Wednesday, May 14, 2014

Would you like a slice of pie?




Hello everyone and welcome to my blog today.  Always fun when you pay me a visit.  The answer to yesterday's book quote is,  " "Winnie-the-Pooh" by A. A. Milne.  Hope you guessed it right.

Today's quote is:  "I Should of been in school that April Day." Can you guess the book it's from and the author?  Answer will be posted here tomorrow.


Today's feature:



Title:  Wolf Pie
Author:  Brenda Seabrooke
Illustrator:  Liz Callen
Ages:  6-9


Publisher's Weekly says:  "The story is filled with onomatopoeia for read -aloud (the wolf's teeth chattered with cold.  Clickety-click! Clickety-click!), but is the humour in the text and illustrations that will have children laughing and wanting more."  

My take:

Introducing to you the PYGG brothers: James, Marvin and Lester Pygg to be exact.  They are not your typical pigs as we find out early on in the book. They are trying to figure out how to build a house of brick.  Sound familiar?  They discuss building materials such as hay and twigs for speed, but James convinces the other brothers they need a house made out of sturdy bricks to keep them warm and safe.  Soon a wolf shows up at their door named Wilfong and demands to come inside. The Pygg brothers refuse him entry.  He can't come in? No problem but he can block them from leaving. The stalker wolf, Wilfong, is true to his word and traps the Pygg's inside.  Wilfong can't resist hanging around because he has to keep an eye on these guys now lest they escape. As he is ogling their behaviour a strange thing happens.  The wolf starts getting involved in the games going on inside albeit in an annoying way.  For example when the Pygg's are playing hide and seek Wilfong blabs and tells the other pigs where their brother Lester is hiding, and during a game of cards the wolf blurts out what's in Marvin's hand to the others.  

Meanwhile back on the weather front, winter is knocking at the door too. Can you guess whose warm  and snuggly and whose starting to shiver and turn blue?....Yep, Wilfong is the loser of the one for sure.  The Pygg's, with compassion in their hearts, invite Wilfong inside to thaw out.  Was that a wise move on the Pygg brother's part?  Will they be safe from the wolf or will they have to make a mad dash for it if he turns the tables on them?  Through a series of fortunate events Wilfong proves he can be trusted and protects the Pygg brothers from more menacing wolves who want to attack and eat the piggies up for dinner.  This book is funny, entertaining and perfect for a budding reader's first chapter book.  The book addresses such themes as friendship, trust, respect and of course acceptance.  It rewrites a familiar kid's classic adding modern values plus adds unexpected twists and turns just as you would come to expect from a fractured fairytale.  I highly recommend this book.

About the author:


 Brenda had the good fortune to grow up in south Georgia, a region rich in storytellers. When she was young she listened to their tales on the porch in the summer and by the fire in the winter. Television had been invented but no one had one. She says, "I write a lot about my childhood because we were always doing interesting things. We wanted to travel so we tried to dig to China, and we swung from trees like Tarzan. We made up our own games involving spies and horses, put on plays without written scripts and a lot of shows using our side porch for a stage." She lived on the edge of a small town and had lots of animals: dogs, rabbits, fish, and a horse that she rode into town to the library. "As soon as I figured out that books had authors, I knew that was what I wanted to be. The greatest day in my childhood was the day I demonstrated to the children's librarian at the Carnegie Library that I could read and got my own library card at age six," says Brenda. After she graduated from Newcomb College, she married, had children and taught school. She has taught humanities and writing in elementary and high schools and presented college workshops in writing for children and adults. She has lived in many interesting places, including a haunted eighteenth century fort. She now lives on an island in Florida. Her pets and her children and even some of the places she has lived appear in her stories. In addition to the honors and awards her books have received, Brenda has also been the recipient of a fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts and the Robie Macauley Fellowship from Emerson College-Ploughshares.

About the illustrator:









Book Review Rating:  8 (Fantastic!)

Read on and read always!  May your day be splendid!

No comments: