Wednesday, August 14, 2013

9 Recent Children's Books I Adore

I love reading, and I want to pass on that love to my two and a half year old. Luckily, she loves going to the library, so we go almost every week, and every week is an opportunity to pick something new out. I discovered that as a mom, I'm fairly picky about children's books. I read material to her that is far above my daughter's comprehension, and she seems to do just fine. She's memorized some of her favorites. She's not picky, though. As long as the story entertains her, that's enough.

For me, the illustrations and the story have to be good. If the story can't be good, then the art needs to be beautiful. Too often, the stories are too long drawn out, have an overly obvious moral, or are just plain not fun. If the art isn't good, then it totally takes me out of the story. 

Below, I've listed 9 children's books that I picked up recently and adore:

  • Bark, George by Jules Feiffer is hilarious, short, and sweet.
  • Who Wants A Cheap Rhinoceros by Shel Silverstein is funny, silly, and full of awesome sight gags. 
  • The Grouchy Ladybug by Eric Carle is a classic case of escalation. "Hey, you. Want to fight?" has become a running joke in our house. 
  • Where's Walrus? by Stephen Savage is a beautifully illustrated wordless story about a walrus' escape from the zoo, and the zookeeper's hapless attempts to find him. 
  • Press Here by Herve Tullet was given to me by a friend, after we watched that video of a baby who couldn't figure out how to work a magazine. We love the interaction on this book. 
  • Dear Zoo by Rod Campbell is a classic and great for peeking at animals. 
  • Going To The Zoo With Lily & Milo by Pauline Oud is a fun and cutely illustrated book about a bunny and a mouse's adventures at the zoo. 
  • Counting With Wayne Thiebaud by Susan Goldman Rubin is an easy counting book filled with wonderful paintings by the artist Wayne Thiebaud.
  • A Very Special House by Ruth Krauss, illustrated by Maurice Sendak is a great nonsense poem full of fun and imagination. 

Wednesday, August 7, 2013

Additional Google Reader Replacement Suggestions: Not Reviewed At All

I came across this article on The Verge, which discusses the hiccups the popular Google Reader alternatives have been experiencing, and how they're improving on the original product. Plenty of people chimed in on the comments with their own products and suggestions for alternative replacements. I have not checked these out yet, but am listing here for future reference.

  • SwarmIQ - Free, I think.
  • Feedbin - $3 a month, has beta Android app
  • Tiny Tiny RSS - a free, self-hosted, open source solution. There's also an official Android client
  • Rivered - Different from other Reader alternatives in that it's just a "river" of updates - no unread items, no categories, no tags, etc. 7 day free trial, "Less than the price of a coffee per month after that". (Ugh, just name the damn price.)
  • Fez - Social, smart tags, view your feeds a few different ways, there's also a self-hosted version. Pay what you want, starting from $2 a month. If you pay for 6 month or yearly subscriptions, you'll get at least one month free. 
  • SubReader - Currently in private beta. Free to sign up. 

Tuesday, August 6, 2013

Shortcuts: Target

I've been making better progress with saving money, but sometimes I'd rather really just skip straight to the meat on a website and get my deals immediately. So here are the shortcut links for Target:


Bonus savings: every cloth bag you bring in to hold your stuff gives you an additional $0.05 discount. 

Typically, I peruse the Target weekly ad, print out the necessary coupons, and print out appropriate Cartwheel coupons. Then I see if there are additional coupons for the items I need to buy, such as Pampers, directly from the company itself. Target allows you to stack the manufacturer's coupon + Target coupon + Target cartwheel program + the sale price, so you can get pretty substantial savings.