Peaceful Reader

Weekend Cooking ; Experimenting with Zero Waste

This post is linked to Weekend Cooking hosted by Beth Fish Reads. Anyone with a food-related post can join in. Stop by her blog to see all the details, find other food-related posts and read about her exciting trip to Book Expo America from a food perspective!

How many of you have heard of Bea Johnson? I hadn’t until my husband showed me this article with video (I cannot get the video to share so click the article to get to the video) at Huffington Post over Spring Break. It inspired me and got me thinking. How could I bring less waste into our home?

We already get the smallest garbage container from the city which makes my husband extremely happy. He gets an insane amount of pleasure from the fact that we barely fill it up while others in the neighborhood tend to overflow their already huge receptacles. So we know we’re on the right track in reducing how much waste we do have but after watching Bea’s video and reading her blog I knew I could stick my toes in and give it a try. Here’s what I’ve done so far…

pasta, brown rice, tamari sauce and Celtic sea salt

I liked her jars with nice snap tight closure but I already had big ball jars with tight fitting lids so I opted to use those. I did buy one new jar from Target to replace a really old container for brown rice. For a couple of weeks now I’ve slowly added more and more products to my bulk buying and I bring my jars with me. I’ve only shopped at my local organic market with my jars because they weigh them for me. I’m unclear yet on whether our more mainstream grocery store will do this (asking would be the first step…Ha) but they do at least have a bulk buying area. I’ve yet to make a meat purchase with a jar in my hand but we do buy fish on occassion and I don’t see why they wouldn’t let me take my “catch” home in a Ball jar.

I’ve purchased all new grains coming into the house this way. Quinoa, barley, my favorite Israeli couscous and of course, rice. As soon as my current economy-size bottle of hand soap is gone I plan to buy this in bulk as well. I guess it is a challenge too not bring home a wasteful container but to purchase more in bulk as well. Now that I’m done with school for the summer (hip, hip, hooraaaah) I plan to experiment more with what I can find locally but for now I feel like I’ve started something and it feels good and simple. I liked Bea’s cotton bags and need to find something similar or attempt to make it.

How many people buy in bulk these days? Is this a change you could make?
Check out Bea’s blog to find many more helpful hints…

School is Out; the Good and the Bad.

(photo courtesy of Mark Lilly’s travel blog)

Our fifth grade students are now 6th graders and won’t be back next year. (Sob) Over the summer they will grow by leaps and bounds, ready to enter middle school and they will search for book clubs! Hurrah. Most of our other students will be back in the Fall, ready to learn more, ready to check-out more books. I worry about many of them over the summer. A few live in households where they will take a vacation, go to the pool, have play dates with friends and have good old summertime fun. Those are not the kids I worry about. Many of our kids have parents who are less-than-involved who will park their kids in front of a television set and go about their business, not caring exactly what parked child is watching or playing.

While I haven’t been to their homes I do listen when they talk and they tell me about movies (starring Freddy and other gruesome things that slash in the night) that I’ve never watched or dream of letting my own kids watch and the same with video games. I worry that these unwatched kids will not get enough food to eat or anyone to greet them in the morning, giving them the kind affirmations that many of our teachers do everyday. Many don’t have bicycles to tool around on or shorts and t-shirts that fit. It all makes me weary. I know many of them won’t have learning opportunities over the summer like my own children will and I wish I could bring many of them home. They don’t have library cards, (sob) which means they won’t know the joy of weekly visits to the library just to show off how many books they read all week!

When we played with sidewalk chalk at school I was amazed at how many kids don’t have this creative and inexpensive tool at home. I wanted to package some up and give it away. I didn’t get it done but I did give away a lot of books to students. I hope they have healthy food to eat over the summer but my second hope is that someone will take the time to read to them sometime during the week.

Thanks for listening to my rambles as I begin my summer, happy, but pensive about the grumpy faces I see everyday who rely on a teacher to cheer them up.

Library Loot

I had a lovely weekend cooking idea all about my attempt to bring less packaging into our home. The project is actually going quite well and I had photos to share but I cannot find our camera anywhere in the house!?! While I attempt to think back, back, backwards in my brain until the last moment I remember touching the tiny camera bag that post will just have to wait. We are a one camera family and my phone does take pictures but that is where they stay…on my phone…because I don’t have a connecting cable.

Instead we have Library Loot as we did make it to the library yesterday with Groovy Girl in tow and we found lots of amazing books and DVDs.

