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Sally and Dave, a Slug Story by Felice Arena

Reading level: Ages 4-8
Paperback: 32 pages
Publisher: Kane/Miller Book Pub (March 1, 2008)
ISBN-10: 1933605715
ISBN-13: 978-1933605715

Sally the slug is the kind of girl…er slug…you love to hate. “She’s sensational at sports. She’s sleek, slim, and simply stunning.” You name it, she can do it superbly from shooting soccer goals to performing spectacular snowboard stunts. Oh, and she’s a little obnoxious in my humble opinion.

Her neighbor, Dave on the other hand is a “common fat slug.” His favorite activities include “sleeping sideways in his own slime…[and] “sidewalk sunbathing in summer.” He’s perfectly happy with his life, until one day, Sally makes a snide and insulting remark. It takes a scary situation and a heroic act for Dave to regain his confidence and for Sally to change her tune about this “slimy slacker” who turns out to be pretty darn “special.”

In addition to the engaging and fast-paced storyline, the cartoonish illustrations are hilarious. In one scene, Dave is in the bathtub sulking about Sally’s comments, a frown on his face, his shoulders hunched, and his googly eyes looking down—a pretty sad scene except “she’s a superfreak…superfreak…” is playing on the radio. Another great scene is of Dave sidewalk sunbathing. He’s wearing sunglasses and a colorful Hawaiian shirt and lounging in a chair with his hands behind his head (do slugs have limbs?). He’s even got a bottle of “Slug Screen” to protect his sensitive slimy skin from the scorching sun.

This book would make a great read aloud for younger children, and definitely cheer anyone up who’s had a particularly grumpy day. If you’re looking for a book that will make your child chuckle,Sally and Dave, a Slug Story would make a perfect choice.

What other bloggers are saying:

Book Buds Kidlit Reviews: “Sally and Dave: A Slug Story begs to be read aloud. Toddlers to emergent readers will enjoy hearing the hiss of the words as they stream by.”

Jen Robinson’s Book Page: “…This is a highly entertaining title that is sure to please preschoolers. I think that the fact that the main characters are slugs, with the hero a boy slug, will make this book especially pleasing to young boys, though I'm sure girls will like it, too.”

I love hosting Poetry Friday. It's something that I am quick to sign up for and eagerly look forward to as well as every Poetry Friday whether I am hosting or not. This month is crazier than usual in my insanely paced life.

February is here and with it the heavy convention season begins for my company, of deals, heavy workload, trying to find rooms at Comic Con (come on San Diego be a little more organized will ya), trying to keep my food blog updated, starting up my book reviewing again for BOTH AmoXcalli and Cuentecitos along with my regular duties of being a grandma, trying to have a social life, trying not to be a total laptop hermit when I get home and just darn cleaning the house.

Before I even realized I was hosting sometime in February, my trusty Blackberry calendar pinged at me and told me it was tomorrow. TOMORROW!!! Holy crap! Tomorrow is the Annie Awards and I'm going crazy. I have to find a dress, decide on shoes, get my hair done, get my nails done, get back home and get ready by 4:00 p.m. To add to my stress, I have a date. My first real date since the ex who shall be nameless and I broke up. I haven't dated in 12 years! ACK!

My frenzy reminded me of a poem I've always loved by Anne Sexton, (one of my favorite poets) and I thought I'd share it and ask the Poetry Friday question, what makes you frenzied? What helps to ease it? For me, it's the realization that it always turns out right in the end and if not, well there's always poetry.

I'll be out and about tomorrow getting early Saturday getting my hair done, etc. then I will be at the awards ceremony till late. I'll be checking in and putting up your posts as much as I can, but the round-up will be most likely be a separate post as always and it will be up on Saturday morning. Leave your lovely offerings with Mr. Linky and do remember to stop back to see what poem we collectively come up with in the round-up on Saturday. Don't forget to leave a comment. Happy Poetry Friday everyone!

