reviews
We love music in our house. We are always singing a song or making up a melody to accompany our conversations. We listen to music constantly in the car. Now that we live in such a rural area, we spend a lot more time listening to music. We were recently contacted by Sara Fischer Hodges about her husband’s new album, KiddyDittys (A Kid’s Album for Adults). I was excited to work with Sara in sharing John Jeffrey Hodges latest CD.
We’ve been listening on and off again to this CD for several weeks now. John’s voice is deep and crooner-like. He brings energy to his music without being hyper like some kid music out there (I’m thinking camp song CDs, here). It’s a nice change of pace for evening listening or long Sunday drives.
Brent and I also really like his lyrics. This album is written from a parent’s perspective and covers everything from the humorous side of parenting (Garbage Day) to the sentimental (Your Father). We chuckled through the whole song Garbage Day because it was so true to life. They lyrics start “If you don’t do what I say, I’m going to take those toys away and put them in the garbage on garbage day. I’m gonna throw those toys away!” How often I have felt that. I have even made that threat a few times.
John Jeffrey Hodges brings a fresh perspective to the for-kids music scene. I like that his songs are from a parent’s point of view and remind me of all the aspects of parenting. He is unique as is the artwork on his CD. Sara shared this story with me about the cover:
The cover art for KiddyDittys (A Kid’s Album for Adults) was painted by Dave Osmun (“Oz”) of Temple, NH. Dave is one of Jeff’s oldest and dearest friends. He’s an amazing human being and one of the most talented people you will ever meet. Oz has been confined to a wheelchair for over 30 years as the result of an accident. He is a quadriplegic, paralyzed from the neck down, and paints with a paintbrush attached to a stick which he holds in his mouth.
The painting on the cover was done specifically for this project. Jeff and Oz met as teenagers in the small town of Siasconset (‘Sconset), MA, on Nantucket Island’s eastern shore, where their families spent summers – and where both Jeff and Oz return each year to spend time with each other and many of their childhood friends who have known each other for close to 50 years.
The painting reflects the ‘Sconset bluff as well as Sankaty Lighthouse and Sesachacha Pond. If you look closely, however, you’ll see that the painting also represents a subliminal guitar. This painting was Oz’s concept and we could not be more proud or happy to have this incredible piece of art as our cover for this album.
There are two copies of KiddyDittys (A Kid’s Album for Adults) available to participants in the Fall Fling. If you haven’t already, please comment on the post, Join the Fall Fling to enter the giveaway. Please leave a comment here for an additional entry.
Even though my little ones aren’t in school yet, Fall still means to me new crayons and pencils, new backpacks and, most importantly, new books. As an only child, I have long loved books. They were friends when I was bored and home, alone, on a mountain in Vermont. In fact, that is where I found my passion for reading late into the night. It was Little Women
But I digress. Getting a new book is always a treat for me. I think because of my love of reading and Sammi’s own personality, she has also become a little book lover. I mentioned on Saturday that we received a couple books from Scholastic recently: I’m Your Bus and Mama Says: A Book of Love for Mothers and Sons. The third book that came in our package was I Spy A To Z
Back when we lived in Utah (it feels so much longer ago than it really is) we went to the Museum of Art at Brigham Young University and saw the Walter Wick exhibit. It was fantastic. They had display cases with some of the actual objects used in the pictures positioned close to the pictures where the objects were used. Brent and Sammi spent a good deal of time choosing an object and then looking at all the pictures until they found the object again. Sammi love it.
When I saw this book, I thought it would be a great way to remember that exhibit. But I was wary of how much Sammi would get the concept of finding specific objects in the pictures. I also wasn’t sure how her attention span would hold up to the length of the book. She is only barely three, after all! But again, she surprised me.
She wanted to look at the book because it was new and exciting. We opened it up to the beginning and I read the first riddle to her. Then we looked at the pictures in the riddle and looked for them in the bigger picture. The first page she wasn’t all that sure what we were ding and I figured it was a lost cause. I was ready to put the book away for 6 months or even a year. But she wanted me to read another page. So I did.
