Swapping dainty dancing for hoops and hoots, this upbeat spin on The Twelve Dancing Princesses brings rhyme, spring and spirit to the age old tale.

More fairy tales gone wild and fun with the familiar on JOMB:

• The Frog Prince Continued
• And the DISH Ran Away with the SPOON
• Badness for Beginners
• Bantam of the Opera
• Bill in a China Shop
• Cinderella Skeleton
• Falling For Rapunzel
• Monster Goose
• Oops!
• Petite Rouge, A Cajun Red Riding Hood
• Rumplestilskin’s Daughter
• Science Verse
• Such A Prince
• Swine Lake
• The Crow
• The Little Red Hen Makes a Pizza
• The Three Fishing Brothers Gruff
• The Three Little Wolves and the Big Bad Pig
• Wait! No Paint!

Pop over to Becky’s Book Reviews for today’s full menu of poetry offerings. Poetry Fridays are brought to us by Kelly Herold of Big A, Little A.

We’d love to hear your thoughts on a favourite children’s book. Leave a voice message on our JOMB listener hotline, +1-206-350-6487, so we can include your audio in our show.

Chapters.ca Amazon.com

Happy Valentine’s Day!

Even the most wonderful romance can come with the challenge of fitting in with in-laws. This fabulously illustrated twist on The Frog Prince treats us to an entertaining string of slip-ups and scandals as a starry-eyed frog samples life in the Royal Family.

More frogs on JOMB:

• The Frog Prince Continued
• Two Frogs

HOTLINE VOICES: Karen Alonge’s Valentines contribution is about a mysterious love letter with a twist in Somebody Loves You Mr. Hatch (by Eileen Spinelli and Paul Yalowitz).

We’d love to hear your thoughts on a favourite children’s book. Leave a voice message on our JOMB listener hotline, +1-206-350-6487.

So, what are your favourite renditions of The Frog Prince? Leave us a message in the comments, below.

Chapters.ca Amazon.com

Fierce, phonetically written slang and softly stretched, fish-eye illustrations make this twangin’ twist on the traditional tale a thrill for listeners and read-aloud hams alike — rump-blisterin’ and all!

Other books mentioned:

• Petite Rouge, A Cajun Red Riding Hood
• Three Little Cajun Pigs

You can find more Appalachian children’s books here.

HOTLINE VOICES: Melitsa Avila captures the essence of a book that both she and her son love, Too Many Toys (by David Shannon).

We’d love to hear your thoughts on a favourite children’s book. Leave a voice message on our JOMB listener hotline, +1-206-350-6487.

So, what are your favourite renditions of Cinderella? Leave us a message in the comments, below.

Chapters.ca Amazon.com

Rife with bobs, crops and cloche hats, beads, bangles and silk, this refreshing Roaring Twenties rendition of the traditional tale swaps the wincing minion for a spunky, talented and unflapperishly curvy Cinderella who, like another C-character we’ll all be watching this weekend, understands that we really don’t want everything we want.

More from the Jazz Era on JOMB:

• When Louis Armstrong Taught Me Scat
• Piano Starts Here: The Young Art Tatum
• Ben’s Trumpet
• Jazz ABZ (An A to Z Collection of Jazz Portraits)

HOTLINE VOICES: Thanks to Maddy Lau of Styling with Renee Michelle shares her memories of The Little Prince (by Antoine de Saint Exupéry).

We’d love to hear your thoughts on a favourite children’s book. Leave a voice message on our JOMB listener hotline, +1-206-350-6487.

Chapters.ca Amazon.com

Delightfully flippant dialogue and dark, stylized illustrations laced with familiar, fun-to-find details take us on a hilarious journey through the forest of fairy tales in this quest for missing marital bliss.

More fairy tales gone wild and fun with the familiar on JOMB:

• And the DISH Ran Away with the SPOON
• Badness for Beginners
• Bantam of the Opera
• Bill in a China Shop
• Cinderella Skeleton
• Falling For Rapunzel
• Monster Goose
• Oops!
• Petite Rouge, A Cajun Red Riding Hood
• Rumplestilskin’s Daughter
• Science Verse
• Such A Prince
• Swine Lake
• The Crow
• The Little Red Hen Makes a Pizza
• The Three Fishing Brothers Gruff
• The Three Little Wolves and the Big Bad Pig
• Wait! No Paint!

HOTLINE VOICES: Paul Muller talks about passing along his enjoyment of Pickle Things (by Marc Brown), a book from his childhood, to his own son.

We’d love to hear your thoughts on a favourite children’s book. Leave a voice message on our JOMB listener hotline, +1-206-350-6487.

Chapters.ca Amazon.com

Sweet, silly collage and guess-the-next-gag rhyme turn the traditional tale of tossed tresses into a merry carousel of misunderstanding and matchmaking.

More romantic reading on JOMB:

• Cinderella Skeleton
• Taj Mahal
• Such A Prince
• Yuck. A Love Story
• The Penderwicks On Gardam Street
• The Hound from the Pound
• Victor and Christabel
• The Twelve Dancing Princesses

You will find the soon to be launched Kid City NY blog here.

