Court

Very lovely. Browsed to pick up a few ideas.
I really appreciated how Christine Leech set up some vocabulary and basics in the beginning.
I'll have to see what else of her's I can find.

I read a review that pointed out how difficult it is to scan the templates, too bad the book publisher didn't have the template pages fold out for easier copying & scanning.

Some wisdom and cleverness with a dash of humor.
I forget how I came to read this but it was a nice break from my normal reading patterns, it's been a while since I've read a book of poems.

The art is amazing!

The characters are mostly interesting and strike a decent balance between ‘enough mystery' and ‘exposition overload'. However, I feel like there was a point where I maybe missed a chunk (or it felt like it) and wondered: ‘how did we get here?'

More a diary entry rather than a true review.
Today Living Classroom had our first graders made vegetable soup from the garden vegetables that they grew themselves. It went really well.
Before we harvested they read this book. The kids seemed to like it and I enjoyed that they caught on to the repetition and the concept.
I'm not a fan of the art style on this one.

3.5

Fit in well with our ninja theme

This had such great potential...she could have gone further. This felt like she had a great idea, and then got bored/lazy with it and didn't carry it far enough.

Had a ninja theme today, this fit in nicely

Mixed bag as with many collections :) however everything was interesting, novel, or potentially mind opening.

I wanted to like this, it had potential but I couldn't get past the way it was written. The prose is pretty, but it's non-linear...where is the pretty prose going?

Read in Amphigorey Too, wanted to separately rate the story. Although, I also read this as a stand alone. It's one of my favorites of Gorey's.

I love the medium of the alphabet to carry the momentum of a short story. I thought it was clever and well done. I appreciated that it wasn't overdone, like it didn't get alliterative, etc.

I was a little disappointed because I picked it up not knowing that it was an entire book of covers. However, many of them are lovely, clever, or otherwise wonderful.

Am I missing something? Was there another page or part? The prose and style was nice, but the content was a little lacking.
The boy that Kate meets, his name changes, he started off as Noel from eight year and then becomes Noah from first period. I was waiting for it to turn out to be a trick/con or for it to somehow play a role in the story. Then it's cliche name for the main character that forgets her name turns out to be Ash. Finally this: "It looks like a supernova, or the northern lights. But it isn't. It's a bomb. Hundreds of bombs. All going off a thousand miles away. “They're so pretty,” Jess says. I nod because there's nothing more to say."

Good pace and fascinating premise. Lacked resolution and I didn't understand the part of José running towards them. Was it to give false hope, to build up suspense, to show that people 'outside' weren't aging?


2021 update: This has been adapted into a movie directed, and produced by M. Night Shyamalan, with the title changed to ‘Old'.

The art is beyond lovely, however the ending is very cheesy.


And yay now I have more artists/authors to look up

Partly fictionalized telling of his mid-life realizations, mixed in were a woman's own and thoughts and regrets. Not sure what I was expecting, there was some honesty here, but also nothing surprising or novel, which may have been the point...

Ok, didn't read the book, read the webcomic. It was very good. I'm not a parent, but I do work with kids and I am a daughter myself. I shared some with my dad. He told me “You weren't that bad.” There are a few plausibilities, his memory is going, he lied, or I'm an only child...

I work with young children. It was nice because it wasn't mind numbing for the adult reading it.

Read at http://www.classicshorts.com/stories/EndParty.html

yay for twists! Although I did have to read the last paragraph a few times.

Loved the build up, excellent pacing and various horror/thriller elements without being over the top.

Lovely art and the sentiments for each letter were poetic

Probably a 3, but the joy when one of my ‘kiddo's read this was contagious, we both grinned. At first he asked me to read, but I never got the chance; I read the title but omitted the author's name which he read and then just didn't stop.
He loved all the little detail, especially the little mouse.

At times it was very difficult to read which frustrated me and biased me against the characters. There was a lot that wasn't said and it seemed to jump around.

Maybe I was expecting more from something that's only supposed to be a ‘pet project'.

A favorite of one of my kiddos that's great as a song. I forget when we first listened to it, but it was a few years ago.

Read this a few years ago while working in a first grade room.

Didn't always love the writing style or poetry, but it had heart and I agreed with the soul of the message.