Sister’s Gimm Books #’s 3 and 4. We read 1, 2 and up to Chapter 5 of 3 but had to return it to her school library but they cut us off and she had to return it on Friday. (of course I get this as I’m a school librarian as well but it still felt a little like getting a book ripped out of my hands) Have you read this series yet? I tried a few years back and didn’t get into it on my own but reading it with her has made all the difference.

Newsgirl by Liza Ketchum. (2009) This one’s been getting a lot of press but I was drawn to it just from reading the flap. My dad was a newspaper man and I love historical fiction making this a great combination. Sadly, this morning while updating my status on Goodreads I read quite a few ho-hum reviews on this title. How much do other reviews influence your take on a book? I can’t say for sure but I feel a little less excitement over this book. I’ll forge ahead and form my own opinion.

Groovy Girl’s picks from the “NEW” shelf in the library:

Welcome to Italy by Mary Berendes. (2008)

Welcome to Russia by Elma Schemenauer (2008).

Brava, Mimi! by Helga Bansch (2010)

Hide and Squeak by Heather Vogel Frederick. (2011)

Dotty by Erica S. Pearl (2010)

Everything but the Horse by Holly Hobbie(2010)

I can easily do a personality profile on Groovy Girl just by her library picks! What do you think? A girl who loves travel, learning, animals and bright covers!

Friday Feature; A Book Lover's inventory!

Okay, truth be told, I don’t love all inventory but I do love beep, beep, beeping my way through the fiction books. It is much more than just a book count; it is review of what I have, what’s been popular and not-so-popular. While I’m doing this inventory I’ve been compiling a summer reading list with a notebook tucked next to my computer.

As you might imagine it is slow-going but oh, so much fun! I’ve been busted several times sitting on my step stool immersed in a book. Even my trusted assistant, Janice, jokingly said “hey, no reading during inventory!” I can’t help it, going through the fiction section makes me reminisce about the books I’ve read, popular books with students this year, books I want to recommend to specific teachers and sadly, good books that don’t fly off the shelves.

I found these books irrisistible and had a difficult time setting them back on the shelf to continue with inventory. I expect to go back to them very soon and may take a couple home tonight.

Treasures unearthed as I’ve done inventory. Click on the title for a synopsis.

1. On the Run by Gordon Korman (I was roped in instantly to the Falconers troubles)
2. Silent to the Bone by e.l. Konigsburg (same here with what happened to the baby)
3. Iqbal by Francesco D’Adamo (made me think of The Breadwinner)
4. The Brooklyn Nine by Alan Gratz (baseball)
5. Stumptown Kid by Carol Gorman (baseball)
6. Over the River by Sharelle Byars Moranville (loved The Snows)
7. Roxie and the Hooligan by Phyllis Reynolds Naylor (bullies)
8. Poison Ivy by Amy Goldman Koss (bullies)
Here’s a quote I found inside Baby by Patricia MacLachlan:

I wondered what she would do when Lalo went off-island to high school. Maybe she would wither away among all the books with all the words in them until no one could ever find her again unless they opened a book. (17)

What was I doing on page 17 of Baby, you could ask? I’m pretty sure I’ve read it so I flipped through to read a page or two and no kidding, flipped right to that quote! Perfect for me. Inventory is a blast!

Have you read any of the above books? Would you recommend any of them?

River House; A Memoir by Sarahlee Lawrence

I picked this book up from the public library a few weeks ago and enjoyed reading Sarahlee’s story. At the start Sarahlee is in Peru preparing to raft a river with her friend Marco. She’s always enjoyed the water, taking after her father in this regard, although his first love is the ocean. Sarahlee applied for and received a grant right out of college allowing her to travel for a year to a variety of different rivers and she loves it but as she is running the rivers she begins to miss home. She gets a letter from her dad that a family friend, Geraldine, has died and her dad is saving her woodstove for the time when Sarahlee builds her own home. She also reads Ralph Waldo Emerson’s Waldo as she is traveling, which creates a longing for land as well.

Her river images and her athleticism at manning the boats is an incredible part of her story but eventually she winds her way to Oregon and talks her dad into building a log home with her. There is a lot of family history to understand; how her mother has always lived in this part of Central Oregon and is passionate about horses, how her father grew up on the beaches of California, surfing day in and day out and how all three of them are hearty, strong and determined.

