It’s fun when my daughter, Lucie digs through her piles of books and finds a few we haven’t read before or in awhile. Here are two of her recent (re)discoveries.

Bye-Bye, Big Bad Bullybug!

Recently she found Bye-Bye, Big Bad Bullybug! by Ed Emberley. I adore Ed’s books. So fun, so smart, so colorful and oh so silly, too.

Bye-Bye, Big Bad Bullybug! is about a big, mean and scary bug from outer space. His main mission is to scare, bite, growl, tickle, pinch, scratch, stomp and eat Itty Bitty Baby Bugs. However, the Itty Bitty Baby Bugs get the last laugh – it’s good to have big friends with big sneakers.

As I read this book to my daughter, I pretend to scare, bite and growl – but I really do tickle and pinch. We had a lot of fun with this one. For ages four to eight and their silly parents.  This has two rubber stamps of approval from the both of us!

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One of the challenges at My Readable Feast is to find recipes that go with the books or activities. Much to my surprise, people have actually concocted some Pinocchio recipes.

Here are a few:

Geppetto’s Fruit Dip
Cast party recipe from KMR Scripts

Ingredients:

1. 8 oz pkg  cream cheese (softened)
2. ¾ cup brown sugar (light or dark)
3. ¼ cup white sugar
4. 1 tsp vanilla extract

Directions:

1. Mix everything in a bowl until creamy. 
2. Let set in refrigerator an hour or so to let the sugars dissolve.
3. Great with apple slices or spoon on bananas.

Pinocchio’s Artichoke Dip
Cast party recipe from KMR Scripts

Ingredients:

1. 1 (14 oz) can artichoke hearts — drained and chopped
2. 1 cup (4 oz) grated parmesan cheese
3. 1 cup mayonnaise (or Miracle Whip)
4. 1 tomato, chopped sliced green onions (About 6-8.  Use the green parts, too.)

Directions:

1. Mix the artichoke hearts, parmesan cheese and mayonnaise together. 
2. Spoon into a pie plate and bake at 350º for about 20-25 minutes or until lightly browned. 
3. Remove from oven and sprinkle the onions and tomatoes on top. 
4. Serve with crackers, chips or hot bread and enjoy!

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The Disney classic Pinocchio is so entrenched in our collective imaginations that we forget the movie is based on a book by Carlo Collodi. There are many book versions of Pinocchio, some for children, some for older kids, and many for adults.

Here are a few that stand out:

• Pinocchio Picture Book by Carlo Collodi and Katie Daynes for ages: three years and up from Usborne Books. This traditional tale is warmly retold with colorful illustrations and captivating text.
• Pinocchio (Young Reading Series 2 Gift Books) as retold by Katie Daynes. This 64-page Usborne Book is for older children ages five to 12 years. This version also comes in a Pinocchio CD and book pack filled with lively music, dramatic sound effects and superbly characterized readings.
• Pinocchio (New York Review Books Classics) This is the grown up and original version where Pinocchio is one of the great subversives of the written page, a madcap genius hurtled along at the pleasure and mercy of his desires, a renegade who in many ways resembles his near contemporary Huck Finn.
• Pinocchio (Penguin Classics) In this version for ages nine to 12, Pinocchio plays pranks upon the kindly woodcarver Geppetto, is duped by the Fox and the Cat, kills the pedantic Talking Cricket, and narrowly escapes death, with the help of the blue-haired Fairy. A wooden puppet without strings, Pinocchio is a tragicomic figure, a poor, illiterate, naughty peasant boy who has few choices in life but usually chooses to shirk his responsibilities and get into trouble. This sly and imaginative novel, alternately catastrophic and ridiculous, takes Pinocchio from one predicament to the next, and finally to an optimistic, if uncertain, ending.

My son Nathan just went through his first round of CSAPs. (See my post Working hard or hardly working? Parenting in the time of CSAPs at the Rocky Mountain Moms Blog.)

One of the highlights of the day was to watch Pinocchio when the test was over. Nathan loved Jiminy Cricket, “When You Wish Upon a Star,” and Geppetto and the whale. But the best part, which surely got laughs from the entire class, was discovering that jackass is another word for donkey. Goodness knows, real boys would find that amusing.

Oh the things you learn at school!

A real boy

Disney just release a special 70th anniversary edition of Pinocchio on Blu-ray and DVD that you’ll have to check out. Fully restored, some have complained that the colors are way too bright. Even so, it’s a must have in your record collection, not only because of the movie but for the bonus features.

Watching the movie brings back so many memories of watching it on TV and visiting the ride at Disneyland – one of my favorite things to do when I visit the park.

The DVD comes with many extra features including alternative endings, and you can find games, wallpapers and activity sheets on the Pinocchio Disney website.

Note: when you buy the Blu-Ray version, you get DVD in regular format. If you don’t have a Blu-Ray now, but plan to in the future, this is the way to go. Or you can split costs with a friend who had a Blu-Ray – just don’t fight over the case, OK?

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We are in the middle of science fair planning at school, so when I was watching the movie, Igor I had to laugh. Poor Igor (John Cusack) is obsessed with breaking out of his predestined roll as a hunch-back assistant to evil scientist, Dr. Glickenstein (John Cleese), so he enters a creation in an evil science fair.

I couldn’t agree that mandatory science fairs are evil, but more on that later.

After reanimating a road kill bunny, Igor decides he’s ready for a bigger project, creating a Bride of Frankenstein-type monster (Molly Shannon) called Eva. Unfortunately for him, the town’s science fair is all about making evil monsters, and Eva is a sweet girl who couldn’t hurt a fly.

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