Book Reviews | The Dancing Hotdogs Present...

(Video) Captain McFinn and Friends Book Reviews

December 11, 2012 by Divina Rodriguez Leave a Comment

As a parent we worry about so many things. Are our children getting enough to eat? Good education and all the resources they need. Are we teaching them the right things and now with all the national news: bullying. I know I worry that my little men may grow up to be bullies or victims of bullying so when I was contacted by Captain McFinn a series of children’s books and its S.H.A.R. K. patrol educational anti-bullying program I had to find out more. The concept is quite genius and is a whole system that includes books, parent and teachers and now an interactive app to help parents and elementary kids say no to bullying. S.H.A.R.K. program follows McFinn, once the biggest bully on Sand Dusty reef, a blacktip reef shark, renounced his bullying ways when the Undersea Friends showed him the virtues of helping and caring for others. The vision of Captain McFinn and Friends is to inspire children to make a difference by doing their very best. Each adventure will show that by … [Read more...]

Filed Under: Book Reviews, The New Tagged With: (Video) Captain McFinn and Friends Book Reviews, anti-bullying, Green books

(Video) Ruckus Reader Review

September 25, 2012 by Divina Rodriguez Leave a Comment

I see the benefit of using technology as an educational tool and Ruckus Reader, a breakthrough learning program for the iPad featuring digital storybooks that provides parents with personalized feedback on their child’s reading experience, is a perfect example of using technology to teach your children new things. (Of course, everything with moderation!) The Ruckus Reader turns your iPad into a kid friendly library of e-books designed to cultivate your children’s love of learning. The Ruckus Reader offers a collection of more than 15 iReaders from award-winning, best-selling children’s books with 20 new titles and activities added to the Ruckus Reader library every month. So your little loved ones are improving their reading skills and while learning with their favorite friends like Hasbro’s MY LITTLE PONY and TRANSFORMERS brands and The Wiggles. Our little guys LOVE everything superheroes and crime fighting so I took the opportunity to download the SeaWord reader … [Read more...]

Filed Under: Book Reviews, The New

The Incredible Hulk: An Origin Story Book Review

January 12, 2012 by Eddy Leave a Comment

By Eddy In the past comic books have introduced the likes of Spiderman, Captain America and the Hulk to younger generation, unfortunately, comics have been in a steep decline. In order to keep this tradition alive Disney Press and Marvel have created a series of books that introduce the origins of each of their more famous superheroes. These heroes include Spiderman, the X-men, Captain America, Iron Man and the Incredible Hulk. We recently received from Disney Publishing The Incredible Hulk: An Origin Story. I noticed a couple of things: · The book is laid out like a regular story book, no complicated comic book style boxes to navigate. · The story is straight forward and concise. This books is an introduction for younger kids. Keeping in this framework the violence is very subdued, don’t get me wrong the Hulk smashes his fair share of stuff but it is kept tasteful and appropriate enough to read to a 3 year … [Read more...]

Filed Under: Book Reviews, Dancing Hotdogs Family Product Reviews, Disney Tagged With: book, Captain America, Disney, Hulk, Iron Man, Marvel, review, Spiderman, x-men

Dragons of Babel Book Review

January 5, 2012 by Divina Rodriguez Leave a Comment

By Eddy I have read enough Fantasy novels lately to start getting sick of them. I know all the hardcore nerds ( I can say this, I am one of them) are gasping with shock, but I had enough of underdog kid/small person going on long and perilous journey to save the world from Evil incarnate. Whenever this happens I tend to drift into other genres such as action/thriller or horror books, but after reading the back cover of Michael Swanwick’s The Dragons of Babel, I decided to put everything down and start reading immediately. Thank God I did. This is by no means your typical fantasy book. Remove all thoughts of your preconceived notions of places such as Avalon, Faerie and Babel. Swanwick’s novel twists and darkens this places we usually connect with beautiful and shinny faces. He creates a world that is a clash between our modern industrial society with the legendary places of fairytales. The result is a land that is capable of awe inspiring beauty in one location … [Read more...]

Filed Under: Book Reviews Tagged With: anti-fantasy, Avalon, Babel, book, dark, Daughter, Dragons, Eddy, faerie, fantasy, Iron, Michael, minor, New York, of, Swanwick, twisted, will

The Alloy of Law Book Review

December 6, 2011 by Divina Rodriguez Leave a Comment

By Eddy For people just getting into fantasy books, it is pretty daunting choosing what books to read. If you go online, and search for top fantasy books you are inundated with hundreds of titles and series. Of course, there are the old standards such as Tolkien and Jordan etcetera and frankly these are the best for a reason. Yet, the real problem is finding the next great Fantasy writer. Determining this isn’t an easy task and to list out all the criteria would be impossible. Yet, I would like to humbly submit the name of Brandon Sanderson as possible suitor for the title. The corner stone for any contender has to be a great book series (notice that I didn’t say just one book, to be the best lightning has to strike more than once). In Sanderson’s case, the Mistborn trilogy fits the bill. As far as I am concerned it is his calling card, and for me the first series that I mention to anyone looking to expand beyond the old standby’s in fantasy. Recently … [Read more...]

