Peaceful Reader

Bogged Down, Down…

Image courtesy of (Cross Fire)cfednutrition.wordpress.com

Do you ever get stuck while reading one book? I’m stuck reading The Sorceress; The Secrets of the Immortal Nicholas Flamel by Michael Scott. This is the third in the series and I am enjoying the story-I just haven’t had lots of extra time to read so this is what I’ve been reading since the beginning of October. My only extra time has been reading in bed but by I’ve been getting to bed so late I’m falling asleep after only one chapter! I feel a little bad for this book and it’s not even the books fault! My dreams have been more exciting as I’ve dreamed about the twins, Perenelle and Nicholas, Williams Shakespeare and the Saracen Knight! It does make for some crazy dreaming!!

When I began this book I thought it was the conclusion (no idea why…) and then I heard the other day that the fourth one, The Necromancer, is out and when I checked out Michael Scott’s website I see it is actually a series of six! I’ve got a ways to go. In September I did finish two other series; Mockingjay by Suzanne Collins and The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet’s Nest by Stieg Larsson. I can still feel good about that but for now I’m going to have to read every spare minute now that the play and all my dear out-of-town visitors are gone!

In a week and a half I need to have finished Vonnegut’s Slaughterhouse Five for my bookclub. I need to read three books to finish up my Fahrenheit 451 challenge and read a book to prepare for an author’s guest post coming in November! Can it all be done? Yes, if I can just get past The Sorceress! I’m anxious to get to my lunch time to see if Perenelle (The Sorceress) makes it off of Alcatrez Island with Scatty’s and Joan of Arc’s help! Finishing this book will give me another tally on my Reading From My Own Shelves Book Challenge! Another good thing! Cheer me on as I climb out of the rut…

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No Hurry Vegetable Curry

What a catchy title for a recipe! My in-laws are in town to see Legend of Sleepy Hollow and I love having them here. My mother-in-law, Phyllis, is a reader, knitter, master quilter, makes wonderful meals, drinks wine with me and is lovely with my children. My father-in-law is very, very smart, loves to talk politics, and loves his son, my husband, deeply. I scored well in this regard.

Having them come to town is a good time to try new recipes. My husband’s family spent time in Malaysia and Sierra Leone as part of the Peace Corps. so they enjoy a wide variety of cuisines and are happy to eat vegetarian. A few years ago, Phyllis, gave me Fresh from the Vegetarian Slow Cooker; 200 recipes for Healthy and Hearty One-Pot Meals That Are Ready When You Are by Robin Robertson. I’ve made several recipes from this book and they’ve all been easy and tasty.

This one is my second favorite from this book. My fav. is a sweet potato chili.

No Hurry Vegetarian Curry

1 T peanut oil
2 large carrots, sliced diagonal
1 med.-size yellow onion, chopped
3 garlic cloves, minced
2 T curry powder
1 tsp ground coriander
1/4 tsp cayenne pepper
2 large Yukon Gold potatoes, peeled and diced
8 ozs green beans, ends trimmed and cut into 1-in. pieces
1 1/2 cups slow cooked or one 15.5-ozs can chickpeas, drained and rinsed
One 14.5 can diced tomatoes, drained
2 cups vegetable stock
1/2 cup frozen peas, thawed
1/2 cup canned unsweetened coconut milk
Salt

1. Heat oil in a large saute pan over medium heat. Add the carrots and onion, cover, and cook until softened, about 5 minutes. Add the garlic, curry powder, coriander, and cayenne, stirring to coat.

2. Transfer the vegetable mixture to a 3 1/2 -to 4-quart slow cooker. Add the potatoes, green beans, chickpeas, tomatoes, and stock; cover and cook on Low for 6-8 hours.

3. Just before serving, stir in the peas and coconut milk and season with salt. Taste to adjust the seasonings.

I used small potatoes from my mother’s garden, cut into fourths and I didn’t peel them. I added a second can of chickpeas because we love them. I served it over Jasmine rice with sprinkles of cilantro on top. It was yummy-everyone loved it, even the teenage son!

Check it out; the author has a food blog, Vegan Planet. Right now she is hosting a giveaway of cookbooks!

I hope everyone is having a peaceful Saturday…it is 80 degrees here and I’m going outside to either read or knit!

