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The Pioneer Woman Cooks Dinnertime by Ree Drummond

June 2, 2016 by

Source: Public Library
Hardcover, 400 pgs.
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The Pioneer Woman Cooks Dinnertime by Ree Drummond is another great cookbook with easy to follow ingredient lists and steps.  My favorite part of these cookbooks is the step-by-step photos she adds for each part of the process.  One thing I would love, that doesn’t seem to be in these cookbooks, is a guide on how to pare down the ingredients and recipes to meet the food needs of a smaller family.  While my family will eat leftovers, there is a limit to how long they will keep and how much my family can eat.

For this cookbook, we had our daughter choose the recipes of what looked good to her, and we tried them out.  Among the recipes we tried were the Sausage, Potato, and Kale Soup (a dish similar to a spicy Portuguese soup I make and the Oliver Garden Zuppa Toscana soup); the Red, White, and Green Stuffed Shells; Shrimp Scampi; and the Pasta Puttanesca.

The soup was the easiest to make and the leftovers went quickly, mostly because I love soup.  Her recipe was very close to the Olive Garden version, so if you love that soup, this is a recipe for you to try at home.  The stuffed shells are also easy to make, though they can take a lot of time because the stuffing process will depend on the flexibility of your shells — which you don’t want too flexible because they’ll be mushy.  My daughter and husband really enjoyed these, which is a win for me since they both hate spinach.

Shrimp Scampi is probably the easiest of the recipes, next to the soup, but this one was not liked by either my husband or daughter for some reason.  Since eating this, which has wine in it and a lot of garlic, my daughter has refused to eat shrimp, something she normally loves.  In my case, I had to eat all the leftovers, but got sick of eating them because there was just too much.  Pasta Puttanesca is another recipe that did not go over as well as the first two, even though I eliminated the anchovies and olives, both of which are not liked here.  I love olives, but the other family members do not.  To me, without those ingredients, or at least something to replace them, the pasta was bland tasting.  My daughter, however, loved the tomatoes.  She ate those right up.

The Pioneer Woman Cooks Dinnertime by Ree Drummond is another cookbook I’ll have to buy at some point to try the recipes, since this one has to head back to the library.  I could just take it out again, but I like to make notations in my cookbooks about changes I make or things I substitute.

RATING: Quatrain

Other Reviews:

About the Author:

Ree Drummond began blogging in 2006 and has built an award-winning website, where she shares recipes, showcases her photography, and documents her hilarious transition from city life to ranch wife. She is the author of the #1 New York Times bestselling cookbook The Pioneer Woman Cooks. Ree lives on a working cattle ranch near Pawhuska, Oklahoma, with her husband, Ladd; their four kids; their beloved basset hound; and lots of other animals.

Filed Under: borrowed copy, Harper Collins, nonfiction, Publishers/Publicists, Read in 2016, Reference, reviews Tagged With: ,

Photographs from the Edge: A Master Photographer’s Insights on Capturing an Extraordinary World by Art Wolfe, Rob Sheppard

May 11, 2016 by

Source: NetGalley
ebook, 288 pgs.
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Photographs from the Edge: A Master Photographer’s Insights on Capturing an Extraordinary World by Art Wolfe, Rob Sheppard, which will be published in September 2016, is stunning. Wolfe is a clear talent at capturing nature, tribes, and animals and his composition is unique and lively. It’s clear that the equipment he uses and his forethought about the scene enable him to capture even unexpected beauty. Rather than work as a career photojournalist, he has taken a harder, more independent path. While this has left him to be creative and take on projects that others might not, it also has some consequences, such as not being in his home more than he is on the road. However, it is a choice he never regrets, and readers will see why when they view the phenomenal images in this book.