On the second page, it clicked. She got the point of the riddle and the book came to life for her. She needed some help finding them, but she was thoroughly engaged in this book. It is now a regular bedtime book. There are a variety of layouts for the objects, but Sammi prefers the clean look of a white background with a few objects arranged in a more organized manner. She still likes to look at the other pages, but she only wants to find the objects on the “white pages” as we now call them.
I’m surprised and pleased that she likes this book already. It’s fun to look at together. As I also mentioned on Saturday, Scholastic and joined the Fall Fling by offering a copy of Mama Says to one lucky reader. Click here to leave a comment, if you haven’t already, to enter the giveaway. Please, leave a comment on this post, too for an additional entry!
Reading is a perfect activity any time of year, if you ask me, but I particularly enjoy reading in the fall. The cool weather, the start of the school year, the ability to curl up with a blanket again and not melt from the heat of summer are all reasons why I enjoy reading in the fall.
Recently we received a lovely package in the mail from Scholastic. We already posted our review of I’m Your Bus by Marylin Singer. Today I thought I’d share the hidden gem in the package. This one was slipped in at the last minute and we didn’t know we’d be receiving Mama Says: A Book of Love for Mothers and Sons.
I was hesitant at first since my little ones are girls. I wasn’t sure how Sammi would react to a book focused on boys. But she saw it and insisted I read it. Thank goodness she loves books and didn’t judge this one by its cover. To my surprise, she loved the book. I read it two or three times through the very first time we sat down to read it.
The book is written in verse. Each page is devoted to the relationship between mother and son in a different culture. As a linguist I loved that they included the text in English and the language of the culture on each page. Unfortunately they didn’t include any of the languages I know, but they did have Russian (by far more popular than Bulgarian) and I was able to sound out the Cyrillic alphabet to make an attempt at reading it.
They do have one page for Japan and since Brent knows Japanese, Sammi always insists he read the Japanese lines after I read the English. She was very disappointed one day when we read the book while Brent was at school and I couldn’t read the Japanese page. Maybe someday I’ll get around to learning Japanese.
I was surprised that this book intended for mothers and sons had such appeal to my daughter. But she really enjoys it. Even when I pulled it off the shelf to write the review she wanted us to drop everything to read it again. The message is one of strength, love and wisdom. A message that rings true for any parent-child relationship, regardless of gender.
The text of Sammi’s beloved Japanese page:
Mama says
Be honest
Mama says
Be true
Mama says
To put my heart
In everything I do
I’m excited to announce that a copy of Mama Says: A Book of Love for Mothers and Sons from Scholastic has been added to the list of prizes in our Fall Fling giveaway. Leave a comment here to enter to win on of our amazing prizes. Also, you can blog about how you welcome fall for extra entries. To read last week’s posts from BBGU readers, check out yesterday’s post.
Marie from Make and Takes has an endless supply of craft ideas that she shares on her blog. She has just released an eBook with crafts focused around the theme monsters. I thought the theme was perfect since we are approaching Halloween, but Marie points out in the introduction that monsters are silly, playful imaginary creatures that children can relate to on some level and is therefore a great anytime theme for a craft. Great point!
I had so much fun clicking through the pages of the Monster Mania: Crafts for Little Monsters eBook. Each craft immediately drew me in and got me thinking about what supplies I had, which I needed to get and how I’d do it with Sammi. By the last page, I was wiggling right out of my seat just excited to get crafting.
For the Monster Me Mask craft I actually had everything on hand, which was great because I didn’t lose my energy for the project. Elli was down for a nap so I got out all of the supplies and got us set up. Elli then woke up earlier than I thought. I hesitated, but decided to strap her into the booster chair and get crafting.
We had so much fun! Sammi helped me put the glue on the plates and then I squished the crepe paper around it. Then I gave her options for accessories and she did the rest. Elli also got to choose her accessories and I glued them on for her. My biggest regret is that our paper plates are flimsy and I should have double (or triple) plated.
Marie explains that the eBook is meant to be a guide and that when you or your child come up with a new interpretation, to go with it and let the creative juices flow. I found a stack of smaller plates and we made Sammi’s new bear his own monster mask. Sammi really liked that extension of the craft, especially since even though her mask was finished, she was wasn’t done.
Because it’s meant to be a guide and allow room for individual creativity, the directions are not super specific and a lot of steps are left implied or only shown in the illustrations. Sometimes that’s hard for me because I tend to be a rule follower to the tee. But it stretches me to find my own creativity, a good exercise for me and the girls.