HOTLINE VOICES: Julie Wilson is reunited with a childhood favourite, The Adventures of Super Pickle (no longer in print) after nearly thirty years.

We’d love to hear your thoughts on a favourite children’s book. Leave a voice message on our JOMB listener hotline, +1-206-350-6487.

Pop over to Adventures in Daily Living for today’s full menu of poetry offerings. Poetry Fridays are brought to us by Kelly Herold of Big A, Little A.

Chapters.ca Amazon.com

Tabloid-style coverage, Looney-Toonesque illustrations and the feisty narration of a bohemian godmother transform the traditional tending of a love-sick princess into a comical read-again caper.

Other books mentioned:

• Stories at the Door
• The Three May Peaches

Chapters.ca Amazon.com

Stubble, nastiness, dead fish and debris transform foul fishing tactics into a riveting affair in this gloriously disagreeable cautionary tale.

You can learn more about the real Poverty Bay (home of author/illustrator, Ben Galbraith) and Bay of Plenty here and here.

Chapters.ca Amazon.com

Dialogue bubbles, repetition, huge text and page after page of visual slapstick make this twist on Little Red Riding Hood a satisfying read-along for even the youngest of readers.

Other books mentioned:

• S.W.A.L.K.
• Suddenly!

We can’t help directing you to some of our other pig-centric favourites:

• Today I Will Fly
• When Pigs Fly
• The Three Little Wolves and the Big Bad Pig
• The Piggy in The Puddle
• Swine Lake
• Swine Snafu
• Wait! No Paint!

Chapters.ca Amazon.com

Combine twenty-six meaty new words, a sprinkling of fairy tale characters, one talented young artist, forty pages of gorgeous watercolours and an irresistably spunky dog and “voila!” an exciting new rendition of the Red Riding Hood theme. Bones optional.

Chapters.ca Amazon.com

Squabbling siblings, ingenuity and the irresistable innocence of preschool art combine to make this slick spin on the sleeping beauty standby a welcome trip outside the box.

You can learn more about appreciating young children’s scribbles here.

Chapters.ca Amazon.com

This refreshing departure from the boy-burglarizes-giant version of the giant beanstalk story has our girls swooning, roaring and cheering each and every time.

Chapters.ca Amazon.com

Full of snappy wit and hilariously scrawled illustrations, these clever and sweetly cheeky adventures crack us up not only as we read them but again and again as we toss about their hilarious expressions in our daily life.

Other Little Wolf books which we have read and often rave about:

• Badness for Beginners
• Little Wolf’s Diary of Daring Deeds (Little Wolf)
• Little Wolf’s Handy Book of Poems (Little Wolf)
• Little Wolf’s Haunted Hall for Small Horrors (Little Wolf)

P.S. Little Wolf left us a comment about our conversation with Ian Whybrow interview here! Arooooo!

Chapters.ca Amazon.com

Hilariously melodramatic monologue, generous, engaging narrative and classic Sendak illustrations make this theatrical romp a favourite of adults and children alike.

Chapters.ca Amazon.com

Colourful characters, corny humour and a considerable amount of complaining have made this collision of nursery rhymes a favourite adventure at our house.

• The Three Little Pua’a reviewed by TJ (3), Vivian (***) of the Critical Literacy in Practice Podcast (CLIP Podcast) and Andy of The Andycast Podcast
• Hanukkah at Valley Forge reviewed by Heidi of the The Book of Life Podcast

We hope you’ll tell us about one of your favourite books too!

Send your review (five-minutes or less) as an MP3 file in email to justonemorebook@gmail.com, phone it in to our listener feedback line (206-350-6487) or send your text review in email.

Chapters.ca Amazon.com

Full of richly detailed, hilariously disgusting illustrations and fiendishly twisted traditional verse, this collection of poems is a year-round favourite.

Chapters.ca Amazon.com

Illustrated with morbid hilarity and told in brilliant rhyme, this popular Hallowe’en book is a year round favourite at our house.

Chapters.ca Amazon.com

Every aspect of the traditional tale is reversed to its ridiculous extreme in this perfectly worded and illustrated retelling of “The Three Little Pigs”. I guess it could be seen as light and corny — and maybe this makes me light and corny — but I find this story to be meaningful, relevant and full of hope. After all, wasn’t Einstein’s definition of insanity repeating an action and expecting a different result?

A play based on this book is available for download on the Egmont website

Chapters.ca Amazon.com

This twisted take on the classic tale turns its traditional victims into calmly confident young women who, with neither fanfare nor aggression, make their world a better place.

Chapters Amazon

The colourful cut paper illustrations and the playful narrative make this funky, urban retelling of the Little Red Hen a hoot to read aloud.

Chapters Amazon

A hilarious Cajun version of the traditional Red Riding Hood story. The illustrations are full of movement and emotion. The rhyming text is phonetically written in Cajun slang and is a riot to read aloud. This is our all time favourite.

SUMMARY: A spunky little girl-duck named “Petite Rouge” and her quick thinking cat, “TeJean”, take a pirogue across the swamp to bring gumbo and boudin to Petite’s sick “grand-mere”. They meet up with a gator named “Claude” and eventually outwit him with a quick, creative and final solution to his taste for people (people being ducks and cats).