It's a tumultuous time for the world of the printed book. With all the recent technology that has arrived in consumers hands along with the proliferation of e-books, the big question is what will happen to printed books in the near future. The discussion usually views the printed book as an outdated form of presenting a book. Something that is no longer advanced.
Welcome back to our series of posts all about our favourite books for children designed to give you some gift ideas for the holiday season. In our previous posts we covered our favourite board books for infants and toddlers and our favourite picture books for kids. This time around we will focus on our favourite chapter books for beginner readers.
Welcome back to our series of posts on our favourite books for children of different ages to give you some gift ideas for the holiday season. In our last post we covered our favourite board books for infants and toddlers and this time around we will focus on our favourite picture books for pre-school to early elementary school aged children.
The Holiday season is fast approaching and many of you will be searching for the perfect gifts for the children in your life. Obviously we think that books are a great gift idea, so to help you narrow down the search we thought we would suggest some of our favourite titles for different age groups.
First up, here are some of our favourite board books for infants and toddlers.
With the holidays fast approaching, now is a perfect time for us to talk a little bit about how important it is to shop at local independent businesses.
We are the owners of Tall Tales Books, a small bookshop specializing in quality books for children and young adults in Victoria BC. Since we opened our store in August 2009 we have learned firsthand how important it is for a small independent business to receive support from the community. The surprising thing is that a little support goes a very long way.
It's that time of year again where we get to dress up in wacky costumes and celebrate all things scary. Unfortunately, when it comes to holiday-themed children's books, often times they tend to be sub-par at best. Take a well known character from TV, put them in a costume, add a pumpkin and throw it on the market - why worry about a story or good writing? There is nothing that makes us madder than bad books for children. So, we would like to offer up a few of our favourite spooky books for little children.
The great thing about the book biz is that each season brings brand new releases to the shelves. We live in an almost constant state of excitement in our store as we receive some wonderful new children's book every couple of weeks if not more frequently. These new books are almost entirely from current authors and illustrators with the occasional re-issue of a classic.
As we've spoken about before, sometimes context can alter the way you think of a piece of art, whether it be the context in which you are exposed to the art or knowing the context in which the art was created. This has recently been our experience with the brand new picture book, "Bumble-Ardy" (Harper Collins 2011), by Maurice "Where the Wild Things Are" Sendak.
We started our little bookstore and immersed ourselves in the world of children's literature because we love it. It doesn't matter how long it's been and how many books come through our store, we still get excited when a new book is delivered. We get all giddy when we find out that there will be a new release from one of our favourite authors or illustrators and when we discover an amazing new book we become borderline annoying because we can't wait to share it with everyone we can.
Right now, as I am writing this post, a good friend of ours is in the middle of labour, expecting her third child (Hi Sandra!). As we've been waiting for this day, we've been thinking about some of our favourite books to give to expectant parents. Of course there is the old stand-by "Love You Forever" by Robert Munsch and Sheila McGraw, but we aren't huge fans of it. Instead, we'd like to offer up these three alternatives that you may not have heard of.
One of the things we love about children's books is that they deal with a lot of life's issues and problems in straightforward, easy to understand, and often times humorous ways. The best part is not only can children benefit from the lessons and morals found within the pages, but adults can as well. One author/illustrator who is great at speaking to children and also adults is Nicholas Oldland. It's no secret around here that we love his books.
We've always found it odd that pirates have become such popular characters for children. Gone are the brutal realities of their exploits, replaced with funny little costumes and odd speech. We're not sure what has made this sanitized modern image of pirates popular, it's probably "Treasure Island" or the Disneyland "Pirates of the Caribbean" ride, but whatever the reason it is here to stay. Not only are pirates popular characters for Halloween costumes and Lego sets, but there are also some mighty fine picture books with pirate characters. Here are some of "arrrrr" favourites:
I will be the first to admit that I am a book snob. We have always operated our bookshop based on what we consider quality titles, books that everyone can enjoy reading; to the exclusion of ones we consider to be inferior. There's nothing worse as a parent than being stuck reading terrible books to your little one night after night after night. There's nothing that will discourage a child more, than reading something they don't enjoy. Having said that, we are also a business, so we try to carefully toe the line between what is popular and what it good.
As most of you probably know, we are the owners of Tall Tales Books in beautiful Victoria, British Columbia. Our bookstore specializes in quality books for children and young adults. We opened our store in August 2009 for no other reason than we wanted to do something we loved and get good books into the hands of the children in our community.
Father's Day is rapidly approaching and we have the perfect book to talk about: the brand new picture book "Give Me Back My Dad!" by Robert Munsch and Michael Martchenko. Not only is this a fun read, there is also an entertaining story behind it.
I love a good mystery, but I will be first to admit that I'm not the swiftest when trying to figure out "whodunnit". I take a story as it comes at me and rarely try to think ahead. Having said that, I do appreciate mystery novels that allow a reader to try to put the pieces together and figure out the ending along with the characters. What drives me crazy though is when critical pieces of information are withheld from the reader for no good reason just to maintain the "mystery".
I recently read this article written by fellow YMC blogger Buzz Bishop which is about remembering to record as many moments with loved ones as you can so that those times forever remembered. So I am stepping out of the normal book-related focus of our blog to talk a bit about our little one and how much our videos have helped me appreciate the past few years. I am definitely the person who remembers to bring the camera but never remembers to use it.