Currently I’m gathering supplies for the rest of the crafts in the Monster Mania: Crafts for Little Monsters eBook. I have bags of candy for the Spooky Monster House and foam paper for the Furry Monster Feet. Make and Takes offering the Monster Mania: Crafts for Little Monsters eBook to one lucky Fall Fling participant. Visit this post and leave a comment to enter to win. Also, if you’ve written a blog post about how you welcome fall, don’t forget to leave the link in the comments so I can check it out and highlight it on Friday.
Rebecka is back to give us a full report on the Timpanogos Storytelling Festival. Over Labor Day weekend Rebecka attended the Festival with her three children. She introduced us to the Festival in this post. Rebecka has been a guest blogger on Because Babies Grow Up during our series on Emergent Literacy Skills.
Hello again everyone at Because Babies Grow Up! You know that Amber gave our family her weekend pass to the Timpanogos Storytelling Festival. I’m trying to decide how to tell you how incredible it was. If you read my email about Thursday night’s performance and multiply it by 100 you would have the essence of our experience. The festival definitely has something for everyone. Some tellers are funny, some are inspiring, some are both. Some tell stories from their own lives, some tell beautiful folk and fairy tells, and some tell outrageous tales that started from the truth of their own experiences but grew to the unbelievable.
Story telling is a great way to bring your family together. When you listen to a story together you’re changed together. Later when a family member sees a connection between your family’s experience and a story you heard together they will make a joke or share the connection and you are drawn together by the experience again.
My girls are 12 and 14, and my son just turned 11. The girls wanted to be at every event. They loved everything. Steven however got tired quickly. A few of the tellers just grabbed him and drew him in, but he was not very patient when he had to listen to tellers who didn’t. So I let him stay at home for many of the daytime events. The event that is best suited for young children is Friday night’s Bedtime Stories. If you have small children you may want to only take them to that event. If you do take children to the daytime events they might like the puppet shows better. This year there was also a mime and a juggler.
The weekend was jam packed and we were totally exhausted by Sunday morning, but it was worth it. A great thing about the festival is that it begins Thursday evening on labor day weekend, but the last event is Saturday night so you still have Sunday and Monday to recover before you have to go back to work and school. A weekend pass is only $100, which for a family of five or six is a bargain. We are definitely going to make the Timpanogos Storytelling Festival a family tradition. We think you’ll like it too.
Thanks so much to Rebecka and her family for enjoying the festival and telling us all about it! If you’re sad you missed the festival, I have good news. You don’t have to wait all the way until next September to enjoy the art of storytelling. The Timpanogos Storytelling Festival also hosts a MidWinter Conference in February. This conference includes general storytelling sessions open to the public, but it is so much more. There are workshops on storytelling presented in schools and workshops for adults presented around Utah Valley. This is a great way to experience great storytelling and get your feet wet, too! Happy Storytelling. Thanks again, Cherish Bound for a great event.
Since our “untimely” move to Tennessee did not allow me to attend the Timpanogos Storytelling Festival, I passed my tickets onto a friend of mine you may remember from this post on literacy. She and her family attended the first day of the Storytelling Festival on Thursday. I received this wonderful email from her telling me about their experience. I thought I would share it with you and encourage you to get tickets if you don’t have any yet! September 5th is the last day of the Festival, so you’ll want to hurry. Here’s what Rebecka shared about their experience:
Amber,
You know the story telling festival began today, and I am amazed at
how blessed we are that you thought of us to take your ticket. We went
to the “Look Who’s Talking” event. We heard six storytellers. It was
the best entertainment we’ve seen in, well forever. From touching to
hysterical we were enthralled, and tonight was only the
“taste of what’s to come.” Steve’s favorite was Bil Lepp who told a
story of being chased by 5 wild dogs and 500 prairie dogs while he
tried to run away on the 12 ft high stilts he’d built to stand on
while he painted the second story windows of his home. Every time Bil
would say, “Oh yeah, I forgot to tell you…….” the story became
more and more crazy and unbelievable. Steve was banging his head on my
knee he was so caught up in the ridiculousness of it all.Heather Forest told a Jewish folk tale that is the beginning of the
phrase “words like feathers fly.” Her song has the lyrics “cruel words
like feathers fly.” I hope she has recorded this story. I want to use
it in my elementary school classroom.Barry and I enjoyed all the tellers but were especially delighted with
Carmen Agra Deedy. She told a story that could have happened to any of
us, parts of which have happened to all of us, with voices and faces
that were…….I can’t think of a description, partly because her
performance was beyond words and partly because my past-bed-time brain
is beyond words.The kids are especially looking forward to hearing Bill Harley
tomorrow. I’m excited for them to have an experience so rich. I was
teasing Steve and asked if the show wasn’t better than playing PS2. He
surprised me by having to debate about which he would rather do: Play
PS2 or listen to stories. This tells me that he NEEDS to hear stories.
