So you all wanted to know what almost-free books we got from our B&N trip...
First I wanted some books about Halloween for the small ones. So we picked up The ABCs of Halloween.
Little man is over most ABC books, but Monkey Boy still enjoys them and this particular version has some fun revisions on the typical alphabet book..."S is for skeleton". The illustrations are cute but appropriately creepy, with lots of lovely color. The small men can spend quite a bit of time on each page, looking at all the hidden 'jokes'.
Continuing the Halloween theme, we picked up two maze books for LIttle Man (who is maze obsessed): Mummy Mazes and Spooky Mazes. The nice thing about these maze books is their price (under $4 each) and the story line that goes along through the book. Most maze books are black and white with simple drawings, but the books we picked up are full color with large glossy pages. Little Man likes me to read the story, then he sits down and fills out the maze. We have several other maze books by this author and they are all great.
Monkey Boy then got to pick out two books of his own. He got a board book about trucks and another Thomas the Train book (I don't know which one because we have about 50 of them and I've forgotten the title).
Then we got Little Man the Ultimate Transformers Book by DK Illustrated. If you have any of the DK series of books, you know how well laid out they are. Each two page spread in the Transformers book follows the typical DK outline: large illustrations with lots of information in bullet points throughout. The photos and drawn illustrations are very detailed. Some of the pages are made so you turn the book sideways, pin up style, and the drawing will span both pages. The UTB is pretty big and has *everything* you would ever want to know about Transformers. Little Man has been carrying this book around and reading it everywhere.
Oh, and what did *I* get? The Cute Book
! It's a small hardcover book filled with seriously cute 'mascots' you can make out of craft felt. The layout is very similar to most Japanese craft mags, with the exception that the directions are translated into English. But like most craft mags, you don't really need instructions because the illustrations are pretty self-explanatory. Check out this cute little panda robot that I want to make for Little Man:

There's an adorable little pink pig that I think Monkey Boy would get a kick out of, too. Lots of other mascots: "Bad Guy", "Monkey", etc.. At only $11, this is a fun little book that won't put much of a dent in the craft budget and looks cute on the shelf.
I also got Doodle Stitching to play with. This full color soft-cover book is full of different embroidery ideas and projects. These aren't your typical delicate/lacy patterns- they are more whimsical, along the lines of many Japanese embroidery. There are about 10 projects outlined in the book; everything from embroidered shoes to the more typical towels and pillowcases. The whole first section is an index of the common stitches used in embroidery, as well as some 'getting started' basic info. I liked how there were large, clear photographs of each stitch as well as written directions. I liked this book a lot and am already planning on using some of the designs on upcoming projects.
Not a bad haul for only $10....yay for B&N gift cards!