Anne Sexton - Frenzy

I am not lazy.
I am on the amphetamine of the soul.
I am, each day,
typing out the God
my typewriter believes in.
Very quick. Very intense,
like a wolf at a live heart.
Not lazy.
When a lazy man, they say,
looks toward heaven,
the angels close the windows.

Oh angels,
keep the windows open
so that I may reach in
and steal each object,
objects that tell me the sea is not dying,
objects that tell me the dirt has a life-wish,
that the Christ who walked for me,
walked on true ground
and that this frenzy,
like bees stinging the heart all morning,
will keep the angels
with their windows open,
wide as an English bathtub.

It's time to update the Poetry Friday schedule! As soon as I post it here, I'll head over to the kidlitosphere group and update the calendar as well. So, here goes: January-April:

January 18: Farm School
January 25: Mentor Texts & More
February 1: Karen Edmisten
February 8: AmoXcalli
February 15: HipWriterMama
February 22: here
February 29: Kelly Fineman
March 7: The Simple and the Ordinary
March 14: Jama Rattigan
(share your favorite Dylan lyric)
March 21: Wild Rose Reader
March 28: Cuentesitos
April 4: Becky's Book Reviews
April 11: A Wrung Sponge

If I've missed you, please let me know and I'll add you to the PF schedule!

I really love poetry about poetry and the act of writing poetry. For some reason the meta- aspect of the poetic act appeals to me.

Today's Poetry Friday comes from Czeslaw Milosz's "Ars Poetica?":

Happy Solstice everyone!

Last time I hosted, I made a fun poem of all your links - am I up for the challenge again? We'll see...I will round it up in a separate post late tonight so be sure to check back for the round up.

Wow, it's only 7:30ish in the morning here and there are already 27 poems up! That's fantastic. I'm headed off to work, but will be trying to look through and read each of your poems throughout the day. Sounds like we have quite the diverse and interesting batch as usual! I'm so grateful to Poetry Friday. I'd never get a chance to find all these great poems, discover new poets and read original works without you all. I'm so looking forward to a new year of poetry with you all!

It's Solstice, the Lakota Nation has announced that they will secede from the U.S. and become their own country (!), I turned 46 and I just launched a cooking website. It's been a crazy, wild, wonderful December. What a way to end the year.

Happy Holidays everyone! Here's Mr. Linky and please do leave a comment.

My Poetry Friday offering is Claribel Alegria (her name just makes me smile), with an interesting little poem in Spanish called Tamalitos de Cambray. I'll do my best to translate it for you. I've also attached two Youtube videos, one in English, one in Spanish so you all can get to know the lovely Ms. Alegria a little better. I love when she talks about how how important reading is.

TAMALITOS DE CAMBRAY

(5,000,000 de tamalitos)

A Eduardo y Helena que me
pidieron una receta salvadoreña.

Dos libras de masa de mestizo
media libra de lomo gachupín
cocido y bien picado
una cajita de pasas beata
dos cucharadas de leche de Malinche
una taza de agua bien rabiosa
un sofrito con cascos de conquistadores
tres cebollas jesuitas
una bolsita de oro multinacional
dos dientes de dragón
una zanahoria presidencial
dos cucharadas de alcahuetes
manteca de indios de Panchimalco
dos tomates ministeriales
media taza de azúcar televisora
dos gotas de lava de volcán
siete hojas de pito
(no seas mal pensado es somnífero)
lo pones todo a cocer
a fuego lento
por quinientos años
y verás qué sabor.

Claribel Alegria

Little Cambray Tamales

(makes 5,000,000 little tamales)
- for Eduardo and Helena who asked me
for a Salvadoran recipe


Two pounds of mestizo cornmeal
half a pound of loin of gachupin
cooked and finely chopped
a box of pious raisins
two tablespoons of Malinche's milk
one cup of enraged water
a fry of conquistador helmets
three Jesuit onions
a small bag of multinational gold
two dragon's teeth
one presidential carrot
two tablespoons of pimps
lard of Panchimalco Indians
two ministerial tomatoes
a half cup of television sugar
two drops of volcanic lava
seven leaves of pito*
(don't be dirty-minded, it's a soporific)
put everything to boil
over a slow fire
for five hundred years
and you'll see how tasty it is.

