Park Happy

From the great Yosemite to the Statue of Liberty, the National Park Service is waiving entrance fees to all 392 national parks from April 17-25.  So explore the great outdoors and celebrate Earth Day 2010 at a national park.  Become a Web Ranger, build your own ranger station, and start planting seeds for a brighter, greener U!

A Penny For Your Thoughts

You’ve probably heard it time and time again: it’s never too early to $ave! It sounds simple enough 'til you realize even the big banks can’t do it. And neither can Uncle $am! OMG… what’s a girl to do???

Ca$h in on summer, Tudygirls! Read all about it. If there’s one subject they don’t teach you in school, it’s money. And it totally works against you. So do your pocketbook a favor. Brush up on your dollar$ and cent$ with a Tudy Mu$t-Have: The Everything Kids' Money Book.

From piggybank$ to money market$ and the Federal Re$erve Bank, The Everything Kids' Money Book will cover all these vast subjects.  It's Economics 101 written in such an entertaining, imaginative way!  Read it and you’ll soon be cruising down Wall $treet as easily as you do Main $treet.

$peaking of Main $treet... if you find yourself in Disney World's Main $treet this summer, take the train to The Great Piggy Bank Adventure at Epcot. I know, I know… the Disney fairies beckon but, believe me, so does this hands-on $avings adventure. Here’s your first promi$$ory note: you’ll be glad you did!

Can’t make it to Disney World? No sweat! Just click on these virtual treats: thegreatpiggybankadventure.com and kids'money.org. Then set your own dream goals and see how much of a finance smarty pants you can be. It's all here, so no more excuses, y'hear?

Put in the time now, Tudygirl$. Consider your$elf your best investment. ‘Cuz it takes more than an allowance to break the piggy bank. It take$ a whole lot of common cent$!

The Chase is On!

What do art and math have in common? Not much, you'd think. But in Blue Balliett's Chasing Vermeer, these two subjects come together to create a truly intriguing puzzle Petra and Calder have to solve! And as always, there's not much time to do it!

Set in the windy city of Chicago (one of my fave cities!), involving a Vermeer painting (one of my fave painters!) and lots of pentominoes (ok, NOT one of my fave puzzles!), Chasing Vermeer is one of those "interactive" books that gets your mind thinking and imagination flying!

While you're reading, create your own puzzle of pentominoes, check out the Art Institute of Chicago , or marvel at Vermeer's A Lady Writing and other paintings! It's all just a click away! And with "puzzling" illustrations by Brett Helquist (solve them while you're reading the book too!), this is one worthwhile summer read!

A Merry Museum Mix-Up!

Okay, I'm not actually suggesting it (!!!) but if you ever imagined running off somewhere, where would you go? Forget the circus! I would run off to a museum and live there (!!!) and that's exactly what Claudia does in E. L. Konigsburg's From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler! Written in 1967 and winner of the Newbery Medal, this book made my "museum dream" come true! Armed with a few dollars but lots of imagination, Claudia and her brother, Jamie, carefully plan to run off and live in the wondrous and wonderful Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City. And along the way, they discover the secrets of the museum and a few things about themselves as well.

What a place for imagining! My favorite place in the Met? Where Claudia and Jamie hide from their classmates, ofcourse!! Where would you niche out? Get the book, visit the museum, and map it out yourself!

But just in case you can't wait, here's an on-line book you can read right now about another museum adventure, Aaron's Awesome Adventure!

And to get you going on your own adventure, here's a colorful lesson in imagination from one of the greatest museums in the world!

Quack!

Paris has Madeline, New York has Eloise and Boston has... Mrs. Mallard! Make Way for Ducklings by Robert McCloskey is a picture book that will warm your heart like a down comforter! In her search for a perfect home for her ducklings - Jack, Kack, Lack, Mack, Nack, Ouack, Pack, and Quack (Phew, are you with me?!). Mrs. Mallard will brave Beantown's traffic to get to the right place. But will she and her brood make it?!?

Filled with heart-warming illustrations by the author and based on an actually observed scene of travelling ducks, Make Way for Ducklings is truly an oldie but goodie!

