book Review: Skulduggery Pleasant by Derek Landy

I had always heard amazing things about the Skulduggery Pleasant audiobooks so when I was able to to get my hands on this I listened to it right away.  Stephanie Edgely's uncle passes away and leaves Stephanie his home.  This immediately embroils her in a world she never knew existed where she meets Skulduggery and with him tries to solve the mystery surrounding her Uncle's death.   

Skulduggery and Stephanie were great characters and I loved listening to Stephanie find her way in this whole new world. The magic and world building was really interesting.  Many of the characters are incredibly memorable and even months later I still remember them. The world is dark but not so dark that everyone ends up dying (i.e. just dark enough to keep me reading)

The audiobook narrator did a great job with all of the voices.  All of the characters sounded distinct and you could get a sense of their personalties from how he voiced them.  I also loved the transitional music that they would play sporadically, especially the xylophone that sounded like bones.   I especially loved the interview with Skulduggery at the end of the disk. His personality shone through in every single one of the answers.  

Crafty Kids Styrofoam Cup Snowman

For January's Crafty Kids I decided to plan a Snowman Craft mainly because I wanted to do one before winter was over.  I did a google image search and found a ton of different versions of this craft.  I ended up creating an amalgamation by taking various components from several different images.

Styrofoam Cup Snowman

Materials:

2 Styrofoam Cups
2 Googly Eyes
1 orange pipe cleaner
1 large brown pipe cleaner or 2 small brown pipe cleaners
1 other half size pipe cleaner
2 pomm pomms
6-8 black paper dots  OR black construction paper
3 or 4 sequins
1 strip of felt, long enough to wrap around cup and double knot
Glue Stick

1.  Fold 3 fingers into the end of each of your brown pipe cleaners.  Stick them into the sides of one of your styrofoam cups.  Inside the cup bend the ends and use a small piece of tape to keep them stuck in place.  This will be your snowman bottom

2.  Fold your orange pipe cleaner, leaving one side slightly longer.   Twist your pipe cleaner together.  This will be your carrot nose.  Stick it into the middle of one side of the other styrofoam cup.  This will be your carrot nose.  Bend the pipe cleaner on the inside and use a piece of tape to keep it in place.  Glue the googly eyes over the carrot nose.  

3.  Take your final pipe cleaner and bend it into a U-Shape.  Stick each end on one side of the snowman so that the U goes over what was the bottom of the cup and the carrot is more or less in the middle.  Make small bends in the pipe cleaner on the inside of the cup and use a piece of tape to hold them in place.  Glue pom poms on each side of the pipe cleaner.  These are your earmuffs.

4.  Glue sequins down the front of the bottom half for buttons.

5.  Glue black paper dots on the front for a mouth.

6.  Glue the top and bottom cups together.

7.  Tie the piece of felt around the cups gently over the seam of the cups.  Cut some fringe in to the ends to create a scarf.

Book Review: The Name of the Star by Maureen Johnson

Rory Deveaux, from Louisianna has the opprotunity to go to London for her senior year when her parents take a job in England. She goes to Wexter, which lies in the heart of where the Ripper murders took place a hundred years ago and her first day there is the night after an imitator has started the Ripper murders again. Then Rory chokes one night during dinner and starts seeing ghosts, one of whom appears to be committing the murders. She gets a chance to see how the Shade Police work (London's ghost police.) 

For the most part I really liked the book although occasionally Rory would strike me as much younger then she was supposed to be. I liked the friends she made and the guy was interesting. I didn't realize this was going to be the beginning of a series and I am very curious about where this is going and the development of the ghostly powers.

Story Time: Letter A

So my very first story times were designed by my coworkers.  When the September rolled around and Fall Story Time started I was finally given the opportunity to design my own story time crafts.  I decided to go with an alphabet craft based on a parent's passing comment.

The letter A seemed like the most obvious place to start.  I did a google image search and came across lots of A crafts, but my favorite by far was the craft that turned the capital letter A into an alligator.  I found a full page print out of the Letter A cut it out and used it as a stencil to to cut out green letter A's, then cut small white and green triangles for eyes and teeth.   I also handed out crayons so that each of the kids could draw eyes into the green triangles and write their name on their alligator.

I read 4 books and did 2 songs.  For this story time I picked three alphabet books and one story book that focused on something that began with the letter A.  I also do the alphabet song and the hokey pokey because it helps get the wiggles out.

