Category Archives: Children’s

Trending, by Kira Vermond

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Examples of trends in this book include Crocs, Pokemon Go, Hula Hoops, Hobble Skirts, baby names, anti-vaccination movement, quinoa, Starbucks Unicorn Frap, Beanie Boos, slime, Nazi propoganda, the Stock Market Crash of 1929, Mona Lisa, the Payola Scandal, anesthesia, and Fondue.

Topics covered: supply/demand, dopamine, individualism, exposure effect, STEPPS, investors, information cascades, stocks, Robert Zajonc, scarcity, advertisements, mania, sunk cost fallacy, progoganda

Independent reading level 8 years old- 11 years old.

Ch. 1 (p.6-15) “What Makes a Fad a Fad?- How seemingly random toys, games, and fashion turn into the NEXT BIG THING”, Ch. 2 (p.16-25) “Spread The Word- How fads and the ideas and feelings that drive them spread and catch fire”, Ch. 3 (p.26-35) “Made, Not Born- How some fads are carefully crafted to make us want to jump on board”, Ch. 4 (p.36-45) “Bad Fads- How fads can have serious and even dangerous effects”, Conclusion p. 46, Index p. 48, Selected Sources p.48

My Thoughts: Trends, fads, and popularity cannot always be proven using science or economics alone. This book takes into account other elements that can help provide popular trends. For example, it notes that sometimes trends start just by word of mouth.

However, trends do not always stem from one single cause; and instead of providing the different and various reasons that provoked the trend, it only focuses one one solid reason behind each trend. For example, this book contributes the popularity of fondue as a result of Swiss advertisements alone. Rather than involving other factors, fondue is stated to have been a trend solely because of Swiss ads. But, I can see that by keeping it simple allows it to be more comprehensible for kids. In order for kids to understand easily, these are surface level explanations.

Thank you to NetGalley and OwlKids Books for an advanced copy. Opinions are my own.

More of Kira Vermond’s books:

Visit Kira Vermond’s website to learn more.

Read Quill and Quire’s article about Kira Vermond’s book Why Don’t Cars Run On Apple Juice?

|Purchase on Amazon | Goodreads Review |

The Paper Bag Princess 40th anniversary edition, by Robert Munsch

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The 40th Anniversary Edition includes bonus content that includes a short one page Note to Readers from Chelsea Clinton explaining the meaning of the story to her and its importance in her life. Next, is a two page article by Francesca Segal called Stand Up To Dragons. In this two page article, Francesca Segal proves the timelessness of the story and its relevance today. She includes examples such as the #MeToo movement, misogyny, and cronyism. In the end of the book, there is a two page bonus from Ann Munsch with Robert Munsch entitled 40 Years of the Paper Bag Princess in which they recollect how the story came to be created.

Book summary: Elizabeth and Ronald are preparing to marry, but a dragon comes and takes Ronald away. Leaving everything burnt and destroyed but a paper bag, Elizabeth transforms the paper bag into a dress and goes to rescue Prince Ronald.

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She gets to the dragons lair, and persuades him to come out to see her. She outsmarts the dragon and tires him out which allows her to rescue Ronald.
Upon seeing Elizabeth’s ashy and dirty state, Ronald points out that she looks mess and tells her, “Come back when you are dressed like a real princess.”

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Elizabeth doesn’t stand for this and responds by telling him that he is pretty and a prince, but a “bum” . It then ends with an illustration of Elizabeth running off into the sunset with glee since they did not get married after that.

The Paper Bag Princess explores gender roles; instead of the prince rescuing the princess, the princess is rescuing the prince. Rather than the prince defeating the dragon, the princess not only defeats the dragon, but she does so by outsmarting him. It also shows kids that it is okay to stand up for yourself. And, in the end, it reveals that beauty is more than skin deep and that we do not need someone else to be happy or valuable.

I received an advanced copy from Netgalley. Opinions are my own.

https://youtu.be/hIPrb-sA6Uo

Read about teaching gender roles in children’s literature
The Paper Bag Princess
Robert Munsch

Stand Up to Dragons Re-reading the Paper Bag Princess, Francesca Segal

The Story Behind the Classic by Huffington Post

|Purchase on Amazon| Goodreads Review|

Meet the Beanie Boos, by Joan Emerson

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This is an informative guide rather than a storybook and is on a 2nd grade reading level. It provides information about 21 different Beanie Boos.

Pages 2-3 is a brief introduction about all of them. The guidebook is pages 4-24; each page being dedicated to a different Beanie Boo.
Each page will include the Beanie Boos personal poem, likes, dislikes, favorite food, hobby, motto, and birthday. Following these facts is a short descriptive paragraph on the bottom of the page about that Beanie Boo.

Beanie Boos in this book: Rainbow, Kipper, Butter, Fantasia, Gabby, Owlette, Piggley, Kiki, Dotty, Slush, Harriet, George, Gilbert, Flippy, Zippy, Ellie, Cinder, Izzy, Pixy, Wynnie, Mandy

The last page of the book includes stickers of some of the Beanie Boos. Not all of the Beanie Boos in the book are included in the sticker set. The back of the book says you will receive 10 stickers, however we received 14 stickers.

Sticker page in the back of the book.

| Purchase on Amazon | Goodreads Review|

The World’s Best Dad Jokes for Kids Volume 3, by Lisa Swerling & Ralph Lazar

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These jokes are appropriate for all ages. While some are your typical “dad jokes”, kids will simply find many of these flat out funny. I read some of these to my eight year old and she giggled and giggled. One of my favorites was “When is the moon hungry? When its full.” One of her favorites can be found in the picture below.

Another one of her favorite jokes was “She has an addiction to cheese… …but it’s only mild.”  However, some of them she didn’t quite get or it took longer to understand than others. An example of one that took her a bit longer to “get” is below.

We both loved the illustrations that were included, and they helped to understand the joke. She would always make sure to look at the illustration, and if I moved to quickly she would make sure to ask and go back so that she could see the illustration.

There are some challenging words and “punny” words throughout, so I would say this book is on a second grade level if it going to be read and comprehended independently.
Thanks to Andrews McMeel Publishing and Netgalley for this copy. Opinions are my own.