Review: Cows Can't Quack by Dave Reisman

Come inside and sing,

 laugh and howl

 




Young listeners and early readers, ages six months to six years, will be enchanted by the bright and expressive illustrations and the rhythmic and engaging text. This companion to the highly praised Cows Can't Jump imparts a humorous and empowering tale of tolerance, respect and humility and is bound to become a beloved bedtime and storytime favorite for kids and parents alike.
~~~~~~~~~~~~
Review
Last year Cows Can't Jump (my review) came in the mail and we read it right away. My favorite three year-old thought it was fun and silly and so did I! We recently received Cows Can't Quack and the grand-kiddos declared it a success too! Author Dave Reisman and illustrator Jason A. Maas did it again with another charming book that's suitable for any age.

Each page describes what a different animal can and can't do with colorful paintings depicting the comical critters in action. Cows can't quack...but they can moo. As we were reading those lines and others we took great delight in making the animal noises and laughing at their silly antics. Even with simple text it incited conversation. When harder words like bleat and bray were used my favorite four year-old (she had a birthday!) didn't always know their meaning. But after discussing them in context and using the illustrations to help she was able to figure them out.

These books are great companion pieces since the second one introduces new animals and actions. The cow and duck are the only recurring characters and we were happy to see them again. We will be reading these often and have already shared them with the baby boy. He may be too young to understand the story but reading together is a wonderful bonding experience. We look forward to snuggling up with future books in this series.

Thank you to the author for an autographed copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.
www.JumpingCowPress.com

Publisher: Jumping Cow Press
Release date: 11/15/11
Pages: 46
Price/format: $7.99/paperback
Type: children, 3 months - 6 years

"Reading" to baby brother.

She remembered most of the book after only hearing it once!

He's impressed too!

Tempest winner!

Congratulations to:

VeronikaBG

I sent you an email. Please respond with your mailing address. Thanks to everyone for entering and I'll have another giveaway posted soon!

Tuesday Teaser

Teaser Tuesdays is a weekly meme hosted by Miz B of Should Be Reading and asks you to :

1. Grab your current read
2. Open to a random page
3 . Share 2 "teaser" sentences also citing the title of the book and the author and in that way people can have great recommendations if they like the "teaser".
4. Please avoid spoilers!
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Mom is wrapped in her blue bathrobe and her hair looks comfortably fuzzy. The sight calms me immediately, even as she glances at the empty jar of salt and puts the cover back on. What is it about the sight of your mother that makes everything fireside-warm and full of dancing Muppets?

~page 220 
Anna Dressed In Blood by Kendare Blake

Saturday Snapshot

Saturday Snapshot is hosted by At Home with Books. To participate in this meme post a photo that you (or a friend or family member) have taken then leave a direct link to your post in the Mister Linky. Photos can be old or new, and be of any subject as long as they are clean and appropriate for all eyes to see. How much detail you give in the caption is entirely up to you. Please don't post random photos that you find online.

I posted some of these photos before but on this cold winter day I am more than happy to revisit our vacation to Universal Studios in Orlando, FL. Our family of five went there last October courtesy of Kmart and Sears. My hubby won the trip just by randomly using his Kmart Rewards card at the register when he bought $10 worth of stuff one weekend. They were giving away a trip a day for that whole month and he won the last one! We've never been on a "real" family vacation before so we were thrilled (although skeptical at first) and spent four days and three nights in luxury. We stayed at the Hard Rock Hotel and had free access to both parks. These photos are from my two favorite places - The Wizarding World Of Harry Potter and the amazing hotel pool that had a beach (my favorite spot), music (even underwater!), a beachclub (hubby and sons favorite spot) and beautiful weather. Oh how I miss it!

Hogwarts

Hogwarts Express

Hogsmeade

Our first look at the amazing hotel pool

The view from the beachclub towards the hotel

The view from my beach chair towards the side of the hotel

JK Rowling's new book

Yay! I loved the Harry Potter books and can't wait to see what author JK Rowling has coming up next. In an announcement yesterday The Guardian reported that her next book will be for adults published by Little, Brown in the U.S. and U.K. Unfortunately not much else was revealed. The title, publication date and further details will be released later this year.

Rowling stated: "Although I've enjoyed writing it every bit as much, my next book will be very different to the Harry Potter series … The freedom to explore new territory is a gift that Harry's success has brought me, and with that new territory it seemed a logical progression to have a new publisher. I am delighted to have a second publishing home in Little, Brown, and a publishing team that will be a great partner in this new phase of my writing life."

I'm ready for it!

Photo: David Fisher/Rex Features

Contest reminder!

Tomorrow (2/24) is the last day to sign up for my giveaway Tempest by Julie Cross

Teaser Tuesdays

Teaser Tuesdays is a weekly meme hosted by Miz B of Should Be Reading and asks you to :

1. Grab your current read
2. Open to a random page
3 . Share 2 "teaser" sentences also citing the title of the book and the author and in that way people can have great recommendations if they like the "teaser".
4. Please avoid spoilers!
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Old homes had a way of getting under your skin,  Joanna Beauchamp knew; not just your skin but into your soul, as well as deep into your pocketbook, defying reason or logic in an ever-elusive quest for perfection.

