Mommy Brain

The Invention of Hugo Cabret by Brian Selznick

Nancy Drew and the Clue on the Silver Screen by “Carolyn Keene”
Igraine the Brave by Cornelia Funke
The Ultimate Babysitter’s Handbook by Debra Mostow Zakarin
Bad Times, Big Crimes (Nancy Drew: All New Girl Detective #14) by “Carolyn Keene”
En Garde (Nancy Drew: All New Girl Detective #17) by “Carolyn Keene”
Secret of the Spa (Nancy Drew: All New Girl Detective #9) by “Carolyn Keene”
Dangerous Plays (Nancy Drew: All New Girl Detective #16) by “Carolyn Keene”
The Wish List by Eoin Colfer
The Stolen Relic (Nancy Drew: All New Girl Detective #7) by “Carolyn Keene”

Eric Liddell: Something Greater Than Gold by Geoff and Janet Benge
Crispin: Cross of Iron by Avi
Poetry Speaks to Children
The Toy Brother by William Steig
Squids Will Be Squids: Fresh Morals, Beastly Fables by Jon Scieszka & Lane Smith
The True Story of the Three Little Pigs by Jon Scieszka & Lane Smith
Snow in Jerusalem by Deborah da Costa
The Frog Prince, Continued by John Scieszka

Be sure to go check out the mondo-long list of giveaways at Bloggy Giveaways!

(Veggie Tales: Tomato Sawyer & Huckleberry Larry’s Big River Rescue was provided to me by Special Ops Media for the purpose of this review and giveaway.)

“Take a little trippy down the Mighty Mississippi!” Tomato Sawyer and Huckleberry Larry’s life on the lazy river takes a turn for adventure when they help a stranger in need. With unexpected twists around every bend, they discover that while helping others may not be the easiest thing to do, it’s always the right thing to do!

The Veggies are back with this tale loosely based on Mark Twain’s The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. I won’t say this ranks up there with my favorite Veggie Tales, but the kids enjoyed it. And the really cool thing is that the nice folks at Special Ops Media have sent me an extra copy to give away to one lucky reader!

Here’s how to enter:

1. This giveaway is open to all readers in Canada and the US. Sorry to any foreign readers, but I’m paying for shipping myself.

2. Leave a comment on this post for one entry.

3. For an additional entry, blog about this giveaway, with a link to this post. Then drop me an e-mail at nnjmom at yahoo dot com with the link to your post.

4. Since I’m leaving on Sunday for a week’s vacation, I’ll leave this open until 11:59 pm PST Sunday, August 3rd. I’ll draw a winner sometime Monday, August 4th.

We’re off at 4 am tomorrow, and busy today packing, so I’ll say farewell for a while. If you need something to read before we get back, I’ve pre-posted almost every day at Books and Movies, since I’m supposed to post so many times a week there. Some of the posts are repeats of what you’ve already seen here, other posts are all new.

See you in August!

Two more days, and we’re off to the Oregon Coast! I’m not sure who is more excited - Kevin, or the kids. I’m excited, too, but I haven’t quite reached their level yet. I’m too worried that I’m going to forget something important. Whenever I’m preparing for something - concert at church, start of a new school year, packing for a trip - I start having one of three dreams. Either it’s opening night (I was a theater major) and I don’t know my lines - or often, even what play we’re performing, or I’m back in high school and I can’t remember my locker combination or my class schedule, or I’m back in college and it’s time for an exam and I haven’t even read the text. Am I the only one that has these dreams? Tell me I’m not crazy.

This may be the last post for a while. We’re going to a hotel that has wireless, but my wireless card isn’t the best, and who knows if I’ll have time to blog. If I don’t find time, I’ll have lots to tell you when we get back.

Wanna know what books I’m packing?

Guernica by Dave Boling

Waiting to Surface by Emily Listfield

Inglorious by Joanna Kavenna

Stealing Athena by Karen Essex

This Charming Man by Marian Keyes

All of these are ARCs or publisher’s copies I’ve been sent to review - and one I won in a giveaway at Musings of a Bookish Kitty. Hopefully, I’ll have some time to read on vacation.

Here are a few links for your weekend surfing:

~ Jelly Telly is the next big thing from Phil Vischer, creator of Veggie Tales. It looks pretty cool.

~ There’s no way around it, this guy is a complete and utter idiot.

~ Remember Improv Everywhere, the group who staged the freeze-in in Central Station? They also staged a musical in a Food Court. Hat tip: Just a (Reading) Fool.

~ This video is inspiring and really cool. Hat tip: Mental Multivitamin.

(Transformers Cybertron: The Ultimate Collection was provided to me by Click Communications for the purpose of review.)

Cybertron, the Transformers’ home planet, is on the brink of destruction as an ominous Black Hole looms. In order to save their world, the Transformers embark upon an intergalactic scavenger hunt across the universe, searching for the lost Cyber Planet Keys. The evil Decepticons, villains unlike any you have seen before, are in a race against the Heroic Autubots to recover these lost Cyber Planet Keys - keys that have the power to unlock the Cybertron planet itself, creating the greatest Transformer the universe has ever seen! The battle will span the galaxy in a race to wield the all powerful Planet Keys and to save their home world of Cybertron from certain doom!

OPTIMUS PRIME and the AUTOBOTS face one of their greatest challenges ever as they battle to save their home planet and the universe itself in TRANSFORMERS CYBERTRON: The Ultimate Collection, arriving in a seven-DVD set on July 22, 2008 from Paramount Home Entertainment. This power-packed release features all 52 episodes from the long-running 2005 Cartoon Network series based on the classic program from the ‘80s. TRANSFORMERS CYBERTRON: The Ultimate Collection includes hours of adventures full of intrigue and surprise and is the ultimate gift set for fans of the legendary “robots in disguise”.

Okay, I have to tell you that any day that brings the arrival of 52 episodes of Transformers on DVD ranks up there with Christmas in my boys’ minds. They were so excited, especially since it arrived on the same day as the final disc of the Avatar series. And since I am having major short-timers disease and not wanting to do anything besides get ready to leave on vacation on Sunday, I have had no problem with letting them veg out in front of the TV. Don’t worry, though, every once in a while, the good mommy kicks in, and I send them outside to ride their bikes.

They have only watched a couple episodes of this so far, but they are each giving it two thumbs up.

Transformers Cybertron: The Ultimate Collection is available on DVD now.

(Avatar: The Last Airbender - Book 3 Fire, Vol. 4 was provided to me by Special Ops Media for the purpose of review.)

The kids return to the Fire Nation and prepare for their final confrontation with firelord Ozai, but they discover that the Firelord has plans of his own: he has ordained himself Phoenix King and appointed Princess Azula as the next Firelord.

In the spectacular four-part finale of Avatar Book 3: Fire, Aang fulfills his destiny as the Avatar and confronts the Firelord in the greatest battle of the series.

We have been huge fans of Nickolodeon’s Avatar: The Last Airbender series since we first started watching it on TV. When we got rid of our satellite, we kept up on DVD through Netflix. The kids sat yesterday and watched all six episodes on this final disc yesterday. (I know, I’m a bad mom, but we are on summer break.) I could tell from the cheers and satisfied smiles that they loved the way the series ended.

Don’t tell Noah I told you this, but he was glad Aang got to kiss Katara in the end.

Avatar: The Last Airbender - Book 3 Fire, Vol. 4 will be available on DVD on July 29th. Special features include commentary by creators, cast, and crew.

(College Road Trip was provided to me by Click Communications for the purpose of review.)

Get ready for a wildly hilarious ride with Martin Lawrence and Raven-Symone in Disney’s chaotic comedy College Road Trip. Ambitious and confident Melanie Porter (Raven-Symone) is eagerly looking forward to her first big step toward independence - a girls-only road trip to check out colleges. But this rite of passage takes a wrong turn when her overprotective father (Martin Lawrence) insists on escorting her instead - and Melanie’s dream trip quickly turns into a nightmare of wild and wacky curves. So fasten your seat belts for a nonstop, laugh-out-loud, madcap adventure that’ll drive your silly.

I’m not a big fan of Raven-Symone, so I only agreed to review this one if Natalie writes the review. Here are her thoughts:

“From way at the beginning when Melanie was born, her dad started to plan out where she would go to college. Her dad is the kind of dad who is really attached to his daughter and then his daughter is not very happy, that sort of thing.

Well, Melanie’s dad wants her to go to a college that is only about 20 minutes away. Well, Melanie has other plans, she get accepted into Georgetown in D.C. She then plans to go with her friends to D.C. but her dad doesn’t want her to.

So they, well, Melanie’s dad, plans out a road trip father-daughter thing. So Melanie goes along but doesn’t like it at all! Her dad needs to realize that she isn’t a little girl anymore and that her dad needs to trust her.

This movie has a good moral and a very happy ending! I encourage you all to watch this Disney Channel Movie!

Natalie”

At the end of last year’s school year, I was thinking ahead to the coming year’s history studies. We have been working our way through Story of the World II: The Middle Ages (and still are, since there’s too much information to cover in nine months). I wanted to coordinate some of my personal reading with what we were studying. I asked Carol at Magistramater for a book suggestion on the Middle Ages. She recommended Kristin Lavransdatter.

Kristin Lavransdatter is a saga in three parts (The Wreath, The Wife, and The Cross) by Sigrid Undset. At the beginning of her story, Kristin is a young girl of noble birth in 14th century Norway. She is beloved by her respected and highly religious father, and enjoys the carefree life of a daughter of wealth.

When Kristin becomes of marriageable age, her father betroths her to Simon Andresson, an honorable young man and the son of a neighboring landowner. During her betrothal, Kristin falls in love with the handsome but reckless Erlend Nikulausson. Erlend has been living in sin with another man’s wife, and has two children with her. Erlend seduces Kristin, and Kristin uses her influence over her father and his grief over the death of another daughter to coerce him to approve her betrothal to Erlend. Kristin gets her own way, and her willfulness will haunt her for the rest of her life.

Carol was right - these books give a descriptive and complete picture of what life was like during the 14th century. While reading Kristin’s story, I learned so much about the religious customs of the day, about the way government and legal matters were handled, about the day to day life of a woman on an estate, about how children were raised, about how the plague devastated complete towns.

I also learned that human nature is the same, no matter what the century. Marriage is difficult and requires much self-sacrifice. Raising children is a continual letting-go process that some parents handle with grace and others struggle to get through. God is gracious to forgive, but the consequences of our sin can reverberate down through generations. Forgiveness is required of us for our own good. Sacrificial love is only possible with God’s grace.

Kristin Lavransdatter is a long work, but it is more than worth the time spent reading it. I read the Penguin Classics versions that were translated by Tina Nunnally, and the prose is beautiful and vivid. These characters will stay with me for a long time.

Is it really Friday already? This week sped by - in spite of the fact that I thought it would last forever, since Natalie was gone for most of it. She is home, exhausted and crabby, but home. And I’m a really mean mom, since I wouldn’t let her spend her first full day home at her friend’s house. Sigh.

Tomorrow is our monster-Tae Kwon Do day. Seminars from 8:30 till 11:30, then a tournament from 1:00 pm until whenever it gets over. Which means I will have lots of time to sit and read between the kids’ events.

Only nine days until we leave on our very first all-family vacation. We’re heading to the Oregon Coast, with a stop in Portland to go to the zoo and visit Kevin’s mom. I’m making lists for packing and hoping I’m not forgetting something hugely important.

I’ve got quite a few links for you today, so here goes.

~ 400-year-old Shakespeare volume recovered 10 years after theft.

~ Historical movies in chronological order. Cool resource - but make sure you check the historical accuracy on a film if you’re using it for homeschooling. Hat tip: Magic and Mayhem.

~ 100 Best Last Lines from Novels. Hat tip: Semicolon.

~ The Darrin Effect: 20 jarring cases of TV recasting. Hat tip: Hey Lady! Whatcha Readin’?

~ Also from Hey Lady! - Britain’s Got Talent: Great dance duo.

~ Feist’s “1-2-3-4″ song fits in perfectly on Sesame Street.

~ Trailer for the upcoming High School Musical 3: Senior Year.

~ Trailer for next May’s Terminator Salvation starring (the yummy) Christian Bale.

~ One of our favorite Avi books, The True Confessions of Charlotte Doyle, is being made into a film.

~ The Literary Feline is having a huge book giveaway to celebrate her blogaversary.

~ Peter David, the author of Tigerheart, posted the unique story of how he proposed to his fiance.

~ New teaser trailer for the upcoming movie version of Twilight.

Whew - that’s it for this week! Have a great weekend, everyone.

(Phineas and Ferb: The Fast and the Phineas was provided to me by Click Communications for the purpose of review.)

From the smash-hit Disney Channel Original Series Phineas and Ferb comes 5 hilarious episodes filled with awesome adventures! Plus, get the inside scoop on how Phineas and Ferb was first created and chill out at the amazing Homemade Tree Shade Arcade for some supercool games that will keep you coming back for more fun and laughs!

Nothing’s impossible for Phineas and Ferb! When school’s out for the summer, the stepbrothers plan all kinds of exciting and fantastic adventures for each day of vacation. Soup up Mom’s car and enter the Swampoil 500 Race? No problem! Form a rocking band and become a one-hit wonder? Sure! Rebuild a time machine and bring back a T-Rex? Excellent! Meanwhile, their big sister Candace is going nuts trying to bust them to Mom and Dad, and their pet platypus is leading a double life as “Agnet P,” who is secretly saving the world from Dr. Doofenshmirtz’s evil plots.

If they can imagine it, they can do it - and Phineas and Ferb are gonna do it all!

Phineas and Ferb is an animated series from the Disney Channel, and my boys are hooked. Since we don’t have Disney Channel anymore, this series is completely new to them, and they’ve watched each episode at least twice since the DVD came yesterday. The coolest thing is that Phineas and Ferb use their brains to fuel their adventures, inspiring some homemade adventures from my own kids. Nothing too messy so far.

Noah’s review: I think it’s very funny and every kid will like this. It’s got two adventures in each episode, where his pet platypus is a secret agent and also where Phineas and Ferb build something or do something cool. 5 stars.

