St. Patrick's Day from the Black Lagoon by Mike Thaler

Synopsis:

Hubie's feeling the pinch of St. Patrick's Day—or at least he will be if he can't find something green to save him! But he's having trouble going green. Will recycling his homework and turning off the lights be enough? Full of hilarious illustrations, funny wordplay, and a never-ending stream of anxieties, this story joins Hubie as he searches for the end of a rainbow, hunts for four-leaf clovers, and has a potlick at the ice cream shop on St. Patrick's day.

My thoughts:
It is time to get into the holiday spirit for St. Patrick's Day next week.  This was one of the dollar books in my son's book order last month.  Because we have so many books I usually tell them they can pick out a book that is a dollar or two, because we all know it is fun to get a new book but it just gets to be way too expensive to pick out just anything.

While I've read the strictly picture book Black Lagoon books this is the first chapter book one I've read.  My son has a few of them and he is perfectly able to read them on his own so they just haven't been what we've picked to read as a read aloud.  I was worried that it being a chapter book meant it would take a while to read, but it is surprisingly short.  There is a picture on every page along with jokes and things in the margins.  It was actually quite quick to read, but entertaining at the same time.  My children were laughing out loud at some of the jokes and passages.  For example there is a page of green things not to eat like boogers, poison ivy and broccoli.  Of all things they thought it was a hoot that you weren't supposed to eat broccoli.  I for sure thought it would be the boogers that would get that reaction!  I think these chapter books would be good for developing confidence with readers who were ready for chapter books but were intimidated by a lot of text or pages.  It is more like a picture book for an older reader put into chapter form.

Product details:
64 pages

Genre: Humor & Funny Stories
Theme: School Life; Funny Books; St. Patrick's Day
Ages 7–9
Paperback Book

For years, the Black Lagoon picture books have delighted kids with their humorous look at how imagination can magnify fear of the unknown. Now Hubie has taken his worries to the chapter-book level, where readers can laugh at the hilarious disasters he's anticipating and find out what really happens when he gets there. Full of silly puns and wordplay—both in the text and in the accompanying illustrations, drawn to maximum hilarity by Jared Lee, who also illustrates the picture-book series—the Black Lagoon chapter books are a great way for kids to expand their reading horizons while laughing off their own anxieties.

In My Mailbox 10

This week was a slow week for books for me.  I received two but since I am trying to read from my shelves this is actually a good thing!  The first book I already read and reviewed yesterday:

The second is from Gallery & Pocket Books Blog Tours on Book Blogs for review.  I will be posting a review for it closer to the end of the month.

Product Details

Pub. Date: March 2011
Publisher: Simon & Schuster Adult Publishing Group
Format: Paperback , 288pp
ISBN-13: 9781451600018
ISBN: 1451600011

Synopsis
A routine cake delivery becomes a culinary nightmare when a small-town baker discovers her first client’s dead body in this irresistible new mystery series.

It’ll take more than a little sugar to convince folks Daphne Martin’s freshly baked spice cake was not to blame for the mysterious death of town gossip Yodel Watson. Getting her new cake decorating business, Daphne’s Delectable Cakes, off the ground is hard enough now that Daphne’s moved back to her southern Virginia hometown, but orders have been even slower since she found Yodel’s body. She soon realizes, however, that just about everybody in town had a reason to poison the cantankerous busybody, from the philandering pet shop owner, to Yodel’s church potluck nemesis, to the Save-A-Buck’s cranky produce manager-turned-bagger. Now, to help prove she’s no confectionary killer, Daphne recruits her old flame, Ben Jacobs, editor of the local newspaper, and quickly stirs up a long-hidden family scandal that just might hold the secret ingredient she needs to solve the case. All she’s got to do is roll up her sleeves and get her hands a little dirty before the real culprit decides that taking sweet revenge on Daphne will be icing on the cake.

Dark Hunters Vol. 2 Story by Sherrilyn Kenyon Art by Claudia Campos

Product Description

In the war against vampires, mankind has only one hope: The Dark-Hunters. Ancient warriors who died of brutal betrayal, the Dark-Hunters have sworn themselves into the service of the goddess Artemis to protect us.

It's a pact with pretty good perks. Immortality, power, psychic abilities, wealth and a cool wardrobe. But it comes with a few drawbacks: fatal sun poisoning and a new, irreparable dental problem. But aside from the fangs and nocturnal lifestyle, it's not so bad.

Kyrian is an immortal Dark-Hunter who just lost his Dark-Hunter powers and along with it, his immortality. Now he is faced with the chance to regain not only his humanity, but his very soul. The problem is, it couldn’t have happened at a worse time. Desiderius is closing in and if Kyrian and Amanda are going to save humanity then Kyrian must take the war to his enemy or it may be too late.

