One Chapter

Real Life Dinners by Rachel Hollis

5 stars Nonfiction

I bought this cookbook after checking it out at the library. This is another great book by Rachel Hollis. So, why did I buy it? Because I liked the recipes and the illustrations that accompanied them. The recipes inside were for things that I really would make, things that aren’t too fancy and the ingredients I can find in my supermarket.

Let me walk you through this beautiful book and tempt you with one of my latest cookbook purchases. This last week, I received/bought 3 cookbooks in the mail. With temperatures in the 90’s this week, I might make something but likely, I will be eating strawberry lettuce salad (I could live off this), watermelon, oranges and just cold sandwiches. I don’t like to eat a lot when it’s hot out.

There are 4 sections before we even get into the food sections in this cookbook: intro, table manners, kitchen essentials, spices. Table manners: yep, she lists out some table manners from no electronics, to passing food, to eating. Kitchen Essentials: things you should have on hand. Spices: four blends she created.

In the food section, there are 8 sections: Breakfast for Dinner, Kid-Friendly Dinners, Make-Ahead Dinners, Dinner on the Grill, Soup for Dinner, Salad for Dinner, Sides for Dinner, and My Favorite Dinners. Each recipe consists of a two-page spread complete with a short story about the recipe, an illustration, ingredients list (optional ingredient list, if needed), directions, prep time, cook time, serves #, and 3 or 4 step-by-step illustrations for the recipe. She also begins each section with a intro about that section and her thoughts/memories.

Looking at the Make-Ahead Dinners section: her intro talks about being prepared and prepping. She discusses what she does and how to use these recipes in your own life. There are 9 recipes in this section. I would eat any of them as they all look good. From Dr. Pepper Pulled Pork, Homemade Frozen Burritos, Hawaiian Chicken, Mexican Casserole, Chicken Potpie, Tex-Mex Fiesta, Spaghetti Sauce, Ranch Beef Stew, and Lemon-Pesto Chicken. I thought I might have to cut back on the lemon on that Lemon-Pesto Chicken but it’s not that much and hey, it has green beans in it! The Tex-Mex entre looks super good and so does the Hawaiian Chicken (and I don’t normally do Chinese food) but the ingredients look like something I can handle. I’m super excited to get this cookbook and guess what? I also picked up Rachel’s other cookbook at the same time, Upscale Downhome: Family Recipes, All Gussied Up. That cookbook is a keeper too.

The illustrations in this book look very appetizing and real. They don’t look all glamorous, as if someone spent weeks, spraying and angling the camera, trying to get the right shot of the bun, to make it look perfect. They look delicious and they look like something that I could make. Thanks Rachel, for keeping it real.

And Then There Were Gnomes by Colleen A.F. Venable

4 stars Graphic Novel

I thought this little graphic novel was funny. This is the second book in the series, I haven’t read the first book yet. The satire comments and the story were laced with comical moments that had me laughing out loud as Harnisher, the hamster, tried to get Sassypants, the guinea pig, to put on his detective hat and get back to work.

Harnisher was just plain funny as he tries to light a fire under his friend Sassypants so he’ll start being a detective again. Living inside Mr. Venezi’s pet shop, Harnisher comes up with some very creative mysteries that Sassypants must solve. He seemed like a great friend and a positive person to be around yet Sassypants was not liking it. Sassypants claims though that he’s not a detective but Harnisher is not listening.

When Mr. Venezi’s arrives to open the shop wearing shorts, Harnisher starts in. Determining there’s something peculiar going on, Harnisher tries to enlist the help of Sassypants. Someone needs to help Mr. V recover the rest of his pants! I thought this was really funny as Harnisher’s excitement filled the air.

The pet shop owner has mislabeled all the animals and now the mice are disappearing. A group of children come to the shop to purchase pets for themselves and notice the problem which leads to some interesting conversations. Can someone find the missing mice before they all disappear?

