This is Australia - Miroslav Sasek

Miroslav Sasek was born in the Czech Republic and wrote and illustrated the This Is series of children's books, including This is London, This is Paris, This is New York, This is Rome, This is San Francisco, This is Greece, This is the Way to the Moon, many more, and featured here, This is Australia.  Isn't that cover just the coolest?!  I have only done travelling in Canada and the United States and would like to visit more countries one day.  My parents had a great trip to Australia years ago.  When I was teaching my grade 2 class we always studied a unit about Australia every year and had a lot of fun with it.  We would have an Australian Christmas party and I played songs about Australia on my guitar and we dressed as if it was warm weather and ate pavlova, it was great.

Check out this YouTube footage of This is Israel.  2 of my good friends just got back from a cruise to the Holy Land, very interesting to hear what it was like there!

Pippi Longstocking Comics

Get ready to be wowed!  How much do you love these comic-style Pippi books?!  Here we have Pippi Moves In and Pippi Fixes Everything.  They were illustrated by Ingrid Vang Nyman in the 1950's.  I was so excited to buy these re-issues for my daughter!  Apparently there will be one more volume to come!  It is the first time they have been published in English.  These stories were originally published in Sweden's Humpty Dumpty magazine about a decade after the original books were published.

My daughter Keira and I have been enjoying reading all the Pippi books together as well as these comic books.  We have also watched the Swedish movies subtitled in English as well as The New Adventures of Pippi Longstocking, from the 80's, and a newer cartoon version on dvd that she got for Easter as well.  Pippi is the best!

Sometimes when I read Pippi I like to think of my Swedish great-grandmother.  I was lucky enough to have her around til I was a young adult, and she was 94 years old when she passed away.   She had some similarities to Pippi - Swedish, lived in an old house by herself, and had a bit of a mischievous streak.  :) Like Pippi, she was also very independent. She immigrated to Canada from Sweden all by herself when she was a young woman!  Who did that back then??  Very brave!

Sesame Street Treasury

Check out this awesome compilation of vintage Sesame Street stories. Look who's here- Farley!  Betty Lou!  Super Grover!  Snuffy and his little sister Alice!  Check out this page I found - 10 Things You Didn't Know About Snuffleupagus.