In the Style of Lemony Snicket

Have you ever read the Series of Unfortunate Events books by Lemony Snicket?  If not, I strongly encourage you to do so.  While all the events are, well, unfortunate, the way in which the books are written is clever, unexpected, and very amusing.

My sister and I recently started reading a series called The Incorrigible Children of Ashton Place by Maryrose Wood.  These books are in a similar style, though different enough to not read like copycat work.  There are three books out currently, with the fourth due out in December.







Enjoy!

Love and Ostriches,
Leah Joy

The Monday Rant: Let Me 'Splain

Sometimes on the Internet, I get really stupid comments.  As in, not thought through, purposefully spiteful (yet uninformed), or just plain stupid.  My first reaction is to argue back against their stupidity, but then I realize that this does no good.  It makes me mad, raises my blood pressure, doesn't solve anything, and only fuels discord.  So I take the path of simply deleting the comment.  But that doesn't mean it's not still in my head.  (Good heavens, I still have one stuck in my head from two years ago!)  So today, I'm going to argue back against one I received recently.

I read this book a couple of months ago (along with the other books in the series) and pinned it to my 'Books Read in 2013' board.  (Which, for the record, is simply a way for me to keep track of what I read.  My siblings keep an Excel spreadsheet, and I've never really had a system but wished I did, so this is what I use now.)



The comment was something along the lines of, "Childish?  Maybe you should read it again.  I love Wendy Mass and her books are so great.  If you can't appreciate books for younger audiences, maybe you should stop reading." 

Okay, can you just go for a second to my board?  Now, do you see any books for younger audiences?  Just about all of them, right?  Do they all have negative reviews?  Now let me tell you something.  If I read a book in a genre/style/lexile that I really don't enjoy, I may try one more book in that group, but if I don't enjoy that, I'm going to stop reading that group of books, not read 80 more. (Not an exaggeration.  I counted.)  I appreciate books for younger audiences.

What I meant by the word 'childish' is this: the book was written as if the children for which it is intended do not have a very large vocabulary, do not enjoy a book that challenges their reading ability, and need things explained very clearly because they can't understand the first time.

Of the 105 books I have read so far this year, 80 of them came from the Juvenile Fiction section.  Of these 80, many of them were truly well-written.  The writing style did not hamper the story.  It may not have challenged me (as an older reader), but it did not drag along either.  Do you get what I'm saying?  There are childish books that are well-written and then there are childish books that are childishly written.

For example, The Land of Stories: The Wishing Spell by Chris Colfer was nearly torture to read.  Why?  Because it reads like a 5th grader wrote it.  Almost everything is explained twice, any slightly difficult word was explained in the text (instead of sending readers to a dictionary), and the story drags.  Now, I still read it because I found the story interesting, but it was far less enjoyable than The Wide-Awake Princess by E.D. Baker.  This book has a similar idea: a character journeying through the fairy tale world and meeting all sorts of different characters.  But instead of deeply explaining everything ad nauseam, Baker assumes that her readers have a basic grasp of the English language and how to use a dictionary.

I would like to end by saying that I actually did enjoy Finally by Wendy Mass (and the rest of the Willow Falls series).  It just wasn't as good as other books that I have read.

Love and Mugs,
Leah Joy

Dollar Tree "Washi Tape"

So, I know I'm a little late on the washi tape train.  I bought my first roll a couple of months ago when there was a crazy sale + coupon deal at Meijer and I got the roll for under a dollar.  (For some reason, I lost that roll last week very randomly.  Seriously, I had it one minute, and then I set it somewhere and went to look for it for 10 minutes and couldn't find it.  It is still missing!)  Anyway, that one was Scotch Expressions brand and it was a turquoise with just a bit of a feather pattern in the background.  I picked it out for labeling.  Then, for my birthday last month, my aunt sent me a really cool roll of music note washi tape.  

And then at the Dollar Tree this week, I discovered 'washi tape'!  Of course, they call it Decorative Adhesive Paper Tape.  And there is a difference in quality and feel.  While the other tapes feel very flexible (like tape), this one feels more like sticky paper (much more stiff).  But it does still pick up easily and stick back down, which is helpful.  And it's $1!  (Duh.)

I bought 7 rolls, but gave 3 of them away as gifts.  Here are the ones I kept:

You can see all the styles available here.

And now they're posing with my music note washi tape:

So far I've used them for labeling, decorating cards, wrapping presents, and as masking tape for the chain chomp ornament.

Have you gotten on the washi tape bandwagon?  What do you do with yours?