Jonathan’s review: At the end there’s a T-Rex chasing after Candace and it’s pretty funny. There’s also a part where they tie a camera to a hungry monkey and Candace started running to try to stop it, but then Candace got beat up. 5 stars.

Josiah’s review: My favorite part is when they tie a camera to Ferb’s head and then Phineas says “Remember, Ferb hasn’t eaten lunch yet” and then Ferb started acting like a monkey. 5 stars.

Phineas and Ferb: The Fast and the Phineas will be released on DVD on July 29th.

(The Year My Parents Went on Vacation was provided to me by Special Ops Media for the purpose of review.)

When 12-year-old Mauro is left to fend for himself when his parents go “on vacation” during the military regime in 1970s Brazil, a classic coming-of-age story unfolds. Director Cao Hamburger’s beautiful and touching story embraces the excitement of the era as the culturally diverse community of Sao Paulo unites to watch Pele lead his country in winning the Wolrd Cup of soccer. Filled with warmth, love, heroism, nostalgia, and humor, The Year… is sure to become a family favorite.

The Year My Parents Went on Vacation is a wonderful film. The young man who plays Mauro is extremely talented, and made the film a delight to watch.

When Mauro’s parents drop him off at his grandfather’s apartment to stay while they flee Brazil’s military regime, they don’t know one important fact. In the minutes since they talked to Motel on the telephone at his barber shop and told him they were leaving Mauro with him, Motel has died. Because Mauro’s father and father-in-law don’t get along, they say their goodbyes on the sidewalk, fully believing that Motel is waiting in his apartment upstairs. He isn’t. He is laying dead and awaiting burial.

Mauro’s parents have told him that they are going on “vacation” and would return in time for the World Cup. In reality, his father is a communist and is fleeing the police.

Motel’s neighbor, Shlomo, finds Mauro sleeping on Motel’s doorstep and takes him in. He doesn’t want to deal with the boy, but his rabbi tells him that if God has chosen him for this purpose, he must take on the challenge.

With the rest of Brazil, Mauro cheers for Pele and the Brazilians in the World Cup, all the while waiting for his parents to return for him.

One thing I’ve noticed about foreign films is that they seem to rely much more on scenes that are heavy on visuals and character behavior, and much less on dialogue and constant action, than American films do. It takes some getting used to, but once I settled in to the slower pace, I really enjoyed this film. The unlikely friendship between Shlomo and the boy Mauro is touching, and the acting is very well done.

The Year My Parents Went on Vacation is in Portugese with English subtitles. It is available on DVD now, with special features that include an inside-the-movie featurette, interviews with the cast, extended scenes, and outtakes.

(The Wizards of Waverly Place: Wizard School was provided to me by Click Communications for the purpose of review.)

Meet Alex, Justin and Max Russo. They’re just your average, ordinary kids living in New York City, except they’ve got a powerful secret: They’re wizards in training! Turn up the magic with four extraordinary episodes from Wizards of Waverly Place, the smash-hit Disney Channel Original Series. Plus, join cast memebers for a high-flying virtual magic carpet ride to their favorite haunts - including backstage where secrets to the show’s spectacularly cool spells will be revealed!

What would you do if you discovered you had awesome, supernatural powers? New “wizards in training” Alex (Selena Gomez) and her brothers Justin (David Henrie) and Max (Jake T. Austin) love to use magical potions, brews and spells to cut corners on things like homework and chores. And when the kids practice their newfound wizardry skills, things really get tricky - and hilarious! You’ll be spellbound when they adopt a pet dragon, try to learn the ropes at wizard school and attempt to charm their parents into letting them use more magic - all with super-cool, supernatural results!

Okay, The Wizards of Waverly Place: Wizard School is Disney’s attempt to capitalize on all the wizard super-popularity surrounding Harry Potter. They even admit it in a tongue-in-cheek way, when in the first episode Alex tells her brother that with his black robes and glasses, he looks like a certain famous wizard, but she can’t remember the name.

Regardless, my kids are enjoying watching this series, which employs the same scenery-munching, over-acting and comic hijinks that make The Suite Life of Zack and Cody, Cory in the House, and Hannah Montana so popular.

Noah’s review: I thought it was really funny. The DVD doesn’t have that many episodes on it, but it’s still cool. 4 and a half stars.

Jonathan’s review: It was the funniest movie I’ve seen in a long time. There was this one part where they can do magic whenever they want and this boy says that brownies are against the law because he put a spell on his mom and dad and if they eat the brownies the spell will be gone. I liked it. 5 stars.

Josiah’s review: I don’t have a favorite part, I like the whole thing. 5 stars.

The Wizards of Waverly Place: Wizard School will be available on DVD on July 29th.

Natalie is back home.