The illustrations in this graphic novel are super cute and there aren’t a lot of characters in it. I feel that there’s a lot of text to read in this graphic novel yet the text itself is not hard. It’s a fun, creative graphic novel that I enjoyed. I put a hold on the next couple books in this series.

Weber’s Ultimate Grilling by Jamie Purviance

5 stars Nonfiction

Meat it is, inside this book with its gorgeous pictures. I picked this book up from the library as I saw it on a cart for the cover and the name Weber caught my eye. Looking at that steak over those coals and knowing that Weber knows a thing or two about grilling, I wanted to know the latest.

This book is heavy and is more than a cookbook. This book begins by giving you lots of information about grilling, from temperature (and maintaining), the techniques of grilling (indirect, direct, smoking (doing that in a smoker and in a regular grill), timing (for all different types of grills and food), and tools for grilling. There are lots of graphs and illustrations to look at and refer to in this section.

The book has seven chapters devoted to food: starters, beef & lamb, pork, poultry, seafood, vegetables & sides, and desserts. The last section of the book is The Pantry. It you don’t get hungry looking at this book, there is seriously something wrong with you.

In each food section, they begin with a Q&A section, which answers a few questions about that section of food. So in starters, the questions pertain to appetizers, the pork section pertain to cooking pork on the grill, etc. What I love about this cookbook is the illustrations, how easy this book is to look at and follow, and the step-by-step illustrations that accompany EACH recipe in this book. Each recipe takes up 2 pages and is accompanied by a small intro about the recipe, an ingredients list, step-by-step directions with an illustration for each step, prep time, how many it serves, time required on the grill, marinating time (if any), stove time (if any, for additional ingredients for the recipe), any special things you might need, variations printed with them (if any) , and some have tidbits to help with the recipe.

You’re not just getting the recipes within that section either, you’ll get some information regarding that food too. Useful information to make cooking that food, fun and entertaining. In the beef & lamb section, there some information about putting together different flavors of burgers with wonderful illustrations (I thought they all looked good but after reading about them, I would have to substitute some of the ingredients in a few of them). There was another Q&A section about steaks and then a beautiful section of 4 toppings for steaks. Wow, there were two more sections on different type of steaks, a section about more toppings, a couple sections discussing brisket, a section about what to do with leftover prime rib, and that my friend is amongst all the recipes (18) dealing with beef and lamb, in just one section.

Lets talk about the illustrations, they are gorgeous. I really don’t need a step-by-step illustrated version of a recipe, but these illustrations are beauties. The browned chicken with its light brown skin and the grilled potatoes stuffed full with nacho goodness just needed my fork. The only issue I had with this book is that the book had trouble lying flat and I think that is because it is new, it needs a good press of my hand on the pages while I get down to some serious cooking.

After Zero by Christina Collins

5 stars Middle School/Children’s Chapter

I didn’t even know they had a name for it but it all makes sense after reading this novel, Selective Mutism. An anxiety disorder, where a child speaks in a normal fashion at home (or any comfortable, relaxed, safe environment) but in some social situations, that same child, will refuse to speak. When Elise is unleashed into public schooling, she finds that speaking can get her in trouble and perhaps being silent is the way to go.

Elise had heard stories from Mel, her neighbor about how great school was. Mel talked about school and her “school friends,” so when Elise’s mom quit homeschooling her, Elise was excited to finally be able to go to middle school.

Unfortunately, school turned out not to be as much fun as she thought. It wasn’t long before Elise found herself in hot water. School was a new social situation for Elise and she didn’t know the rules. She wasn’t hurting her peers on purpose but no one had told her the etiquette and now, Elise decided it was just easier to not say anything. It was better to be quiet than to say the wrong thing so, off went her voice and on, went her tally marks in her book.

I could feel the stress as Elise struggled with dodging answering the questions that were addressed in the classroom at school. She knew the answers yet to answer them would create a tally in her book, the book that she felt needed to be blank. Even when her peers addressed her or harassed her for her silence, she felt safe under the cover of her book. She wanted no tally marks, and every day she worked towards that goal.