And if you ever find yourself in Boston, check out the beautiful Public Garden! You just might run into Mrs. Mallard and her ducklings (in bronze, that is)!

Holiday Travel

"Snow pants, hats, mittens, and coats,
little pink candies for soothing sore throats!"

With Seuss-like prose and girl-wit precision, Priscilla and The Great Santa Search, will warm your hearts this holiday season. The fourth in the Priscilla series and just in time for the holidays, it's Tudy's pick for all your gift-giving reasons!

Mall Santas getting you down? Then do what Priscilla and her BFF, Bettina, do. Travel! Pack up. Embark on a quest (go ahead, Tudygirls, find your real Santa!). And take pictures! Lots of pictures!!! That way, yule end up with picture-perfect treasures... sights and sounds that'll make a believer of anyone.

But never underestimate the weather. Ol' man winter always exacts a heavy toll. Delays are common. So pack right and sit tight.

Tudy's travel advisory: Santa and his reindeers ahead!!!

What a Steal!

Venice, Italy is one of the most magical places ever! And it's glorious history dates way back to the 13th century (that's 700 years ago!)! Plus you can walk the streets and take a gondola ride on the canals today much the same way as the early Venetians did! And I just love the fact that there are no cars! Imagine that!

Capture the magic and mystery of Venice in Cornelia Funke's The Thief Lord! This breath-taking book will take you on a byzantine journey thru Venice, as Prosper and Bo struggle to survive as orphans and get mesmerized by the shadowy and shady world of the Thief Lord. But they end up learning more than just survival skills - they discover the value of family and friends, and the importance of being true to yourself! A lesson even the Thief Lord has to learn! But will he learn it in time?

So sit back on your gondolas, let your mind take a trip to Venice, and let The Thief Lord steal your heart away!

Tudy's ABC Word Safari

Join Tudy on an ABC word safari! Did you know "safari" means "journey" in Swahili? See if you can add on or make up your own word safari. Either way, it's a fun romp in the jungle. Journey on!

An army of ants. A building of rooks. A barren of mules. A cast of hawks. A crash of rhinoceroses. A dissimulation of birds. A dule of doves. An exaltation of larks. A flight of swallows. A gaggle of geese. A herd of elephants. A husk of hares. A kindle of kittens. A knot of toads. A labor of moles. A leap of leopards. A murder of crows. A murmuration of starlings. An ostentation of peacocks. A pride of lions. A parliament of owls. A rag of colts. A route of wolves. A school of fish. A shrewdness of apes. A sounder of swine. A trip of goats. A troop of kangaroos. An unkindness of ravens. A watch of nightingales. A walk of snipe. And last, but not least (and a Tudy fashion fave!) a zigzag of zebras.

Beijing Or Bust

Continue your Olympic journey from Greece to China in Mary Pope Osborne's The Day of the Dragon King (Magic Tree House #14). You'll travel with Jack and Annie as they endeavor to save the ancient, Chinese myth (The Cowherd and The Silk Weaver) from a crazed, book-burning (I mean bamboo-burning!) emperor! (Did you know, before the Chinese invented paper, they wrote their books on long, bamboo slabs?)

Follow the yellow, silk road and you'll discover China, its rich history and ever-resilient people. Halfway through, you'll stumble onto a chance encounter with Emperor Shi-Huang Di, China's first emperor and one of history's most controversial rulers! (Listen up, Tudygirls. No matter how fabulous the outfit, don't mess with the man in the beaded hat and the "to-die-for" silk robe!!!)

So read on. Those 7,000+ terracotta warriors are waiting to be rediscovered. And the Great Wall has secrets to share. Meowry reckons The Day of the Dragon King is the purr-fect complement to all your Olympic dreams.

Now, go for the gold and follow your own inner, silk road!

08 08 08

It's Olympic Fever! From Athens, Greece to Beijing, China, on August 8, 2008, the whole world's tuning in to the greatest games!

And aren't those five mascots just tooooo cute? Meet Fuwa - Beibei the Fish, Jingjing the Panda, Huanhuan the Olympic Flame, Yingying the Tibetan Antelope, and Nini the Swallow! Did you know that the first syllable of their names form the greeting "Beijing Huanying Ni" or "Welcome to Beijing"? And the color of each mascot was chosen to match the colours of the Olympic Rings?