*pito means to whistle, it's also an sleep-inducing herb; but there's another translation. It's slang for penis (which is why she is saying don't be dirty minded).

It's time for the new Poetry Friday schedule. Here it is:

November 9: A Wrung Sponge
November 16: here at Big A little a
November 23: Susan Taylor Brown
November 30: Two Writing Teachers
December 7: Becky's Book Reviews
December 14: The Miss Rumphius Effect
December 21: AmoXicalli
December 28: Check It Out
January 4: A Year of Reading

If I've missed you, please send me an e-mail and we'll get you signed up for January. 2008!

Today's Poetry Friday post is quite prosaic and will be late. That's right, it's scheduling time again. I have e-mails from many of you in my inbox with special requests. If anyone else really wants to host Poetry Friday in November or December, drop me a line.

Today's roundup is over at Mentor Texts & More. Next week Cloudscome will be hosting at A Wrung Sponge, and she has something special planned (Poetry in Place).

This week's poetry Friday lands on All Saint's Day, the day AFTER Dia de los Muertos. Two years ago I wrote a poem celebrating the birth of my grandson Aiden and honoring my grandfather - Salvador Medina Camarillo who passed away from complications of cancer in 1987. The poem is called Cien Años - 100 years because his favorite saying was that he was going to live 100 years. He didn't quite make it but he was the strongest man I've ever known and battled cancer from the 1960s till the day he died. The year my grandmother died in 1984 - he had 7 major surgeries in one month and a few months later was out breaking concrete with a sledge hammer. You'd think that with such vitality and strength he'd be rough and gruff - but no, he was the gentlest, kindest man I've ever met. He believed in paying it forward, doing good just for the sake of doing it. He did the right thing simply because it was the right thing and never had an agenda. He and my grandmother Maria Guadalupe Gonzales Camarillo or Dona Lupe as she was known, would be proud of what all these bloggers are doing for Robert's Snow and I honor their memory with each post for it.

My Poetry Friday post is a Day of the Dead altar of sorts. I hope you enjoy this little taste of my culture. I welcome you to leave a little candle of a comment on this altar for your loved ones who have passed.



I've attached my Papa Chava's (that's what we called him) picture along with pictures and video of the Day of the Dead ceremony last night in Lincoln Park. Please keep in mind I was dancing so the video isn't very good.

It's been a tremendously busy week for me and an exciting one. I've interviewed Ana Castillo (what an amazing lady she is), I've been researching illustrators, preparing for the Cybils, talking my nice boss into giving Dana-Farber free banner advertising and picking out safe new car seats for my grandkids along with my everyday work madness. I almost clean forgot Poetry Friday which would have been terrible since (gulp) I'm hosting and rounding up.

In honor of Ana Castillo and Poetry Friday - here is the link to her speaking her seminal poem - Women Don't Riot from her book I Ask the Impossible.

Women Don't Riot

I hope I figured out Mr. Linky. I can't wait to see what everyone comes up with for my first hosting Poetry Friday.

Please leave a comment after dropping your poem off with Mr. Linky. Happy Poetry Friday everyone!

It rained all last night and off and on throughout the day. The grandkids and I were cheated out of our walk but we're happy to have the rain here in sometimes too sunny California. My Grandma Lupe's long-standing tradition was always to make either caldo de rez (beef and vegetable soup) or caldo de pollo (chicken soup) on the first rainy day. It's a great tradition and I've done a darned good job in keeping it. My children always knew the first rainy day meant soup and some kind of baking and now my grandchildren are learning. Traditions are important to me.

It's Saturday. If it had been a Saturday when I was growing up, I'd have been lying under piles of blankets smelling the morning baking my grandmother was doing, smelling chiles roasting, hearing my grandfather banging out tortillas with his big rolling pin. If I had been at my mom's it would have been cartoons, cold cereal and a blanket on the couch. In my house now, Saturdays mean the grandkids are here. Cartoons? Once in a great while. I do work in animation... But mostly, Saturdays - rainy ones mean cuddling on the bean bags and reading stories. Today we read the first chapter of The Wind in the Willows. Isn't that a great book?