I liked that she didn’t run back into the safe arms of homeschooling and that she continued to try other things at school, she wasn’t a quitter. There’s a bit of fantasy in the book as Elise becomes intrigued by an object at school. I thought this gave her something else to focus on while she was there. I think this book is marvelous and I feel that Christina Collins did an excellent job explaining this disorder.

A Ticket Around the World by Natalia Diaz and Melissa Owen

4 stars Nonfiction Children’s

This is a book that you can thumb through or you can read page-by-page. In this book, you are traveling to 13 different countries with a young boy, learning a variety of special characteristics about that country.

This book is short (31 pages) but I think it gives the readers a good variety of information about each country to intrigue and inform them about how that nation is special. When I first opened this book, I liked that there is a large, colorful world map. This map is marked with each country that you’ll visit in this book with its name and the page number to find that country (its contents).

On each two-page spread of a country’s information, you get colorful illustrations and over six different facts about that country. I liked that the pages feel friendly and they’re not too busy and over-stimulating with information and illustrations (everything is nice and neat). Lying in the background of the information, is the countries map. From Jordan, to the U.S., to the Philippines, to Botswana, to Greece, to Canada, to Morocco, you will be traveling the globe( there’s more countries). You will first learn who the boy stayed with and what city. You might learn about the alphabet in some countries, their food, the household, what he did on his visit, the animals there, etc.

I was interested in the U.S., I wanted to know what was highlighted in those two pages of this book. It was interesting and not what I expected. I also was surprised after reading the book, the amount of families who included more than one generation living under one roof. In Jordan, I liked the trip they made to the Bedouin tribe.

This book had information that I knew and some that I didn’t. For children, you’ll have children that might know a few facts but I feel most of this information will be new to them (depending on their age and experience). At the back of the book, there is a fun “do you remember?” section, as the boy asks questions about his journey which are accompanied by illustrations. If you read the book, you should be able to answer them or find that section of the book and find the answer. I think it’s a good nonfiction book that takes a brief look at different countries around the world.

Magic Trixie by Jill Thompson

4 stars Children’s Graphic Novel

I came across this graphic novel at the library as the cover caught my attention. Trixie is a little witch that attends Monstersorri School with a Frankenstein Monster, twin vampires, a werewolf, and a mummy, their teacher is a ghost. Next week, is Show-and-Tell week and Trixie’s day is Friday. She’s told all of her friends that she’s going to bring something different, something that none of them could ever bring! The problem is, Trixie has no idea what that is.

It seems that Trixie’s friends have seen everything that she can do “a million times” already, so when they inform her of this, she gets angry. Yelling at them, she announces that she’s bringing something special yet when she gets home, she whines to her cat, that she has no idea on what to bring.

Her anger and frustration are felt at home then, when she doesn’t get the attention that she desires. Her new baby sister is in the limelight and Trixie isn’t used to sharing the stage. It’s kid drama at its finest. I had to laugh a few times as it’s so typical of children and their siblings. Some of the facial expressions and the comments out of Trixie’s mouth were priceless. Trixie needs to get herself under control by Friday or her Show-and-Tell day will be a disaster.

I loved the illustrations, for being a children’s book, they were full of detail and so colorful. I didn’t find the illustrations of Trixie with her mouth open very attractive and unfortunately, there were a bunch of them inside this graphic novel. I think it’s because she’s missing too many front teeth. The ghost illustrations were fantastic! I liked the story and how Trixie figured things out on her own. There are some harder words in this book (multi-tasking, Jeepers Creepers, cauldron, gentlemen, Velcro) so be aware that your reader might need assistance. I think children will enjoy reading about Trixie.

Nana’s Map – an original piece

This is the craft I had the kids do today at our library’s outreach program. I created this one as the sample to show them and I will then, give it to my 6 year-old granddaughter. They are paper bag books. I got the bags ready, the string and the white paper ready and the kids just had to assemble them. This was their second craft after they did the one supplied by the library. I had many kids just want to make the books which made me happy as we’re pushing reading to them. These are super easy to make and so much fun! I can’t wait to see what Stella thinks. I’m seeing a volume 2 in the future.

