Alice LowRecensioni

I love this book and I love to travel. Go figure.

This book made me smile. :) The stories in this book remind me of childhood days spent sitting in the cornfield on the edge of our neighborhood (yes, a cornfield in town -- the farmer refused to sell. When he passed away, the family sold his two fields to a developer who put apartments and an assisted living facility on them. I pity the kids in that neighborhood now. It's nice small-town living still...but no scary stories or games of hide and seek amid the stalks anymore. Sing with me: They paved paradise and put up a parkinggggg lot! You have me to thank for that song being in your head all day now. But.....back to my book review.....) Ahem.... ok we were all sitting in the cornfield at the edge of our neighborhood.....telling scary stories. Usually we had our sleeping bags to sit on, some snacks we ferreted from the cupboards at home and flashlights. Flashlights were necessary because when it was your turn to tell the story you had to shine the light up into your face so you looked scary. When it hit 10 pm, or we got a good case of the shivers,(whichever came first) it was time to go home. Because, our dads were all scarier than any stories we had to tell if we dared stay out past 10 pm. The stories in this book remind me of the tales we told each other as kids....ghosts, curses, haunted houses, giant cats, monsters, curses, etc. I smiled the entire time I was reading. What a fun book!

The illustrations by Gahan Wilson are colorful and just awesome!

The stories vary from folk tales from around the world, short stories by famous authors like Dickens and Washington Irving (shortened and retold for this story collection for kids), and old classics that all kids seem to love. Perfect stories for telling at camp, during sleepovers, on stormy nights to scare your little brother, and also for adults who love this sort of light, creepy fun just as much as kids!

I had so much fun reading these stories! I told my 13-year old that they put a picture of him in the book I was reading.....and then showed him a monster picture from the book. ha ha. :) He just gave me that angst-y look all parents of teenagers know very well, and then finally cracked a smile and walked out laughing. Just getting my own back for all the "you're old'' comments. :)

Alice Low is the author of several books for kids including story collections about myths and legends, holidays, sports and other great topics. I will definitely be reading more of her books! This was such a fun story collection! I'm sure to enjoy her other ones as well!

Gahan Wilson's artwork can be seen in many books....and I'm definitely reading more that contain his art because they have fantastic titles like: The Big Book of Freaks, The Weird World of Gahan Wilson, Still Weird, Even Weirder and Everybody's Favorite Duck. He also provided the illustrations for A Night in the Lonesome October by Roger Zelazny. Who can resist a big book of freaks?? I certainly can't!

Witches' Holiday, illustrated by Tony Walton.

A boy with three witches living in his closet is always careful to shut the door before going to bed in this rhyming picture-book caper, but on Halloween night he is so tired out that he forgets. Out come the witches - one fat, one small and one tall and thin - and they proceed to play with, and break, every one of his toys, and to raid his Halloween candy. When their play leads them outside without their brooms, and they can't get back up to his room, the boy throws their belongings after them, and evicts them forever...

Originally published in 1971, with artwork by Tony Walton, Witches' Holiday was republished in 1997 with new illustrations by Tricia Tusa. It is the third witchy picture-book, after The Witch Who Was Afraid of Witches and Zena and the Witch Circus, that I have read from author Alice Low. The rhyming text here is fun, and would make for a good seasonal read-aloud, while the eponymous witches are more annoying than frightening. The artwork alternates between vibrantly colorful two-page spreads, and black-and-white ones, and has a quirky, humorous quality that is very appealing. All in all, this was a nice little Halloween adventure, full of witchy fun, and is one I would recommend to picture-book readers looking for the same.

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Recommended by J. Cute story of a young witch making her own rules in life.

hat, story builds on itself ... good rhyme

This book of poems is about how many of the sports played around the world were created. I did not enjoy this collection of poems as much as others I have read. While the poems were informative, they were a but lengthy and I got caught up in the rhymes to really understand what the poems were saying about each sport. I did like how before each poem, the author gave a little history of the sport.

