5# book review

one of my resolution for this year was to read one book per month (see  my resolutions here)  well... i'm doing it and i still can not believe it! i always loved reading but with a child it's not so easy... with two i think i can forget it for at least one year!
this month i read Limonov by Emmanuel Carrère. it's a biography on a russian men, Eduard Limonov; who was writer and politician, a bit fictional.

his life was nothing less that pure adventure: first in ukraine, then in russia, where he met his first wife. after he moved to new york and paris, where he felt the real degradation and he wrote his first romance.

it's hard to believe that what's writing is actually true (even with some literary fiction!)

i don't know if you can find this book in english, but in french for sure!







now i'm reading all baby and pregnancy related book, and something about siblings... if you have any suggestion about this last theme please tell me! as i said i'm only child so seeing relationship between brothers and sisters is brand new to me!

4# book review

 

this month i’ve read the great gatsby by f. scott fitzgerald and i’m so totally into the roaring 20s. i don’t have to tell you what’s the book about since it’s one of the most famous american classic in the world but if i had to sum the book in just one short sentence it will be: it’s a book about the desperation of love. the background of a shiny, happy, rich life that the main characters have in common is nothing that a curtain for their desperation and their loneliness.

it was not easy reading the book in english; as you already know (and can easily understand from how i write… ) english is not my mother language and many expressions that fitzgerald used are not so common. So, to understand the story better, i’ve seen also the first movie, the one with mia farrow and robert redford. i’ve read a lot of reviews of this movie and seems that are all agree to say that the book is hundreds of times better and the actors chosen didn’t suit the fitzgerald’s idea. i’m not so an expert to write something like this… i think that lights and costumes were great, but maybe the book has a dept that the movie doesn’t show.

in the end i’m satisfied by my choice of book and the movie was on my to-see list for a while so…

we ♥ books!!

that's what's new in zoeti's library... i'm kind of shopaholic when it comes to books (expecially children's book). i don't remember if i mentioned that we're trying to raise our child as much bilingual as possible (me and Giulio are both italians, born and living in italy). i'm following all the suggestions in this website bilingue per gioco (bilingual for fun - italian only), where the founder tells that it's not fundamental to be mother language to teach another language, but there are other ways. so we're buying just english books and dvds for zoeti and ... hoping for the best! i'll normaly take suggestion for books to buy in that website or here in the blogsphere, but recently i've found out that in england they give a bookstart pack to every child living in the territory (isn't that wonderful!). that's the website. in the site there's a section called book where you can find suggestions for babies, toddlers or preschoolers, and it was so useful for me! i've just bought other books from amazon but i'll told about them after a break-in period..

:: i live in tokyo :: we don't read this book very often... i think it's more suitable for older kids, but i bought it anyway bacause i think it's important for zoeti to know and understand the place where aunty comes from and her cousin is half japanese as well! we've been to japan three years ago (looong time ago!) and i loved it! it was already one of my favorite countries... i love all the tea ritual, the geisha's history, a religion so different from mine and i love sushi!
plus, there is a kind of vocabulary inside... if you want to learn some basic japanese words!


:: cleversticks :: it's another book about diversity and different culture. i think it's important for zoeti to read stories from different countries or with characters from all over the world. italy is slowly becoming an international country: zoeti will be at school with chinese, moroccan, ghanaians, vietnamese and so on and it will be such a great chance for her to discover new languages and habits! in this book a chinese-american boy doesn't want to go to school anymore because he doesn't know to do what the others can. but soon he discovers that using chopsticks is what he can do and others can't.


:: who's like me? ::

:: the game of mix and match :: definetely two of her favorites! there's a lot to do with little hands such as finding new combinations of colors and shapes or discover new animals!



:: how to make an apple pie and see the world :: definetely one of my favorite!! i can't read the whole story to zoeti because she keeps turning pages looking for the cat, the dog, cows, hens, and all the other animals that the protagonist meets along the way! a book about travelling and cooking... the best!!