Back to the Future by Kim Smith

5 stars Children’s

Ha! This children’s book is just like I remembered the movie to be, only in a condensed form. What a fun book!

Marty McFly talks about his home life and about his best friend, Doc. He discusses the time machine, how he test-drove it and ended up in 1955. Whoops! With no plutonium (not invented yet), Marty had to find his way back home by looking for a younger version of his friend Doc, and convincing him that he needed help getting back home to 1985. It’s a good thing that Marty remembered that lightening was going to strike the clock tower soon, for that would come in handy. Doc could rig up something using that electricity to get Marty back to the future.

Marty had been in 1955 only a short time but he was causing quite a stir. He now had problems that he needed to address with his parents, who were now teenagers and if he couldn’t get that back to normal, his future would be wiped out.

It’s a blast from the past with this book as Back to the Future is presented in this Pop Classic book. Kim Smith does it again with her outstanding illustrations that will definitely grab your attention. With vivid colors and stunning details, these illustrations will leave a smile on your face. It’s another wonderful book from Pop Classics.

Nightbooks by J.A. White

5 stars Middle School/ Upper Elementary

I loved listening to this audio. It was like listening to stories within a story. I thought some of the stories that Alex told were just a good or better than the main story. There were times that I found myself crackling and laughing this sinister laugh as I listened to this audio, for the witch would make her appearance and she would shake things and of course, that would affect me too. There were a few twists in this novel too which I didn’t see coming. Such an enjoyable novel to listen to, one that the whole family could get involved in.

She lures them in, she knows exactly what entices them and then, when the door closes, they are hers. There’s no way out, at least not in the traditional sense and so they’re stuck.

Alex is lured into the apartment on his way down to the basement, for he was on a mission that he hoped would change his life. But now? His life is changed and he’s glad that he didn’t make it down to the incinerator because he needs his journals, those pages have his stories on them and he needs them now, more than ever.

Witch Natacha says she needs to hear Alex’s stories, his scary stories each night and so, she makes him write a new one every day. Natacha says she enjoys them but in reality, it’s really not her that needs these stories but Alex better keep the stories coming if he’s going to make it out of her apartment alive.

Alex meets Yasmin inside the witch’s apartment for she’s been trapped there for a while. Alex is determined to escape but Yasmin tells Alex to stop talking like that. The cat will tell the witch what he hears and you never know what the witch will then do to them. Alex is determined to escape yet he has to spend his days writing stories in the apartment, the apartment that is charmed by magic.

This was an excellent story, I really enjoyed the audio and hated to take it back to the library.

Camp Tiger by Susan Choi

5 stars Children’s

I don’t want to understand it, I loved it! To fully understand it, would take away some of the glamour of this children’s book. No overthinking on my end, this little boy had a fabulous end to his summer and he’s ready for first grade.

He’ll be making a big transition this fall from kindergarten to first-grade and he, like many other children, would rather be back in kindergarten. He’s not looking forward to losing some of his social/playing time and gaining more time working on educational matters. His parents have already started this approach at home and he’s doing some things that his parents would have done for him previously.

It’s their yearly family campout and as they get their tent and site ready, a tiger arrives out of the bushes. It is a talking tiger which wants to sleep beside them. Now, I’m thinking this has to be a fantasy story as there’s no such thing as a talking tiger but as I read and the tiger joins the family on their vacation, there’s something about this tiger that’s off. He’s not your typical tiger. The young boy and the tiger have some close moments, there are also some great moments with the tiger and the family.

The illustrations are wonderful too. Just by looking at the book cover, you see a glimpse of what to expect inside this children’s book. I love the pictures of the tiger, the reflections on the water, the shadows, the faces of the characters, and the pictures of the boy with the tiger were my favorite.

As the camping trip comes to an end and they make their way home, the boy starts to think about school. He thinks back to his family’s camping trip and it’s a trip he’ll never forget.