His love of photography is infused in every picture he takes, and it is these pictures that enable us to put ourselves in different locations and view them as they are, without industry and interference from the modern world.  Even photos at a distance are created with composition, lighting, and subject in mind.  It is clear that he loves what he does, and he equally loves the subjects, shining a new light on even the ones most photographed, like penguins.  Photographs from the Edge: A Master Photographer’s Insights on Capturing an Extraordinary World by Art Wolfe, Rob Sheppard is a book that everyone will want to have in hardcover to cherish Wolfe’s art — to hold it, to view it up close, and to reach inside and experience the world through his eyes.

RATING: Cinquain

About the Photographer:

The son of commercial artists, Art Wolfe was born in 1951 in Seattle, Washington, and still calls the city home. He graduated from the University of Washington with Bachelor’s degrees in fine arts and art education in 1975. His photography career has spanned five decades, a remarkable testament to the durability and demand for his images, his expertise, and his passionate advocacy for the environment and indigenous culture. During that time he has worked on every continent, in hundreds of locations, and on a dazzling array of projects. You can view his stunning photographs online and buy.

Filed Under: ARC, challenges, New Authors Challenge, nonfiction, photography, Read in 2016, Reference, reviews Tagged With: , , , ,

Online Marketing for Busy Authors: A Step-by-Step Guide by Fauzia Burke

April 19, 2016 by

Source: FSB Associates
Paperback, 168 pgs.
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Online Marketing for Busy Authors: A Step-by-Step Guide by Fauzia Burke offers new authors and busy authors who know little about online marketing a step-by-step guide that will minimize missteps.  Like when plotting a story, authors will have to do some legwork, creating a marketing outline of sorts.  First of all, books are like an extension of an author’s brand; so an author will want to examine what their goals and dreams are, as well understand who the readers of a particular book are.  Are they young women? Are they older, college-educated men?  You get the idea.  Burke includes some worksheets to help authors get started outlining their personal and professional goals and dreams, and how their books play into that process.

Authors also can use this form to identify their audience, which will later help determine which social media channels will be the best marketing tools, cutting down on wasted efforts on channels that the identified audience doesn’t use as often or at all.  The goal is to be able to tell a room full of people in just a few sentences what their book is about and how it fits with the audience it targets.  With Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Pinterest, and many other social networks to monitor in addition to traditional marketing techniques, authors may wonder when they’ll find time to write another book.  Burke’s no-nonsense style will speak to busy authors because she makes the task of online marketing seem less daunting, especially for those who feel overwhelmed by the process.

Burke also notes that the most successful authors are those that know their brand, their audience, and target their time toward those things, as well as their secondary goals, which may include building relationships with readers, helping a specific group, or calling attention to a specific cause.  In addition to the pre-marketing research, Burke offers a priority list for authors, and one of the items on the list may surprise some.

Online Marketing for Busy Authors: A Step-by-Step Guide by Fauzia Burke is a great place to start with learning how to market a book online.  It not only will educate authors about themselves and their books, but their audience as well.  When done right, these authors will build a fan base that will happily help them market their books to others, turn out for events, and more.  But it can’t just be about marketing.  She reminds authors that social networks are about building relationships that last.

**For bloggers looking to grow their presence on the Internet, there are some great tips that could translate really well.**

Rating: Quatrain

About the Author:

Fauzia Burke has been a leader in online marketing and digital branding for authors and others for nearly twenty years, now integrating publicity, branding, social media, and websites to establish clients online.

 

Filed Under: challenges, New Authors Challenge, nonfiction, Read in 2016, Reference, review copy, reviews Tagged With: , ,

Mountains Without Handrails: Reflections on the National Parks by Joseph L. Sax

March 29, 2016 by

Source: The University of Michigan Press
Paperback, 160 pgs.
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Mountains Without Handrails: Reflections on the National Parks by Joseph L. Sax is an examination of the preservationist ideology in terms of the modern world, and the popularity of national parks as places to play and vacation. While he considers the preservationist stance a moral one in that it looks to preserve the wild without accoutrements, he also recognizes that the national park system is one governed by public policy and unless preservationists can convince everyone that their stance is best, compromises will need to be made. “The assumption is that the values he imputes to the parks (independence, self-reliance, self-restraint) are extremely widely shared by the American public,” says Sax (pg. 15).

