Children's Book Review: Nate the Great and the Hungry Book Club

Nate the great and the Hungry Book Club by Marjorie Weinman Sharmat and Mitchell Sharmat, illustrated by Jody Wheeler, in the style of Marc Simont, Delacorte Press, New York, 2009.
Nate is a detective, so he keeps saying.  However his cases are not very complicated.  In this case, he solves the mystery of pages being ripped out of books.  In other words a detective book without much suspense or excitement.

Movie Review: Facing the Giants

Alex Kendrick and Shannen Fields star as Grant and Brooke Taylor, a couple struggling to have a baby.  Alex is also struggling as a high school football coach.  The team loses their first three games, and aren't together.  It isn't until Grant turns his life over to the Lord, that he starts to have the inspirations needed to get his team to play together, and they come back a completely different team, and with new attitude.  They don't loss after this, except a game in the state finals, but that team is declared ineligible for using players who were too old.  The finally face The Giants in the state title game, and team with three times more players, who are stronger and faster.  And so they face impossible odds, but with God all things are possible.  Kendrick also helped write the screen play.

This movie deals with the theme of infertility.  This story has a fairy tale ending, but in life it does not always work that way.  God has a design for all of us as his children.  Sometimes that includes mothering and fathering in different ways.

TV Review: A Series of Unfortunate Events (2017)

I thoroughly enjoyed this 8 part series taken from the Lemony Snicket books.  the first two episodes are entitled, the Bad Beginning.  And it really is a terrible beginning.  While at the beach, the Baudelaire children, Violet (Malina Weissman), Klaus (Louise Hynes), and Sunny (Presley Smith)  discover that their parent have perished in a fire, and they are farmed by the bank to Count Olaf (Neil Patrick Harris), who is their closest relative (lives closest) rather than a relative they may have actually met.  Patrick Warburton as Lemony Snicket narrates.  Count Olaf is not a good man, and he will stop at nothing to get his hands on the Baudelaire fortune which is  tied up in trust until violet comes of age.  The Count figure to outwit the banker, Mr. Poe (K. Todd Freeman).  He has had his way so far with his terrible acting company (henchmen).  In the first episode Joan Cusack guest stars as the neighbor who is a judge.  The children wish she could rescue them.  The schemes cooked up by the Count are terribly devious, including his marrying violet, while he holds Baby Sunny as leverage.  Plenty of unfortunate events take place in this movie to keep it entertaining.  The "Turn Away" song at the beginning of each episode is quite entertaining by itself.  Neil Patrick Harris sings the theme song for each episode in the character he has taken.  The Count is like a bad cat that keeps coming back.  In the first he plays himself, an actor, the second he portrays a scientist's assistant, and actually murders the scientist.  the third he is a sea captain with a peg leg, and the fourth he is in drag as the secretary to an optometrist, who is a former love.  There adventures carry them through a lizard room, a cliff by a lake, and finally to a factory where the worker work for nothing.  This is very entertaining.  It is available through Netflix and appears to be a made-for-Netflix series.

Picture Book Review: Green Eggs and Ham: Dr. Seuss

Green Eggs and Ham, Dr. Seuss, random House, 1960.  This is a classic from Dr. Seuss.  I really love the emotion Dr. Seuss portrays in the faces of his furry people.  Sam wants his friend to try green eggs and green ham, but his friend will not budge.  The rhyming is classic.  One year, two camp staff at High Sierra read this book as a duet.  It was so fun.  This book is just fun, and tells us sometimes we have to step out of our comfort zone.  This is one of the best children's rhyming books ever.

Children's Book Review: The Poky Puppy

The Poky Puppy, by Janette Sebring, illustrated by Gustaf Tenggren, A Golden Book, New York, 1942.
This is a golden Book classic, about five puppies who keep getting out under the fence.  The Poky puppy always is into something, and gets separated from the others, who go home when they smell the dessert, but don't get any because they got out under the fence.  the Poky Puppy comes later and eats dessert for all of them.  However the last day the rolls are reversed, and  hopefully the puppies have learned their lesson to be more obedient.

Movie Review: ***R.V. (2006)

This is a movie with the take of what happens with abnormal urban family meets a normal hick family.  Bob Munro (Robin Williams) takes his wife on vacation.  However for him this is really a business trip.  He has promised his wife (Cheryl Hines) no business.  They are new to the RV scene.  They have a terrible problem with the sceptic system.  The Gornicke family (Jeff Daniels and Kristin Chenoweth) take them under their wing.  There is some funny stuff with the Munro family trying to avoid them.  There is also an impossible scene, where Bob is trying to keep his business meetings a secret.  He ends up on the front bumper of the RV as it rolls down a tall mountain.  Somehow, the RV ends up in its correct parking space, with Munro under the vehicle.  However, as always happens, when wife discovers what is going on, they take off with the Gornicke family.  The R.V. has landed in the lake, so Munro takes after them on a bike.  Munro also does the right thing in terms of his business.  And the two families have become fast friends.  This movie with its implausibility isn't the best work of Williams.  However Daniels and Chenoweth make up for this, as their characters really bring something to the movie.

Children's Book: One Morning in Maine

One Morning in Maine, by Robert McLoskey, The Viking Press, New York, 1942.

This is a terrific story about life inMaine.  First Sal discovers a lost tooth.  She discovers that a wish could be granted if she wishes on her tooth.  With that thought, she helps her father dig for clams for lunch.  In digging the tooth falls out, and she can't find it.  She runs errands rot town with her father and sister.  Sal discovers that sometimes wishes can come true even if you don't wish on a tooth.