Books | Daddy Mojo

Pirate & Penguin: A Hilarious Adventure for Young Readers

The sofa cushions. It was between, under or even down in that crevice on the sides of the sofa where the cushion meets the 2 x 4. It’s the area where you realize that a sofa is just a piece of furniture combining lumber, fabric and springs, but also sucks in things that you didn’t know you didn’t want to misplace. Pirate & Penguin was in our metaphorical sofa cushion, except in our case, it’s a real, physical object in the form of a bookshelf. It’s worth mentioning now, even though it’s been stuck in the sofa cushions for a year and a half, because this is the book my six or seven-year-old self would’ve gone mental over.

Pirate & Penguin is an illustrated book that satisfies all of the needs that pre-k through second grade boys didn’t know that they need.

This is the beginning of a late, but beautiful friendship

Bearsuit Turtle Makes a Friend, a funny, absurd, instant classic

From the moment adults catch a glimpse of Bearsuit Turtle Makes a Friend they’ll suspect it’s a timeless illustrated book. The ‘bear’s’ mouth is black and glossy, begging for fingers and hands of any age to run across it. You are an adult, with a “real job”, decades past the enjoyment of such illustrated books, yet you just felt the book’s cover. Now you’re doing it again. The oversized, orange bear suit is stiff and is hosting an animal who is pretending to be a bear. Meanwhile, a friendly looking turtle, who is the same height as the green creature inside the bear suit, is looking at the bear with a dubious look on his face.

Bearsuit Turtle Makes a Friend melds absurd humor, turtles and bear behavior for an instant illustrated classic.

Can’t. Handle. The. Cuteness. or. awesomeness. of. this. book.

Waiting for the Dawn, gorgeous art and presentation via a fire lens

I love contrasting colors. The visual train wreck of colors that exist in negative space. It’s the canvas that’s blacker than a thousand midnights, with only the occasional blinking of some of the thousands, out of the millions, of stars and planets that you’re able to see. Waiting for the Dawn is a book that’s built for kids who think like that, but have a more Earth-centric perspective. It’s a question or thought that every elementary age kid has, and that’s what happens to the animals who live in the forest when there’s a fire?

Waiting for the Dawn is a gorgeous illustrated book that uses (mainly) duo-chromatic colors to tell the story of a fire, the forest and its rebirth.

Fire, let me stand next to your fire

Hedgehogs Don’t Wear Underwear, comment charmant

Hedgehogs Don’t Wear Underwear runs with energy. It runs at the same pace as Kermit the Frog; frantically waving his arms as he’s introducing The Muppet Show. Soon he’ll become exasperated with Gonzo about some wacky scheme, probably involving a chicken, and you’re wondering why books can’t give you that same reaction. But it can, the reaction is held within the container that the show or book, resides in. It’s incredibly fun to watch, gives you a mile-wide grin just watching it, but is never in danger of bubbling over or becoming too much. Plus, Hedgehogs Don’t Wear Underwear features Jacques, a French-speaking hedgehog, sight gags, bright colors, talking animals, and a big secret.

Hedgehogs Don’t Wear Underwear is illustrated book gold. It’s visually fun, lyrically funny and runs with energy that few books have.

Sacre bleu, encore livres avec jacques!

Discovering Fun in The Secrets of Lovelace Academy

If the end result of a bait and switch is fun or beneficial, does it really matter? That depends on how strict you want to stick to your initial interpretation of the subject matter. Did you mis-judge it based on its cover or did it change its trajectory during the course of the story? I don’t even remember what I thought The Secrets of Lovelace Academy would be about. However, by the third chapter I didn’t care, and was fully engrossed in the story of a teenage orphan girl who was living in group home. If you’re like me; you need to read mglit about an orphanage at the turn of a century, as much as you need to spill coffee on the essays that you need to grade. That’s not bloody likely, is it?

Why books are read

Rebellion 1776: A Captivating Read for Reluctant Students

Don Quixote charges at the windmill, raging at the fact that people don’t read enough. “This is actually good”, said a ninth-grade student of mine today as they were thinking about the two-page article they’d read. Granted, I had just spoken to them about their less-than-stellar grades and they were probably trying to placate me, but I’ll take it as a win. This all leads to Rebellion 1776. This is historical fiction that cooks at a slow boil, but is bubbling over the sides of the pot before you realize it.

Rebellion 1776 is historical fiction aimed at mglit readers that sneaks its way into the nightstand if you’re a fan of the genre or not.

Historical fiction to make non-fans interested

Dinosaurs Can Be Small: A Kid’s Illustrated Book

If you were paying attention, we learned (or were reminded) that birds are descendants of dinosaurs. Dinosaurs Can Be Small is an illustrated book that dinosaur kids need. Those hard dinosaur kids, like the younger brother in Mitchell Vs. The Machines, that kid. If your child or students salivate at the thought of reading or having read to them, descriptions of giant lizards who died out so that the smallest of their brethren could survive, this is for you. This illustrated book sets up the smaller, lesser-known versions by introducing their more well-known, larger versions first. The result is a very curious dinosaur book that will entice dino-kids who think they know it all because they saw Jurassic Park for the dinosaur facts, and not the fact that they run amuck.

You can’t escape the pull of bird’s relatives….can you?

Silly Stories for Children: Why All at Once Upon a Time Shines

All hail the silly illustrated book. We reviewed a great silly book the other week, but it’s never too soon to read the silly again. Much like the well-respected Ministry of Silly Walks, a silly book is mandatory for carpet-time readers and the read-aloud crowd. All at Once Upon a Time is peak silly. To older audiences, it could be viewed as an absurd upending of fairytale tropes that most audiences can quote ad infinitum. Younger audiences who don’t know the tropes will enjoy All at Once Upon a Time because of the energy and laughter it produces from the things they thought would happen.

All at Once Upon a Time just sounds like the sequel to that film, instead it’s a very silly illustrated book that will reduce ages five through to nine to fits of laughter.

All hail the silly story that pokes fun at fairy tales