This post is linked to Weekend Cooking at Beth Fish Reads…pop over and see what other delicious food-related posts she has listed.

Finally by Wendy Mass (2010)

I have to get this one back out on the library shelves…students are clamoring for it because many read 11 Birthdays by Mass last year. I read Finally a few weeks ago and will be happy to share it with students-I think they will like it more than I did. Hmm, don’t get me wrong, I liked it, I just didn’t love it.

Straight from the back cover…

I’m a big wisher. I’ll wish on anything. Shooting stars, stray eyelashes, dandelion tops, coins in fountains. Birthday candles (my own and other people’s). Even when my glasses fog up. When I was younger, the wishes used to vary. A pony. A best friend. A new bike with streamers on the handles. A baby brother or sister. some of these even came true (not the pony). But over the past year, every wish has been spent wishing I was 12 already, a date I’ve waited for my whole life and one that is only six weeks away. Looking back, I wish I had saved one of those wishes because, if I had, I wouldn’t be stuck in this drainpipe right now. Yes, drainpipe.

Rory gets herself stuck while on a field trip and an elderly woman rescues her. This has some of the same mystical, magical charm that 11 Birthdays did as well as intertwining characters. Amanda and Leo (from 11 Birthdays) attend Rory’s school, so we know we are in the same community. Kids will love meeting up with these characters!

Rory has this whole list of things she wants to be able to do once she turns 12, most things her friends can already do. The first half of the book we get a nice understanding of her family and why she wants all these things to happen. She feels like she has the strictest parents in the universe…(she wouldn’t want to come live at my house).

On the big day, Rory has a chart ready to share with her parents and her parents are prepared to let this list of demands become reality. Some of them are normal: she wants to babysit so she takes the beginner’s Red Cross course for babysitters (I did this myself back in the day!). She gets an IM account, a cell phone (which she loses way, way too quickly) and is interested in getting a rabbit and her ears pierced.

It’s a lot of demands and all of it turns out hilarious. My favorite part was the ending, which was filled with warm feelings and great resolution but the middle made me a little overwhelmed. Kids will love it though-especially the murderous bunny!

Wendy Mass’ website

Gone Fishin'

Our groovy girl playing dress-up on stage!

I feel sometimes like I need a sign I can post “gone missing,” or “be back soon” like I work in a coffee shop and have just gone around the corner.I feel bad when it has been a whole week since my last post. My family is filled with drama right now and by that I mean the theatre. My husband is directing a production of The Legend of Sleepy Hollow by Washington Irving and he cast our eight-year-old groovy girl as one of Ichabod’s young scholars. Invitational dress was last Thursday, Friday night was Opening Night ( a party with delicious treats followed the show) and we had friends and family come to town for the weekend shows.

My friend V traveled from Arkansas to Iowa to see the play and visit with us and it was so fantastic to spend time with her. Not only did she drive 10 hours to see us but she came with her two children: both young and super cool. Friends of Japhy’s from our brief years living in The Natural State-all three children loved reconnecting, which in kid terms meant lots of playing and laughing and joyful noise!! Highlights were watching V’s little “lump” ice skate for the first time, watching rock and roll boy play carpet ball on Sunday morning, kite-flying on Saturday, even though we were cold and spending time at my favorite coffee shop-which luckily carries lots of vegan goodies. I was sad to see them leave this morning but the play goes on this weekend and as V reminded me as we said good-bye in my driveway-I have more guests arriving this Thursday for the next set of shows. Life is never, ever dull around here and I’m glad for life’s fullness. Plus you’ve got to love friends who are willing to drive two whole days to spend a crazy weekend with you!!

Up-date:

Am reading The Sorceress by Michael Scott, to finish this series.
Am still reading The Reliable Wife by Goolrick.
Am behind in my challenges
Am really behind on my posts.

Our friends backstage at the theatre. Thank you for making our weekend!

Hope your week has been peaceful and filled with good friends!

Blissful Library

Somedays in the library just go smooth as silk and today has been one of those days.

Kindergarten classes are enjoying Eric Carle-we read 1, 2, 3 Zoo and are constructing their own train. Using rectangles of scrapbooking paper students add the wheels and connector between cars. Next week they will create their animals and we will make a library train. I found this creative idea right here.

