Ezri’s team Panda Pancakes won all 3 of their rounds and earned a blue ribbon in the competition Saturday.
Getting ready for the games. Panda shirt – check, panda ears – check, panda plush – checkCompetitionCompeting against the Book Bandits team in the upper right.With her ribbon at home after a celebration with cheese curds & custard at Culver’s.
Ezri’s team competed in 3 rounds answering 8, 7, 7 questions correctly. They also stole some of the other team’s questions when they weren’t able to answer stealing 3, 3, 4 questions.
They worked together as a team and did a great job communicating. I am proud of the Panda Pancakes. We really enjoyed seeing all 60 teams out at the competition celebrating books.
The Downtown Downers Grove Tree is junked up with ornaments made by area kids’ groups from scouts to preschools to daycare centers.
This snowflake is one of the ornaments Ezri’s scout troop made. Hers was similar but probably much higher on the tree. We haven’t spotted it yet.
Before visiting the tree, we went to Anderson’s Bookshop for our annual tradition of donating a chosen book for a child from their “book angel” tree. Ezri selected a 9 year old girl who likes animals and gifted her with DK’s An Anthology of Intriguing Animals selected because she didn’t know which kind of animal was the girl’s favorite and this covered many animals. Also, it had gilt edges and gold lettering on the cover and shiny things make good gifts.
Ivan selected a 7 year old boy who liked Minecraft and Goosebumps books and gifted him with Diary of an 8-bit Warrior and Return of the Ghost of Slappy.
I gave a copy of Nimona to a 14 year old because Nimona makes me happy.
Here are the kids at the very snowy, very large, very ornament laden tree.
Recent reads include:
How to Train Your Dragon Book 3: How to Speak Dragonese by Cressida Cowell
Olive and the Backstage Ghost by Michelle Schusterman
Castle Hangnail by Ursula Vernon (rereading)
Regarding the Fountain by Kate Klise (for Book & Cookie club at the library)
Both kids are really into the 13 story tree house books by Andy Griffiths. We’ve been reading them together at bedtime, but the kids read ahead during the day. Just ask them about catnaries, marshmallow guns and how they feel about pirates.
Ezri has also read and enjoyed
Fortunately the Milk by Gaiman
Word of Mouse by Patterson
Pip Bartlett’s Guides by Pearce & Stiefvater
The Never Girls series by Thorpe
Pixie Tricks series by West
Dragon Masters series by West
Judy Moody by McDonald (there’s no magic in these books and she still likes them)
And she continues to adore graphic novels. Recent favorites include:
Superhero High Girls vol. 1 & 2
Moon Girl and Devil Dinosaur
Courageous Princess by Espinosa
Amulet by Kibuishi
Phoebe and Her Unicorn series by Simpson
Nonfiction titles with gross facts about the body and titles with interesting facts about animals are also getting read.
Each year in December our local bookshop does a program where you can select a book to give to a child in need. This year both kids were interested in selecting a kid around their own age and picking out books.
I forgot to note here on the blog what the kids selected. December is a busy time.
Ezri got the book Ghosts by Raina Telgemeier for a 4th grade girl.
Ivan got a DK Sticker book about vehicles and I Wanna Be a Great Big Dinosaur for a 4 year old boy who likes trucks and dinosaurs. They did not have the book Dinotrux which clearly would have been the ideal book. We solved it by getting two books.
I got the book Nameless City for a 7th grader who likes adventure and graphic novels.
Flashback to last month’s PTA sponsored Authorfest book signings.
Ezri really wanted a photo with Tom Watson author of Stick Dog at authorfest.
She dressed up to meet him. Note the velvety dress.
She waited in a long line to see him.
She loves that he usually has a hamburger on his clothing somewhere and teaches kids to draw the stick animal characters from his books.
