Thursday, December 4, 2008

Storytime ♥ Highlighting Books for Chidren

The past few years my children have accumulated beautiful collection of storybooks. Being a Cherish Bound consultant and working out and about in the storytelling industry, I've had the privilege of being introduced to some amazing storytellers and writers. My children have received many storybooks from family and friends as well, and many we had never heard of until receiving them as gifts. Sometimes it's hard to find stories and books our children will love and finding a great storybook is always a prefect gift.

So be on the lookout each week as I highlight and share a storybook from my children's collection. I hope you find some new stories to share with your children. Feel free to comment and share your family's favorites too!

So here's goes the first book....

"Martina the Beautiful Cockroach"
My rating: ♥♥♥♥♥

I met the author of this book for the first time at the Jonesborough Storytelling Festival in Tennessee back in 2006. I fell in love with her stories, her energy...everything! She's absolutely incredible. Her name is Carmen Deedy and I've talked about her on my blog before. She's a phenomenal storyteller!

Our last Cherish Bound convention was at the Timpanogos Storytelling Festival and of course, Carmen was there. In the store I found one of her stories I had heard her tell, but it was in print, and I had to have it for me...and my kids too. It's called "Martina, the Beautiful Cockroach". Yes, it's a story about a Cockroach. It's a Cuban folktale that she has retold with a little Carmen-spice. Stirred it up a little bit of Spanish. It's an adorable story about a Martina the Cockroach who's looking for love....but doesn't know a thing about love and marriage. Her wise grandmother gives her advice that will help her find what she's looking for.

This book also came with a CD, so my kids love listening to it in the car as well. The book has beautiful illustrations by Michael Austin. The story is wonderful, humorous and the book is beautiful! Martina has her own website, Beautiful Martina.

You're kids will get a kick of the book, but you'll also get a some humor and a little laugh out of it too. It's a delight to read and Carmen is simply a breath of fresh air! Enjoy!

4 comments:

Muthering Heights said...

It sounds like a cute book!

Kmommy said...

Oh this sounds like a fun book! I love books, and love reading. My kids love books too, only at this point they love chewing on them! :) But I do catch them looking at them before and after demolishing them! I'm just waiting for the day when they can keep their books decent for longer than a week or so :) Amazingly they even manage to tear apart the board books!
I read to them all the time and am always looking for new good books to read.

Kelli @ writing the waves said...

Oh, how I love children's books! I've never heard of this one. Thanks for sharing. I'll have to check it out.

And thanks for stopping by my blog. Drop in anytime. :)

Kara Herron said...

Tara -

I've collected children's story books for years. I've got a huge collection. My kids think I'm weird, because the youngest is 11 and we don't really read them much anymore. Most of my nice, hardbound story books are fairy tales. Love em. The one prerequisite I have is that is has to have really great pictures. Maybe I'll start this kind of post on my blog too and we can exchange children's book ideas.

Great idea!