~page 26 

Witches Of East End by Melissa de la Cruz

Wouldn't you love to be able to read here?

 

*Sigh*  I'm such a sucker for window seats...

 

Saturday Snapshot

Saturday Snapshot is hosted by At Home with Books. To participate in this meme post a photo that you (or a friend or family member) have taken then leave a direct link to your post in the Mister Linky. Photos can be old or new, and be of any subject as long as they are clean and appropriate for all eyes to see. How much detail you give in the caption is entirely up to you. Please don't post random photos that you find online.

It seems like I had a hectic week and didn't accomplish anything at home or on my blog. Just when I was feeling frustrated with life's minor annoyances I had a reminder of what is really important. My friend and I traveled two hours to a neonatal intensive care unit to visit a new baby. A friend of our sons had his first child delivered this week, a month early with his intestines outside his abdomen. They knew this was a complication and doctors were monitoring things closely. The baby had corrective surgery immediately after birth and all went well. Now he is receiving care to recover and grow since he only weighed 4 lbs at birth. He could be there from weeks to months depending on his recovery. His parents are in their early twenties, the same age as my son who just had his first child. They are strong but scared and just want to take their baby home. They can touch him but haven't even held him yet. They are in a wonderful hospital in a unit with sixty sick babies. 60. As we walked past all of those tiny infants in their little isolettes with other worried parents huddled around their children I was grateful again for the many blessings in my life. I am so thankful for my children and now my grandchildren. We are so lucky that we have a healthy, chubby baby to rock in our arms at home. Hopefully this little guy will be home soon rocking in his family's arms. I had to post his photo today. His proud daddy never took his hands off his little son the whole time we were there. Maybe you could send a few extra prayers their way.

Be mine!

Mailbox Monday

Mailbox Monday (started at The Printed Page and now a traveling meme) is at the Metroreader this month and is the gathering place for readers to share the books that came into their house last week (checked out library books don’t count, eBooks & audio books do). Warning: Mailbox Monday can lead to envy, toppling TBR piles and humongous wish lists.

Here's a few of the goodies I got last week. What came to your house?

The Humming Room by Ellen Potter
For review from Macmillan (ARC)

Hearts At Stake by Alyxandra Harvey
Free from B&N (ebook)







Stolen Away byAlyxandra Harvey
Free from Kobo (ebook)

Saturday Snapshots

Saturday Snapshot is hosted by At Home with Books. To participate in this meme post a photo that you (or a friend or family member) have taken then leave a direct link to your post in the Mister Linky. Photos can be old or new, and be of any subject as long as they are clean and appropriate for all eyes to see. How much detail you give in the caption is entirely up to you. Please don't post random photos that you find online.

I've been wanting to try this meme for so long but I keep forgetting about it. Finally this week I'm joining in! I love to take photos and play with my cameras whenever I can. It's fun to play with the images on the computer too.
When my grandson was four weeks old we went to visit my grandmother so she could meet her first great-great-grandchild. We took plenty of photos because we had five generations together. He is now three months old and she just celebrated her ninety-third birthday. I especially loved this picture of their hands - his are soft, tiny and new and hers are a bit wrinkled, swollen and aged. Both are so beautiful and so very precious.

Giveaway: Tempest by Julie Cross

 I haven't had a contest in a while so let's get started with this one. I'm giving away my gently used ARC (my review) and I'm also cleaning shelves so more giveaways are coming soon!! 

Rules:
- Simply fill out the form below to enter.
-I'm doing this myself so it's international
- Winners chosen by random.org
- Contest ends 2/24/12 at 11:59 p.m. EST (CLOSED)

Extra entries:
+1 new follower
+2 old follower
+2 promote - leave link

Review: Tempest by Julie Cross

 Today Jackson and Holly 
are in love

Tomorrow she will lie dying
in his arms

Yesterday Jackson must 
undo it all

The year is 2009.  Nineteen-year-old Jackson Meyer is a normal guy… he’s in college, has a girlfriend… and he can travel back through time. But it’s not like the movies – nothing changes in the present after his jumps, there’s no space-time continuum issues or broken flux capacitors – it’s just harmless fun.
That is… until the day strangers burst in on Jackson and his girlfriend, Holly, and during a struggle with Jackson, Holly is fatally shot. In his panic, Jackson jumps back two years to 2007, but this is not like his previous time jumps. Now he’s stuck in 2007 and can’t get back to the future.
Desperate to somehow return to 2009 to save Holly but unable to return to his rightful year, Jackson settles into 2007 and learns what he can about his abilities.
But it’s not long before the people who shot Holly in 2009 come looking for Jackson in the past, and these “Enemies of Time” will stop at nothing to recruit this powerful young time-traveler.  Recruit… or kill him.
Piecing together the clues about his father, the Enemies of Time, and himself, Jackson must decide how far he’s willing to go to save Holly… and possibly the entire world.
~~~~~~~~~~~~
Review
This was an interesting take on an old theme. Time travel and romance. Jackson has a secret but it seems that more people know about it than he realized. His jumps to the past are harmless fun and a great source of data for his geek friend Adam who is helping him develop his new talent. But he becomes the hunted and his girlfriend is shot when the Enemies of Time try to recruit him. There is nonstop action and plenty of danger as Jackson desperately tries to change Holly's fate and possibly his own.

