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I honestly had a love/hate relationship with this book. Ok, maybe hate is too strong of a word, especially since I didn't hate anything about it, I actually rather liked it, however there were definitely parts where I was somewhat disappointed as to where the story was leading and how it's main character was acting. I suppose that is a part of a lot of books (I should know that by now, eh?), I guess just fell in love with the beginning of the story and wasn't quite as in love when the book ended. Still an enjoyable read and one I know young girls will like.

Charlotte Kandel has created a story around a timeless life lesson: be careful what you wish for. 13 year old Daphne was dropped off at an orphanage right after she was born and grew up wondering what it would be like to have a family. She also grew up being in love with ballet and dancing and wished for a day when she had the time to practice and the money to take lessons. When a mysterious package arrives anonymously in the mail for her, containing a book about ballet and a scarlet pair of stockings, Daphne is perplexed, but intrigued, especially when she discovers that the stockings are magic.

When she wears the stockings, magical things happen to her. She begins to be great at ballet and most importantly, is adopted by a wonderful family right there in London. She is able to begin taking dancing lessons and life seems to be great, until greed gets ahold of Daphne. The stockings change Daphne, making her want more and more out of life until it doesn't matter anymore who she hurts in the process. She leaves her family to study ballet far away and actually begins to make it rather big in the ballet world, landing a great role, though leaves her family in the dark the entire time. She becomes selfish, arrogant, and pompous. When Daphne realizes she no longer likes herself or the life she now has, making her wonder just where the real Daphne went. She must overcome the power of the stockings to return to who she once was and who she really wants to be.

This really is an enjoyable book and I think young girls will really enjoy Daphne's story. The jacket is absolutely beautiful with swirly pink letters and gold foil, instantly making me want to pick it up. The direction I first thought it would go is not how the story ended up, leaving me a tad bit disappointed. I didn't like how wicked Daphne became, though I know it was to show just how much a material possession, especially one with magic, could rule a young girl's life. I do recommend this book to others, especially girls between about 8 and 12 and will be purchasing it for the library. I know it won't stay on the shelves long, just as much as I know I would like to see more from Charlotte Kandel!

This is from Sharon Levin, Bay Area bookwoman extraordiare:

The Center for Jewish History recently completed a pilot project to digitize and make freely accessible online 40 Yiddish and Hebrew children's books, many of which are richly illustrated, from the collections of two of the Center's Partners: The YIVO Institute for Jewish Research, and the Yeshiva University Museum.

The collection, which is still growing rapidly and also includes books from other CJH partners, can be found online here.

The books were digitized and made available by the Gruss Lipper Digital Laboratory, the Center's state-of-the-art in-house digital collections-building facility. In addition to making the children's books available through CJH Digital Collections, the books were also uploaded to the International Children's Digital Library (www.icdlbooks.org), thereby making them even more widely accessible to current and future generations.

The Children's Books Pilot Project at the Center for Jewish History was supported in part by funds from the Metropolitan New York Library Council (METRO) through the New York State Regional Bibliographic Databases Program. Thanks to the success of this METRO-funded pilot project, the Center has since received a generous gift from the Morris and Alma Schapiro Fund to digitize a further 50 children's books.

by Charlotte Kandel

More than anything, orphan Daphne wants to dance. When she receives (anonymously) a book on ballet, along with a pair of strange stockings, she begins practicing every chance she can. Her life takes a dramatic turn when, not only does she get adopted, but she discovers that the stockings are magical.

I have mixed feelings about The Enchanted Riddle. My main problem with it was the main character. She seemed like a really good, sweet person one moment and then the next she would (for no comprehensible reason) do awful things that I couldn't understand. Perhaps the author was trying to show that the stockings (which end up being more of a curse than a blessing) were controlling her and making her act that way? The whole magic element of the book seemed lacking, too.

So, I disliked the things I mentioned above, but still enjoyed the book quite a bit. Books about struggling, aspiring performers are right up my ally. The overall tone of the book was even a little reminiscent of Noel Streatfeild's lovely Shoe series. My favorite parts were the descriptions of the theater and performances. If you're passionate about the performing arts, I would definitely recommend this book as a light, enjoyable read.

I spent a bit of today looking through old sketchbooks and had a good laugh. Take a look at a sketch I completed in 1989:


From 1997:


And some from 2002 (I was a student at Grant MacEwan College):



Evolution is a wonderful thing!

*there's only one more day until my blog contest ends! Scroll down for more information.

I read about A Place To Bark on one of my favorite artist's blogs. Claudine is giving away a work of art, plus some books, so head on over there to donate and be entered in her drawing!!

I was so inspired by Claudine's generosity and sharing that I decided to do the same. I'm giving away 10 archival, signed pet art prints in a drawing. To be entered in the drawing, please make a $10 donation to this wonderful cause.

Please read the FULL DETAILS here on my pet portrait blog.