First Graders are studying Nancy Carlson and we read First Grade, Here I Come and they loved comparing their own first grade experiences with Henry’s. They all used their shelf markers really well which makes me giddy!

Second Grade listened to The Scarecrow’s Hat by Ken Brown and because I googled activities for
this book I found this great website and had copies of each animal from the book and the object
each trades. Students loved participating in this fun story-telling and how they could help each other.

Third Grade listened to the first half of Some Frog! by Eve Bunting and we watched a YouTube video about a real frog-jumping contest. This was so much fun and we will finish the book next week. They liked the idea of a chapter book you could finish so quickly; like Frog and Toad, which I used last week for a fiction/nonfiction comparison.

Fourth Grade comes tomorrow. I hope I’m in this same good mood tomorrow!

Fifth Grade played Where Are Our Library? game with the index cards acting as spine labels. They enjoyed this and for the 10 minutes it took them to play, the library was a buzz with good fifth grade activity! After they checked out we all quietly sat and read before Mr. Timmons picked them up. Another good feeling.

All those were really excellent parts of my day but the best part of my day was when I sat at my desk, put my feet up on my recycling bin and finished the last four chapters of When You Reach Me by Rebecca Stead. It gave me that warm tingly feeling reading a feel-good book can do and the fact that I finished it before third grade came tromping through the door was so perfect! The book was excellent and I loved each character a great deal.

Love my job!
Happy Reading…

Teaser Tuesday

Miz B. at Should Be Reading hosts this weekly bookish meme.

Provide a snippet (about two lines) from your current read;

just enough to tease the readers. Include the title and author

so participants can add it to their wish lists.

My teaser is from A Reliable Wife by Robert Goolick:

The young soldier behind her had whispered in Catherine’s ear and pointed as a rainbow appeared. She could still smell, all these years later, the sweet sweat of his young body in his immaculate uniform. She could remember it better than all the rest of her childhood, better than the mountains of Virginia that lay beyond where the rainbow shone. (18)

My handsome husband and I started this book on our little overnight adventure; me reading to him in the car as he drove and we are really intrigued by the characters. It is an odd book and we are only on the 4th chapter…we’ll see what the rest of the pages bring.

Happy Reading!

Laura Resau's Star in the Forest

(2010)

149 pages, including pronunciation and glossary

This book is a perfect gem for elementary students, especially at my elementary school. Not every school population will relate to this story even though they could still take much from it’s great characters and friendship theme.

Synopsis:

Zitlally’s father has been deported and her mother, in order to earn enough to bring him back, works extra jobs and takes in boarders to their already cramped trailer. While her family struggles Zitally escapes to the woods behind their trailer and finds a lonely and abandoned dog trailer park and puts all her energy into comforting the dog~which makes her feel closer to her father. Because of the dog, Zitlally is befriended by Crystal, a girl from her class who also happens to live in the trailer park. Her and Crystal’s relationship to each other and through the act of taking care of Star is filled with kindness and true friendship. They accept each other and Star for what is real.

Random Quote:

Papa’s favorite thing in the world is mushroom picking. I don’t remember too much from Xono, but I remember when he took me mushroom hunting. It smelled like rain and mud, and the ground squished beneath our feet, and it was just me and him because Dalia didn’t like walking very far. (24)

I can’t wait to introduce this to students at Highland as we have a large Hispanic population and many of our students live in a one of two close trailer parks. I think reading Star in the Forest will give students an instant connection to Zitlally and her family, no matter their background or where they live, because she is a very real and loveable character.

I love potatoes

and potatoes added to leeks make a delicious soup, especially once you add cream and buttermilk! You really can’t go wrong with that combination. Leeks from the farmer’s market and fresh dug potatoes from my mother’s garden were the inspiration for making soup. I couldn’t find the recipe I had used previously so I googled and found this great recipe featured on the food network’s Alton Brown. I’ve made other internet recipes of his so I felt confident that it would be great and because his recipe is online-I’m directing you there instead of typing it out…I hope you click and check it out though because this soup, plus a loaf of fresh bread and maybe a small salad, is a perfect Fall meal.