Thank you for the perfect medicine.I will use part of this email in the blog post I promised. Or if you
want to post some of it now feel free. It’s not too late for your
readers to get tickets. And you can see just one event if you want.
www.timpfest.orgThanks again, Rebecka
PS I hope you are well, miss you and your sweet girls
Thanks for such a fun email! We miss you and your family, too. Can’t wait for the full report on the Timpanogos Storytelling Festival. I just want to thank Cherish Bound again for being a sponsor of the Timpanogos Storytelling Festival this year and providing me the opportunity to experience their company and sending my friend and her family to the Festival.
I was inspired to find more gown-up style kids’ music after the positive feedback on the post about For the Kids. I didn’t have to go very far to find the band Milkshake who releases a brand new CD (their fourth) today! They offered us a CD to review and we jumped at the chance to hear the sounds of a rock band turned kids’ music band.
We got the CD on our way out the door to the grocery store. Now that we live in rural Tennessee, a drive to the grocery store and back was enough time to hear almost the entire CD. We danced, bopped our heads and even chimed in on the chorus of a couple songs that were pretty easy to learn. I think my favorite part of the initial listen was the first song. It’s energetic, catchy and fun then there’s a guitar solo. It’s perfect.
After listening to it quite a few times now, we find ourselves singing You Did It! anytime those words are appropriate for our situation. This is a CD our whole family has enjoyed together. I’m interested, too, in going back to their earlier albums. The band turned from indie rock to kids’ music when band members became parents. Their first CD was made when their children were babies/toddlers and so it has great appeal to that age group. As their children have grown, so has the music and themes of the songs. I think the girls will love to grow up with this band!
To celebrate the release of their new album, Great Day, Milkshake has offered to giveaway one CD to one lucky Because Babies Grow Up reader! You have one week to accumulate as many entries as you’d like! Here’s how:
- Visit Milkshake’s fan page on Facebook and check out the songs from the new album on the left side. Come back and leave a comment about which song you like. (required)
- Become a fan of Milkshake on Facebook. Leave a new comment telling me that you did. (1 entry)
- Subscribe to Because Babies Grow Up’s new subscription feed in the right sidebar. Leave a comment saying you subscribed. (1 entry)
- Share the post on any of your favorite social bookmarking/networking sites. You can use the button links at the end of this post. Please leave a comment for each site you share it on. (1 entry per site)
This giveaway is open until Sunday night. A winner will be chosen at random from the comments using Random.org and will be announced Monday morning. The winner will have until Monday evening to claim the CD. If I have not heard from the winner by Monday night, a new winner will be chosen and announced Tuesday morning.
Enjoy checking out the band Milkshake and sharing this wonderful band with friends, family and your favorite social networks!
*By the way, my baby turns 1 today! Happy Birthday, Elizabeth. We love having you in our family.
Back to school is my favorite time of year. The weather starts to cool down; I get to buy new boxes of crayons, notebooks of paper and pretty pencils; and school begins. I’m sort of a nerd. I recognize that and have even learned to embrace it. I love school. I love new books; I love learning; and sometimes I even love homework!
Since the girls are still too young to really embrace the back to school frenzy, I do what I can to get them excited about buying crayons and learning about things related to school. That’s why I was really excited for the chance to review I’m Your Bus by Marilyn Singer published by Scholastic
Sammi loves buses. For over a year now she has talked endlessly about when she’ll get to ride a bus to school. One day she even went to far as to tell me all the rules of riding on a bus and that she would help the bus driver tell the other kids to follow the rules! When she saw we had a book with a giant school bus on the front, she was ecstatic. She dropped everything she was doing and wanted to read it right away.