Illustrations: ink, dye, and gouache painting. This book is about a little girl witch who is getting ready to enter into the circus. She realizes that all witches can fly and wants to find a different act that she can do. The Head Witch Hilda-grump tells Zena that she must come up with something different or she won't be able to compete in the school witch circus. Zena finds a special cat named Roger and discovers that he has a special gift. She performs with him and is a real crowd pleaser. This book is a fantasy book because witches are not real, but it is somewhat realistic. Age appropriateness: intermediate

Genre- ECB
Age- Intermediate
Summary- this book was about a girl who was a witch who performed in the circus, this year she is having trouble with her skills. All she knows how to do is fly and she has no magic tricks. she gets a mean note from someone that tells her she can't be in the circus unless she changes her act because its boring and every witch can fly. Finally she finds a friend that helps her and she is back in the circus again.
Review- I think that this book was okay i didn't like the mean attitudes in it. I didn't think the layout was that great but it is interesting to have. I would definitely have this in my class just to have more early child chapter books.
Media- painting

Cute children's book. Nothing that stands the test of time, but wasn't a bad read for my son and the illustrations are adorable.

The Popcorn Shop is a good example of an easy poetry book because it has a good rhythm and rhymes throughout the book. Some of the rhymes are split onto two pages which can make it difficult if a student doesn't know this and can struggle a little bit. Popcorn Nell makes to much popcorn and it takes over the town but she doesn't know how to turn her machine off. Finally it breaks and she stops making popcorn and makes pizza instead.
Media: colored crayons
I would se this book in a k-2 grade class to introduce poems and rhyming
I would also use this book to exercise the idea of starting a school project like having a popcorn shop
Genre: Poetry

A popcorn machine goes haywire in this rhyming, easy-to-read Level 3 book for beginning readers. A Hello Reader book. Full-color illustrations throughout.

Alice Low, the author and John O'Brien the illustrator do a great job in telling the history of sports through poem and pictures. The collaboration between the poems and the illustrations are spot on. This book would serve well in an English, Art or even History class. I appreciate that every sport that is mentioned, the author gives a synopsis of the sport before the poetry. At the end of the book the author provides a note and other anecdotes that give the reader more cool facts that should entice more research on different sports related topics.½

The Fastest Game on Two Feet is a poetry book about the history of sports. Every major sport known to man is mentioned in this book. Before each poem, the author gives a history and introduction to the sport. All of the poems were creatively written and enjoyable. This book would be enjoyable to boys to read because the book features male-dominated sports.

I loved reading this book because it was so interesting. The first reason why I loved the book was because of the plot. The book was about how each sport was founded. I loved how I learned about how various sports came about and how people played the sports when they were first created. For example, running was initially for a survival skill and self defense in order to run away from animals. I had no idea how each sport was founded so I was very engaged in the book and wanted to read more. It was also nice that before reading each poem, I was given background knowledge about the sport before I read the poem. The second reason why I loved the book was because of the illustrations. The illustrations showed how the sports were initially played when they were founded. For example, the illustration showed skis with animal bones as well as poles as animal bones. The main message of the book was to teach readers how various sports were founded and played.

this book is about different poems that about sports. It gives you the historical background of how each sport started out back in the day. For example, bowling was part of a religious ritual. Skiing was done by our ancestors sticking skulls and bones of animals to their feet. Swimming was done by people watching animals swim because if not they would drown. The soccer ball was actually a skull instead of a ball being used. I think this book would be best used in from 2-5 grade. You are learning poems, sports, and history all in one book. Maybe each student could pick our their favorite one and discuss why it is.½

This story, like "Popcorn Shop" is one of my favorites. I grew up listening to the book on tape. When reading when I am older I still love the story and appreciate the book for its work on developing reading skills. I liked the language of the story for the words have an A B C B rhyme scheme. There is also alliteration on every page. An example of the two literary techniques can be seen on page 1, "Popcorn Nell had a popcorn shop. The popcorn there went pop pop pop!" These are very beneficial to young readers as they learn to read identify sounds. I also liked the illustrations the book had. They were very detailed and provided great visuals to assist the reader's understanding. In the book the popcorn machine makes so much popcorn the town is covered in it which is accompanied by the picture on pages 27-28. The character's facial expressions are also clearly detailed and marked for the children are shown as happy while the adults are displeased. The moral of the book is to listen to the directions because the man who installed the popcorn machine told Nell not "to let it over heat or she will have more popcorn than she can eat" (6). If Nell listened she would not have had to worry about too much popcorn. Sometimes little instructions make a big difference.

This book shows how our household pets would look if they were actual dinosaurs! I found it hysterical because it's definitely something I have thought about before. I think this book would make kids understand how big dinosaurs really were and that they weren't so little after all. I would read this book to my class when we're learning about dinosaurs, or just to read them a book after recess to calm them down.

