crooked house

Miniature Mouse House

Adorable miniature mouse house, modelled after the homes in the Brambly Hedge books.  (Now that is definitely a crooked house.) It can be yours for about 3000 pounds! Via Stephanie Burgis.

Snow White and Apple

Snow White loves her apple. Via Breezes from Wonderland.

Charlotte Sometimes

Another gorgeous book cover -- the New York Review Children's Collection's edition of Penelope Farmer's Charlotte Sometimes. Lizzie Skurnick mentioned this book today on her Shelf Discovery facebook page and I vaguely remembered reading it as a child. Can't wait to get my hands on a copy (preferably this one) and revisit it. (I had a wonderful dream recently that the New York Review people sent me copies of all their children's books. If only they would...)

The Best Laid Plans: That Skank Barbie Tries to Destroy My, I Mean Sylvie's, Tea Party.

So Sylvie's having a vaguely Alice in Wonderland themed tea party for her third birthday this week, and I have been having a lot of fun planning it. Perhaps too much fun. One of the things I was most excited about was making (or ideally, having someone else make) this pink cake iced with roses (found here). I just showed Vivi the photo and she smiled and said she liked it but that she wanted a Barbie cake. Horrors. First of all just ugh and secondly I  am not a big fan of Barbies. But it is her birthday, after all, not my own personal fantasy extravaganza tea party day. Do you think I could get away with cramming a Barbie doll into the top of that thing?

Taschen's The Fairy Tales of the Brothers Grimm

Sara just alerted me to the existence of this book and it is definitely going on my wishlist. The Fairy Tales of the Brothers Grimm contains 27 fairytales and lots of vintage illustrations from the 1820s to the 1950s. They are STUNNING. You can leaf through 100 pages of the book here.

 

Sylvie and the iPhone

Over the weekend, Sylvie discovered the iPhone, which, up until now, has been monopolized by her brother (when it is not being used by yours truly). She particularly likes Animatch (currently her favourite), the Itsy Bitsy Spider, Wheels on the Bus, Old McDonald, and Draw and Tell from Duck, Duck Moose, Monkey Preschool Lunchbox, and the e-picture book The Monster at the End of this Book. (That book is over 30 years old and seems finally to have  found its true medium. Everyone in the family loves it.) Do you have any favourite iPhone apps for kids?

For some reason, every time she plays on the iPhone she has to wear her Anne of Green Gables hat. We are now calling it her iPhone hat.

Babies in Literature: Troll Babies

From the fascinating D'Aulaires' Book of Trolls:

[The troll children] screamed and yelled from morning to night, and that was just the time when the trolls wanted to sleep.

No wonder the troll-hags looked with envy at the good little babies on the farms down in the valleys! They did their crying at night and slept peacefully during the days.

Whenever a troll-hag had a chance, she would snatch an infant from his cradle and put one of her troll-brats in his place. Then there was just one way for the mother to get her own child back. She had to take the ugly changeling behind the barn on a dark Thursday night and spank him soundly. If she was lucky, his howls would melt the stony heart of the troll-hag and she would come running back, toss the human child to his mother, grab his own and storm back into the mountain with him. If this did not work, her poor mother had to live for the rest of her life with a troll in her house.

Alice in "Underland" Shoes

Vivi has officially switched her allegiance from Dorothy to Alice, as evidenced by the fact that she now wears black Mary Janes all the time instead of ruby slippers. She's also been toying with headbands. Time to purchase a blue dress with a white apron coverall. Do you think she got all those cuts and bruises falling down the rabbit hole?

Portrait of a Small Boy Reading

By Gluyas Williams via Heidi Robbins.

Alice's Adventures in Wonderland

 

A gorgeous new edition of Lewis Carroll's Alice's Adventures in Wonderland with artwork by Yayoi Kusama. Via Sophia Whitfield, thanks to Sara O'Leary.