Becoming Brilliant

Becoming Brilliant: What Science Tells us About Raising Successful Children (APA Lifetools: Books for the General Public)

"21st-century report card" contains six C's

collaboration, 

communication, 

content, 

critical thinking, 

creative innovation and 

confidence.

Papa Gave Me a Stick by Janice Levy

I havent heard of the Japanese story 'Straw Millionaire' until I read about this book. Antonio wants a guitarro but all he gets is a stick from his Papa which is what he got from his Papa before he got his guitarro.
Involving a perro (dog), pajaro (bird), burro (donkey), gato (cat), a groom, a wedding and a mariachi band, can Antonio fulfill his dreams of a guitarro for himself?
With an undercurrent of how is something going to be helpful in getting a guitar, Antonio finds himself helping others get warmth, satisfy hunger, reduce pain, save from drowning and so on. Such a lovely kid like the sweet brother in 'How much for the Doggie in the window' (soaking in the rain at his lemonade stand) has an incredible journey trading up.
The illustrations are soft and the texture, holds you to each section of it, inviting you to explore.
We had a blast with this book., we traced the story back. we enacted the story. Yes, the playroom with infinite toys will have similar props to what you need for the story. I got so inspired that we did this story for my daughter's friend's birthday and started it off with a customised mariachi happy birthday song online. Even bought it as a gift for couple of friends.

We even bought a small zarape from the Arizona- Sonoran Desert Museum to enact the story.

Where they learn to be the scariest

Ghoul school had me right from the ebginning where Bea A. Fraid says that she learns how to scare others at her all-ghoul school. Sort of a Monsters University. It is twistily funny where she is humorous and that creeps others. I loved the detail of the headmistress earrings being a skull.
Bea's last name and the whole setting of the school is creative. You can never be too cool for this all-ghoul school.

7/28/2018

We reread this story and now it puzzles me when kids get puns.
How children develop a sense of humour

Sakes Alive! A Cattle Drive

The cows Molly and Mabel are hilarious. Are you curious what they doo-oo-oo on the cattle drive?

I loved the part where this plain looking blue car is dotted with flowers after they sidestep through Mayor's flower bed. Many other interesting parts where they give a hoofograph in place of autograph.

The illustrations are cute.

Little reader's thoughts:

she liked the part where the police try to get the cows on cattle drive

Cattle Drive (And 153 other Random Acts of Artistic Nonsense) (The Cowlector's Edition)

Barbie, I Can Be- A Pet Vet

Barbie, I Can Be- A Pet Vet (Step into Reading, Step 1) 

What a simple way of letting kids know what a vet does. A career as veterinarian can be very fulfilling for animal lovers. But that is too mouthful a word. The Pet Vet rhyme is briliantly pulled. The books shows all the different kind of cute animals that a vet takes care of. It gives a good idea to kids that a vet treats all pets, big and small. No Horse is too big for a vet. When Barbie learns that she can become a pet vet, kids too get to try being the vet career for size.

Little reader's thoughts:
She liked that Barbie was able to help her pet horse.
She also like

"Hooray for Vets

Hooray for pets"

Vet kits are one way to reel in the little vets. Another fantastic way is this veterinary anatomy coloring book. That should increase their vocabulary too.

The Bossy Pirate by John Steven Gurney

The Bossy Pirate 

The title foreshadows the story. 

Very creative use of the unicycle and clothespins to make a steering wheel for the ship.

The kids realised how bossy the pirate was and how the mermaid transformed him into a collaborative pirate where anyone can give orders, and anybody can contribute maps. I loved the natural segue between the attic and the ocean, between reality and imagination. The number of pages could have been reduced. Good lesson to remember. Lots of nautical words learned. I didnt know yardarm and scuttlebutt.

Am I Yours? by Alix Latimer

Am I Yours?

'Am I yours?' is a fun story. I read it with 6,7 and 3 yr olds. They all enjoyed it. The dinosaurs are all so colorful. I learned about few new types of dinosaurs. Its funny that every dinosaur talks to an egg. All the kids liked the part where the egg hatches and the whole family is together. Smooth illustrations. It was interesting to see a bit of the last dinosaur in each page. it made me peek back to see if there was a foreshadow of the coming dinsosaur. Kind of like the 'what do you see?'.

Nice twist on the 'are you my mother' and hints of 'what do you see'. There are little critters all over the place, which the kids had fun pointing out. 

Physiognomy: The Mark Seliger Photographs

Recently in a leadership corse in MBA, we studied the Wizard of OZ, hence I recognize this as the Tin Man in The Wizard of Oz. You can also tell this is the Jerry Seinfeld of Seinfeld TV show.

I have not heard of Mark Seliger before, but Get something that no one else has gotten seems to have worked out well for him.

Can you find Dalailama's picture without glasses and watch?
You can but is rarer
Would you be comfortable taking a back portrait of you?
Meaning, could people still recognise you from it..

Very interesting viewpoints. Seliger's story of how the darkroom development got him interested in photography is different too.

Boats for Papa

My friend told me about this book Boats for Papa by Jessixa Bagley.
Its a touching story. I thought I was prepared to cry but didnt in the end. The illustrations are lucid. The seagull on the rooftop is so clear and so are the boat designs. The ocean is huge.