Click HERE to print out a puzzle using the words in Topsy Turvy Land! ________

A special treat! A hidden picture puzzle by Liz Ball. To order books with her hidden picture puzzles, click HERE. Enjoy! *Click on the picture, then print! It will print out full size ready to be colored. If that doesn't work with your printer, right click on the picture, and then 'save picture as...' and then you can print it out using your photo program._______

Liz Ball shares a Hidden Picture Puzzle for Thanksgiving. Enjoy! *Click on the picture, then print! It will print out full size ready to be colored. If that doesn't work with your printer, right click on the picture, and then 'save picture as...' and then you can print it out using your photo program.________

“You know how some sites have like one free chapter so you can see how the book is before you buy it?”

“Yeah. That’s pretty cool. It’s just like going to the bookstore and reading some of the book before you buy it in the store.”

“But we have all our chapters on our site. We give all the chapters away for free.”

“Because we’re the crazy LadyStar peoples! Come on, Miss Shannon. We’ve got a guard cat that’s been asleep for six years! We’ve got a blond girl somewhere around here that’s as smart as Mozart about music but wears yellow tennis shoes as a fashion statement! We have a bird that makes magic flowers appear!”

“heh. We still publish articles about Pluto.”

“Yeah but it’s a planet.”

“Yeah, are you savvy?”

“Alright everyone out.”

“But mom!”

*giggle*

“You know, one thing a lot of new people might not know about our site is we are publishing our whole story for free so anyone can read it.”

“Yeah, we got two whole novels published already. One is called The Dreamspeaker, which is the story of when we found the first five Ajan Treasures. We also got The Palace in the Sky which is a story about when we went to a place called the Venom Deeps and battled lots of scary monsters.”

“Both of those books are already complete, and we have parts of two more books published. One is called Call of the Huntress which is going to be published next, and the fourth book is called Winterdancer. Both of those books will be published free just like the first two really soon.”

“So come back and visit us and be sure to read our books, ’cause we have lots of neat adventures. Ja ne minna!”

“Hey everyone. We’ve had quite a few updates for the third book in our series, Call of the Huntress, so I thought it would be a good idea to make a list of what we’ve previewed so far.”

“That’s a great idea Shannon-sama!”

“Thanks, Hoshi! Okay, our first preview was By the Light of the Stars which is the story of the Warrior of the Night battling reptile-like monsters called Carcs.”

“Yucky. I don’t like monsters.”

“The second update was a four-part series called the Plot Against the Vicereine, about a noble in Aventar who gets attacked by evil assassins. Here’s Part One, Part Two, Part Three, and Part Four.”

“The Vicereine seems like she’s real strong. I hope we don’t have to fight her.”

“Yeah, but she gave that little boy a silver coin even though the price of the flower was a lot less. I think that was really nice.”

“Yeah! That was nice, huh? I wonder what a cruss ring is though.”

“So how come you decided to do a preview roundup today?”

“Guess.”

“Ooh! You’re gonna have another preview?! Realeeeee?”

“Check back later today everyone! A brand new exclusive preview from Book Three of our series Call of the Huntress, right here. See ya then!”

“Don’t miss the new preview! Ja minna!”

The Hula sets his soul free!

Very crude, I don't know what I am doing. Must be better tools than a mouse to do this, but I still like the look of this one anyway.
Anyway, I'd feel free walking up this hill.

Hi all- this is my first post here. Don't do ATCs so here's something relating to 'free'.

This is my first post on this wonderful blog, so thanks for accepting me! I did this illustration a while back for the cover of the annual magazine for the Finnish Association of Magazine Journalists (free translation, no pun intended). It's watercolour pencil and wax crayon on coloured paper. It was supposed to symbolise the purpose of journalism, which might be somewhat obvious.

One of the things I love about my new home is the commute. Now that I live as far east as possible in Manhattan I need to take the bus to get to work. Why am I happy about the longer commute? Because it affords me the time to catch up on all the New Yorkers I haven’t had the chance to finish. Yesterday, on my way home I read “An Error in Code” by Richard Preston and I can’t seem to get the article out of my head. (more…)

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This giraffe, illustrated by Kevin Scott Collier, is adorable! What do you think his name is? Have fun! *Click on the picture, then print! It will print out full size ready to be colored. If that doesn't work with your printer, right click on the picture, and then 'save picture as...' and then you can print it out using your photo program.

Halloween = FREE CANDY!!!

Here's what I think freedom may look like. To fly close to the moon as a baby! Well it's silly but still I enjoy picturing it. Hope you like it too!
Cheers XXX

Hi everyone, this is my first post here! I finally completed the series of ATC cards I was making on favorite chocolate experiences. One such experience is going to the Sees Candies store and getting their FREE samples.

Anyway, this looks like a fun group here, and I'm glad to join you! =)

This is what I think of when I think FREE. Our poor little beagle is now 16 years old and has a hard time getting around. We have two parakeets. Too bad she can't shrink down and fly around on one of them! It would be much easier than tackling the slick kitchen linoleum without sliding. This is a much younger version of her--before the gray settled in.

One last picture before summer's end. Isn't this hippo the cutest thing? Courtesy of Liz Ball, illustrator. *Click on the picture, then print! It will print out full size ready to be colored. If that doesn't work with your printer, right click on the picture, and then 'save picture as...' and then you can print it out using your photo program.

The August Devo for Kids is up. Click HERE for Topsy Turvy Time!