For the letter A story time I read: Max's ABC by Rosemary Wells
                                                    Alligator Alphabet by Stella Blackstone
                                                    Chicka Chicka Boom Boom by Martin Bill Jr.
Apple Farmer Annie by Monica Wellington

The Max and Ruby book was by far the most popular of the four books, and Chicka Chicka Boom Boom would have been more successful if I had gotten more of the kids to say the words along with me.  The other books were fairly well received.  All in all it was a good story time for my first time handling the whole thing.

Book Review: Breaking Stalin's Nose by Eugene Yelchin

I always think that books are supposed to make you feel things and this book definitely made me feel a barrage of different emotions. Sasha is a good communist. He wants nothing more then to become a pioneer but the night before the ceremony the police come to arrest his father. Sasha believes that it's an error; however from that point on everything seems to wrong for him.

At first I enjoyed the book but felt bad for Sasha. He just seemed so clueless. As the book wore on I just started to dread it. Horrible things were happening and it was just so hard to listen to (I probably wasn't having the right type of day for this either.) I did like the ending.  I think I needed nothing horrible to happen to this kid and for him and the reader to understand that even with all the horror and fear there were still good people.

This book does have illustrations.  Since I listened to the audiobook I didn't realize that.  Fortunately I happened to glance through a copy at work and realize it.  I took the time to page through the illustrations and while they are simple I think that they served a purpose of lightening up some of the story.

I think the author's informational note on the last page was very important. It helped to put things into a context and I believe that it is important for readers to understand that these things really happened to people.  

While this book was not the right book for me at the time I absolutely believe that it is well written, important and feel that the Newbery Honor was well deserved. 

Teen Craft: Glowing Jar

I was flipping through Instructables two years ago and came across this amazing project for a glowing sun jar.  I was completely sure that the teens would love the program but it required soldering which I 1.  Have had several horrible experiences with
and
2.  Soldering didn't feel like something I could pull off with a group of 20 teens ranging between 7th and 12th grade if I had to run the program by myself.  (This was before Maker Spaces gained popularity in the library)

However after looking through the instructable I decided to see if I could doctor it to make it more manageable for both myself and a large group of teens.

Materials:

Solar Powered Garden Lights (See photo on the left, these are ideal)
Wire Bale Glass Jar (jars in photo are not correct jars)
Glow in the Dark Paint (See note)
Foam brushes

Epoxy E-6000 Adhesive

Tin Foil
Hair Dryers

Packing Tape

1.  Paint a thin layer of glow in the dark paint on the inside of the jar.  Once finished hit the inside of the jar with the hair dryer until the paint is completely dry.  Repeat two more times for a total of 3 coats of paint.  If your initial coat of paint was thin it will be easier to apply subsequent coats of paint.

2.  Take a piece of tin foil, fold it into a square and stick it in the bottom of the jar.

3.  Unscrew the top of the light from the stake.  You don't need the stake for this project, you can either throw it away or save it for another project.  Unscrew the plastic from the garden stake as well.  It will just be a bare bulb hanging from the top.  Using the Epoxy glue the solar light into the top of the jar. Use two pieces of packing tape to hold the solar light in place until the adhesive dries and let the kids know that it can take up to 24 hours for it to dry.

Note:  I used Michael's paint on the test jar which is more green and ghoulish looking however it seemed to melt in the extreme summer heat over the course of the summer, I have since used paint purchased at Home Depot which seems to hold up better over time

Book Review: Cinder by Marissa Meyer

This Cinderella story takes place in the future after 4 world wars have ravaged the Earth and a plague is running rampant over the Earth. Cinder is the best mechanic in New Beijing. She works at a stall in the market and brings in the only money her family (which consists of one nice step sister, one evil stepsister and an evil stepmother) lives off of. Cinder is also a cyborg. When she was younger she was in a horrible accident and she was rebuilt with machine parts. When Peony (the nice sister) gets sick, Cinder's step mother volunteers her for the cyborg draft, where each day a cyborg is sent to test plague antidotes. Then she meets Dr. Erland and her whole life changes as Cinder learns more about both her body and her past and gets to spend more time with Prince Kai.

Over all I really liked this book. Cinder is a great character and I loved Iko and her malfunctioning personality chip. Kai is also a pretty interesting prince.  He comes across as smart and interesting and not as overly vain as one would expect. There were some things I figured out fairly early (it is Cinderella after all) and there were other twists that I was never expecting.  

I listened to this as an audiobook and I really enjoyed it.  I thought the narrator did a good job getting the different personalities and feelings to shine through with her voice.  I am hoping that when the next volume in the trilogy is released it will be available on audiobook at the library and that it will have the same narrator.