After you add the vegetables and the veggie broth in the recipe you use an immersion blender to blend it all together (making it a smooth soup). One of the last gifts my grandmother purchased for me was an immersion blender and what a useful tool it is! Because of this great tool it took me only about 25 minutes to finish this soup. Thank you Grandma B.!

I am out-of-town for the night, attending a local BBQ, Blues and Brews festival, sponsored by Peace Tree Brewery. We’ve been looking forward to this trip for a few weeks even though it is only one overnight. My mom is hanging with my children and they will be enjoying the leek soup tonight for dinner. I’m excited to check out this brewery but am a little nervous about dinner-BBQ-doesn’t leave a lot of yumminess for vegetarians or locavores. My husband will scarf up whatever, as his standards are lower than mine, and he believes in being really “flexible.” So we shall see what’s on the menu. He graciously has offered to take me someplace else for dinner but I’m sure I can survive with baked beans and (hopefully) some sweet corn-after all we are still in Iowa!!

Happy eating and reading this weekend!
This post is part of Weekend Cooking hosted by the great Beth Fish Reads reading spot. Check out her post about a helpful harvest cookbook.

Blogger Hop Friday

Jennifer at Crazy-for-Books hosts Friday’s book blogger hop party. The question of the day is a good one (from Elizabeth at Silver’s Reviews) and Jennifer’s answer made me laugh so hop there to sign up and then hop around and find some new blogs!
Here’s the question:

When you write reviews, do you write them as you are reading

or wait until you have read the entire book?

Oh, I wish! I’m not that organized to be jotting notes while I’m reading. I try to take notes and sometimes I put a sticky note at a particularly great passage but I’m inconsistent. I want to be better but don’t like my reading to be regulated either. Often I’m reading on the fly also like the past few weeks I’ve been getting extra reading done while my daughter is at play practice. I sit in the lobby and read-I never have post-its or my notebook with me.

I read a post written by a fellow blogger that said she always finished her post for a book before she even started another book. I admire that but feel like a “kid-blogger” cuz I want the reading to be number one and blogging, the side writing adventure. At some points I’m several books behind and I don’t review all the books I read either. Sometimes I have to combine review posts because the library is begging for their books back. I don’t think these things are going to change soon either; my life is fun and crazy busy!

What about you? Do you write and read at the same time? Or are you morea fly-by-the-seat-of-your-pants blogger?

I have to clean my house tomorrow night because my mom is coming to take care of my children while I head to an undisclosed location for one night away with my husband. My house needs to be clean for my mom but after the house is clean I will be ready to relax and blog hop my Friday night away!!

Happy Friday….

Ellie McDoodle; Have Pen, Will Travel

by Ruth McNally Barshaw

2007

170 pages

elementary fiction

My reader girl and I just finished this book last night. It is half chapter book, half diary with pages of doodles thrown in for fun! Think Wimpy Kid but not as crazy. We loved Ellie and her games.

From the back of the book:

When Ellie McDougal’s parents go out of town, she’s forced to go on a camping trip with her aunt, uncle, cousins, and baby brother, Ben-Ben. Mosquitoes and poison ivy she can handle, but a week with crazy relatives? No way! Thank goodness she at least has her sketchbook for recording all the excruciating details.

As a reader we had a great time listening to Ellie try to fit in with her cousin’s family. It is always difficult feeling like the outsider. She’s ticked from the beginning of the trip because her aunt and uncle plan to stay in a cabin and Ellie’s family are tent-campers. Oh, what a big divide that is! Coming from a long line of tent campers I can relate to her dilemma but have adjusted very nicely to cabin camping and even motel camping on occasion. They have some many amazing adventures all on one camping trip. Frogs, marshmallows, rainy days, hurt feelings and getting lost are just a few of the issues to get through for Ellie and her cousins!

Lucky for Ellie she can doodle her frustrations away and she eventually discovers her relatives aren’t so bad. The camping trip made this a really unique read and my reader girl and I loved all the games she listed to play with doodles for explanation. I believe there are two more in the series and we’ll have to check them out as well. Beyond getting to know her cousins we are anxious to meet her best friend, Amy and her new camping buddy, Scott-we hope they both show up in Ellie’s next adventure!

Ellie has her own page!
Ruth McNally Barshaw

Fuse #8 Reviews the next book in the series.

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