Review: COZY CLASSICS - THE ADVENTURES OF TOM SAWYER by Jack and Holman Wang

Have you seen these books by Jack and Holman Wang?

The pair are the author-artists behind an entire series of boardbooks that use adorable felt characters to retell classic stories such as TOM SAWYER, PRIDE AND PREJUDICE, MOBY DICK, and more....

Yes, Board Books.

Now 'RETELL' is perhaps a bit of a misleading term because these books have virtually no text. The first page (above) might lead you to think that there's text, but that's not the case.

The entirety of the Cozy Classic's Tom Sawyer contains just a dozen words: Hide, Paint, Kiss, Cry, Play, Camp, Storm, Home, Cave, Lost, Out, and Gold.

This cute video gives you an idea of what the books contain and what you might do with them.

Here are a set of sample pages from Tom Sawyer.

I don't know whether this book will work for you and yours.  There is certainly no proof that children introduced to the classics in this way will be more interested in them as teens.  But the artwork is very engaging and I believe it's worth an experiment to see how your child reacts to the story and the book's presentation.  (go library!)

I CAN SEE...
-- I can see an adult refreshing their memory about the plot lines of these classics and then introducing the stories, in very simple terms, to their young children.

-- I can see using these books in a classroom setting with older children. The assignment being that they should try to sum up a different story in just 12 words, using the Cozy series as inspiration.

-- I can totally see giving a collection of these books as a gift to new or expecting parents.  

Pam~


COZY CLASSICS: TOM SAWYER
by Jack and Holman Wang

Reading Information:
Page Count: 24
reading information not applicable - 12 words

Here is a video of how the characters are made!

Review: 100 KIPLING POEMS - OLD AND NEW by Rudyard Kipling, Thomas Pinney (Editor)

 

Rudyard Kipling was born in exotic Bombay just as our American Civil War was ending.  In 1907 he earned the Nobel Prize for Literature, and in January of 1936, he died. He was a prolific writer and a brilliant one. And over the course of his life his wrote numerous books and hundreds and hundreds of poems. 

In this new book from Cambridge University Press, editor Tom Pinney has chosen 100 of Kipling's poems to highlight. 25 of these poems were chosen because of their popularity. The other 75 are poems are less familiar.  In fact, a few were never previously published, or they were published only in India or in long defunct magazines.

There are ballads, lyrics, epigrams, and narratives, and the editor has arranged them in chronological order --which I find very intriguing. Certainly it causes me to hope that as I progress through the book that I'll be able to discern a change in the style and thinking of this great writer; whether from maturity or just experience.

The first poem is dated 1883.  The last 1935.

PHYSICAL BOOK vs eBOOK

I have not seen the physical book of RUDYARD KIPLING: 100  POEMS - OLD AND NEW so I can not comment on the quality.  But I have a lot to say about the eVersion of the book which I received from Netgalley.  (These comments assume that what I received is the same as what is offered by the publisher at amazon.)

With the standard and Fire Kindles --I have a first gen Kindle and a first gen Kindle Fire-- your formatting is very much going to be dependent upon the size of your font.  To get one of Kipling's sometimes long lines of text all on one line you are going to have to make the font VERY small. And certainly the format on my kindle did not look anything like the format of the first poem in the Amazon  Preview. On both Kindles the formatting was a mess.  Sometimes there were massive blocks of text where carriage returns should made for easier reading.

CONCLUSION

TOM Pinney's collection is fabulous.  I love that he's included the most familiar poems, as well as ones that will be new to even serious Kipling lovers. And given the current price for the hardback I think this would be an excellent addition to the home shelves of families who enjoy Kipling's work.

I would approach the e-version with some wariness. As I said, I don't know if I have a 'finished' version of the book.  But as it stands it's rather more work than it should be to enjoy these poems.  And this rather saddens me because I'm the sort of person who is a hit-and-run poetry reader.  By which I mean that I might read a poem at lunch if it's sitting conveniently on my Kindle. But I'm not the sort of person who will drag two books along with me in the car --one of them being a selection of poems.

But well worth considering the hard copy.

Pam~

100 KIPLING POEMS - OLD AND NEW

 by Rudyard Kipling, Thomas Pinney (Editor)

Reading Information:
Page Count: 197
no reading information currently available
--sample pages available

CLASSICS Index

Wanting to teach or learn about The Classics?

Here's our sub-index of classic books. Since the definition of 'classic' varies, we've included everything from Aesop's fables to Shakespeare to fairytales.

Free Classics for Kindle/PC/Mac
--a list of books that can be downloaded for free


The Ant and the Grasshopper ..............coming soon
--a list of practice readers about this Aesop favorite.

The Book of Genesis
--review of the graphic novel by R. Crumb. For Young Adults.

The Brook
--Tennyson's classic poem is made family-friendly in this wonderful book.

Cinderella at the Ball
--review of the primer by Margaret Hillert. AR 0.7

The Story of King Arthur and his Knights
--review of Howard Pyle's excellent book.

