Amy | Lost in a Good Book

Celeste The Giraffe Loves to Laugh by Celeste Barber

03 Jan 2020 Leave a comment

by Amy in 4 Stars, Australian Women Writers, The Picture Book Corner Tags: #aww2020, australian women writers challenge, aww 2020, celeste barber, children's picture book, four stars, matt cosgrove

Published: 25th October 2019
Publisher: Scholastic Australia
Illustrator: Matt Cosgrove
Pages: 24
Format: Picture Book
★ ★ ★ ★ – 4 Stars

Celeste was a friendly, happy little giraffe. She had a kind heart and she made others laugh. But Celeste sometimes worried that she wasn’t enough. It seemed like other animals did much cooler stuff. Join Celeste the Giraffe on her hilarious journey as she finds out what it is that makes her unique.

Barber’s story is about Celeste the giraffe who is happy and friendly but worries she isn’t enough. Thus starts her journey trying new things to become cooler. It reminded me a lot of Macca’s Makeover, which I am going with it’s ok since Matt Cosgrove actually illustrates this book so he must not mind.

Celeste tries all the things her friends do in order to try and become cooler including roaring like a lion, running fast like a cheetah, or making a splash like a hippo. Barber’s story flows with a steady rhythm and the rhymes are creative, but the story is completely enhanced by Cosgrove’s accompanying illustrations.

The illustrations are typical Cosgrove – adorable, brightly coloured, and whimsical, but there is still a unique feel that doesn’t look like his typical Macca design. This gives Barber a look of her own and a style unique to her book while still being utterly adorable.

I love Cosgrove’s work so the illustrations are the real winner here. I enjoyed the story too, it’s fun and clever, not to mention great to read aloud. The formatting helps with tone and emphasis as well; the varying font styles and different sized words help get the right tone and humour across to gain the full effect.

This is a great story about using your own unique skills and talents to help other people and not to want what others have because you think they’re better. A good message for kids and told in a fun and colourful way.

You can purchase Celeste the Giraffe Love to Laugh via the following

QBD | Booktopia | Book Depository

Dymocks | Angus and Robinson

Fishpond | Amazon | Amazon Aust

2020 Goals

01 Jan 2020 4 Comments

by Amy in Rambles Tags: 2020 goals, goals, rambles

2020 has arrived and so the start of a new year of blogging goals commences. I’ve already looked back at the poor attempt I made with last year’s goals and instead of learning from that I am going to be bolder and reach wider because I have learnt nothing.

Some of these goals are ones I have thought about through the year and am going to strive and make them part of my reading habits. They aren’t completely extravagant, but even a small achievement in these areas is a win because at least I’m doing something good for myself and for the reading community.

All of these are my attempt to read more widely, more diversely, to spread the love, discover new reads and read the books, genres, and authors I love. Because reading and blogging isn’t just about making goals it is about reading good books, these are just the tools I am using to find and experience these good books. As long as I give it my best these goals can’t really be failed (some can but that is a whole other thing). As I enter my seventh year of this blog (what even is happening about that!) I am growing and evolving once more like a little blogging Pokémon and that can only be a good thing.

Read More Young Adult

There always seems to be more and more published every week while I am still catching up on those published in 2015. I want to try and read more of the YA books I’ve heard so much about, seen on my shelves every day, and bought with speed to own upon release only to never read it.

Read More #LoveOzYA

Adjacent category of the above is to hone in on our Aussie YA corner. Not only am I super keen to see if the #LoveOzYA team release another bingo (hopefully not waiting until October to do so), but in the meantime I want to discover all the Aussie writers have to offer.

Finish series

I will admit, this is my evergreen goal, but imagining the satisfaction of finishing a series is something I need to dream about to achieve this goal.

Finish a whole Bingo Game

I have done it once, I failed last year but if I remind myself I have done it once, it will also make me read these genres and stories I don’t read often which is usually how a card gets unfinished. Hopefully mixing up my card this year and doing more challenges will help as well.

Be more active on other blogs to share the love.

Despite being online and not actually face to face I still get a lot of anxiety interacting with people online but sharing a love of books and reading should hopefully push me out of my silently stalking mode into commenting and sharing the love a bit more around the blogging community.

Read more off my own shelf

A small part of me actually thinks I’ll achieve this where I have failed every other year because I keep adding books to my shelves and seeing these titles I’ve also wanted to read for years. I only need to pick them up. Maybe if I start, it will be a habit I won’t easily break. That or guilt myself into keep going. The key is to connect the books on my shelves to those in challenges or other goals because if I only used my shelves I have no doubt I’d fill every box and every goal and every genre required.

Looking at the list I think that is a decent approach to this 2020 year. If I use these as guidelines to other things I will hopefully be able to achieve them in a small way. I am already looking forward to seeing how far I can go. Do you have any reading goals you want to achieve this year?

So Long 2019, and Thanks for All the Fish

31 Dec 2019 3 Comments

by Amy in Rambles Tags: new years eve, rambles

The end of the year has come around with the usual speed and promptness. From November and December flying by and now the last few days of my break over in the blink of an eye the end of the year is one of mixed feelings. As I write this my state and country is on fire, hundreds of fires, millions of hectares destroyed and an Emergency Warning has been issued for my area with a bush fire only a few kilometres away just this afternoon. This brings a lot of strangeness to this NYE and it’s a strange thing to be wrapping up my blogging year when so much is happening around me.