Leaving the wilderness completely untouched would essentially preserve it for those who do not need modern conveniences or do not want them when vacationing, but allowing roads to be built along with resorts in every National Park is something he considers ridiculous — a taming of the wild for human desire. “His goal was to get the visitor outside the usual influences where his agenda was preset, and to leave him on his own, to react distinctively in his own way and at his own pace,” he notes (pg. 24).  Like we ourselves do not wished to be tamed by others’ expectations of us, we should not do the same to the wilds of America because by doing so we rob ourselves of the purest experience we can have through contemplation and our own guidance.

Chock full of historic tidbits about the Sierra Club and the Park Service, Sax also relies upon the fishing, hunting, and other guides available that talk about not man’s dominance over nature but how man can forgo its technological advantages and outsmart nature in the hunt.  “The purpose of reserving natural areas, however, is not to keep people in their cars, but to lure them out; to encourage a close look at the infinite detail and variety that the natural scene provides; to expose, rather than to insulate, so that the peculiar character of the desert, or the alpine forest, can be distinctively felt; to rid the visitor of his car, as the fisherman rids himself of tools,” explains Sax (pg. 79).

Mountains Without Handrails: Reflections on the National Parks by Joseph L. Sax is an examination of national parks through the backdrop of policy versus preservation and whether business should be able to dictate how much demand should influence our development of these natural places.  It’s an exploration of how nature can affect the individual if we were to let go our modern trappings and let ourselves be in the wild, rather than try to tame it.  Most fascinating is the discussion of resorts near National Parks and how we soon forget that these are businesses trying to make a profit, and that their build-up for parkland is not necessarily for the benefit of tourists wishing to experience nature.  The Mount LeConte Lodge in the Great Smoky Mountains is the antithesis of these places, he says, and as someone looking for places to visit there, this one has been on my list.

About the Author:

Joseph L. Sax, a legal scholar, helped shape environmental law in the United States and fuel the environmental movement by establishing the doctrine that natural resources are a public trust requiring protection.  He recently passed away in March 2014.

Filed Under: challenges, New Authors Challenge, nonfiction, Read in 2016, reviews Tagged With: , ,

Cecil’s Pride: The True Story of a Lion King by Craig Hatkoff, Juliana Hatkoff, Isabella Hatkoff, photographs by Brent Stapelkamp

March 16, 2016 by

Source: Diary of an Eccentric
Hardcover, 40 pgs.
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Cecil’s Pride: The True Story of a Lion King by Craig Hatkoff, Juliana Hatkoff, Isabella Hatkoff, and photographs by Brent Stapelkamp, due to be published in April, is not about the great lion’s death but about his life as a pride leader and as an unconventional one at that.  The photographs in this book are stunning, and as a reader, a hardcover edition of this one would be worth buying for the photographs alone.

The death of Cecil renewed calls for conservation and the protection of endangered species, and this book seeks to keep that momentum going, as Cecil left behind cubs and a pride that had no leader.  In the lion world, when cubs are left behind after the death of the leader, they are usually killed off by the incoming leader.  Luckily Cecil’s cubs did not meet this fate, but it will surprise readers to learn how that happened.

Brent Stapelkamp had been studying Cecil and his family since 2008, and what he learned was extraordinary.  Rather than just learning how far these animals roam in search of food and in terms of territory, he learned other things about their behavior that are astonishing.  These kinds of research projects can help us learn more about the interconnected world we live and see that animals have more than base instincts.

Cecil’s Pride: The True Story of a Lion King by Craig Hatkoff, Juliana Hatkoff, Isabella Hatkoff, and photographs by Brent Stapelkamp may have pictures not suitable for really young audiences, but my young reader and I watch nature shows so she knows that some animals are predators and eat other animals.  The pictures of the lions eating an elephant are definitely tamer than they could be, though, which was appreciated.