I’m happy to say that the book didn’t disappoint. It’s written in rhyme and introduces all the different times kids ride the bus as well as different aspects of the school day. Sammi loved that it gave names for the children riding the bus. She points to the different kids and asks who is who. She also likes to read the marquee on the buses on the different pages.
I liked the rhyme scheme because it’s not your typical four line rhyme. It has three lines in a row that rhyme and then the next two lines are like the chorus ending with “I’m your bus.” I’ve enjoyed reading it with her again and again. It’s given us something concrete to hold and look at as we’ve talked about the unknown that is school.
It’s fun to see Sammi get excited about school. She’s just aching to go. I finally found a “preschool” program I’m comfortable with here. I can take her just two days a week for about 2 1/2 hours. She’s so excited to start and I’m interested to see how she adjusts to spending that kind of time away from home on such a frequent basis.
I love to tell stories! Don’t we all? I love the build up, the climax, the laughter at the end. It’s the greatest. It’s one of the reasons I love bogging so much. It’s a place to record stories. Here I am with a few other local (in Utah) bloggers.
Last November I had the privileged of meeting Carol Rice, co-founder of Cherish Bound, at a retreat for women entrepreneurs sponsored by Startup Princess. She was lovely to chat with, very approachable and down-to-earth. I never even guessed the size of the company she and Bruce Jensen oversee. So when I was invited to learn more about the company and their commitment to storytelling, I was excited to help out this “small” startup.
Boy was I surprised to find this company is nationally well-known. Although not surprising once I saw the products they offer for capturing family stories. They have everything you need to tell a great story from chat cards and daily journals to story starters and celebrations. Then the icing on the cake! Once you have discovered a story you want to tell, they have the software to record your story with pictures and then publish it into a beautiful book.
As a treat, we were invited to choose a story from our own lives, record it and then publish it. We received story starter books to help us along the way. I received the story starter My Family intended to help children discover an record their stories. So, I decided to interview Sammi and have her write the story. I pulled out the voice recorder and opened the book and talked to her while she was eating. Probably not the easiest to understand her with a mouth full of food, but she was stationary and quite talkative. Since we just moved I thought it would be fun to record some of our memories from our home in Utah as well as her first impressions of Tennessee. These were combined with her own descriptions of our family. About Daddy she said, “Daddy’s good at ducks. He just waddles and tries to catch one.” We have no idea where this came from! But it’ll be fun to laugh about with her when she’s older. She also said he’s “good at telling stories and singing songs.” Which is very true. She and I had a lot of fun talking about different memories and all the members of our family.
Once I had her story, it was easy to pick pictures to illustrate what she said, except for the ducks. Then I went onto Cherish bound’s website and logged in to the publishing center to put the book together. The editing software was very easy to use. I figured it all out without ever using the help function. I like that in software! I chose page layouts then added photos and text. When you go through a Cherish Bound consultant you get a personal coach to walk you through all the steps of organizing and compiling. They’re wonderful.
Once I finished my book and read through it, I had Brent read it and then I submitted it for publishing. It went so smoothly. My book arrived yesterday and Sammi was so excited to sit down and read her book. She loved the pictures. As I read the questions again, she answered them again. Some answers were different, but most were the same as we had recorded in the book. When Brent came home, she told him about the book first thing then drug him off to her room so he could read it to her. What a great experience for her to have a book she helped write that is about the people and memories she loves best!
Cherish Bound didn’t stop here! Their commitment to storytelling led to becoming a sponsor this year of the Timpanogos Storytelling Festival in Utah. This is a great event where storytellers from around the nation come together to entertain, educate and enlighten their audiences. I am so sad we’ll miss it. But my friend Rebecka is going and will give us a full report of how she and her family enjoyed it. This year the festival runs September 3-5, 2009.
At the beginning of May I had the chance to attend the Utah Valley Women’s Expo. This is a great annual event where companies come to showcase their products and services. My birthday also happens to be at the beginning of May. I finagled a day to myself to explore the Expo. Even with a day all to myself, it’s hard to take off the Mom hat!
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