My thoughts:
I decided to treat myself to this book last week and it arrived in the mail today.  Part of me is a little sorry that I decided to trade the first one on Paperbackswap after I read it.  It would have been nice to have still had it around when I started reading this one, but I am trying to work on not keeping too many books on my shelf.  I have so many around to read as it is that once I've read them I try to get them back out of my house to make room for other new to me books.

This book is the second half of Kyrian and Amanda's story.  By the end of the this book their story has concluded and volume three will start with Talon and his story.  From what I remember it starts right where volume one left off.  I have to also say, that contrary to part of my review yesterday, during this book when some of the other dark hunters are listed in conversation Samia is mentioned, so I guess her name has been there all along and I had forgotten about her.  I'm sure she was at the fight in Sanctuary and I just focused more on the characters I had already read about more.

Going back to this book, I enjoyed reading the rest of Kyrian and Amanda's story.  I did read the novel Night Pleasures a few years ago and from what I can recall this follows the story pretty well.  I am finding it interesting to see the story in a different way through illustrations.  I also love how quick the two volumes were to read.  I can see why a lot of readers enjoy them.  While a lot of the inner dialogue is lost in converting it to this form, the pictures are able to convey actions even more succinctly than words at times which allows for a quicker understanding.  It was also interesting to see how Nick was portrayed in the early stories in contrast to how he was in No Mercy.  Seeing him as a cocky and sarcastic but essentially care free and life loving twenty-four year-old is so different than he is now. 

I am now weighing in my mind whether of not I should by volumes 3 and 4.  While I really enjoy them if seems like a lot of money to spend on books that can each be read so quickly.  I also would love to read the Chronicles of Nick stories to see how Nick is shown is high school but so far haven't spent the money on it yet.  I would love to hear other readers thoughts on deciding if a book is worth spending money on! 


Product Details

Paperback: 208 pages
Publisher: St. Martin's Griffin; First Edition edition (March 2, 2010)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 0312554001
ISBN-13: 978-0312554002

No Mercy by Sherrilyn Kenyon

Synopsis
#1 New York Times bestselling author Sherrilyn Kenyon brings us back to the electrifying world of the Dark-Hunters and introduces us to a brazen heroine for whom there is

NO MERCY

Live fast, fight hard—and if you have to die, take as many of your enemies with you as you can. That is the Amazon credo and it was one Samia lived and died by. But today, in contemporary New Orleans, the immortal Amazon warrior is about to learn that there’s a worse evil coming to slaughter mankind than she ever could have imagined.

Meet Dev Peltier. A shapeshifter who has stood guard at the front of Sanctuary for almost two hundred years, he’s seen it all—or so he thought. His enemies have just discovered a new source of power—one that makes a mockery of anything faced to date. Now the war is on and it’s up to Dev and Samia to guard ground zero. But in order to win, they will have to break the most cardinal of all rules—and pray it doesn’t unravel the universe as we know it…

sherrilynkenyon.com
dark-hunter.com
officialsanctuary.com


 My thoughts:
It's been a while since I read my last Dark Hunter book and I was ready for a visit again.  When I started reading the series a year or two ago I actually started out of order.  I read Arecheron's book first because I came across it at the library, then I moved back to the beginning of the series and discovered more about each of the Dark-Hunters, Were-Hunters and the other characters who are a part of the series.  I have to admit it was a bit disconcerting to have each book posing questions about Archeron since I had already read the book with the answers about his past.

I don't recall anything about Samia in the past books, she may very well have been there but I don't think she stood out for me.  This book says she was at the fight that took place at Sanctuary the end of the last book when Nicolette Peltier died.  I do, however, recall Dev the Were Bear.  It seems to me that he has been in a number of past books since he has such a large roll in guarding the door at Sanctuary and for a long time was a good friend of both Nick and Archeron.  I remember his sarcasm and sense of humor from other books.

I enjoyed that Samia had been an Amazon since it goes along with the Wonder Woman comics that I have been rediscovering lately.  At one point in this novel she has a challenge with another Amazon, similar to the obstacles and feats she grew up with and it was really interesting to see how she fought through the challenge and how she retained her honor even when her opponent was cheating. 

It will be interesting to see how much these two will figure into future books.  Sometimes once a couple become a committed item they seem to disappear from the pages of the next book, sometimes they continue to make appearances.  I missed some of the early characters that were not in this one.  I hope that they will at least be talked about a bit in the next one and it will also be interesting to see how the birth of Archeron's child is handled in the books.