RATING: Quatrain

Filed Under: ARC, challenges, New Authors Challenge, nonfiction, Publishers/Publicists, Read in 2016, reviews, Scholastic Tagged With: , , , ,

Start Where You Are: A Journal for Self-Exploration by Meera Lee Patel

March 9, 2016 by

Source: Penguin Random House
Paperback, 128 pgs.
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Start Where You Are: A Journal for Self-Exploration by Meera Lee Patel is an interactive book that will require its readers to use the pages, fill them in. From what 10 places you wish to visit to what things make you happy, Patel is asking us to look deeply into our dreams and desires. But this journal does not stop there. Readers also will have to delve into losses and failures to learn the lessons they teach. These are the lessons that guide us through life, keeping us aware of what we truly want out of life and what things we’ve tried that are not right for us.

“The hardest questions are the ones that open doors.  Every spread in this book features a universal life lesson paired with an exercise.  These exercises, often taking the form of a chart, list, or written prompt, are designed to help you apply the sentiments behind each lesson to your life.” (pg. 1)

Patel pairs famous quotes with a variety of activities for readers to dig deep into themselves.  Two of my favorites from the book: “Be yourself.  Everyone else is already taken” from Oscar Wilde and “Somewhere, something incredible is waiting to be known” from Carl Sagan.  If the activities do not inspire readers, the quotes surely will.  Readers will want to take a few moments to think about each activity, especially ones that require determine which four possessions they would be unable to do without.  Others may not require as much contemplation.

Start Where You Are: A Journal for Self-Exploration by Meera Lee Patel is a book that will require readers to interact with it and to engage in deeper thinking than when the next appointment in the day is or what they’re having for dinner.  In this modern world, it is often hard to look beyond the daily schedule of activities to think about one’s life without becoming distracted.

Rating: Quatrain

About the Author:

Meera Lee Patel is a self-taught artist raised by the New Jersey shore, where she swam the bright waters and climbed cherry blossom trees until she grew old enough to draw them. Her illustrations are inspired by the magical mysteries of nature, the quiet stories that lace through everyday life, and the bold colors of her native India. Her first book, DAILY ZEN, was published by Ulysses Press in October 2014. Her second book, START WHERE YOU ARE, will be published in Fall 2015 by Perigee (Penguin USA). Meera lives and works in Brooklyn, NY.

Filed Under: challenges, New Authors Challenge, nonfiction, Read in 2016, Reference, review copy, reviews Tagged With: , ,

The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up by Marie Kondō

January 21, 2016 by

Source: Public Library
Hardcover, 224 pgs.
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The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up by Marie Kondō, translated by Cathy Hirano, provides a step-by-step process for her KonMari Method of tidying, which she says should bring you joy and possibly lead to other life-changing moments.  The first step is to discard, and when she says discard, she means get rid of everything that does not bring you joy or has no use.  Discarding should be undertaken by category of items not by room, as many homes stash lotions and hair clips and other items in multiple rooms.  These may sound like daunting tasks, but if the entire household participates, it might take less time.  She says the entire process for tidying the house can take up to six months or more.  Crazy!

Sentimental items like letters from loved ones and photos should be kept for last, because these will be the hardest items to part with and sort through.  All of our clothes should be collected from the various places throughout the house — drawers, closets, linen closets, coat closets, etc. — and placed in piles sorted by tops, bottoms, coats, dresses, etc.  Once they are sorted, you should hold them in your hands, and think about whether they bring joy when you wear them.  They also should be examined for any wear that cannot be repaired and tossed if they cannot be repaired.  This is just one example.  Placing everything in one category into a pile on the floor ensures that you visually see how much stuff you have.  I recently did this with clothes on my own and felt much better once everything was sorted and discarded, but I did this without the help of this book.  Once everything that is to be kept is identified, it needs to be put into its place and when used, it must be put back into its rightful place.