After reading, we piled into the car at the first break in the rain and headed to the Mexican market to get groceries for soup. I meant to do chicken but ended up wanting beef instead. I had a great time teaching my granddaughter Jasmine how to pick out the right vegetables. We had so much fun smelling herbs, squeezing lemons, looking at tomatoes, discussing chiles and laughing at the funny sounds of words in Spanish, English and Nahuatl. Words like loroco, flor de calabaza, tomatl, tomate, tomato. She has a good sense of what we need and she's only four. She knows that we want the juiciest, darkest red tomatoes for salsa, the firmer Romas for Spanish rice and things like salad. She knows the difference between the smell of oregano and thyme, can tell you what we use it for and that spearmint tea will take away a tummy ache. She's steeped in tradition and in her culture and that makes me happy to know that things like my grandmother's recipes won't be lost.

We bought chamorros de rez (beef shanks), soup bones, loroco, mexican squash, chayote or chayotl squash, squash flowers, fresh thyme, fresh oregano, chiles of four different varieties, lemons, new potatoes white and purple, tomatoes, carrots, white Mexican corn on the cob, celery, cabbage, cilantro, garlic and onions. We bought fresh Mexican white cheese (queso fresco) that crumbly mild almost ricotta-like wheel of cheese that is my favorite and Monterey Jack. We also bought huge pink and white marshmallows and a big pumpkin.

At home again, we set the soup bones and chamorros to mingle with fresh thyme, cilantro, oregano, a head of garlic and two quartered onions in boiling salted water while we read more about our friends Toad, Mole and the rest. I got in some crocheting while the grandkids napped and thought about next weeks Poetry Friday (yikes I'm hosting), Robert's Snow and the upcoming Cybil Awards. I have the honor of featuring four illustrators on both Cuentecitos and AmoXcalli for Robert's Snow - Blogging for A Cure organized by Jules and Eisha of Seven Impossible Things Before Breakfast. Those two are the most organized people I've run into in a while! I also have the honor of being a panelist again for graphic novels with the 2007 Cybil Awards. I'm going to be a busy girl!

Several hours later, we had a great beefy stock going. We pulled out the herbs, garlic, meat and bones and strained out the stock. We then added quarted potatoes in their skins and the carrots chopped into chunks. We let that get halfway done, then added chopped celery, chunks of chayote squash and fresh Mexican white corn on the cob and while that was cooking we sliced into paper thin wheels, the zucchini and Mexican squash which we carefully laid on top to steam along with a quartered cabbage. We put the lid on the pot and let that simmer for five minutes just long enough for the cabbage to wilt and change color.

I had made fresh roasted salsa earlier along with squash flower and loroco quesadillas and Spanish rice. We cut quesadillas into little crispy triangles oozing the mix of cheeses with little green and yellow flowers cascading out and arranged those on a plate with a little bowl of salsa in the middle. I stirred the meat back into the soup and served it out into each bowl making sure everyone got an ear of corn. The traditional way is to scoop out a spoonful of rice in the middle of the bowl then serve the soup right over it. We sat down to squeeze lemon over the hot soup and rice, nibbled quesadillas along with the soup and most of us scooped the salsa right into the soup as well. For dessert I had made hot Mexican chocolate with cinnamon covered by the huge marshmallows in pink and white and the fresh pumpkin empanadas that are my son Albert's favorites. My grandchildren are sleeping now full of stories, food and tradition.

Aren't rainy days wonderful?

Now that I'm back, I can work on the Poetry Friday hosting schedule. Here's who's hosting next:

• This Friday, July 27, Jone (aka MsMac) will be your host at Check it Out
• August 3: Tricia at The Miss Rumphius Effect
• August 10: Here at Big A little a

Let me know if you want to host in August or September!