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osprey_archerNot a lot of picture books today! We have been going through an older stack of books, which means they tend to need more repairs, so I don't get through as many of them and am therefore less likely to find gems.
I did read one adorable one, though: Barbara M. Lucas's Snowed In, which is about a family in the rural west in the early twentieth century who gets snowed in on their homestead for part of every winter. They prepare by buying a whole lot of paper and pencils, checking out a crate of books at the library (I sure hope that library doesn't have overdue fines), and then reading and writing and drawing the winter away. And also doing a whole bunch of farm chores, like you do.
Very gentle, very sweet, lovely soft watercolor illustrations.
We also had another Angelina Ballerina book show up: Angelina's Birthday Surprise, which has the same gorgeously detailed illustrations as the first Angelina Ballerina book I read. I particularly liked the page where Angelina visits the general store, which is crammed chock full of all sorts of everything; I have always loved these pictures with picturesque stores or pantries or closets or whatever. I actually think I drew some of these pantry scenes of my own as a child, although I suspect that most of the glorious detail never got translated from my head to the page.
***
While we're on the topic of children's media, I finally finished all the episodes of My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic that are on Netflix. For some reason, the show cuts off midway through season 5. MLP is completely episodic so it's not like there's a cliffhanger, but it seems like a weird choice.
Anyway. I did quite like a few of the episodes, like "Slice of Life," which is actually about a bunch of new characters including a secret agent pony who has been in deep cover ever since her agency dissolved following a catastrophic fight with a monster called a Bugbear (a giant bear that is half bumblebee) - okay, so maybe I kind of wanted a spinoff show for this one-off character who got three lines of dialogue - but I think on the whole the quality has declined since season one. Of course it's been a while since I've seen it, but I think in season one, the writers were either better at picking problems that they could solve in a twenty-minute episode, or maybe better at cramming lots of story into twenty minutes so the solutions would seem earned. Or maybe just better at coming up with solutions that weren't so pat?
At any rate, many of the solutions in season 5 did feel too pat to me, and perhaps too focused on coming to a feel-good conclusion at the expense of any kind of realism.
I did read one adorable one, though: Barbara M. Lucas's Snowed In, which is about a family in the rural west in the early twentieth century who gets snowed in on their homestead for part of every winter. They prepare by buying a whole lot of paper and pencils, checking out a crate of books at the library (I sure hope that library doesn't have overdue fines), and then reading and writing and drawing the winter away. And also doing a whole bunch of farm chores, like you do.
Very gentle, very sweet, lovely soft watercolor illustrations.
We also had another Angelina Ballerina book show up: Angelina's Birthday Surprise, which has the same gorgeously detailed illustrations as the first Angelina Ballerina book I read. I particularly liked the page where Angelina visits the general store, which is crammed chock full of all sorts of everything; I have always loved these pictures with picturesque stores or pantries or closets or whatever. I actually think I drew some of these pantry scenes of my own as a child, although I suspect that most of the glorious detail never got translated from my head to the page.
***
While we're on the topic of children's media, I finally finished all the episodes of My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic that are on Netflix. For some reason, the show cuts off midway through season 5. MLP is completely episodic so it's not like there's a cliffhanger, but it seems like a weird choice.
Anyway. I did quite like a few of the episodes, like "Slice of Life," which is actually about a bunch of new characters including a secret agent pony who has been in deep cover ever since her agency dissolved following a catastrophic fight with a monster called a Bugbear (a giant bear that is half bumblebee) - okay, so maybe I kind of wanted a spinoff show for this one-off character who got three lines of dialogue - but I think on the whole the quality has declined since season one. Of course it's been a while since I've seen it, but I think in season one, the writers were either better at picking problems that they could solve in a twenty-minute episode, or maybe better at cramming lots of story into twenty minutes so the solutions would seem earned. Or maybe just better at coming up with solutions that weren't so pat?
At any rate, many of the solutions in season 5 did feel too pat to me, and perhaps too focused on coming to a feel-good conclusion at the expense of any kind of realism.
