Cooking with Kids

Before the weekend I checked out Paula Deen's Cookbook for the Lunch-Box Set from the library. I have plenty of "kid" cookbooks, but those still require me to read off the ingredients and a lot of them make food into happy faces or other objects and this has never impressed my kids. A vegetable is still a vegetable.

The thing I loved about this book were the pictures of the ingredients. This one thing made it more fun and easy for my 4 year old to find the items in the pantry that we needed and then we started cooking. The book is divided up into events that one might have over a school year-a sleepover, a boke sale, lunch, family cooking night etc. The one we chose was under Lunch. We made a Cheeseburger Casserole. We got all the ingredients and pans out first and then I instructed him from there.

Here's a pick of the finished product. It was yummy and definitely a comfort food.



Here's a link to the catalog to check this book out.

Michelyn

Adult Book Review - Heart Shaped Box by Joe Hill

Review Contributed by Brent C.

It's hard to avoid comparing the son to the father, but if a comparison must be made, let it be done with the best of intentions.

This book has a voice of it's own, that has the accent of his father's best works. CREEPY, with characters the reader immediately feels a connection to, in a world like ours as seen through a wavy glass window.

One of the most satisfying endings to a suspense/supernatural thriller that I've read in years.

(From Publisher Weekly):
Starred Review. Stoker-winner Hill features a particularly merciless ghost in his powerful first novel. Middle-aged rock star Judas Coyne collects morbid curios for fun, so doesn't think twice about buying a suit advertised at an online auction site as haunted by its dead owner's ghost. Only after it arrives does Judas discover that the suit belonged to Craddock McDermott, the stepfather of one of Coyne's discarded groupies, and that the old man's ghost is a malignant spirit determined to kill Judas in revenge for his stepdaughter's suicide. Judas isn't quite the cad or Craddock the avenging angel this scenario makes them at first, but their true motivations reveal themselves only gradually in a fast-paced plot that crackles with expertly planted surprises and revelations. Hill (20th Century Ghosts) gives his characters believably complex emotional lives that help to anchor the supernatural in psychological reality and prove that (as one character observes) "horror was rooted in sympathy." His subtle and skillful treatment of horrors that could easily have exploded over the top and out of control helps make this a truly memorable debut. (Feb.)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

Book Review: Ain't She Sweet by Susan Elizabeth Phillips

I just read Ain't She Sweet by Susan Elizabeth Phillips and I must say I soooo loved this book. I'm not sure if it is because I'm from a small town in Mississippi or what, but I so knew some of these characters. I was in a group like the Seawillows and I must admit I did one or two of the rituals, I will not say which one but oh did we have fun. It also made me remember what great friendships we had and some of us still have today. If you are in the mood for small town living and great fun this is a must read.
Dee

The Book Thief by Markus Zusak - Review

Review contributed by Brent C.

This book is quite deceptive, it starts slow and centers on characters whom you really don't care about nor have any emotion invested in. You keep expecting the 'whammo' from the Holocaust to hit you over the head just as you're internally wincing over the sure-to-come descriptions of how stark, colorless and horrible those days in Germany were.

Not to say those things aren't present, not at all. But the realization comes without warning or preamble that you DO care about the characters and as the pages come to an end you want to hear more about that stark, colorless, horrible world.

The narration winds it's way around the prose in a beautiful way, the author has a voice that's at once soothing and horrifying. There's a beauty in the author's choice of words here, although it's hard to explain I want more of it.

The story itself is beautiful and simple. It's simply about a small girl and her adopted family and how they come to terms with their lives and how they impact others in Nazi Germany.

We may haunt the narrator, but his story will haunt me for a long time to come.

(From Product Description):
It’s just a small story really, about among other things: a girl, some words, an accordionist, some fanatical Germans, a Jewish fist-fighter, and quite a lot of thievery. . . .

Set during World War II in Germany, Markus Zusak’s groundbreaking new novel is the story of Liesel Meminger, a foster girl living outside of Munich. Liesel scratches out a meager existence for herself by stealing when she encounters something she can’t resist–books. With the help of her accordion-playing foster father, she learns to read and shares her stolen books with her neighbors during bombing raids as well as with the Jewish man hidden in her basement before he is marched to Dachau.

This is an unforgettable story about the ability of books to feed the soul.

New Books in YA!!!!

Announcing a shipment of new books in the YA/Teen Department!!!


I admit that it's always one of my most favorite days in the library when I have a cart full of brand new books to put on the shelf. It's a complete experience for me: I like the way they feel (the pages are all crisp), the way they smell (like fresh ink) and how gorgeous the covers look!!! Here's a short list of a few new things on the shelf - be sure to check one out so you can have the new book "experience."

Lockdown by Walter Dean Myers
Once a Witch by Carolyn MacCullough
Dirty Little Secrets by C. J. Omololu
Little Miss Red by Robin Palmer
Albatross by Josie Blott
A Star on the Hollywood Wald of Fame by Brenda Woods
Token of Darkness by Amelia Atwater-Rhodes
Sense and Sensibility and Sea Monsters by Jane Austen and Ben H. Winters
My Boyfriend's Dogs by Dandi Daley Mackall
A Match Made in High School by Kristin Walker
The Iron King by Julie Kagawa
Suite Scarlett by Maureen Johnson
Tiger's Curse by Colleen Houck
Riker's High by Paul Volponi