It is always difficult to move home after flying free for a few years of college but Sarahlee comes happily home, moves back into her old room and begins 12-15 hour work days, helping her dad with ranch chores and then planning, laying the groundwork and building her log home. It’s exhausting and at times they struggle with all they try to juggle as a family. She finds out a few personal things about her father and how he has and continues to struggle with daily life on the ranch. Their relationship as a family was interesting but I prefered the interactions between her and her mother. Her mother was low-key and calm; not filled with such frenetic energy.

I was drawn to this memoir because of the father/daughter relationship and Sarahlee and her father’s ties are strong but volatile, and eventually they learn to accept what is good about the other but it is a long journey together. I liked that Sarahlee strived to be intuned to nature, thinking about the placement of her home and how she cared about the earth around her. What bogged me down was all the log cabin building lingo…I’m not a builder and I understand about as much as how Lincoln Logs notch together. It was interesting but I found myself skimming some of the paragraphs about the house going up and the logs notching together just so. I did fully understand how complicated and delicate of an operation it was.

Checking out her website I discovered that she’s begun an organic vegetable farm and I would love to read more about this project. I’ve already recommended this book to several very outdoorsy friends and family as well as to other members of my Good Spirits Book Club. Be forewarned; the book contains swearing and a lot of references to her father’s pot smoking and drinking habits.

Find the author here –Sarahlee Lawrence.

Weekend Cooking: Highlights of the week.

Weekend Cooking is a weekly meme hosted by Beth Fish Reads. Anyone with a food-related post can play along. Click to her blog and read about Man with a Pan.

I made several great recipes this week, amid the chaos of going in many different directions, that I’d like to share. I have three categories:

Adult Favorite: Pearl Couscous Gratin with Goat Cheese and Spinach. This was so refreshing and light. My husband and I loved it plus I shared it with a friend at work and she ate it cold right out of the container-she liked it so much! It was easy to make and I’d never toasted couscous first. I write in my cookbooks and this one I starred. Loved the flavor combination of lemon, goat cheese, and fresh spinach.

Kid Favorite: Micah’s Mac and Cheese. This was a huge hit which is saying a lot as my kids like one type of mac and cheese…box after box of Annie’s. For years I’ve only had Annie’s in my cupboard which has been okay except for the children who chose to spend time with my children over the years! When that bowl of mac and cheese arrives in front of them and it is not bright orange, they are truly confused and more than a little disappointed. This mac and cheese is pleasantly creamy, white and flavorful. Husband and I added more freshly ground pepper on ours.

Best Hot-Hot Bites: I also made these Rachel Ray baked poppers tonight. A friend made them, said they were good and passed on the recipe. I followed the directions to a T except for that one important line that said to scrape the seeds out using a spoon…I used my hands! I’ve done it before but then again I have never scraped 12 JALAPENOS @ one time!!!! Note to self…use the spoon next time. The poppers though were cheesy yummy spicy bites. I burn myself frequently and I found the solution by tweeting about my pain. @joellewrites told me to make a paste out of cayenne and water and apply it to my hand. It worked. Really. It. Worked. This was the very first Rachel Ray recipe I’ve ever made and I liked it. I’ve never been a big fan because I like making things from ingredients not boxes. This one, other than my hand burns, was a winner. And the burns, of course, are my own dang fault.

And last but not least I set a food-related goal for my summer. A free summer is one of the MAJOR reasons I was drawn to teaching because I love love to spend all that quiet time with my children.(At least I used to feel that way until peaceful boy became teenage cranky) Standing in my kitchen at the end of a long teaching day and wondering what in the dickens to cook is one of my least favorite feelings. Summertime is the perfect time to implement menu planning so we can all get adjusted-the kids will have two days to plan as well. I found these fabulous menu plans at The Sister’s Cafe blog…through Mel and the Boys. If you haven’t stopped by their foodie family blog-you must give it a try.

Happy Eating and Reading this rainy Saturday. We’re eating our cereal, watching the 1st Harry Potter.

Hey, It's Franklin…

I just got this great little email announcing Franklin’s debut into the ebook market. I love Franklin just like I love Arthur. I read and show Franklin DVD’s in the library and sadly, many students are unfamiliar with this wonderful character. This video clip shows author, Paulette Bourgeois and illustrator, Brenda Clark talking about their collaboration process.
Franklin, truly a 21st Century learning icon, can now be found on twitter.