So bring the Olympics close to home - watch your favorite games and cheer for your team! Get into sports - learn a new one or join a team, even if it's just in your neighborhood! And design your own mascot for even more team spirit! Let the Games begin!

Now Track This!

Ok, ok, so you've tracked my TudyPets! Now, do as Woofy does and help a penguin out of an ice cream shop and a hippo out of a pool! That's right, keep on trackin' with Jack Hanna's just released, 8th book, Romp, Stomp, Waddle Home, and help a bunch of wild animals find their natural habitat.

This is a Woofy favorite because it's fully loaded with moveable magnets, a Jungle Jack paper doll (I'm a fan!), and real photographs (Yes! Pictures!!!)! And it's written by one of the best known and loved animal experts in the world, Jack Hanna, director emeritus of the Columbus Zoo and Aquarium in Ohio.
So go ahead, trek into a photo safari. Have fun along the way. Back track a little and you just might learn a thing or two. It's a jungle out there, so remember: home is where the wild hearts roam.

I Love Pooh

In 1921(!!!), Alan Alexander Milne gave his one year old son, Christopher Robin, a stuffed bear. Soon a few more stuffed toys were added - a tiger, a pig, and a donkey. And before long, these toys came to life in the pages of four books - When We Were Very Young, Winnie-the-Pooh, Now We Are Six, and The House At Pooh Corner. To this day, kids of all ages (that includes me!), still read the Pooh books and fall in love with that "silly old bear!"

We all know Pooh because of the Disney movies and books, but the original stories of Milne and the drawings of Ernest H. Shepard are wonderful, whimsical, fanciful, and Tudy-lightful! They totally capture the tenderness, sweetness, and "funny-ness" of Pooh!

So here's a cute game featuring the original Winnie-the-Pooh drawings! Gotta "think, think, think" for this one!

And if you get the chance, visit the real Pooh and four of his best friends (not the cartoons or drawings, but the real stuffed toys!) - at The New York Public Library's History and Social Science Library at Fifth Avenue and 42nd Street, Manhattan, New York. It'll be like visiting the 100 Acre Wood.

But of course, all you really have to do to visit Pooh, is to open one of Milne's books...

So, do you love Pooh?

"In an old house in Paris..."

Do you remember Madeline, the "smallest one" of twelve, little girls who lived in that old house in Paris? It's a short and sweet read about an orphan girl who pooh-poohs tigers and has her appendix taken out, all told in rhyme. So if New York has the fawbulous Eloise, Paris has the brave little Madeline! But what I truly love most about this picture book are Ludwig Bemelmans drawings and paintings of Paris! I guess that's because I just adore Paris! With all its lights and gardens and beautiful bridges, it's Tudylightful!

Travel Blog

The mountains or the beaches?
The forest for the trees?
The tundra or the desert?
Which one of these?
Blog me, please.

The cruise ship or the air strip?
Or that never-ending road trip?
The lazy-days-turned-crazy-days?
Are we there yet?
Blog me, please.

The Pacific or Atlantic?
The Mediterranean or Caribbean?
The Northern or Southern Hemisphere?
Where were you?
Blog me, please.

Tudy Trivia!

Speaking of pirates (again! I just love the Pirates of the Caribbean movies!), have you heard of the book Mutiny on the Bounty by Charles Nordhoff and James Hall? Tho not strictly about pirates, it IS about a mutiny! It's the book that created the legendary Captain Bligh! But did you know that there was a real Captain William Bligh and that he was born in Tinten, in a village called...
St. Tudy!!

So that got me to reading even more...

The quaint village of St. Tudy is in North Cornwall, in the United Kingdom...
AND, there's another pretty town on the northern tip of the Brittany region of France called L’Ile Tudy!!!
I think both these places are named after a monk and missionary from Brittany, France named St. Tudy!
BUT there's a church in Dyfed, Wales, named after another St. Tudy, who was a Welsh girl!

Have any of you ever visited these places? Or do any of you live there?