Vintage Yogi Bear Christmas Golden Book

One of the many books in our collection which was an awesome yard sale find, actually an Antique Mall find - Yogi Bear - A Christmas Visit, is a 1961 holiday themed release from the fine folks at Little Golden Books. It was written by S. Quentin Hyatt with pictures by Sylvia and Burnett Mattinson. As you can see from the cover, this copy is fairly beat up on the outside but the inside is pure goodness. The picture on the cover is ripped off a bit and it looks like the book's previous owner, Amy Gallagher, took some red pen to the lettering on the front. However, you can't deny that the special Christmas red foil replacing the traditional gold is a nifty touch! I wanted to share some of the festive vintage holiday illustrations from this neat little book.





Everytime I read this to the kids, it cracks me up. Boo-Boo refers to Alaska as "one of the new states." Oh, early 60's!

I dig Yogi and Boo Boo's Christmas vests.

Here's a double page layout featuring Yogi and Boo Boo with Yogi's extended family in Alaska; Uncle Northman, Aunt Kate and the twins Yukon and Klondike.

A beautiful piece of artwork from the title page.

On Tuesday He Ate Through 800 Wii Points

I found very little on the interweb's about the new WiiWare title The Very Hungry Caterpillar's ABC's. I assumed right from the get-go that I wasn't the target audience for a video game based on a beloved children's book. And I had a feeling that even my two children might be a little old for this title. But the thought of having Mr. Hungry Caterpillar living on my Wii menu screen and the thought of getting one of the first reviews for this game out in cyberspace (thus increasing my traffic, making this the most popular website in the world and possibly leading me to fame and fortune) I figured it was worth the 800 Wii Points ($8 US) to download the game and see what it's all about. Worse case senario: my kids learn a little something while they stare at the idiot box.

Let's just say first that The Very Hungry Caterpillar's ABC's is a charming little title and a unique way to engage the smallest members of the household in Wii play. For those of you out of touch with your childhood, The Very Hungry Caterpillar is the main character of the classic 1969 children's book written and illustrated by Eric Carle. In the book, we follow the caterpillar as he nibbles his way through several pages of food items. In the book, there are actual little holes in the pages where the caterpillar has made his way through. This WiiWare title, does not incorporate the little holes into your television screen. In fact, this game doesn't have much to do with V.H. Caterpillar at all. I guess we should also mention that this game isn't really much of game either...it's more of a interactive work book. But it's still cute.

The download should have been titled something more like "The Wonderful World of Eric Carle" as his illustrations from many of his popular books are the centerpiece of this game. (Ok, I'm still going to call it a game.) We went on an Eric Carle spree earlier this summer and checked out most of his books from our local library, so my kids were excited to spot familiar characters and illustrations from several books that we've enjoyed. I did read somewhere that Eric Carle created all the artwork for the game.

Caterpillar is divided up into four games...or sections. The Alphabet features a big, bubbly listing of letters A to Z. When a child points and clicks on a letter, a picture opens up of something that begins with that letter. The word for the object is also on the screen and a girl says the letter and the word. It enforces word recognition and all that good stuff. The pictures are animated and the crowd went wild when the aforementioned caterpillar popped out of A is for Apple. In a bold move by the game developers, the queen has been retired and now Q is for Quetzal. (That's some kind of bird.) There's no objective to this exercise besides having fun and a little learning. Kids can click around as long as they like.

Colors, Colors, Colors is the game pictured above. This is like a video game version of a lottery scratch-off card. When the game starts, the entire screen is a solid color. With the Wiimote you scratch away at the color trying to find the picture that is hidden somewhere on the screen. The game has four levels, which do not get harder but each round introduces a new color. Again, there is plenty of beautiful Eric Carle artwork to look at.

Animal Stamps lets kids pick out different stamps and create a picture on a pre-made background. And there's also What is This? which shows kids three objects and then shows them a word. Point and click on the correctly matching image to move to the next picture. This exercise would be very educational if there wasn't a narrator saying the word. For my four year old, I put the game on mute and had him try to figure out the words and he had a good time getting most of them right. I, myself, even scored a 9 out of 10 with the sound off!