Filed Under: Book Reviews Tagged With: books, Brandon, Eddy, fantasy, Jordan, metallurgy, mistborn, reviews, sanderson, tolkien, tor, trilogy

The Complete Vader Book Review

November 15, 2011 by Divina Rodriguez Leave a Comment

By Eddy Most adults now seem to take two paths when it comes to Star Wars. The first enjoy it when they are younger but eventually lose interest and remain passive regarding the series, enjoying it for its nostalgia but not really going any deeper than the movies. The other path goes way deeper than the movies and I will leave it at that. The thing is there really aren’t products out there that seem to straddle in between the two paths. It become even more difficult for adults, it seems most Star Wars products are geared toward children and teens or for hardcore fans. The Complete Vader by Ryder Windham and Peter Vilhmur, appears to have successfully bridged many of those obstacles I just described. The coffee table size books, appeals to the hardcore Star Wars fan while providing enough interesting bits and pieces even to let a novice fan or even just some who enjoys pop culture follow along easily. The book mines the depth of the creation of Darth Vader both in Fiction … [Read more...]

Filed Under: Book Reviews Tagged With: 60, book, coffee, complete, dark lord, darth, Eddy, fans, George Lucas, hardcore, movie, pop out, popular culture, sith, Star Wars, table, vader

Little Pim: Color Baby Book Review and 25% Pim discount code

November 1, 2011 by Divina Rodriguez Leave a Comment

By Divina You all know how much we love the Little Pim language series so when we were contacted by them again to review their latest multi-language activity: a baby book we were all about it. Check out the video for my thoughts and some playtime with Baby X. Overall we were big fans of the book that retails for $8.95 AND they are offering 25% code for all future Little Pim purchases if you sign up for their newsletter. Just go to www.littlepim.com/sittersstudio Little Pim was in our Dancing Hotdogs.com holiday guide last year and this year they have lots of new award-winning sets for your little loved one. Disclosure: I received the pictured above book for review purposes but my post is my unbiased opinion on the product. … [Read more...]

Filed Under: Book Reviews, Dancing Hotdogs Family Product Reviews, The New Tagged With: 25% discount code, baby book, Little Pim, multi-language learning, Product Review

Dead Man’s Boots Book Review

November 11, 2010 by Divina Rodriguez Leave a Comment

By Eddy Book back covers are like trailers to me. I love taking a look at them even if I don't plan to read the book. The reason I love them so much is that I can't fathom how hard it is to fit a synopsis of a novel compelling enough to attach a new reader without giving away too much of the book at the same time. In essence, it is a telemarketer cold call, and just like those calls everything has to be perfect in order to make the sale. We see it fail all the time in movie trailers; it is already cliché to say "all the best jokes were in the trailer". Just substitute jokes with action scene, plot twist etc and you could cover every major movie release of the past couple of years. Yet, the most disappoint is when the back covers do not live up to the expectations that they create. In my eyes it's a bit of false advertising, or a bait and switch. While Dead Man's Boots doesn't fall all the way to this level, I am sorry to say that my expectations were … [Read more...]

Filed Under: Book Reviews Tagged With: America, book, books, Britain, Dead Man’s Boots, demons, Dresden files, Eddy, exorcist, felix castor, ghost, ghosterbuster, Ghosthunter, ghosts, Jim Butcher, mike carey, Novel, possession, religion, serial killer, succubi, succubus, Uk, US, UsA, zombies

Star War-Fate of the Jedi: Outcast Book Review

October 29, 2010 by Divina Rodriguez 1 Comment

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By Eddy I never got into Star Wars books. From my perspective they were basically fan fiction. Just some writers fancy of what the rest of the story would be after the movies, but low in behold, I find that there is an entire universe of books, comics and other lore making up an entire universe. Of course, everything is tightly monitored and organized by George Lucas (or at least his company to ensure that continuity is kept throughout each story and character). Unfortunately, with this revelation regarding size and depth of the Star Wars world, it make it a significant barrier for a newbie like me to just jump in and start reading. There has to be over 50 books, and series each with hundreds of characters and back stories, and with character appearing and reappearing in different series and different points in time. There is material ranging from before A New Hope (the first movie) started to up to forty year later. Needless to say, I was a bit apprehensive when I … [Read more...]