Love and Paisleys,

Leah Joy

Nothing Says Christmas Like Ninjas

In my 101 Things Update yesterday, I shared this fun ornament I made:

Since I had to purchase a 6-pack of black ornaments anyway, I thought I'd try this other ornament I saw on Pinterest:

I followed the tutorial on the original website (although I don't have beige paint - only red and white - so I just used white) and made this little guy:

Now I can't decide if I want to make the other 4 ornaments into Chain Chomps or Ninjas!  What do you think?

Love and Acrylic Paint,

Leah Joy

101 Things Update - October 23

So, I did some thinking, and some math (both dangerous pastimes), and I realized that of all the 101 Things left to do that will actually happen, two a week is a good rate.  Here are the two I finished this week:

10. Apple Pie Cookies

The Original:

I don't have any fancy bit-into-cookie pictures, but I have a couple before-baking pictures:

We then packed them up and took them to a party, so I had to quick snap some pictures with Caleb's cell phone for the after-baking pictures.  My apologies for the quality:

So, they're cute.  They taste good.  But so much work!  And I didn't have the size cookie cutters the recipe recommended, so I used cups.  They were bigger, but gave me the right ratio.  But that also meant this recipe only made 12 cookies.  (Although, I also heard that mine were a good size and any smaller would have been silly.)  So, yeah.  Probably will just make pie next time.

22. Chain Chomp Ornament

The Original:

Mine is not technically done yet because I have to add the chain, but the painting is the hardest part:

Some of the edges are a bit inexact, but I bought a 6-pack of black ornaments, so I might make a few more to try to get a perfect one anyway.

Love and Mario,

Leah Joy

Book Review: Fairy Tale Retelling

If you follow my Pinterest board 'Books Read in 2013', you may notice a theme: I'm really obsessed with retellings of fairy tales.  REALLY obsessed.  Just this year I've read 11 retellings, and have several more planned.  Just in case you're as obsessed with fairy tales as I am, here are some of my favorites:



The Thirteenth Princess by Diane Zahler

Diane Zahler has some other retellings that were good, too; I just didn't feel the need to pin all 11 of the books I read in this category. :)



Princess of the Midnight Ball by Jessica Day George

This one is fantastic, and also has two books that follow it: Princess of Glass and Princess of the Silver Woods.  They're sequels, so read them in order.  All three books are based on The Twelve Dancing Princesses, but the second is also based on Cinderella, and the third on Little Red Riding Hood.



Curse of the Thirteenth Fey by Jane Yolen

This book was not at all what I was expecting, but it was really good!



Fairest by Gail Carlson Levine

This one takes place in the same world as Ella Enchanted, and it's a very very cool story.



The Wide-Awake Princess by E.D. Baker

You can read my blurb in the pin there, but seriously, this book is so fantastic.  I cannot recommend it highly enough.  And I won't say that every fairy tale character is in here, but there are so many (whether the main characters or just a brief mention): Snow White, Hansel and Gretel, The Princess and the Pea, and Rapunzel, to name a few.

So there you have it: some great retellings of fairy tales.  I hope you enjoy!

Love and Glitter,
Leah Joy

Monday Rant: Or Sort Of

I'm not sure if this is really a rant or not, but it may or may not be interesting.

This weekend, I met a student from a local university who is Dutch, as in, actually from the Netherlands.  When I mentioned that my family was also Dutch, he ended up on his own rant about how everyone around here says, "Oh yeah, I'm Dutch, too!" when really only their great-grandfather or whoever came over from the Netherlands.  He says, "No, I'm actually Dutch - as I was born there." And he has a legitimate point.  But I have a counter point.

The USA, in comparison to other countries, is a relatively young country.  While there are people here who have been here since 'the beginning' and far before that, many people from our country immigrated here in the last two centuries.  And I can imagine that, for example, when my grandfather came to the United States from the Netherlands, most people identified with other groups of their nationalities, because they spoke the same language, had a similar heritage, etc.  So, "I'm Dutch" or "I'm Irish", meant something like what this student meant: I was actually born there.

And now, years later, when all their kids and grandkids speak English and have good American names like Robert and Sally, we still keep up that tradition of "I'm half Dutch, a quarter French, and a quarter Irish".

And I can imagine that somewhere down the line, when we all intermarry and have kids who are 15% this and 5% that plus a dozen other percentages, and then they have kids and they have kids and the percentages get smaller and smaller, that we'll stop identifying with our mother countries, because there's just too many.

So, I would like to say to this student: let us be.  We think it's unspeakably cool that you're from the Netherlands.  (Personally, I'm a little lot jealous.)  And we just want to identify with that.  If you don't like it, come back in 200 years and talk to our kids.

Love and Delft,
Leah Joy

P.S. For the record, this student was not being unpleasant about the whole thing.  I think it's just something he gets a lot and didn't really understand.