Again, The Very Hungry Caterpillar's ABC's doesn't have much to do with the starving caterpillar, but it's a fun, cute game for the tots. If one were to register a complaint about the title, it's that after plopping down $8 bucks for this simplistic game there are places in the program where you need to spend more money to unlock additional features of the game. My kids were disappointed because the Animal Stamps game had a level devoted to 10 Little Rubber Ducks (a huge hit in our house earlier this year) but it costs an additional 700 Wii Points/$7.00 to unlock it. In the Alphabet game you can also purchase "verbs" to go with your letters. That just seems like a complete waste of money in my book!? What makes verbs so much better than nouns that they need to cost more. Snooty verbs!

Eric Carle's illustrations look magnificent on a big screen TV. If you appreciate his work, and have a child under kindergarten age and he/she can point a Wii controller at the TV with any precision The Very Hungry Caterpillar's ABC's will be a dandy of an addition to your Wii library. It's available for download from the Wii Shopping Channel in the WiiWare department.

The World of Mo Willems

If you've got little ones running around your house then you should be familiar with the wonderful books of author and illustrator Mo Willems. He has a few series of books out at the the moment - my kids can't get enough of them. Probably his most famous creation to date is The Pigeon. He's a wise-cracking, very silly guy who thinks he knows what he wants but doesn't always know how to get it. To date, there are four main Pigeon books: Don't Let the Pigeon Stay Up Late!, Don't Let the Pigeon Drive the Bus!, The Pigeon Finds a Hot Dog!, and The Pigeon Wants a Puppy. There are also two smaller board books: The Pigeon Loves Things That Go! and The Pigeon Has Feelings Too! Each of the stories is told using only pictures and comic strip style word balloons. The illustrations are simple yet colored with a nifty pallet of colors that is captivating and soothing! (Ya like that!?) My kids crack up everytime we read one of the books. They got three of the books from Santa and each one of them has been read at least once, every day since Christmas. My 6 year-old son can read them on his own too, and the boys have been caught having a brotherly moment snuggled up together in a chair in their room reading the book together.

The in-house popularity of the Pigeon books sparked a further exploration of the Mo Willems shelf at our local library. It is there that we discovered Knuffle Bunny - the tale of a little girl's trip to the laundromat with her dad and what happens when she leaves her beloved stuffed bunny behind. Again, the book is illustrated with simple cartoon drawings but here they are set against beautiful black and white photographs of New York City. The follow-up book, Knuffle Bunny Too (which we just got at the library this week) is outstanding as well. Personally, I thought it was even better than the original. This time around Knuffle Bunny accidentally gets switched with a similar looking Knuffle Bunny at school. The story has some really nice jokes aimed at adults.

There's also a Knuffle Bunny DVD that my kids were thrilled to discover when it came in the mail from Netflix. (I told ya we became fans!) There's also a Knuffle Bunny Free on it's way in the Fall.

Another series which Mo Willems is currently involved with is Elephant & Piggie. These are simple early reader books, done much in the same style of The Pigeon, except here the heroes of the book are....you guessed it: and Elephant and a Pig. There's a handful of books in this series. We've only gotten to There Is A Bird on Your Head! but it too is alot of fun and the kids just roll around on the floor with laughter when we read it. If you're into putting on a performance while you read to your kids, this is a great book to do that with. Elephant gets quite upset when the bird and his wife lay eggs on his head. (Wouldn't you be, too?)

The books are a bit on the pricey side...a Pigeon book will set you back $15 bucks and the Elephant will cost you $9! I managed to get a good deal on three of the Pigeon books through the book club fliers that come home from the kids' schools. (Three paperback versions - all for $12.00) Of course a library is a great place to get your hands on some of these books. I hate to take money out of such a talented author's pockets but your library should be stocked with lots of works by Mo Willems. He's written a few stand alone books as well.

Be it Pigeons, Piggies, Elephant or Knuffle Bunny...you and your kids are sure to enjoy these wonderful books.