Saturday Round-up

(biking image courtesy of Robert F. Balazik)

     I am supposed to be off during a biathalon with my family but we had some bike problems this morning so my stepdaughter is riding my bike.  My poor husband is really disappointed that I’m not with them but I’m only a tiny bit sad-personally I love it when they go off on adventures (sometimes) with out me.  This is one of those days.  I have a wedding shower to get ready for and dinner to prepare for my stepmother who will be at my house right after the wedding shower so the bike race was just adding to much to the mix.  I owe him a bike ride, just the two of us, later in the week.  Like he can talk-he’s been in a play recently and every night he’s been gone-thankfully tonight is the last performance and he’ll be back home in the evenings.

This free time allows me to shower for the shower, prep for dinner, read a litte and blog…can’t beat getting all that done while the family is off biking.

    I finished Three Wishes by Carey Goldberg, Beth Jones and Pam Ferdinand a week or so ago and even though I’m not a big fan of bio’s or memoirs, I enjoyed this book.  The women are strong and their stories, told in alternating chapters, are touching.  All three women were very successful in careers but had not found love.  All three came to a turning point where, while they wanted a partner in life, they knew they wanted to be mothers.  They all go about it from different angles and they don’t all even know each other yet but, through vials of sperm purchased by Beth, they eventually meet and form supportive friendships.  The story of how the spearm vials work as a catalyst for many goals is often humourous and reflective.  I loved reading their individual thoughts on love and what it feels like to want to be a mother as well as what it was like as they become mothers.

 Two things that struck me was  the option of adoption never entered the conversation,and  money was never an issue for them (at different times they are constantly heading to tropical islands, secluded cabins or climbing destinations) and most people during times of stress don’t get this carefree option.  I myself am an advocate of the natural birthing process so there were some birthing choices made that bothered me but this is, of course, an individual choice.  All three experience tons of genetic testing, which I  wasn’t aware of all the possibilites and ramifications late-age births would create.  I liked this book but I didn’t love it; if any of these topics interest you though-give it a try!  The cover drew me in and the women’s stories made me finish it.
Pam’s Personal Reflections review (thumbs up)
Beth’s Book Review Blog’s review (thumbs down)

I still need to share my Dalai Lama experience and review Brandon Mull’s Fablehaven.  Right now I’m reading The Year the Swallows Came Early by Kathryn Fitzmaurice.  How can I not love a book with a main character named “Groovy”?

Have you played a round of pac-man on google yet?  Gotta try it!!

Happy blissful Saturday…

Trip to the library

I just got back from our local little library and I literaly filled my bags-one library bag and a second one from the used book store attached to our library.  Oh, my!! 
Here’s what I got from the children’s section:
Fantastic Nonfiction

If Stones Could Speak; Unlocking the Secrets of Stonehenge by Marc Aronson
What Can You Do with an Old Red Shoe? (A Green Activity Book About Reuse) by Anna Alter

Picture Books

The Travel Game by John Grandits; illustrated by R.W. Alley
A Pair of Red Clogs by Masako Matsuno; illustrated by Kazue Mizumura

The Knitting of Elizabeth Amelia by Patricia Lee Gauch; illustrated by Barbara Lavallee
Moon Rabbit by Natalie Russell

To The Beach by Thomas Docherty

What a haul of amazingly great books!  My seven-year-old second grader has become such a girl of discovery so I picked a lot of nonfiction.  I also liked to find good nonfiction for my school library and this is a fantastic way to research them before I buy them from Titlewave.  Nonfiction is expensive and it is sometimes difficult to tell how hard the text is without previewing it. 

We will be happily reading tonight!
Congratulations to Kay of My Random Acts of Reading won
my ARC of She’s So Dead to Us by Kieren Scott!!
I’ve begun Fablehaven by Brandon Mull and I love it!!

 

Teaser Tuesday-Three Wishes

     This is a book I’ve wanted to read for a few weeks.  My friend, Tina found it at the library and is letting me read it first!!  Don’t you just love a good book-loving friend!  I finished The Book Thief this afternoon at peaceful girl’s gymnastic lesson so I am anxious to get into this book tonight. 