Review: I'll Be There

(Beautiful new cover-My copy is brown paper)

Holly Goldberg Sloan

(May, 2011)

Goodreads Summary:

Raised by an unstable father who keeps the family constantly on the move, Sam Border hasn’t been in a classroom since the second grade. He’s always been the rock for his younger brother Riddle, who stopped speaking long ago and instead makes sense of the world through his strange and intricate drawings. It’s said that the two boys speak with one voice–and that voice is Sam’s.

Then, Sam meets Emily Bell, and everything changes. The two share an immediate and intense attraction, and soon Sam and Riddle find themselves welcomed into the Bell’s home. Faced with normalcy for the first time, they know it’s too good to last.

Told from multiple perspectives, Holly Goldberg Sloan’s debut novel offers readers fresh voices and a gripping story, with vivid glimpses into the lives of many unique characters. Beautifully written and emotionally profound, I’ll Be There is a story about connections both big and small, and deftly explores the many ways that our lives are woven together.

My Thoughts:

I loved this book. It was emotional and thrilling roller coaster. Sam’s family situation made me angry and I’m always amazing when remarkable children are born out of such chaos. I’ve met my share of neglected children and I simply want to bring them home. I did once as a teacher in Arkansas.

It’s too long of a tale to tell fully but Anton’s mother wasn’t home often and kids made fun of him for his body odor. I had a rapport with him and his 5th grade teacher was a close friend of mine so I asked him one day if he would consider spending the weekend with my family. He readily said yes and wanted to know if it could be the very next weekend. I made arrangements and Friday after school took him across the street to the public housing apartment he lived in with several brothers and his mother.

Nobody was home which gave me the opportunity to look around. No shower curtain, no soap, no food in the cupboards, but the tv and a gas burner were both on. In his room three cardboard boxes were on the floor for each brother’s storage and three mattresses with no sheets just a few blankets were scattered on the floor. It was shocking for my middle-class eyes. I thought I’d seen poverty but not like that.

My experience with Anton helped me understand other students’ living situations, which has made me a more empathetic teacher. I could relate to Debbie Bell’s need to take care of the intricate Riddle (mostly) and Sam. I would have done the same. It amazed me the first time I took Anton into the grocery store (an experience we take for granted, even if we can’t buy all we would like) and seeing his joy and confusion all mixed together. He’d never been to an actual grocery store, had only ever shopped at convenience stores.

Debbie Bell experienced this same awe as she gets to know Sam and Riddle and how parts of life are a surprise to them; simple things like cooking in the kitchen. Even though both boys really need help they are getting by with Sam’s ability to understand and care for Riddle. Mrs Bell, Emily’s

Quote:

Making a connection to a person can be the scariest thing that ever happens to you.
Sam knew that now.
He’d walked around coiled rattlesnakes. He’d jumped off a train trestle to avoid an oncoming train. He’d lain in bed shivering at night with infection and no penicillin. He’d been pulled out to sea by the current when he couldn’t swim. He dodged the flying fist of his father. Many, many times.
But this scared him more.
This scared him so much that he couldn’t face her again.
He’d come home that night, and things had not gone well. Clarence was hearing voices and when he discovered Riddle by himself, the voices got louder. Where the hell had Sam gone? (70-ARC version)

The quote sounds confusing as the characters think back and forth, making the reader focus on the each particular character. Once you get the hang of reading this stream-of-consciencness it makes the story go fast, just like real life.

Sloan’s amazing job of juxtaposing the “normal” Bell family against the craziness of Clarence Border is well done and she takes it a step further by adding Bobby, another interesting character with his own bumbling moral code. He has a major crush on Emily and wants to “save” her from Sam. Bobby’s interwoven and often humorous tale is just another battle for Emily and Sam to face, even though Sam’s family life would be enough for any young couple to handle.

Maybe I connected to Sloan’s story because of my previous experiences but I truly enjoyed reading this book. It has many surprising twists of which I plan to reveal none of here-suffice it to say it is a very unconventional tale of love, hope and family.

ARC received from publisher, Little, Brown and Company, but in no way influenced how I felt about the book. A HUGE thank you!

I love searching out other posts about the book once I am finished writing my review. After reading through this post at Flippin’ Fabulous I had to smile as she and I share a few similar thoughts (hers is better, of course) and I’m choosing to leave mine as is. This book does deserve to be read again!
Others:

Britta at I Like These Books.
Forever Young Adult. (love that she wants to adopt sweet Riddle)
and Ten Cent Notes.