Lion and the Mouse
--a review of the Primer by Gail Herman, as well as reading information on 4 other versions including Pinkney's brilliant wordless version.

The Odyssey
--a review of 4 kid-friendly books.

One Grain of Rice
--Demi retells this classic mathematical tale.

Rapunzel
--the 5 most popular and highly rated books about the long-tressed heroine. Reading level information included.

Rapunzel
-- Alix Berenzy has produced a beautiful version of the Rapunzel story and we've reviewed it here.

Shakespeare for Kids!
--a review of "Hamlet for Kids!" and a review of "Julius Ceasar" by Brendan Kelso, plus pointers to 4 other kid-friendly books for kids. Reading level information included.

Shakespeare for Kids
--a list of Lois Burdett's brilliant retellings of Shakespeare's tales, with reading level information.

Tale of Flopsy Bunnies
--review of what's become a classic story by Beatrix Potter.

Three Bears
--a review of Hillert's practice reader at the AR 1.0 level.

Tortoise and the Hare
--a review of Betty Miles' practice reader at the AR 1.0 level.

Town Mouse, Country Mouse
--Jan Brett's version of this classic Aesop tale is reviewed here.

Writings to Young Women from Laura Ingalls Wilder
--Volume One: On Wisdom and Virtues. For Young Adults.

Writings to Young Women from Laura Ingalls Wilder
--Volume Two: On Life as a Pioneer Woman. For Young Adults.

Shakespeare's Hamlet for Kids by Brendan P. Kelso

I have long been a proponent of 'The Classics' for kids. Not that we haven't read all about The Pigeon, and Thomas & Percy, and Knufflebunny; but there's room too, I think, for Odysseus and the Greek gods, the Little House on the Prairie, and the poetry of Sandburg and Frost, amongst others.

Shakespeare was on my list too, but after re-reading the Richard plays, I realized that they would be a bit much for my two children, even though they are now 8 and 10. But not willing entirely to give up, I girded myself for battle with the internet and I started on a search for kid-friendly 'takes' on the bard's tales, which is how I discovered Mr. Kelso's "Hamlet".

Mr. Kelso writes that his entire purpose is to instill "the love of acting and Shakespeare into kids", and from my home experience I think his strategy works. He essentially sums up what Shakespeare says and puts those thoughts into terms that kids can understand. (Go see the sample at amazon.com to see for yourself.)

And the nice bit is that he includes quotes from the original, highlighting the words that appear in the 'adult' version of Hamlet. So that if your children are paying attention they will actually note the lines that we Americans are most familiar with. Lines like: "something is rotten in the state of Denmark", and "neither a borrower and lender be."


Now, for how the book is organized. The interesting thing about Brendan's Hamlet for Kids is that the book actually contains 3 versions of the play. All of the versions take about 10-15 minutes to read, but the number of speaking parts varies according to how many people you wish to have involved. It could be a reader of one, or a cast of nearly 2 dozen.

But let me give you an example of how this works.

Here are the characters with dialog in the first version of Hamlet for Kids:

Hamlet
Claudius
Gertrude
Polonius
Ophelia
Laertes
Ghost

**My daughter Laura and I read this version first and only had a little side-spliting confusion reading all the parts ourselves.


The Second version has all of the above characters plus:

Rosencrantz
Guildenstern
Horatio
--an unnamed actor
Osric
Forinbras
a Sailor

The final version adds Marcellus, Bernardo and the Grave Diggers, as well as a few other minor characters.


Having these different 'stagings' allows the adult(s) and child(ren) to pick the best version for them. Older children might prefer to read a longer version, younger children the shorter. Or vice-versa.

In any case, I'm excited by this series because it allows me to introduce Shakespeare to my children much earlier than I had thought possible. It allows us to discuss the plays on their level, and it introduces them to the Bard's best known lines so that when we hear them in other places, they will be reminded of where they come from.

THE SKINNY:::
Love this book. My daughter and I read it aloud together -- each taking parts -- and now we're in the process of re-reading it (acting it out?) with her little brother.

I really like that the grisly parts -- not to mention the 'adult' elements -- have been toned down and even made humorous, making Hamlet Totally Kid appropriate.

I also like that there are three different stagings of "Hamlet". By which I mean that there is a version that features just the 'basic characters', and then two others where the dialog is made more complicated, and where more characters are included. This allows you to adapt the reading to your child's age level. Or conversely, if you are a teacher or adult in charge of a large group of children, to include up to 20 of them in a production/reading.


Shakespeare's Hamlet for Kids:
3 Short Melodramatic Plays for 3 Group Sizes

• Paperback: 62 pages
• Publisher: CreateSpace (September 20, 2010)
• ISBN-10: 1453641548
• Look Inside
  
• amazon
  

OTHER Shakespeare for Kids books:

Julius Caeser for Kids | our review
Macbeth for Kids

See our Listmania list of Brendan's other books at Amazon