Reach by Andy Molinsky

"Warren Buffet lamented that in college he limited himself by only signing up for classes where he wouldnt have to put himself out on a limb and speak in public. And whenever he did have to speak in public, especially in the early days, the results werent pretty: "I would throw up," Buffett remarked. "In fact, I aranged my life so that I never had to get up in front of anybody." - Andy Molinsky.

What you want to be known for?

"You reach a point in your life when you start recognizing that your time is limited. And you realize that what matters is more than just your own achievements. Its the legacy. And the legacy in itself is the achievement and what you want to be known for."- Kathy Mazzarella, Graybar


You could reach this point when you lose a loved one.

Straight as a Crooked Stick

Tomb of the Diver
Would I be shockd to find that the Parthenon colums are not straight? That some how the ancients were not perfect and that their striaght line was crooked? Entasis was a way of getting the columns to look straight. But why is straight aesthetic?

Mistaking Each Other for Ghosts

The Truth of the Cookie

How to notice a poem

Readers Companion

Coaching in TImes of Crisis and Transformation

The beginning of wisdom is to call things by their right name - Chinese Proverb.

Writing with insistence on knowing the names of the animals, plants specific aims at making you wiser about the world you inhabit.

Scattered at Sea

'The Dead Woman's Telephone' poem in the book makes for a good example of a line for Ars Poetica. Its at once specific and general. It resonated with me when I was reading John Berger's line on archives being another way of dead people living.
'Thoughts of Tree at twilight' is how we look at things and think things. Even in 'Bon Courage' when poet Amy Gerstler tries to guides us through the imaginary woods like a docent in a museum, where you are welcome to linger but there's more to look too - but you are there.
'but the forest is our subject, not this young girl'
That sense of being in the poem is what you should read 'Scattered at Sea' for.
The little squiggles on the cover are cute.

berger's view on archives

The Best American Essays 2015

I randomly started reading The Best American Essays 2015. I liked the middle of the essay on recuperating and then I noted the essay name in mind 'Strange Days' and went back to it. I shared it with few friends. Articles have a nice way of interlinking things. After this essay, I could put all the recuperative literature that I read into one folder in my head. Then came the close brush with an accident in My Daughter and God which brings death, old age, life into clear focus. After the miscarriage in Difference maker, I had to find why the mood of the book is so heavy. The anthology has finally grown up. Later when I looked more into the details of the editor, I recognised the 'Thanksgiving in Mongolia' essay which explained the leaning of the book.
Its one thing reading the essays in the book, but finding the articles online along with the photos that go with it make it for an altered reading. I like going through the titles of the notable essays that didnt make it and catch a few of them.

The Prize

Its been five years since the beginning of the project which involves Zuckerberg's donation of 100 million dollars to reform Newark schools. The results are pouring in and more importantly, the questions - what happened to the money? Now that aint pretty. 20 million dollars to consultants, more than that to underperforming teachers as buyout, 50 percent of it to teacher contracts. Its this divvying that has been marked in the title with not much changes to the schools or students. Author Russakoff does a people centric story with coverage on all the honchos and the teachers too who bring about change in students in a positive way. Teachers who motivate students with an assessment of where they are and where they could be.
Now I am eager to know what happens to Intel's Oakland Initiative.

Assessing the 100 million upheaval of newarks public schools

His Gift to America

I have read Frida Diego: Art,Love and Life by Catherine Reef and enjoyed it. Having read Ida M Tarbell by Emily Arnold mcCully, I have realised that biographies meant for tweens is a good way of quickly learning about some great people. All I knew about Webster before reading this book 'Noah Webster: man of Many Words' was about his dictionary.
But after reading the book, I am wondering how some things are just the same - his insistence on standing up (stand up desks) while working, he wrote letters for funding his magnum opus promising a copy (early kickstarter). Goodreads shows that webster has 127 books. It also seems like his fascination with getting the words right connects to compiling facts. Its this naming that starts off encyclopedic works. Words and Encyclopedia are two of my favourite things for all the new stuff you learn from and through them.
The book has many illustrations. some reviewers have done a good job of recognising how the major dose of American History was needed to show the man as a work of his times.

Ongoingness: The End of Diary

Key Performance Indicators for Dummies

Key Performance Indicators for Dummies is a good book to get your rookies knowledgeable on what is KPI and what KPQ (KP questions) will get you to the performance you want. The difference between leading and lagging indicators is a good one to know, even the focus on the word indicator in KPIs is essential. While the author does these kind of highlighting and contextualizing well, the dos and dont when it comes to KPIs, the book starts to feel like many booklets put together, trying to reel in different departments together. Yes finance is where all the numbers are but it is this cross functional jump, that makes the book look like a motley. I was very interested with terms like KPQ, EVA- Economic Value Added but after a while there were too many terms (I remember reading about NPS - Net Promoter Score, but cant recall which book), that made it seem like KPI should have been a small section under an umbrella title that would tie the book all in one. Something to appreciate in this varied terms definition are the examples, which make all the acronyms very easy to understand. Keep this book under the 'Basics of Business' folder.