There are so many great bloggers who have recently parlayed their special talents into print. And always striving to adhere to the universal rules of the playground I want to take the opportunity to share (which is rule #2, preceded only by rule #1 which is ‘play nice’) a few great new books and perhaps introduce you to some wonderful new blogs in the process. Given the context of the Junior Society I’ve selected this particular group because their ‘how-to’ books have kid-applicable content with either projects to create with your kids or for your kids. So go do a little exploring and then do a little shopping, adding great volumes to your shelves and supporting these creative ladies in the process.

name: Amanda Blake Soule
blog: Soule Mama
book: The Creative Family

name: Therese Lasky
blog: Softies Central
book: Softies, The Softies Kit

name: Amber Caravan
blog: Kids Craft Weekly
book: Everyday Craft

name: Amy Karol
blog: Angry Chicken
book: Bend the Rules Sewing

name: Kristen Rask
blog: Plush You!
book: Plush You!

It’s not unusual to find Burgin Streetman scouring San Antonio’s Goodwill, library and yard sales for those few vintage children’s books that have managed to allude her. A weekend hobby? Please. The woman is a pro and that means making the rounds at least three times a week to add to the hundreds, nay thousands of classic kiddie lit titles already on her shelves. Obsession? Let’s call it a passion. A passion we can thankfully all benefit from as Burgin reviews a new vintage book almost every weekday on her blog Vintage Kids Books My Kid Loves. After ten years in the New York publishing world, she’s relocated to her husband’s native Texas where she writes freelance and raises a very literate three year old.

Ok, bad pun title I know, but blame it on Warner Brothers…it’s from one of my favorite old school Bugs Bunny cartoons Hair-Raising Hare. For those of you old enough to remember watching Merrie Melodies on Saturday mornings, this cartoon features the first appearance of the big red monster in sneakers Gossamer. No? Not ringing a bell? No worries, it’s honestly not the focus of this post anyway. With Easter this coming Sunday I thought it might be fun to do a little rabbit roll-call with some of my favorite bunny themed products on the web:

Baby Victoria Organic Plush Bunny and Knitted Bunny

Free paper toy downloads from the Toymaker: Bowling Bunnnies and a Bunny Basket

Bowling Bunnies by Schylling

Little Golden Book Grandpa Bunny, The Easter Bunnie’s Parade

Soap Cafe Chocolate Soap Bunnies

Kata Golda Personalized Felt Bunnies

Marshmallow Bunnies How-To

See’s Handmade Rabbit Candies

The Country Bunny and the Little Golden Shoes

Jennifer Murphy Bunnies

Avid birder and National Audubon Society member since the age of eight, Roberta “Bobolink” Beyer has recently launched a beautiful online shop call The Fat Finch. As I understand it, Roberta created her web store as a companion to her brick and mortar store Bobolink (a type of bird and her nickname since childhood) to reach a wider audience of birding enthusiasts. But quite honestly you don’t need to be a ‘wake up before dawn and sit in a thicket with your binoculars’ type to enjoy the offerings of The Fat Finch.

Above:
Wrapping paper resembling vintage paint-by-number birds. $2.95 per sheet.

Below:
Birding lends itself to all variety of involvement, the simplest of which may be simply setting up a birdhouse, bird feeder or bird bath with your kids. I’m awful partial to the Barnhouse Birdhouse below, and it’s functioning doors allow you to either leave them open with birdseed inside or keep them closed during nesting and then open them for easy cleaning in the off season. $64.95

Tangent that leads somewhere, I promise: When I was a kid, probably eight or nine, I decided I absolutely and irrationally needed a multi-tiered, pagoda-like bamboo birdhouse that I found in a shop or catalogue. Immediately began the Christmas campaigning, and apparently my pleading worked as I later found out my poor father was up till all hours Christmas eve assembling the crazy, complicated thing. It sounds horrible when I say it, but in retrospect the idea of having a pet bird was really secondary to owning that cage. I did select a green parakeet and named him Pistachio who was a poor housekeeper and continually generated a two foot circle of feathers and seed shells around his cage. And I confess to completely panicking when he was let out of his pagoda and flitted insanely around my room. Admittedly not the most successful pairing of pet and kid. All of this to say that the adorable motion-sensor chirping birdies might be a good test run if you’re thinking about a caged bird of your own. $14.95 each.

Above:
There is also a small but fine selection of avian themed books, from classics like Owl Moon to more contemporary stories. Various prices.

2007 marks the 80th Scripps National Spelling Bee and at the end of this month 286 boys and girls will descend upon Washington D.C. to vie for the position of Spelling Champ. I’ve always had an affinity for big words and while weary of onesies with witty sayings the whoppers on these SATees brought a smile to my face.

1. gregarious / gre·gar·i·ous, adjective, fond of the company of others; sociable.
2. loquacious / lo·qua·cious, adjective, talking or tending to talk much or freely; talkative; chattering; babbling.
3. blithesome / blithe·some, adjective, lighthearted; merry; cheerful.
4. dilatory / dil·a·to·ry, adjective, tending to cause delay.
5. puerile / pu·er·ile, adjective, childishly foolish; immature.
6. taciturn / tac·i·turn, adjective, inclined to silence; reserved in speech.
7. indefatigable / in·de·fat·i·ga·ble, adjective, incapable of being tired out; not yielding to fatigue; untiring.
8. pulchritudinous / adjective, pul·chri·tu·di·nous, physically beautiful; comely.

Feeling astute? Ready for more? Exercise your smarts with these family-friendly ‘bee movies’: Akeelah and the Bee and Spellbound.

There was considerable debate in the clubhouse today as to which merit badge category flipbooks would fall into. And despite their typical lack of words they’ve been imperfectly filed them under ‘literacy.’ However there was complete consensus in our fascination with these moving image experiments developed in the pre-motion-picture era. The flipbook was patented under the name ‘kineograph’ by inventor John Barnes Linnet in 1868. The first flipbook utilizing a series of photographic images appeared about 25 years later, developed by German film pioneer, Max Skladanowsky. The French site FlipBook.info has a fairly comprehensive history of flipbooks and an archive of nearly 4,000 examples.

While commonly thought of in association with children’s novelties (Cracker Jack prizes), they’ve been used for a variety of purposes including a long history as promotional tools. Optical Toys offers a nice selection of historical to contemporary flipbooks including reproductions of a couple of early advertising examples including one for Presto! Collars seen below.

One of the largest collections of contemporary kid-friendly flipbooks on the web can be found at Fliptomania. They offer animated and photographic flipbooks in topics ranging from fine art to science to just plain silliness. You can purchase them a la carte or in pre-packaged theme sets of 3, and there are great children’s kits which feature a series of coloring book style images to be assembled into a functioning flipbook. These would make fantastic party favors and the kit could come in handy on a long plane ride.

And now that most everyone has a digital camera that allows you to take short MPEGs there are a handful of online companies that allow you to upload 30 seconds of digital video from which they create a custom flip book! How great would it be to have Jr’s blowing out the candles on his first birthday cake made into a flipbook? Prices start at under $10. See FlipClips and FlipBooker