I enjoyed the book and the suspense kept me turning the pages. As secrets of the past are revealed more complexities are slowly unveiled. I enjoyed the storyline and this take on time travel. I liked most of the characters, especially the quirky ones. The teenagers were usually believable as teens and age appropriate. They were quite self absorbed in the beginning but the more obstacles they faced the more they changed and matured.

It may be because I'm older and not a teen but there were details that bothered me. I don't want to give anything away so I won't list many specifics. I found some of the actions to be odd and not so believable. These kids have had their lives threatened but security often leaves them alone. Do they really need to go for a walk when their enemy can literally pop up at any time? And later in the story the time travel became confusing because it branched out in so many directions. The loose threads do set up the storyline for the rest of the trilogy though. I am curious to see how they untangle and I look forward to the next book coming in 2013. Overall I found it to be a good start to the series and an easy read by the fireplace.

First in the Tempest trilogy
Bonus short story Tomorrow is Today
www.facebook.com/TempestSeries
www.juliecross.blogspot.com


Thank you to LibraryThing Early Reviewers for an ARC to review.


Publisher: St. Martin's Griffn
Release date: 1/17/12
Pages: 352
Price/format: $17.99/hardcover
Type: YA fantasy

Teaser Tuesdays

Teaser Tuesdays is a weekly meme hosted by Miz B of Should Be Reading and asks you to :

1. Grab your current read
2. Open to a random page
3 . Share 2 "teaser" sentences also citing the title of the book and the author and in that way people can have great recommendations if they like the "teaser".
4. Please avoid spoilers!
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

If only he'd been there the day of the accident instead of sick at home. Surely he could have done something to help her. At the very least he would have seen the snow and ice accumulating on the road and reminded her to put on her seat belt. How he wished he could go back in time. 

~page 24 

Wonder Struck by Brian Selznick

Mailbox Monday

Mailbox Monday (started at The Printed Page and now a traveling meme) is at the Metroreader this month and is the gathering place for readers to share the books that came into their house last week (checked out library books don’t count, eBooks & audio books do). Warning: Mailbox Monday can lead to envy, toppling TBR piles and humongous wish lists.

Boy am I behind this week! With blogging, reading, housework - you name it I should have done more, but I have been busy helping with the grandkiddos and I'm loving it! The other stuff can wait. Of course that was always my excuse when my own kids were little so maybe I will never get caught up...

I did get a few goodies recently and of course lots of free ebooks.

Cows Can't Quack by Dave Reisman
From author for review

Broken

Scrourge

Ebooks by David H. Burton

Won from The Cheap

The Second Coming

Simian's Lair