Saturday, October 18, 2008

Open a Book

(Thanks to Jill for allowing me to use this picture of Téa)
Books to the ceiling,
Books to the sky,
My pile of books is a mile high.
How I love them!
How I need them!
I'll have a long beard by the time I read them.
-Arnold Lobel

Don't Forget to Tell Me What You Think in the Poll ---->

The Barrytown Trilogy by Roddy Doyle is actually three short novels published together into one. All three are about the Irish-Catholic Rabitte family and take place in Barrytown, a working-class suburb in Dublin. All three of the stories were made into movies, the most well-known being The Commitments.

Various members of the family are the subjects in each story. I come from a very small family, so reading about a very large family and all the craziness was a lot of fun. Plus, these stories have the typical Irish wit prevelent in all of Doyle's novels. It is laugh-out-loud funn.



The Magician's Boy by Susan Cooper is only a few years old now. It was recommended to me by a children's bookstore owner and what fun it is!

The magician's boy wants to be a magician so badly, but the magician doesn't think he is ready yet. While the boy assists the magician at one of his shows, he gets pulled into the Land of Story in order to find the missing St. George puppet. Along the way, the boy meets many "old school" fairy tale and nursery rhyme characters like Little Red Riding Hood, Jack and the Beanstalk, and The Little Old Woman Who Lived in a Shoe. They help the boy find St. George. Does he become a magician? You'll have to read it to find out!

1 comment:

  1. That sounds like a good book! I love reading about the Irish families in the old country. I used to love all the stories my grandmother told me, now I have cousins in Ireland who fill me in on my grandmother's generation back in Ireland.

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