Kondō’s method is very detailed and deliberate.  Each item is held to ensure that the person understands what the item is, what its purpose is, and whether it brings joy.  Some clothes, for example, looked great in the store but not on you when they got home — so these should be discarded.  One piece of advice about lounge wear and that women should wear elegant nightwear to bed struck me as an old-fashioned idea, given that I’ve always found those kinds of bedtime wear uncomfortable to sleep in.  But I may be out of the norm on that one, preferring my t-shirts and shorts or t-shirts and flannel pj bottoms.

While readers will see the points she is trying to make — and it may just be the translation — there are times when the book is too repetitive, which can become bothersome.  Also, there is a mindfulness here that may not translate into American culture like it does in Japanese culture.  Thanking items for serving their purpose, caressing items to ensure they are alive before you take them out of storage, that kind of thing might appear a bit wacky to some.

The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up by Marie Kondō, translated by Cathy Hirano, has some great ideas about what papers should be saved, how clothes should be folded to maximize space, and how to rethink about the items we keep.  Attachment is something Buddhists talk about letting go of, and in many ways, Kondō is suggesting something similar in they way she focuses on discarding items.

About the Author:

Marie Kondo (近藤 麻理恵) is a Japanese organizing consultant and author. Kondo’s method of organizing is known as the KonMari Method, and one of the main principles is keeping only possessions which “spark joy.”  Kondo’s best-seller The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up: The Japanese Art of Decluttering and Organizing has been published in more than 30 countries.  She was listed as one of the world’s 100 most influential people by Time Magazine in 2015.

Filed Under: borrowed copy, challenges, New Authors Challenge, nonfiction, Read in 2016, Reference, reviews Tagged With: , , , ,

Dickey Chapelle Under Fire: Photographs by the First American Female War Correspondent Killed in Action by John Garofolo

January 14, 2016 by

Source: LibraryThing Early Reviewers
Hardcover, 136 pgs.
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Dickey Chapelle Under Fire: Photographs by the First American Female War Correspondent Killed in Action by John Garofolo, which includes a foreword by former Washington Post war correspondent Jackie Spinner, is dedicated to the brave men and women who serve the United States, which also includes those war correspondents who risk their lives right alongside those with the weapons to uphold freedom.  Their weapons may be different — pens and cameras versus guns and grenades — but both serve their country and the cause of freedom with devotion.  In the foreword, Spinner indicates that when Dickey Chapelle died in Vietnam, she died as a Marine because that’s how the marines who were by her side thought of her.  She started her career young, present at the battles of Iwo Jima and Okinawa in WWII, experiencing the reconstruction of Europe after WWII, and traveling to nations in which rebellions were bloody and devastating before she reached the front lines of the Vietnam War in her 40s.

“I grew up in the heartland of the United States.  I believed that I could do anything I really wanted to do and I still believe it. … But I am going to condition it.  You can do anything you want to do if you want to do it so badly you’ll give up everything else to do it,” Dickey Chapelle said. (Fire in the Wind by Robert Ostroff)

Georgette Louise Meyer, later known as Dickey, was born in Wisconsin and she dreamed of flying.  While she did eventually take flying lessons against her parents’ wishes, she wasn’t that great at it.  She was great at telling stories and seeking out those stories around military installations.  Her passion for stories led her to flunk out of MIT, and while she did return home and later moved to Florida, she soon found herself in New York City at age 18, writing for Transcontinental and Western Air (TWA) in the publicity bureau.  Taking photography lessons on the side with Tony Chapelle led to a new career and husband.  She soon became a war correspondent during WWII so that she could travel with her husband, a WWI veteran who re-enlisted.

“The wreckage resulting from man’s inhumanity to man … was the litany I wrote and the subject I photographed.  And the magnitude of relief devised never matched the magnitude of the suffering caused,” said Chapelle in What’s a Woman Doing Here?