Twelve-year-old Jane Nichols had always done what was expected of her. She attended the "right" school, hung out with the "right" crowd, and generally adapted her behavior to suit the preferences of whoever she was with at the time. She certainly never rocked the boat, although she did wish, upon occasion, that "something would happen" to disrupt her quiet, comfortable life in the upper-class world of 1960s New York City. And then one day, Kallie - the daughter of bohemian anthropologists, and a scholarship student at her exclusive private day school - entered her life, and Jane's natural kindness precipitated a chain of events that would show her how to be her own person...

I enjoyed Kallie's Corner, although I wouldn't describe it as outstanding. The tale of a conventional uptown girl, and her friendship with an unconventional downtown girl, it follows a rather cliched formula. There were moments of humor - as when Jane makes Kallie's birthday cake - and I liked the glimpse it offered of New York City in a different period, but I had difficulty taking the heroine wholly to heart. Worth reading, but not on par with works like Sydney Taylor's All-of-a-Kind Family, or Madeleine L'Engle's The Young Unicorns.

This is a fun, whimsical story with cute illustrations! Although I'm not a hat wearer, I enjoy them on other people. I thought the progrssion of events in this story was cute, too.

I loved that the hat was around the entire time in this story. There was a whole other story being old in the illustrations in this book and I enjoyed that aspect of this.

Alice Low, whose earlier tale of magical hi-jinks for beginning readers, The Witch Who Was Afraid of Witches - first published as a picture-book in 1978, it was reissued as part of the I Can Read series in 1999 - concerned a young witch who struggled with her craft, and felt herself the inferior of her peers, returns to that same theme in this beginning chapter-book from 1990. Part of Dial Book's Easy-to-Read series, Zena and the Witch Circus follows the story of Zena, whose only magical skill is flying. When she receives a note from Head Witch Hildagrump, informing her that she must either change her act (ie: incorporate more magic into it) or withdraw from her class's Witch Circus, she is terribly distraught. Hoping to think things over, Zena takes a flight over Witch Woods, and, in the process of rescuing Roger the cat from a dog - known to witches as "dragons" - inadvertently stumbles upon a method of demonstrating her magical ability to her teacher and classmates...

I can't say that Zena and the Witch Circus greatly appealed to me, which is rather surprising, since I thought Low's The Witch Who Was Afraid of Witches was really quite engaging. I found the narrative here - split into five very simple chapters - somewhat disjointed, and didn't really think that the whole dog/dragon plot-line was very convincing. More to the point, I had trouble working up any enthusiasm for the main character, which, given my penchant for witchy tales and heroines, is saying something. The artwork by Laura Cornell, who has illustrated a number of Jamie Lee Curtis' picture-books, was colorful and amusing, but not enough to save the venture. I recommend that witch-mad young readers try Low's The Witch Who Was Afraid of Witches instead - or, better yet, my personal favorite, Patricia Coombs' Dorrie the Little Witch!

The Witch Who Was Afraid of Witches, illustrated by Jane Manning.

Originally published in 1978, with illustrations by Karen Gundersheimer, this witchy little book was revised for HarperCollins' I Can Read series in 1999, with new illustrations by Jane Manning. It follows the story of Wendy, a little witch who finds her two sisters - the eldest, Polly, who knew everything, and the middle, Wog, who knew how to do everything best - vastly intimidating. When Polly and Wog leave her behind one Halloween, Wendy befriends trick-or-treater Roger, and the two have a wonderful night, discovering that Wendy does indeed have her own witchy powers.

The theme of a little witch being left behind on Halloween night, only to take up with a trick-or-treater, put me strongly in mind of Deborah Hautzig's Little Witch's Big Night, first published in 1984, and part of Random House's Step Into Reading series. I understand, from another online review, that it is also strongly reminiscent of Otfried Preußler's The Little Witch (which I haven't read). I don't know that Hautzig copied Low, any more than Low copied Preußler - I suspect they all were simply struck by a similar inspiration - but in any case, I found this an engaging little Halloween book. Manning, whose own recent witchy picture-book, Cat Nights, is a real winner in the genre, contributes colorful and quirky artwork that greatly enhances the appeal of the story.

All in all, a cute little book, ideally suited for beginning readers in the market for witchy tales. I think I may track down a copy of the original, to compare the narratives, and the different artwork.

To keep up with demand, Popcorn Nell buys a very large popping machine, but when it pops day and night, it makes more than enough popcorn! But after she floods the town with popcorn what is she to do??