peacefulreader

Friday Feature-Book Lover's Books

Today I have three books about one of my favorite subjects…books. Books about books! Two are new finds and one is a favorite. I would love to hear your favorites!

1. Miss Dorothy and Her Bookmobile (2011) by Gloria Houston; ill. by Susan Condie Lamb

This hardcover just came in my Scholastic order and I knew from the cover I was going to like it. Miss Dorothy loves books and people at a young age and she decides to become a librarian. Her dream is to be the librarian at the “fine brick library just like the one where she checked out books in the center of the town square in her hometown in Massachusetts.” She goes to library school at Radcliffe, graduates and gets married. Her husband wants to live on a farm in the Blue Ridge Mts, far away from her hometown. Her dream changes but she still becomes a librarian, sharing books with lots of mountain people. The illustrations are beautiful, capturing the Appalachian countryside with great color. I read it aloud to one class and they were quiet and thoughtful by the end. It is based on a true story from the author’s recollections of Miss Dorothy’s bookmobile.

2. The Wonderful Book (2010) by Leonid Gore

I love many of Gore’s books-they are quirky. This one is no exception. Several animals find a book in the forest and invent ways to use the object. Rabbit makes it into a house, bear makes it into a hat and the mice use it for table. When a boy comes upon the book and begins to read it the animals find out the true purpose of the book. As the animals nestle down to listen to the story it reminds me how many children automatically tuck into your side as you begin to read. Very charming!

3. Miss Smith’s Incredible Storybook (2003) by Michael Garland

If you haven’t experience Miss Smith’s fabulous storybook you need to find it at your library. She is a funky brand new teacher and she takes the boredom out of any day by reading from her amazing book. While she reads (and students eyes get big as saucers) the stories come alive and suddenly the characters are next to the kid’s in class. A perfect way to illustrate how our imaginations work as we read! When I read this aloud last week one student said “Mrs. Holt, you need to get a book like THAT!”

What new treasures have come alive for you this week?
Happy April Fool’s Day! I played one great trick on a class and was delighted to pop back in to their classroom and say “April Fool’s”-they laughed and laughed!!

She Looks Just Like You! (Oh I hear that all the time!)

I remember the days when I had time at work or home to pull together extra minutes to write a book review. Hah! We are experiencing a crazy schedule and I have to pick and choose what I can get done.

I did manage to finish reading Peter and the Shadow Thieves tonight after our church dinner celebrating Haitian culture. I simply came home, laid down on the sofa and read. I wanted it finished for my 5th grade book club meeting at school, which meets today, and no way did I want to listen to 5 students discuss the ending without having my own insight. Now I can shout it from the mountain top-Dave Barry and Ridley Pearson wrote an a thrilling sequel to Peter and the Starcatchers. I wonder what Peter and the Secret of Rundoon is like….hmmm….must add to list.

But I digress because today I’m actually here to tell you about She Looks Just Like You; A Memoir of (Nonbiological Lesbian) Motherhood(2010) by Amie Klempnauer Miller. This is a “hot button” topic right now and one that I am firmly for-and I will gladly shout this from the mountain top as well- people should be able to love who they want.*

The description of Amie falling in love with Jane while they were both at a Midwestern college could mirror my own love story. I’m probably preaching to the choir but my wish would be if just one person who is against gay marriage read this book with an open mind and had a change of heart would be mo. It’s about people and love and justice. I feel without a doubt that this is the Civil Rights struggle of the 21st Century. Same-sex couples should have the same rights as heterosexuals, to marry, foster and adopt children and to share health care. Amie explains how frustrating it was to have to go to court to adopt her daughter.

Amie and Jane’s love story and their decision to become parents after an 18 year relationship is personal, heart-warming and I recommend this book for the story it shares. Okay, for her first book she does overwrite a bit-lengthy discussions and overly descriptive at times, but it is her retelling. Once Hannah is born the book made me laugh and cry because parenthood is funny and tragic all at once.