This is a blog about books and reading and this year has been a great reminder about the joys and magic books can bring. While the world has been falling apart around us this year with incompetent governments and a wide variety of imbeciles ruining the planet with their greed, it has been a wonderful escape to lose yourself in books. They are the distraction you need when you feel helpless and frustrated. Working in a library I have a fortunate advantage of seeing hundreds of books a day and getting to find some interesting reads and snagging new releases. Of course whether I get to actually read a lot of these is a whole other thing, but I have done my best.

My Goodreads challenge was won with a few hours left to go in the year, sneaking in a few incredibly quick reads of a couple picture books I have because the novels I’m in the middle of will not be finished come New Year’s night. I love seeing my Year in Books that Goodreads so beautiful presents for me each year. It is a great chance to look back and see all the books I’ve already forgotten I’d read, or ones I thought I read ages ago only to realise it was only in May. This year has certainly been going on for a lot longer than normal.

In preparation of this post I went back to look at my post where I laid out my 2019 goals. I probably shouldn’t have done that because frankly it was filled with incomplete goals. I only had three essentially:

Finishing Series
Recapping Books Events
Rereading

I didn’t finish a single series I had on my list to finish so fail there.

I think I started strong with my book events before they too were sitting unpublished in a notebook still. I do wonder if I could post them next year, a few (many) months late but still a nice revisit to the event. It may also be a great test of my note taking skills to see if I even know what I was talking about when I wrote them.

I will take a tiny win in that I reread Ready Player One (still amazing, read the book it’s better than the movie). But I didn’t reread the series I wanted to either so also tiny fail.

In a way, I was consistent in my lack of achievement though so…win?

Things to be Proud Of:

Away from my goals I do have things I am proud of that I achieved this year

I had more people visit my blog in the first 11 days of January this year than I had in the entirety of 2013. I also saw my total numbers of visitors grow immensely this year which was incredible and something I honestly never thought would happen.
I read 181 books out of my 180 set goal which I think is my highest number yet
I won AWW 2019 and not just scraping through at the last minute either, proper exceeded it
I had a steady blogging schedule which worked like clockwork 99% of the time
I won #LoveOzYABookBingo by finishing a line and a few more on top of that
I achieved two Book Bingo lines

Looking at that list I am quite impressed, though I didn’t achieve my goals, I did have a lot of wins.

My original plan tonight was to read my book, eat my fill of cheese and wine and enter 2020 with books on the mind and a keen spirit to read as many as I can in this new decade. In light of the events this afternoon, I fear my evening will be to have an eagle eye on the Fires Near Me App, and an eye out the window watching the billowing smoke grow larger.

Honestly, it’s an unideal way to end the year but this has been the reality in this country for a while. I remain hopeful towards 2020 though. I want to find new books to fall in love with, I want to read even more widely and diversely than I currently am, read more Australian, read more YA, read more heartbreaking books and more joyful books.

If you are in any of the fire affected areas I hope you stay safe, if you are fire free I hope your NYE is filled with festivities and frivolity.

Have Yourself a Hairy Little Christmas by Rosie Greening

27 Dec 2019 Leave a comment

by Amy in 3 Stars, The Picture Book Corner Tags: children's picture book, Christmas, dawn machell, rosie greening, three stars

Published: 27th October 2015
Publisher: Make Believe Ideas
Illustrator: Dawn Machell
Pages: 32
Format: Picture Book
★ ★ ★ – 3 Stars

Santa wants a new hairstyle for Christmas, so Elf offers to help! Help Santa choose as you explore thick woolly beards, to ones that sparkle with glitter!

I got quite excited because looking at the touch and feel cover I thought this book might be like those “That’s not my…” books where each page had a different thing you could touch, but alas ‘tis not the case. The copy I read was just a special edition and not the norm for all of them.

So what we get instead is a cool beard you can touch on the cover, but inside are typical illustrations. That is not to say they are boring. After my disappointment subsided I actually quite liked them. They are cute and funny, Machell does a great job making these characters funny and represent the story Greening is telling.

The narrative itself is straight forward and simple, Santa wants a new look and each page depicts a new style the elf barber is trying. The rhyme is also simple, great for younger readers with big clear visual accompaniments and formatting that enhances reading aloud.

Overall, it is a sweet story. Santa finds his new look and the rhyming structure is clear and flows nicely. It is a creative holiday story and getting to play with a fluffy bear on the cover is an added bonus.

You can purchase Have Yourself a Hairy Little Christmas via the following

QBD | Booktopia | Book Depository

Dymocks | Wordery | Angus and Robinson

Fishpond | Amazon | Amazon Aust

Book Bingo 2019: Win?

26 Dec 2019 1 Comment

by Amy in Book Bingo Tags: book bingo, book bingo 19

All year I have been keeping a fairly regular eye on my bingo card and for a while I was on track, then it seemed like I was behind, but finishing 2019 with two lines of bingo and the majority of my card filled I am seeing the success, but feeling a slight let down I was so close. It probably would have been easy to finish it off, I only needed a few squares, but alas, it wasn’t meant to be. Looking at my planned intentions at the start of the year I kept it relatively simple but with a decent challenge:

“For 2019 I’m looking at reading a variety of stories, voices, and genres I don’t explore that often.”

This was achieved because I spread out my categories once more and with the addition of the #LoveOzYABookBingo I was able to experience a lot of other amazing stories as well. The ideas for next year are already circling my mind – with the possibility of branching into narrative themes or maybe I’ll just have to challenge myself to do another bingo, smaller of course, but with a few different squares. Another thing I also said at the start of the year is “I don’t know if I will do a full card this year, but I will try for as many lines completed as I can” which, I think, 100% clears me from worrying about how successful I have been.