Garofolo has selected and organized Chapelle’s photographs in such a way that they will have readers running the gamut of emotions.  Among the WWII photographs, Chapelle captures not only the immense suffering of a solder caught in a fire during a mine explosion — he was severely burned — but she also highlights some of the happier moments for soldiers, like when they received mail from home or were able to finally shave after gunfire stopped.  The moments when soldiers are smiling or doing mundane activities are those that remind us that these soldiers are people, not machines.  Not all of her work was on the battlefront, Chapelle also found herself drawn to relief work in a variety of countries, and this work still placed her in a great deal of danger, including her own capture by Russians near the Austria-Hungary border.

Dickey Chapelle Under Fire: Photographs by the First American Female War Correspondent Killed in Action by John Garofolo is a book dedicated to the memory of not only Chapelle’s body of work, courage, and dream of flying, but also to the women and men who suffered greatly in wars and conflicts across the globe — whether they were soldiers, nurses, or refugees.  My first book for the Best of 2016 list.

About the Author:

John Garofolo is a former entertainment industry executive and veteran of Operation Iraqi Freedom. A commander in the US Coast Guard Reserve, he has more than twenty-five years of active and reserve military service and taught at the Coast Guard Academy. Thanks to a grant from the Brico Fund through the Milwaukee Press Endowment, he has written a stage adaptation of Dickey Chapelle’s life. John earned a PhD from the University of Southern California School of Cinematic Arts and lives with his wife and daughter in Southern California.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I’m calling this my Nonfiction Book about WWII:

Filed Under: 2016 World at War Reading Challenge, challenges, Library Thing Early Reviewers, New Authors Challenge, nonfiction, Publishers/Publicists, Read in 2016, reviews Tagged With: , , ,

Radioactive: Marie & Pierre Curie: A Tale of Love and Fallout by Lauren Redniss

October 14, 2015 by

Source: Public Library
Hardcover, 208 pgs.
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Radioactive: Marie & Pierre Curie: A Tale of Love and Fallout by Lauren Redniss has a cover that glows like the radium discovered by Marie and Pierre Curie, and the collage format allows the text, photos, illustrations, and documents to inform one another in a unique way.  Not only does Redniss use interviews with scientists, A-bomb survivors, and Marie and Pierre Curie’s own granddaughter, but she also utilizes Marie Curie’s own words from her diaries and letters.  The book chronicles not only the discovery of Radium and Polonium, but also how Marie and Pierre came to be working and living their lives together, as well as Marie’s life after the death of her husband.

What’s interesting about this book is that it not only examines the history of discovery and the resistance to commercialization held at the time by the Curie’s and other scientists.  There are some points in the book where the transition between the historic events and the more recent consequences of Curie’s discoveries could have been smoother, particularly the section about the Chernobyl Nuclear Plant meltdown that comes right after Marie has lost her husband and moves with her daughters closer to Pierre’s father.  Beyond that, those who have studied Curie in school may not know about her work with hospital X-ray units or how her work was carried on by her children.

Radioactive: Marie & Pierre Curie: A Tale of Love and Fallout by Lauren Redniss condenses a lot of historic fact into a small volume and offers supporting documentation for her findings.  This collection would be a great addition to school classrooms and could help make a hard-to-understand subject easier to digest.

***Another thank you goes to Bermudaonion for bringing my attention to this one***

About the Author:

Lauren Redniss is the author of Century Girl: 100 years in the Life of Doris Eaton Travis, Last Living Star of the Ziegfeld Follies and Radioactive: Marie & Pierre Curie, A Tale of Love and Fallout, a finalist for the 2011 National Book Award for nonfiction. Her writing and drawing has appeared in numerous publications including the New York Times, which nominated her work for the Pulitzer Prize. She was a fellow at the Cullman Center for Scholars & Writers at the New York Public Library in 2008-2009, became a New York Institute for the Humanities fellow in 2010, and is currently Artist-in-Residence at the American Museum of Natural History. She teaches at Parsons the New School for Design in New York City.