Nursing, late night trips to the doctor, over guessing every dang decision, worry added to more worry is what encompasses the second half of the book and that is the dream/nightmare most parents also experience. It brought back my nursing joys and baby love. I nursed and hated weaning Groovy Girl. Yet I was the one who wanted to wean her because she was old enough to ask for it on demand and Spring Break and summer loomed ahead and I knew I just couldn’t take it anymore. Ahhh, the irony of it all!

The difficult part about reading this book is “watching” Amie and Jane’s relationship crumble as they find their new roles as mom and mamma much more difficult than any parenting manuel can ever express. Thank you to Amie for writing a book that is honest about how hard it can be for anyone to be sleep-deprived, work full-time, try to write, try to placate your partner all while the child is wailing-it’s painful but well-told.

My favorite movie this year was The Kid’s Are All Right, which has a similar theme of a longtime lesbian couple (Benning and Moore) with children and the children choose to meet their sperm donor father. It is realistic and hilarious!

Amie Klempnaer Miller’s website and blog-keep up with the family!

A random quote:

“Pregnancy slaps you in the face with the knowledge that much of who we are is defined by our bodies. On a daily basis, Jane is becoming less self-sufficient. Her growing stomach limits the clothes she can wear, the things she can reach, and the spaces she can fit into. Hormones course through her veins like hallucinogenic drugs, making her drop things, forget what she is saying in the middle of a sentence, and gag whenever she tries to brush her teeth. Her body is hot and tired and beginning to swell. And now she is surrounded by a room full of even hotter, more exhausted, and more swollen women, like perverse Ghosts of Christmas Future, presenting vision upon vision of what she will become.” (80)

Other thoughts:
Emily reviews it at What All the Cool Kids Are Reading…

I found my copy on the new shelf at my local library!

*disclaimer-understand this to mean I don’t consider small children or young adult children to be love interest candidates for adults. I’ve heard this argument before and clearly I know the difference between consenting adults who like each other or fall in love. Often we don’t pick who we fall in love with-it happens. I happened to have fallen in love with a tall, brown-haired man who slurps his cereal and drives with his knee. I still love him and find him incredibly sexy most of the time!

Do you feel GLBT can be good parents/partners? Let me know in the comment section…

Weekend Cooking; Recipes for friends

Friends of ours came to visit for the weekend. They live in Indiana, own a bakery and are food lovers like we are. My friendship with Barb predates husbands and children, when her and I waited tables together in Denver, CO. Eventually we both married, had children, she and her husband moved back to Chicago and eventually her hometown in Indiana. She is the one friend who’s visited me anywhere I’ve moved and the year we lived in Chicago she drove in often to visit and helped me find local great stores like Stanley’s for produce. Both of us were vegetarians for years (and years)and moved back into eating meat as local options came available. Now she’s added yoga to her morning routine so we sought out a Saturday morning yoga class at a nearby wellness center as my favorite studio held a pregnancy workshop this weekend.

Friday night after school I grocery shopped for two recipes I planned to make, came home and frantically vacuumed (vacuuming is the one thing I do to make my house presentable) the house (with Groovy Girl and Teenage Boy’s help). After cleaning for about an hour (moving piles around) I poured a glass of wine and started cooking, which is truly the *second best reason for having guests over. I picked two interesting recipes that we would eat on Saturday afternoon that wouldn’t involve me being in the kitchen all Saturday afternoon-the easy place to look for a recipe like that is in my Fresh from the Vegetarian Slow Cooker book by Robin Robertson. I wanted a recipe I hadn’t made before and the Pintos Picadillos list of ingredients appealed to me. On Saturday right before dinner I also whipped up this Couscous Salad recipe from Super Suppers Cookbook 2 by Judie Byrd-I talked about this cookbook and the Angel Biscuit recipe in another Weekend Cooking post.