3# book review

The last book i've read is La bambina che diceva sempre di sì (original title "Dis oui, Ninon"). I'm not sure if there's a english version, but i bet it's going to be translated as soon as they can.

This book is a little treasure! Ninon is the narrator and she describes her lifes through a nine-years-old eyes. she tries to understand and justify her parents relatioship, the economical difficulty, the love for her little sister, without understand all the situations in the deep, but sometimes teaching us more than an adult. The focus of the book is her decision to live with the father and help him to built a house in the woods.

The Author is Maud Lethielleux and this is her first book.

2# book review

that's the time of a famous polish journalist and writer: Ryszard Kapuściński. i've read Ebano (the english title is "The shadow of the sun").  

it'a a portrait of Africa throughout 40 years; from Ethiopia, to Rwanda, from north to south. every chapter is a story itself, not only of history or landscapes, but of people and way of life.
the idea that you keep in mind when you finish the book is how everything is hot, the difficulty of even breathing, the harshness of life, the feeling that they have to do something (but what?), the dreaming of a new life, the desert and the jungle...

i've been only to south africa, so i've never really seen the real wild one, but when you finish this book you can almost feel and remember the places...

1# book review

i had promised to read at least one book every month (see the others my resolutions here ) so that's my first book review!

"i sogni dei bambini" - Sergio Bambarén (i don't know if there's an english version of this book - sorry)


My aunt gave this to me as birthday present last year and i never found time to read it... what a pity! this book is wonderful! it talks about a rich men that gets lost in a very poor district and he recognize that that was the place where he used to live with his family. he meets another him, a happier one, that shows him his past as it was (poor but happy) and not as he remembered.
the style is close to Coelho's and the topic is the one that make you think... because even if you grow up, the dreams that you had as a chid remain the same - and you have to remember that!

"al mondo ci sono persone talmente povere da non possedere nulla, oltre il denaro"

there are people so poor that they own nothing, except money      

♥ books!

That's what's new from my last amazon wandering... what do you think? any other suggest for Santa's letter?!

the pleasure of reading!

when i listened to other moms saying "my little one wants to hear always the same story... hundreds of times... i can't stand it anymore!" i thought they were exagerating... until the last couple of days! zoeti has this crush for a book we bought 3-4 months ago Squash and a Squeeze

  when i ask her to chose a book she always - and i say always!!- bring this one. and she doesn't want to hear the story... she turns the pages until the old lady has to push the cow inside. zoeti loves cows, and the cow sound. she wants just to read those 3-4 pages ... 

what about your kids? what's their favorite book? and if you are not in my situation already, i suggest you to think carefully about which book to read to your little ones because you can find yourself reading the same pages for a very long time!!

when least expected!

i was looking for a book to read to zoeti in my mom's house a couple of days ago when i found these two books... i remember when my dad's friend gave them to me...they were his daughter's but she was a teenager that time so no longer interested in those books... i tried to found all the other serenella's books but they seemed to be not available...i loved, and still do, the drawings... so 70ish!! plus they teach you how to cook or keep your dresses clean... things that children don't now nowadays, with that retrò allure.
i'm going to keep them for zoeti!!!

are you keeping some of your old books for your little ones?

summer rain

it took 45 minutes to convince zoeti to take a nap this afternoon and just after that it started rain... i had tons of stuff to do during that 3 hours of "freedom" but, instead of that, i just stared at the rain. there's something magical in a summer unexpected rain: the sense of "wash away" all the problems, the fresh air coming just after, the rainbow...

but... just after that i panicked: how can i keep zoeti inside the house and keep my mental sanity?! she loves running and playing in the garden (like all the babies) and i can't fill 6-7 hours with books and indoor games... she's still in that age where everything has to be fast, she changes her mind quickly, she doesn't focus on something for more than 5 minutes... i find out this book:

it's already in my wish list! [italian version here]

the only trouble is that maybe zoeti is still to small for some of these activities... i'll figure something out!








i don't have to say that when zoeti woke up the sun was shining again! but i'll buy the book anyway: i'll not be that lucky in winter!!