Friday Feature; Using our Imaginations with Peter H. Reynolds

Author/Illustrator/Creative Inspiration Peter H. Reynolds

This week has been a crazy week at our house. I haven’t made a real dinner all week except for Wednesday (organic burgers and butterfly pasta), which we ate on the fly, heading to a dramatic production of my husband’s. Otherwise we have had a mix of soccer, track and other school events. Blogging (obviously) has taken a back seat but I’ve had a fun week at school so I have to share.

At the end of every school year I spend time talking about imagination, trying to get kids pumped up to use theirs during summer break. I started off the conversation with “What are good, fun things to do in the summer?” Sure enough the first little one to raise his hand answered “play all my video games.” as if he was planted in my pint-sized audience. I dramatically *gasped*, made my face look like this . We then talked about staring at the television and video games and went on to share good things to do in the summer, like play outside.

One of the points I make is that it’s okay to do those things in small doses just as it is okay to play on the computer every once in awhile. the trick is to make it worthwhile-by playing thinking games or imaginative games. This week I paired a set of playful books with the author’s website to demonstrate imagination.

The Dot by Peter H. Reynolds (2003). Vashti sits in her art class with a blank piece of paper; she can’t think of anything to draw. Her art teacher inpires her to just make a mark on the paper and then asks her to sign it. When Vashti arrives in art the next week she is thrilled to find her marked and signed paper, framed, and hanging by the teacher’s desk. Vashti then goes on to make even better dots and eventually pays it forward by helping another young boy to make his mark. This small book packs a huge creative message.

Ish by Peter H. Reynolds (2004). Similar artistic message here with an added dose of stick-with-it-ness. Ramon loves to draw until his older brother, Leon, laughs at him. Ramon is frustrated because, while he loves to draw, what he draws does not turn out perfect. His little sister, Marisol, teaches him that sometimes they look enough “like” the object and that is good enough. This one does take a lengthy discussion about what “ish” means for students to get it; otherwise they think of “ish” as being closer to “ick”, which is not the message you want them to walk understand.

The coup d’etat after the books is to share Reynolds’ mastermind FableVision Place with students; although I “force” them to play the art game first then go to the other buildings. Invariably they all end up at the arcade and isn’t that what summer’s all about!

Bitter End

by Jennifer Brown

(May, 2011)

354 pages

Goodreads Summary:

When Alex falls for the charming new boy at school, Cole, a handsome, funny, sports star who adores her, she can’t believe she’s finally found her soul mate-someone who truly understands her and loves her for who she really is.

At first, Alex is blissfully happy. Sure, Cole seems a little jealous of her relationship with her best friends, Zack and Bethany, but what guy would want his girlfriend spending all of her time with another boy? But as the months pass, Alex can no longer ignore Cole’s small put-downs, pinches, or increasingly violent threats. As Alex struggles to come to terms with the sweet boyfriend she fell in love with and the boyfriend whose “love” she no longer recognizes, she is forced to choose – between her “true love” and herself.

My Thoughts:

The story is very honestly told from Alex’s point-of-view as she experiences the overwhelmingly new feelings of falling in love. I was drawn into the story because I liked Alex’s character-she’s thoughtful, she’s a poet, she’s nice to her friends and a hard-worker and I felt terrible as she got pulled further into this destructive relationship, which ultimately alters her original redeeming qualities.

Even though I knew from the blurb that this was about an abusive relationship it still took me by surprise, which is how it happens in real life. (I know a little from personal experience-it is never pretty and they never get better. ) Alex is very excited when Cole notices her, asks to read her poetry and flirts with her. The middle of the story is filled with her anxiousness and I cheered when she started listening to others. Her family annoyed me, especially her dad, because they weren’t paying attention. Her dad has had his head buried since mom took off years earlier. Georgia, Alex’s boss at The Bread Bowl, is the one who seems to understand on a deeper level what Alex is experiencing. Her friends want to help, try to help but keep losing out in the conversation. It becomes an “us” or “him” game that has no good ending.
I’ll admit it. I cried. I cried. I cried.

It’s very well-written and the author’s end note sums up just how she knows so much about abusive relationships…and it isn’t how you think but it gave the book even more credence.

If you have the chance, take time to read Jennifer Brown’s Bitter End, it is worth it!

Read Janssen’s review of Hate List -makes me want to read it, even though it will be emotional as well.

I received my advanced reader’s copy from the publisher, Little, Brown and Company, but this did not reflect in anyway on my review. I truly loved it and finished it in two days because I couldn’t put it down. I look forward to other books by this new author.