We ate both recipes last night with some spring salad greens and a Newman’s Own ginger dressing, which was delicious!!
Everything tasted amazing and all the adults had second helpings. My kids love Pearl Couscous but didn’t love it mixed with all the veggies. Conversation and wine flowed freely as we discussed a variety of topics and played several board games with our children. They headed home this morning and the house is quiet.

Other food-related news: April’s Vegetarian Times magazine arived in my mailbox on Friday and with all the vacuuming, cooking and hanging out I haven’t cracked the cover but I look forward to paging through it today. I checked out two awesome library books the other day…Earth to Table; Seasonal Recipes from an Organic Farm by Jeff Crump and Bettina Schormann and Reducing Your Foodprint; Farming, Cooking, and Eating for a Healthy Planet by Ellen Rodger. I will be reading these this week and I’m shocked that March is almost finished and April is right around the corner!! Hopefully, warmer weather is just as close cuz I’m still freezing here.

Two upcoming Weekend Cooking posts just waiting in my brain…My husband’s birthday was this week and I cooked several of his favorite meals, including Lamb Korma using an expensive cut of (local) lamb from our small organic store and I made Angel biscuits with a group of students after school one day last week. Oh, and I have to make a coconut pudding for a Haitian dinner on Wednesday!

Enjoy a pleasant and peaceful week…
*The number one reason for having houseguests is the shared conversation~sometimes lively, sometimes filled with laughter and sometimes in stillness.

Namaste~

Weekend Cooking is hosted by Beth Fish Reads-stop over and see what she has to say about pressure cookers and Lorna Sass!

Friday Feature: Women's History Month/Women Who Shook the World!

March is Women’s History Month and while I’m not teaching this specifically with classes I do have three remarkable books that shouldn’t go unnoticed. I’ve used this timeline with 3rd grade students as we create a black history structure of our own and that is where I noticed the Women’s History Timeline-what a great biography resource tool.

Here are three groundbreaking women:

1. Mind Your Manners, Alice Roosevelt written by Leslie Kimmelman; ill. by Adam Gustavson (2009)

I love this book as much as I love Alice Roosevelt! She is a fascinating character, filled with spunk and gumption. This book chronicles Alice’s adventures as her father tries to tame her. It makes use of speech bubbles to add to its charm-not overdone as too many speech bubbles make it difficult to read aloud. Find this or order it and enjoy learning more about Alice’s life. The illustrations are bright and colorful and some almost jump right off the page, especially the snake under the table illustration. “The secret of eternal youth is arrested development.” ~Alice Roosevelt

2. Rachel; The Story of Rachel Carson by Amy Ehrlich; ill. by Wendell Minor (2003)

This one is not a read aloud length unless a teacher read it in parts but the Ehrlich’s story is well-written and would be great for 4th-and 5th grade biographies. Maybe because I’m such a nature freak myself I love the illustrations in this book as much I enjoyed learning more about Carson’s life. She was interested in writing at an early age and actually had a story published in a magazine at the age of 11. It wasn’t until she attended college at Pennsylvania College for Women that she found her love of biology. Carson, with her love of nature, connected the idea of all things being interrelated, a web of life. “If I had influence with the good fairy who is supposed to preside over the christening of all children, I should ask that her gift to each child in the world be a sense of wonder so indestructible that it would last throughout life.”~ Rachel Carson
Read more about Rachel here.

3. Wangari’s Trees of Peace; A True Story of Africa by Jeanette Winter (2008)

Wangari’s story, one of peace and justice, that I loved hearing about when it first hit the news-one women making a difference in her home country of Kenya. Wangari studied in America as a young adult and noticed big changes when she retuned to Africa. Trees had been overharvested , birds no longer sang and crops were scarce. She begins by planting nine trees in her own backyard, plants many in an open space tree nursery and eventually hands them out to the village women. This is a woman, still living, still doing, still campaigning- a great lesson for us all. There is much too do! “We are called to assist the Earth to heal her wounds and in the process heal our own-indeed, to embrace the whole creation in all its diversity, beauty and wonder.” ~Wangari Maathai The Green Belt Movement-for more information.