Here’s my teaser:

“You have everything you need to calm yourself, even when the world around you is nuts,” I told a class in Newark.
“Yeah, right,” a tenth grader scoffed at me.  “I just breathe, and that makes everything better.  You the one who’s nuts.”   ~p. 29 Three Wishes; A True Story of Good Friends, Crushing Heartbreak, and Astonishing Luck on Our Way to Love and Motherhood  by Carey Goldberg, Beth Jones, and Pamela Ferdinand

Teaser Tuesday is hosted by MizB at Should Be Reading. Anyone can play along!
Just do the following:
  1. Grab your current read
  2. Open to a random page
  3. Share two (2) “teaser” sentences from somewhere on that page.
  4. Be careful not to include spoilers.  You don’t want to give away too much information.
  5. Share the title & author, too, so that other TT participants can add the book to their TBR Lists if they like your teasers!

Marc Aronson's Race; A History beyond Black and White

Teaser Tuesdays is a weekly bookish meme, hosted by MizB of Should Be Reading.
 Anyone can play along! Just do the following:
  • Grab your current read
  • Open to a random page
  • Share two (2) “teaser” sentences from somewhere on that page
  • BE CAREFUL NOT TO INCLUDE SPOILERS! (make sure that what you share doesn’t give too much away! You don’t want to ruin the book for others!)

Share the title & author, too, so that other TT participants can add the book to their TBR Lists if they like your teasers!
Here’s my three teasers:
From Race; A History beyond Black and White by Marc Aronson:
“And to many Black Americans, saying that racism is fading or that race is no longer important is either silly or blind.  Anyone can see, whether in images of blacks driven out of New Orleans by Hurricane Katrina in 2005 or the troubling statistics of the persistent “achievement gap” in our schools, that the deep racial divisions in America remain real, and present.  Even as I write these words, racial thinking looms behind the latest headlines, whether they are debates over legal and illegal immigration or analyses of wars that seem to pit Muslims against Christians and Jews”.  p. 4-5

I do not read very much nonfiction but this book has captured my attention and I would read more by this author.  I don’t know if I will read the whole thing as it is 269 pages long but I’m going to keep going for now.  I love in the bio information I looked up it says that Dr. Aronson is a committed internationalist…wouldn’t it be great if we all thought on those terms!

What’s teasing you this week??

Picture Books

Peaceful Girl and I have read 5 fantastic picture books recently. 
Our rundown in no particular order:

1.  Front Porch Tales & North Country Whoppers (2007) by Tomie DePaola:  This is a homegrown book just waiting to be read aloud.  The language is fun and sleepy little girl was begging for more as we  made our way through the 10 little folk tales and tall tales.  Her favorite was “Big Gertie and Love at First Sight” which begins:  If ya are ever in Weston, Vermont, and ya drive north through the village on Route 100, you’ll come to the Greendale Road on yer left.  The beginnin’ part is paved, but as soon as ya git to the unpaved part, you’ll be drivin’ into the Green Mountain National Forest. 
Once you there you meet the lumberjacks and their cook, Big Gertie, who is “BIG and TALL and BIG-BONED and is a distant cousin of the Bunyon family.  Big Gertie is a good cook but overworked and the lumberjacks find a great way to help her.  Fabulous pictures add to the tales as well.

2. A Young Dancer; The Life of an Ailey Dancer(2009) by Valerie Gladstone, photographs by Jose Ivey:  This book followers a beautiful young dancer, Iman Bright, an Ailey student.  Iman balances dance with school work and violin lessons.  Easy-to-read so young readers will love discovering all it takes to be a well-rounded dancer.  The photos are often full page spreads, giving the feel of being right there with Iman.  Alvin Ailey Dance site.

3. Budgie and Boo (2009)by David McPhail:  I love David McPhail’s The Teddy Bear and always enjoy using it as a read aloud at the library.  Kids really relate to this very compassionate tale.  This new one has two fantastic characters, Budgie is a bear and Boo is a bunny.  They both love to garden; Boo grows vegetables and Budgie grows flowers.  This one’s message is simple; isn’t it wonderful to have a special friend! 

4. Imogene’s Last Stand (2009) by Candace Fleming, illustrated by Nancy Carpenter:  This is the cutest elementary historical fiction book with a very high-spirited heroine.  Imogene has always loved  history and works hard to clean up the Liddleville Historical Society so others can come and visit.  Instead, the mayor decides to raze the historical house and Imogene fights back.  Full of spunk, Imogene teaches the whole town a lesson is what’s really important. 

