Love this new blog... I feel a friendship coming on... Here is the bio from Creator Florence Rolando about Pirouette

"The world of children is fascinating and the creation around them is very stimulating. Furniture, clothing, toys, design, trade shows, photographers, illustrators, books, decor...I aim to feature many exciting areas and topics on this blog. I hope that both people who work in the industry and consumers/parents who are looking for products, inspirations and a fun recreation will really enjoy Pirouette."

One of my favorite treats in my Google reader roster is Dallas Clayton's blog. His lovely musings are simple treasures that make me happy. I was very pleased to discover a new project of his, An Awesome Book. According to Clayton "it's for kids but also for adults and has caused 8 out of 20 readers to cry… in a good way." The book has been released through The Awesome World Foundation which was formed in an effort to promote children’s literacy by encouraging kids to dream and dream often.  To help make this dream a reality, the foundation's goal is to donate one book for every copy of An Awesome Book sold by Awesome World llc. See it to beleive it.

Awesome Book Tour from Dallas Clayton on Vimeo.

You can also purchase some super neat limited edition kids t-shirts through the Awesome World Store inspired by fonts and characters in An Awesome Book.

 Alphabet T-shirt

Unicorn Kids T-shirt

Gigantic teeter-totters (called 'wippen' in Germany) by DS Landscape Architects

Kindergarten Taku-Tuka Land by Susan Hoffman Architects

A not-so-grown-up conversation with my lovely friend Ashley, reciting recess rhymes and indulging the nostalgia of playtime, led to an amazing discovery - the blog PLAYSCAPES about the unique architecture of non-commercial playgrounds. The image samples above hint at the wonderful, informational curation of playgrounds worldwide new and old. Totally an under rated form of sculptural art, the kinetic experience a playground offers is beautiful and important. Insightful commentary about where each playground exists and why accompanies each image and the author often notes the impact playground design has on a child's learning process. Such as, the fact that seesaws are one of the few playground devices that require cooperation for play to occur (re the giant teeter-totters in Germany).