Enchanted Lion has done it again, found an amazing book from the international picture book world, and published it in English translation. Notably, this book was selected by the New York Public Library as one of the Best Illustrated Children's Books for 2022, but the narrative is wonderful, too! Parents everywhere will see their own … Continue reading Bedtime for Bo – Perfect Picture Book Friday
Sometimes I review books because I'm struck by their beauty, their language, or their humor. Other times I review a book because it's an important issue or an exploration of a topic that isn't often seen in picture book form. This is one of those books. But it is also beautifully illustrated and written. The … Continue reading The Big Bad Wolf in My House – Perfect Picture Book Friday
Here's another exquisitely beautiful book in translation from 2021 that nearly missed my radar. Of course it's published by Enchanted Lion. You might think you know what a river is: a strip of water that flows from a source(s) to a delta, whether the mouth of the delta is on the ocean like the Mighty … Continue reading What Is a River? – Perfect Picture Book Friday
I came across Bruno and his grandmother while I was doing a little research about bees. And what a treat! Translated from Czech, it's a budding apiarist's dream. orig text/illus ©Aneta Františka Holasová translation ©Andrew Lass The book's preface explains how Bruno inherited his bees and how Grandma (yes, a human Grandma) now helps Bruno … Continue reading Bruno the Beekeeper – Perfect Picture Book Friday
Enchanted Lion publishes interesting and thought-provoking books, including books in translation. The title declares that this will be a story about the sky and its varied shades/colors of light. But it feels like it's about so much more: pausing, breathing, listening, taking the time to observe our glorious world. The first image fills only a … Continue reading Every Color of Light – Perfect Picture Book Friday
First, I've got to show you where a spent a few hours this past week during spring break in Los Angeles. Yes, it's THE LAST BOOKSTORE housed in an old bank in downtown LA! And what did I find in THE LAST BOOKSTORE? Well, an unusual picture book written by Swedish author, Martin Widmark. The … Continue reading THE LAST BOOKSTORE + The House of Lost and Found – Perfect Picture Book Friday
More sensational than sex, nudity, or gratuitous violence---(at least to people who care about word choice, sentence structure, and quality of composition) Tim Parks plants a stake firmly in the ground about the need for *intelligent* editors and editing in the era of cacophony. Is your stake in the same ground? In Praise of the … Continue reading In Praise of the Language Police by Tim Parks | NYRblog | The New York Review of Books
And now, ladies and gentlemen, it's time for Name That Book! We've identified several people in our studio audience who think they know a thing or two about "great" literature (no not you, Professor Bloom), so we're going to challenge them. The first one to identify the "home" of the following passage wins a pat … Continue reading Name That Book!
Last night, I was not quite having a conversation with a friend whom I haven’t seen since 2003. It was late, and we were messaging each other through Facebook—my ambivalence about technology and social networking temporarily suspended while we “chatted” through e-space. He was telling me that he’s in the last gasp of getting an … Continue reading Six Degrees of Separation–or Death of the Original
Jilanne Hoffmann 