Ellie@Home by Nicole Kapise-Perkins

         I have been given an incredible opportunity: I am one of the readers (fans!) who have had an opportunity to read and review Theodora Goss' newest book, Songs for Ophelia , due in stores in the coming months. I have had to resist a massive fan-girl attack (I really love Theodora's work!) and have tried to be as objective as is possible. I hope you enjoy...I certainly did!          My advanced review copy of Theodora Goss' exquisite volume Songs for Ophelia is something I will treasure, even after I purchase a copy of the book. One can never have too many books, provided they are ones we love, of course. And multiple copies of the same title? Let us call it collector's insurance. (Hence my two copies of Under the Lilacs and three Jane Eyre .) So two collections of these beautiful, fantastical, even spiritual poems, one digital, one bound, grants me twice the magic, feeling and beauty of Theodora Goss' words. I will have two keys to the kingdom, a r

   I have dropped the ball on reviewing the titles on my List, as I got so caught up in reading and taking notes (and an update crashed my system. Bad, bad update!) Sooo....here you are, and it's a doozy!       My reviews left off with Swimming With Giants, and I was just heading out to explore, adventure, and cause a ruckus with my very dear (fictional) pal Vesper Holly, star of Lloyd Alexander's adventure series. We were on our way to El Dorado , where we met up with all kinds of peril: the evil Doctor Helviticus, erupting volcanoes, hostile jungles, you name it. We survived, and made our way back to Philadelphia , only to rush away on a journey to the Middle East to return a book to the Great Library of Jedera, where we got caught up in a rebellion and political intrigue. Heaven help us. Next we had trouble closer to home at the 1876 Centennial Exposition in Philadelphia . Finally, we travelled to an archeological dig at the site of the fabled city of Troy , and face

in which I shall squeal, squark, whoop, flip and do all kinds of ridiculous antics out of pure glee! I have an opportunity to read and review Theodora Goss' newest book (not yet in stores) Songs for Ophelia !!!!!! Pardon me while I go fan-girl, my friends, but Theodora Goss is an incredible writer; her book In the Forest of Forgetting is a lush, lyrical walk through a fantasy realm, and I, among many many others, have been highly anticipating her forthcoming poetry volume...and I have a copy, sent by the lady herself, saved away here in my laptop. I am in ecstasy, truly. (I know you can't see it, but trust me here.) !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! http://theodoragoss.com/

"In this information age awash with so many words it is easy to undervalue an instinctual knowledge hat comes from within. But the sacred principles of life have never been written down: they belong to the heartbeat, to the rhythm of the breath and the flow of the blood. They are alive like the rain and the rivers, the waxing and waning of the moon. If we learn to listen we will discover that life, the Great mother, is speaking to us, telling us what we need to know. ... all ... the words in our libraries and on the Internet will not tell us what to do. But the sacred feminine can share with us her secrets, tell us how to be, how to midwife her rebirth. And because we are her children she can speak to each of us, if we have the humility to listen." -Llewellyn Vaughan-Lee From:The Return of the Feminine and the world Soul (I found this on Facebook, of all places. It's amazing the gems you can find there.)

     Over the next few days I'll share links and activities for some great summertime fun with your children. Much of it will be geared toward the younger set, but I'll try to include things older children might like as well. (For instance, my teenagers are all about video games...until I mention anything about letterboxing!) I'm also going to try to keep it as budget-friendly as possible. My own household is a single-income one, so I fully understand how difficult it can be to get out and do things with the family.  Here's wising you all happy summer days! http://www.littlepassports.com/ There is a monthly fee for this, starting at $10.95 a month for a 12 month plan. Your child receives: World Edition: Here's what you get! Recommended age: 5-10 years old Explorer Kit for Month 1 A fun travel suitcase with a letter from our globetrotting characters Sam and Sofia World wall map Travel passport Fun stickers, an activity sheet, and access to online game

and finding it at times informative, enchanting, disappointing and/or boring, as the case may be. Having finished Laura Esquivel's Between Two Fires , I will rate this book as enchanting. Anecdotes, essays, introductions to her other works or those of others, this delightful little book is a must-have for anyone that loves what I call 'food books': not cookbooks, but books like Esquivel's Like Water for Chocolate , Luisa Weiss' My Berlin Kitchen , Julie Powell's Julie and Julia ; books that center around food as a main theme in the living of daily life. I love this kind of stuff.      "Life cannot be substituted for literature, nor can literature be substituted for life...No one who loves life can ignore literature, and no one who loves literature can ignore life." ~Laura Esquivel      I have also just finished Swimming with Giants by Anne Collett, and while well-written by a leading scientist in the studies of these beautiful giants of the sea,

    While my computer has been down these last few days I have not sat idly by; I have completed a children's story titled Henry Loves Hash Browns , finished a second draft of a story titled Do Butterflies Drink Lemonade? ; and have been charging ahead with my Summer Reading pile...I mean list. Having finished The Celtic Twilight (days ago!) I moved on to Eve Curie's biography of her mother Madam (Doctor, actually) Marie Sklodovska-Curie, followed by Per Olov Enquist's fictional novel The Book About Blanche and Marie , based on the relationship between Marie Curie and her lab assistant Blanche Wittman, as researched in letters and journal entries, then built upon. Yesterday I read A Scented Palace by Elisabeth De Feydeau (only 114 pages).      And so, to recap.....I found Marie Curie's life to be an incredible story: she was a brilliant woman, a child prodigy, really, who faced and overcame nearly insurmountable odds on her journey to greatness, not the least of wh

The Stolen Child Where dips the rocky highland Of Sleuth Wood in the lake, There lies a leafy island Where flapping herons wake The drowsy water rats; There we've hid our faery vats, Full of berrys And of reddest stolen cherries. Come away, O human child! To the waters and the wild With a faery, hand in hand, For the world's more full of weeping than you can understand. Where the wave of moonlight glosses The dim gray sands with light, Far off by furthest Rosses We foot it all the night, Weaving olden dances Mingling hands and mingling glances Till the moon has taken flight; To and fro we leap And chase the frothy bubbles, While the world is full of troubles And anxious in its sleep. Come away, O human child! To the waters and the wild With a faery, hand in hand, For the world's more full of weeping than you can understand. Where the wandering water gushes From the hills above Glen-Car, In pools among the rushes That scarce could bathe a

     The Celtic Twilight is a collection of essays that read like short tales; some are interviews with folk of the Irish countryside, they who live side by side with the sidhe and the fey, and who have all sorts of tales to tell about ghosts, faerie haunts and happenings, and poets and heroes of times past. Yeats introduces us to ideas that seem child-like to the mind of today, but hover on the edge of plausibility. Are the fair folk real? Could they be? Living in America, I haven't had the exposure to the forces of the otherworld that seem so prevalent in Ireland and Scotland, though I have the blood of both heritages running through my veins. (Wales and England too, actually.) And I love faerie tales. So yes, I believe, for there are some things that need to be believed in to be seen: "The things a man has heard and seen are threads of life, and if he pull them carefully from the confused distaff of memory, any who will can weave them into whatever garments of belief pleas