Filed Under: borrowed copy, challenges, graphic novel, Harper Collins, New Authors Challenge, nonfiction, Publishers/Publicists, Read in 2015, reviews Tagged With: , ,

LOVE: A Philadelphia Affair by Beth Kephart

September 10, 2015 by

Source: Purchased
Hardcover, 176 pgs
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LOVE: A Philadelphia Affair by Beth Kephart (this has a gorgeous cover) is a collection of essays, many of which were published in the Philadelphia Inquirer, that read not like essays but mini-memoirs. It has been a pleasure to read about Philadelphia — a city I was fortunate to visit briefly and not spend enough time in — through the eyes of someone who loves it dearly. All of its nooks and crannies, its alleys, its rivers, its art, its history — it is all laid bare with Kephart’s fondest memories and recollections. The city comes alive in her hands — it breathes.

The graffiti, the artisans, the food markets, and the University of Pennsylvania are moving through these pages like the Schuylkill River, leaving its gleaming beauty behind in its wake.  She says in the preface, “Love: A Philadelphia Affair is about the intersection of memory and place.  It’s about how I’ve seen and what I’ve hoped for, what ‘home’ has come to mean to me.  It’s about train rides, rough stones, brave birds, rule breakers, resurrectionists, unguided and mostly solo meanderings.  It is experiential, not encyclopedic.  Reflective, not comprehensive.” (pg. x)  In this way, Kephart has enabled readers to ruminate on their own memories, which may or may not be of Philadelphia and only tangentially related to her own.  I’ve remembered train journeys to NYC, ice cream I loved as a kid made in a small Massachusetts town, and a journey to Valley Forge that was at once solemn and beautiful.

“There’s something about standing on the platform watching the curve for the Silverliner.  Something about feeling the rumble in the sole’s of one’s feet.  Something about the rituals of travel.  Leaving and returning — that’s where I’ve lived.  I’m sympathetic to the crossties of the tracks.” (pg. 7-8; “Time In, Time Out”)

Kephart establishes the tone for these essays in these lines, telling her readers that she will straddle the past and present, the before and the after, and the moment and the remembering of the moment.  Many of us do this as our minds wander between where we are and where we have been, noting the connections that are only apparent to us until we voice them aloud.  And in “Psychylustro,” we, like the train, become museums — a collection of our own artifacts, memories, and temporal importance.

One minor thing readers may notice, there are only a few photos at the start of each essay, and more photos would have been a lovely addition.  However, LOVE: A Philadelphia Affair by Beth Kephart is a love story involving a city, but it’s also a testament to the love we hold and can freely give through art and action — so long as we can check our ego and greed at the door.  We all want recognition and love, but we need to also realize that these do not come without our own generosity.  It is not just the generosity that we show toward others, but also to ourselves and the world around us.

About the author:

Following the publication of five memoirs and FLOW, the autobiography of Philadelphia’s Schuylkill River, I’ve had the great pleasure of turning my attention to young adult fiction. UNDERCOVER and HOUSE OF DANCE were both named a best of the year by Kirkus and Bank Street. NOTHING BUT GHOSTS, A HEART IS NOT A SIZE, and DANGEROUS NEIGHBORS were critically acclaimed. In October YOU ARE MY ONLY will be released by Egmont USA. Next summer, Philomel will release SMALL DAMAGES. I am at work on a prequel to DANGEROUS NEIGHBORS, a novel for adults, and a memoir about teaching.

Filed Under: essays, nonfiction, purchased, Read in 2015, reviews Tagged With: , ,

How to Entertain, Distract, and Unplug Your Kids by Matthew Jervis

August 6, 2015 by

Source: Skyhorse Publishing
Hardcover, 192 pgs.
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How to Entertain, Distract, and Unplug Your Kids by Matthew Jervis is a great little collection of ideas for busy parents who want to keep their kids active, curious, and helpful around the house.  Building a fort in the living room or redecorating their own rooms can be activities that not only bring out their own creativity, but also can keep them occupied for an hour or more.  As a mom working from home, these activities will come in handy, though many of them I’ve already been doing, such as building a fort in the living room.  One of our other favorites is going shopping, where she gathers her things for the shopping trip, like bags and her purse and her babies, sets them up in the kitchen chairs (aka her car) and she drives them to the market, and while there she pushes them around in the cart and picks up various empty boxes of food that she needs for home.