What about you? Do you have any amazing books you are featuring for Women’s History Month? Doing any groundbreaking yourself?

George Washington Carver was amazing!

In the Garden with Dr. Carver
Susan Grigsby with pictures by Nicole Tadgell
(2011)

First impression comes from the delicately illustrated endpapers done in a field guide style; identifying plants and animals. Historical fiction picture books are a great way to introduce important heroes to young children. This one does just that as it relays Dr. Carver’s idea of a movable agricultural school through the South. Adults and children learn about healthy soil, crop rotation, the damage cotton does Southern soil and how to do more with the sweet potato and the peanut.

I loved this book as it took me through an average day with Dr. Carver and his outdoor school. Oh, I how I long for a similar experience in today’s over processed world. We could use much of Carver’s knowledge today. Through his talks he encourages one young girl who wants to grow up to be a plant doctor to “listen to the plants and they will tell you what they need.”

This would make an excellent resource for budding scientists, plant biology, biographies, black history, animals, gardening and backyard creatures. I picked it up from my local library but plan to order it for school. Carver was such an amazing person and we need his knowledge today. His ideas came to mind yesterday when my husband read me something about the Pepsi Co creating a bottle made from plant sources. George Washington Carver would be proud of this modern marvel. If we could create more plastics from plants instead of petroleum we could lessen our dependency on oil in other ways even beyond driving fuel efficient cars. 5/5 amazing stars

My favorite Organic Bathroom Products-you know you want to look in the cabinet…

Pleeeeeeese click over to Sarah’s post at Desirous of Everything to read about my favorite bathroom products. Yes, bathroom products…some awesome organic delicious smelling items I use to freshen and pamper myself. I’ve been at work all day where many blogs are blocked by our lovely filter…and then I had a Union Meeting and book club meeting (great discussion about Lisa See’s Shanghai Girls) so this is my first moment at home with my laptop to check out my own guest post and I really, really want you to hop over there and check it out as well! Go now, what are you waiting for…her blog is well worth it!

Guest Post

My funky Groovy Girl who has a Kerouac name.

Sarah at Desirous of Everything (such a cool quote from Jack Kerouac) asked me to write a guest post several weeks ago. It was about the only thing I accomplished over Spring Break…other than relaxing, having fun and reading. Go check her spunky blog out today and then again tomorrow to see what I came up with…

I’ve been reading her blog for a few months now and am always happily entertained. She lives in Manhattan (so fantastic!) and is a K-8 librarian and a writer. One of the things I love about Sarah’s posts is her willingness to share her life, put herself out there. She writes about books but also her bathroom and the perfumes she loves. She likes Kerouac and Jane Eyre, together. I love Kerouac-my daughter is named after one of his characters, really! Thank you Sarah for thinking of me when you went looking for March sponsors.

What happened to the parents?…prequel will answer burning Boxcar question.

I was so happy to receive this news in an email. I’ve read many of these books and have often wondered what happened to the parents. The four children are so resourceful, thoughtful and nice to each other that they had to have had AMAZING parents.

Press Release:

Author of Newbery-winner Sarah, Plain and Tall to Write Boxcar Children Prequel

On Tuesday, March 15, Albert Whitman & Company announced that Newbery-winning author Patricia MacLachlan will write the prequel to The Boxcar Children by Gertrude Chandler Warner. To be published in September 2012, the prequel brings together two powerhouse brands of children’s literature. The book will be published simultaneously as an e-book by Open Road Integrated Media. The announcement was made at the Gertrude Chandler Warner Boxcar Children Museum in Putnam, Connecticut.