5. Fancy Nancy; Poet Extraordinaire! (2010)by Jane O’Connor and Robin Preiss Glasser: Peaceful Girl has told me a few times that she is “beyond” Fancy Nancy and has moved on to other reading materials.  Hmmm, that is until her grandmother brought her this one!  See little girl loves poetry, thanks to her amazing 1st grade teacher.  This one brought out all the stops as the other Nancy books do with all that wonderful word play focused on creating poetry.  I think come April I might have to create my own Palace of Poetry in our library!  Fancy Nancy has her own website-click here!

All 5 picture books rate
 5/5 peaceful stars
Highly Recommended-Elementary

Busy Book Fair Day

It’s conference time in the Cedar Valley and during this time it is tradition for the library to hold a book fair!  I thought today would be a slow start today and I would have plenty of time to blog…that didn’t happen so here I am posting at 9:56!  I’m glad it was busy (my feet hurt though) and I’m ready to go home.

Here are highlights from what people were reading and buying at the fair.

Diary of a wimpy kid; dog days by Jeff Kinney-hands-down most popular book bought by kids
Boys are dogs by  Leslie Margolis
Allie Finkle’s Rules for girls, Best Friends and Drama Queens by Meg Cabot
I spy fly guy by Tedd Arnold for the younger set

Nonfiction rocked a lot as well:
See how they run; campaign dreams, election schemes, and the race to the White House by Susan E. Goodman (okay, so nobody bought this one but lots of people looked in it.)

Tomorrow’s another day at the fair.
Tomorrow is probably won’t be as busy
then I will be able to write in the middle of the day!!

Be Peaceful…
Michelle

Every day blogging…

I’ve decided to try a writing experiment! I know this has been done by others en masse but on my own I just want to try and blog every day through November. It’s a grateful month-and I’m grateful to my blog for the joy it brings me so I am going to give it more attention. I blogged yesterday about Abigail Iris, the one and only and today I am just putting my challenge in writing.
I did read this fantastic book (Our children can soar; a celebration of Rosa, Barack, and the Pioneers of Change) over the weekend and plan to share it with 5th grade this week. This book takes us on a journey from the beginning illustration of slavery and the Civil War, George Washington Carver and ends with Barack Obama’s historic campaign for the presidency. On one hand this book captures the hope and spirit of not only that campaign but our history of change (slow, yes) but through its simple statements it shows how our previous knowledge helps us understand the world around us. If one were to read the book and not know who George, Jessie, Hattie or Ella were the story would not make as great impression. It is all this background knowledge we need to get to our students before they can understand other books like A Friendship for today, Chains, The Watson’s go to Birmingham, or Elijah of Buxton. This book would make a great introduction for many lessons on U.S. History but will make a perfect example of understanding schema for fifth grade students. I love it when a great book like this comes along, which makes it easy to explain a monumental point to students.

Of course, I can’t really finish talking about this amazing book without mentioning the beautiful illustrations created by 13 different illustrators! They are Caldecott- worthy; simple yet meaningful.
Marian Wright Edelman writes a glowing forward to show the giant leaps this book demonstrates! She says “African American history is the collective story of many, many people who never gave up and never turned around, but instead always quietly took that next step forward in faith so their children would be able to go even farther and have better lives.”
Highly Recommended 5/5 stars

Picnic_Basket requests

It’s perfectly normal by Robie H. Harris and Michael Emberley celebrates 15 years in print with an updated version for the 21st Century! It takes me back to my Free to be you and me w/ Marlo Thomas! I love the pictures created by Michael Emberley and the text is very easy-to-read as well as fun. This is the perfect informational text/tool for parents to share with children when that time comes to have “that” important chat. This book could make this “chat” easy!! Shared together, parts of it would be appropriate for even young children. Other parts might be better left to when they are about to experience some of those wonderful changes. Here is a quote from the beginning:

“Sometime between the ages of eight or nine and fifteen or so, kids’ bodies
begin to change and grow into adult bodies. [insert cute cartoon picture
of bird and bee] Most kids wonder about and have lots of questions about what
will be happening to them as their bodies change and grow during this
time. It is perfectly normal for kids to be curious about and want to know
about their changing and growing bodies.” [p. 9, It’s perfectly normal]

Notice the repeated use of change and grow…and every page after demonstrates really succinctly exactly how bodies will…yes, you know it…change and grow. The bird and the bee help us understand little points along the way in a fun cartoon way while other illustrations show realistic people of all types.
Trust me, this is the bookyou will want in your hand before, during and after that “chat”! While it is not appropriate for an elementary library it is very appropriate for high school, middle school and on your shelf at home!
Michael Emberley’s site is here-this illustrator does an amazing job with body parts!!:)