“Kids don’t always want us on top of them telling them which screwdriver to use or how to throw a football.  Sometimes they just want to do and learn along the way on their own.  In most cases, kids get bored because they’ve tapped their shallow ‘idea’ reserve, and they simply require new input, new ideas…” (pg. 14)

Another section that’s helpful, beyond the one of indoor activities for those rainy days, is the one in which kids are set to work with household chores, but those chores are made into competitions, such as speed trials for sock matching.  Jervis also carefully reminds parents that they should offer an incentive, which in most cases should remain unnamed until the tasks are complete because if it’s something kids don’t want, they’re less likely to complete the task.  One of the best chapters was on getting kids into the kitchen, something my daughter does already.  I love the idea of having her plan a menu, though I think I might wait until her menu will consist of more than chicken nuggets and mac and cheese, which is what she suggests every time.

How to Entertain, Distract, and Unplug Your Kids by Matthew Jervis is not just about creating a space in which you have free time to do work or other chores, it also is about allowing kids to explore within certain limits the household chores and fun around them without the mindless entertainment of screens.  These activities will help them learn to think outside the box, explore new ways of building, making, and being.  If there are more kids in the house than usual, they also can be great team-building activities.  There are indoor, outside, in the car, and elsewhere activities, and many of these can be combined into super-activities.

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Earth Joy Writing: Creating Harmony Through Journaling and Nature by Cassie Premo Steele, Ph.D.

July 22, 2015 by

Source: Ashland Creek Press
Paperback, 169 pgs.
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Earth Joy Writing: Creating Harmony Through Journaling and Nature by Cassie Premo Steele, Ph.D., is more than a book about creative writing.  It is a book that will help readers become more creative writers and thinkers through the connections they develop or re-establish between themselves, their family, and nature.  With the right conditions and frame of mind, creativity can grow from not only our own experiences, current interactions with nature, but also through reflection and looking at the unknown.  Steele breaks down the book into the different seasons — Winter, Spring, Summer, and Fall — and each section also has a monthly breakdown with writing exercises, reflections, and connecting with nature and emotions.

Readers will want to get a journal that they can use when reading this book, and they’ll want to do as Steele suggests and begin in the season and month that they are currently in, rather than start at the beginning of the book.  The book is laid out in a way that allows readers to tap into their current environment and season when writing or thinking creatively — generating a dialogue between themselves, nature, and potential readers of their own.  Beyond writing exercises and questions that readers can answer to start creating their own poems and stories, Steele also includes activities and experiences that will help frame the situation for those trying to be more creative.  For instance, she advises that readers take a trip to an art museum or look through an art book — not on the Internet — and journal about what piece of art strikes their fancy and encourages them to take the time to explore why.

Earth Joy Writing: Creating Harmony Through Journaling and Nature by Cassie Premo Steele, Ph.D., is a unique book about inspiring writers to think more creatively and to draw on nature to tap into their own creativity.  The book is about becoming more observant, less stressed, and more focused on connecting with nature, our natural selves, and those around us.  In this hyper-connected, Internet world, many of us find that we have over-scheduled our lives, and this book will help us slow down.  This is a book that will remain with those “prime” writing books in my workspace — one I’ll be using in the future.

About the Author:

Cassie Premo Steele, Ph.D., is the author of twelve books and audio programs on the themes of creativity, healing, and our connection to the natural world. She works as a writing coach with clients internationally.  Check out her website and the Earth Joy Writing website.  (Photo credit: Susanne Kappler)

 

 

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