Excited to be writing the prequel to The Boxcar Children, MacLachlan is particularly interested in the children themselves. “Henry, Jessie, Violet, and Benny are kind to one another and embody the true sense of family. They are resourceful and positive. I find them both true children and true heroes at the same time. It occurs to me that perhaps their parents were the same. I’m looking forward to exploring that idea and more.”

Patricia MacLachlan, the author of over 20 books for children, won the Newbery Medal for her book Sarah, Plain and Tall.

The Boxcar Children, an award-winning series with over 150 titles and more than 50 million copies in print, has been continuously in print since the publication of the first book in 1942. Albert Whitman will celebrate the 70th anniversary of this beloved series in 2012.

Albert Whitman & Company President John Quattrocchi notes, “Young readers have long wondered how the Boxcar Children came to be orphans. We are pleased and honored that an author of Patricia MacLachlan’s talent and understanding of children will reveal the answer to the world.”

Making the announcement for Albert Whitman & Company was Senior Editor Wendy McClure. Rubin Pfeffer (East-West Literary Agency), MacLachlan’s agent, was also on hand. Representing the museum at the announcement were Fred Hedenberg (Founder and Curator), Patricia Hedenberg (Founding Boxcar Committee Member), and Barbara Scalise (Director). Also present were Bill Pearsall (President, Aspinock Historical Society), Sandra Ames (former grade school student of Gertrude Chandler Warner), and Julia Duquette (former student of Gertrude Chandler Warner and a relative of Warner).
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I think Patricia MacLachlan is the perfect person to pen this prequel!

Raj the bookstore Tiger

by Kathleen T. Pelley
ill. by Paige Keiser
(2011)

Felicity holds up her beautiful new kitty and christens him “Raj” because of his golden coat and his chocolate stripes. Raj patrols Felicity’s bookstore with the ferocity of a real tiger, happy with his life. “Mornings began with a patrol of the storerooms, followed by sun basking in the front window.” and “after a face wash and a snooze, it was time to greet the customers with a leg rub or a hearty meow.” Oh the simple happiness.

And then Snowball comes to town…or at least to the bookstore and quickly dampens Raj’s tiger tendencies. Snowball now struts his stuff while Raj cowers under chairs. The reason for Raj’s sudden sadness…Snowball informs him that he’s “not a real tiger. In fact, you’re just a plain old marmalade kitty-cat with muddy brown splotches that some people might call stripes.” (insert snarky cat tone)

Oh, the indignation and with those words Raj is not the reigning cat of the bookstore.After days of kitty sadness, Felicity reads from William Blake’s The Tiger , perking Raj up just a bit. Then Sanjiv Patel comes for the bookstore’s storytime and shares a video of India. A Bengal tiger roars on screen, scaring Snowball and Raj, except he remembers Blake’s poem and “roars” back.

Words can help or hurt and someone can easily take your gusto away just as it happens to Raj. Reading this to students it could easily be applied to bullying and self esteem. Would you rather cower under a chair or rise up and roar!

Paige Keiser’s illustrations are charming and softly drawn. Kaiser has a wonderful blog…Fox in Socks.

Other thoughts:

Roxanne at Books That Heal Kids and
Successful Teaching review it as well.

Spring Break (slow down you move to fast…)

We are having a fantastic time in Little Rock, visiting friends and hanging out. Groovy Girl and her friend, S, daughter of V, enjoyed the zoo and a few dress-up playdates. The weather has been chilly and a bit rainy while my mother, back at our homestead, keeps texting me how warm she is sitting on our patio with our dog. Hopefully tomorrow will be warmer as we wake early to climb Pinnacle Mt. together as a family.

I’m reading Lisa See’s Shanghi Girls while we are here and I hope to finish it so the return trip I can begin another book I brought with me. We still have many more adventures before we leave and as always it will be difficult to say goodbye. I did get to eat my favorite catfish tacos today so I’m all good.

Teenage Boy and his girlfriend, Caylee