Friday, May 25, 2012

my thoughts on: Beauty by Robin McKinley [review]


Beauty by Robin McKinley
published 1983
click here for synopsis

Perfect heroine.
Even more perfect hero. 
Amazing minor characters to surround and enhance the awesomeness of Beauty and the Beast.
A wonderful tale to read aloud to children.
A magical retelling that tugged at my heart strings. I already had a thing for Beauty and the Beast (favourite Disney film of all time), and I have always adored delving into the unreachable fantasy of magical places, enchantments, and fairytale characters to amplify and promote pure love. 
There were lines in this book where I had to re-read them over and over just for the pure joy of re-experiencing the awesome intensity of feelings that were evoked. (e.g. the end of the quote below)
I cried a fair bit. I'm lame like that, and I will be the first to admit it. 
Roses are my favourite flower. 
Beauty is a pure, true, classic and magically wonderful retelling of Beauty and the Beast. 
It is beauty in the living body of literature.
I'll read this to my children and children's children...
And what better compliment could an author receive than that?

Snippet:
At the edge of sleep it seemed that the breeze returned, and something cool was put on my hands so that the pain slipped away like a thief in shadow. The gentle whistling and sighing of the breeze resolved itself at last into words, but I was too near sleep to hear much of what was said, or to be certain that I was not listening to a dream. There were two voices. The first said: 'Poor child, poor child. I feel for her sadly. If only there were some way we could help her.'
The second voice said, 'But there isn't, dear. You know that. We do our best, but she must find her own way.'
'I know. But it seems so hard.'
'It does, and it is; but cheer up. She is a good girl, and he loves her already. It will be alright in time...'

Wednesday, May 23, 2012

Bookshelf Tour - The Forgotten Shelf

Like my recent post entitled "Woops!" explained, I completely forgot to show you an entire shelf from my Bookshelf Tour the other day! So I filmed the last shelf yesterday, and here is the video! I was clearly out of my mind to have forgotten this shelf... I spent so long organising and ordering these books from top to bottom.

Monday, May 21, 2012

Woops!!!

I totally just realised only a minute ago that I had COMPLETELY forgotten to show an entire shelf from my Bookshelf Tour. It has a heap of classics on it. Can't believe I entirely forgot about that shelf... 

Anyway, I'll film that little P.S. / Part 2 of the Bookshelf Tour tomorrow if I can remember. 

WOOPS!!!!!

My Bookshelf Tour Video!!!

Brace yourselves... this is a long one.


My sister and I switched bedrooms the other day so I spent most of the day moving books to and from our rooms and organising my main bookcase. This is a video tour showing you guys my finished set up! Well, not completely finished yet because I don't want to use my smaller old bookcase anymore, which means I still need to find a place for the strayers... by 'strayers' I mean the 4 piles of other books that are currently homeless. 
Hope you don't find the bookshelf tour too boring! 

Lastly I just wanna apologise for not posting more throughout May. I did warn you though! 
But I hope this video post makes up for my absence in some way. :/ 
Let me know if you'd like to see more videos in the future!

Much love,
Arielle