Biography

Sherrilyn Kenyon is a #1 New York Times bestselling author with more than sixteen million copies of her books in print, in over thirty countries. She is the author of the Dark-Hunter novels, which have an international cult following and always appear at the top of The New York Times, Publishers Weekly, and USA Today lists. Writing both as Sherrilyn Kenyon and Kinley MacGregor, she is also the author of several other series, including: The League, Brotherhood of the Sword, Lords of Avalon, The Dream-Hunters and the forthcoming Nevermore

Product Details

Pub. Date: September 2010
Publisher: St. Martin's Press
Format: Hardcover , 343pp
Series: Dark-Hunter Series , #18
ISBN-13: 9780312546564
ISBN: 0312546564

Dinosaurs Love Underpants by Claire Freeman and Ben Cort

Synopsis
Claire Freedman's Dinosaurs Love Underpants explains what really drove the dinosaurs to extinction in this fun read-aloud celebration of underpants!

My thoughts:
This was one of our new book order books this month.  My children have a lot of books, but it is so fun to get new ones every once in a while.  We try to use the library pretty regularly but one of our fun treats is ordering books from their classroom book orders.  I read this one to them last night and then today I saw both of my older children pick this book out to read to themselves.  From the title it is pretty clear that this is a humorous book.  The idea is that cavemen decided they needed underpants and when the dinosaurs saw underpants they decided they had to have them as well.  Fights over underpants caused the dinosaurs to fight until they were all extinct, thereby saving human kind from the mighty dinosaur predators.  After reading the teacher in me had to also initiate a discussion about how dinosaurs and humans were not alive at the same time.  Anthing having to do with underwear seems silly to my children so they had a lot of fun with this book!


Product Details

Pub. Date: December 2009
Publisher: Simon & Schuster Children's Publishing
Format: Hardcover , 32pp
Age Range: 4 to 7
ISBN-13: 9781416989387
ISBN: 1416989382

Wonder Girl #1 Written by JT KRUL; Art by ADRIANA MELO & MARIAH BENES; Cover by NICOLA SCOTT & DOUG HAZLEWOOD

Written by JT KRUL; Art by ADRIANA MELO & MARIAH BENES; Cover by NICOLA SCOTT & DOUG HAZLEWOOD


Spinning out of the pages of TEEN TITANS comes this spotlight on Cassie Sandsmark, the wonderful Wonder Girl! Even though not every moment of Wonder Girl's life is spent being a Titan, strange adventures still follow her everywhere. In this issue, she'll cross paths with the odd new hero known as Solstice!

DC Comics 32pg.Color $2.99 US

On Sale January 12, 2011

My thoughts:

Last weekend we went to a comic book store and my daughter saw this comic sitting next to Wonder Woman. I have to admit I had never heard of Wonder Girl before but told her we could buy it and read it together at home. My thought was that if she liked the series we would be in luck since this was issue number one. I'm not sure if it is a totally new title or a new version of an older character. But we enjoyed reading it together.

Wonder Girl is a young adult and I think that may make her more relatable to younger readers. In this issue Cassie Sandsmark goes to London to visit her mother at an archeological conference. Her mother is a mortal and her father is the god Zeus. While in the museum a villain comes to steal back an artifact and Cassie changes into Wonder Girl to stop her. She meets another teenager/young adult who is also a superhero named Solstice and they fight together.

I still think it is funny how for superheroes somehow changing clothes is a disguise, even though Cassie looks the same as Wonder Girl and as herself and the same with Solstice. I never understood how Superman could put on glasses and no one would recognize him, but I guess that is part of the element of suspending disbelief. Having Cassie be a half-blood reminded me of the Percy Jackson series. It will be interesting to see where the character goes from here and I thought the author did a good job telling a story with action while also introducing a character to readers. 

Gnomeo and Juliet, The Movie

A couple weeks ago I took my two older children to see Gnomeo and Juliet in 3D.  Our local AMC theater offers reduced rates on weekend mornings for shows before 12pm.  Because they only have eight screens our choices for kid friendly movies that day were either Gnomeo and Juliet or the Justin Bieber Never Say Never Movie.  My children don't seem to have much interest in Bieber, they know he sings but haven't expressed any interest in him, so we went with the first option.  I am not sold on the whole idea of 3D everything.  It wasn't a bad thing for this movie, but not a whole lot actually popped out at you.  This is the third thing we've seen in 3D, the first two were Tangled and Voyage of the Dawn Treader.  The 3D seemed more impressive in those two than in this one.

3D image aside, I enjoyed the movie and the retelling of Romeo and Juliet with garden gnomes.  There were some jokes that went over my children's heads.  At one point Gnomeo is talking to a statue of William Shakespeare in a park and my children didn't really understand who Shakespeare was.  The only thing I found to be slightly questionable about  the movie was the one male gnome who was wearing a bathing suit like the one used in Borat.  My son came home and told my husband that the gnome was "wearing a bathing suit you could see his butt in".  Other than that (and that gnome did have quite a few funny scenes and lines) it was family friendly and appropriate.  All three of us enjoyed watching it and had a good time being a part of the audience.