June 20th

I don't know if you know this, but four year old girls kind of like princesses.  And all the things that go with them.  Like kings and princes and knights and dragons.  And fairies.  Which made this weeks book selections a hit.

Plus I've been seeing this book all over Pintrest reading lists.  So I thought I'd check it out.  A book called The Paper Bag Princess by Robert Munsch.  I remembered to check it out.  And I'd heard so many good things that I was almost disappointed.  But then I stopped to think about it.  I really like it.  The dragon comes and burns down the palace and kidnaps the princess' intended.  So she puts on a paper bag, and follows the trail of destruction to the dragons lair.  She outsmarts him, and rescues the prince, who criticizes her for not wearing the appropriate attire for a princess.  She "didn't marry him after all."  I love that she values herself more than her clothes, and I love that the last picture is her enjoying her freedom.  What I didn't love at first was the simple ending.  But as I thought, she never looked back, never regretted it.  She knew her own mind, and what she was capable of.  It just seemed to end abruptly.  That's a lot of words for a short book, but worth the read.

Next up was The Dragon Takes a Wife.  by Walter Dean Myers, and like many of the books we pick the illustrations by Fiona French are magnificent.  This was just fun.  It's a cute story.  A little too believe in yourself, and you can do anything for me, but it was fun nonetheless. 

That was it for princesses and fairies this week.  But we did have some others.   Armadillo Rodeo by Jan Brett was good.  It was a fun romp through a ranch rodeo from an armadillo view!

We also read The Keeping Quilt which I loved.  Maybe I'm just emotional right now, but it was such a sweet story.  I'm a sucker for that stuff though. Written by a woman who was in possession of a quilt that her great-great grandmother made from the clothes they wore when they immigrated and how it connects the women of the family over 5 or 6 generations. All the babies get wrapped up in it, and then they all get married under it (they're Jewish, it's the chuppah). But also the differences and similarities between all the generations. Loved it.


What did you read this week?

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