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My Five Favourite Books for Babies #TMMGG2013

10Dec | 2013

posted by Paula

When my babies were still scarcely able to open their eyes I started reading to them. I have had a lifelong passion for books and reading and knew immediately that was one thing I wanted to instil in my children – a love of reading. In fact I read essays and articles about nurturing a love for books from even before the girls arrived. One of the pictures in my head that grew in my heart was that of me sitting and cuddling with my kids and reading to them. Those were precious moments, perfect for bonding.

There are a few sweet board books I have still kept from those early years. I will keep them forever because they stand the test of time and will ring true even for grandchildren years from now. I thought that you might appreciate a list of my favourite infant board books because it is the season of giving and gifting and books are always the perfect present.

My Five Favourite Books for Babies:

Goodnight Moon

The Very Hungry Caterpillar board book

Guess How Much I Love You

Runaway Bunny

Time for Bed

You can click on any one of the above links and purchase directly from Amazon. Time For Bed is a gorgeous little book of rhyme about animals going to sleep. I adore Mem Fox. Good Night Moon and The Runaway Bunny are both by Margaret Wise Brown and they are the first books my oldest daughter ever received. They are timeless and beautiful. I especially love The Runaway Bunny because it gently assures babies and toddlers that a mother’s love means you will never be lost. Eric Carle’s books are always magnificent and the drawings are truly unique. Guess How Much I Love You is just a sweet little, loving and gentle story. I have always believed babies take in so much more than we give them credit for and their brains are perfect little sponges. What better way to build a relationship than to read with them?

Polarity Bear Tours The Zoo Review

9Dec | 2013

posted by Paula

Polarity Bear Tours the Zoo: A Central Park Adventure is a whimsical little picture book for any child over the age of four who loves reading about animals. Polarity is a bear who seems a wee bit depressed, or bored with her home in a cage inside the Central Park Zoo. She enjoys the zoo but what good is that when she is caged and not able to explore? She arrived at the zoo when animals still lived in cages and not more natural habitats. These days, many zoos in North America have more spacious environments that more closely resemble life in the wild.

So one day, Polarity hatches a plan. She squeezes the bars of her cage apart, when she angrily sticks out her tongue at the world and the cage breaks, freeing her for the evening. She tours the zoo when nobody else is around. She rides the merry-go-round, dances around, swims with the sea lions and milks every ounce of fun out of her night.

The prose is lovely here and Polarity Bear Tours the Zoo: A Central Park Adventure is told in rhyme. The rhyme however is never forced. It flows in a manner that supports and builds the story. Lately we have seen too many children’s books with rhyme that impedes narrative because it is so obviously forced. Polarity Bear Tours the Zoo is fun conceptually and a read that demands a bit of skill on the part of the reader. Challenging words and place names add to the reading level and experience here. Although I believe some 4-year-old readers might be interested in hearing this book the skill level is more aptly set about the age 6-7 and up in my opinion.

Polarity was published in 2011 in the US. The setting is fun and the author Sue de Cuevas reads kids well. She is a specialist on the Bronte Sisters and used to teach at Harvard, but here she brings a smart little story to an audience of growing readers and she pens the narrative with a sophisticated touch. The illustrations here are dynamite. One of my favourite things to do when we review books here is to ask my daughter’s opinions on the story. Ainsley, 9, enjoyed the story and very much likes books about animals. But her one conistent comment was about the illustrations. “I loved the pictures.” We both had trouble choosing just one because there are so many brilliant pictures in this book. Illustrator Wendy Rasmussen elevates this book to art with her incredible pictures of Polarity dancing, swimming with sea lions (my favourite) and then collapsing in exhaustion at end of the night. Rasmussen has illustrated over 25 books, many of which were about animals. I cannot stress enough how magical and captivating her pictures are. These are frameable pages, magnificently rendered with emotion and life. Each picture captures Polarity experiences a larger than life adventure and emotion. Spectacular art.

Polarity Bear Tours the Zoo: A Central Park Adventure would be a great gift book for any animal loving children in your life. It costs $17.95 and is a hardcover picture book published by Polarity Bear Books. This book gets a $$$$ out of $$$$$. We received a copy for free in order to review this book. I was not paid to post this review. My opinion is my own.

Bookkeeping For Canadians for Dummies

1Mar | 2013

posted by Paula

This time of year Canadians and Americans both suffer the same terrible stressful fate. Tax season. It is a blight on all activity and can be daunting rounding up all those receipts and T4s. This year, at thriftymommastips.com I am up to my eyeballs trying to sort through what gets claimed, what doesn’t get claimed and how to estimate and accurately record blogging income. That could be a whole other book, I think. No matter how much time you have to prepare, no matter what career you are in – many of us are never really ready for tax season.

When I spied Bookkeeping for Canadians for Dummies up for review recently, well I thought maybe, just maybe it would help lend insight into the tricky business of taxes. So, I sought it out and jumped into the scintillating text. Just kidding. This is not Fifty Shades for tax season.

The book starts with a laugh which pretty much summed up my approach to taxes. The first cartoon by Fifth Wave says: “I’m mathematically dyslexic. But it’s not that unusual. 100 out of every 15 people are.”

I enjoy how well organized this For Dummies series of books are constructed. Every topic is neatly indexed and contained in a chapter with the occasional funny cartoon interspersed. The index and table of contents are great tools to guide your reading and research. If that doesn’t do it for you there is also a glossary and the handy icons help simplify tips, warnings and examples. I can easily seek out the specific item I need guidance on and quickly flip to that page or chapter. That’s crucial for keeping tax season simple. Also the icons help me to skip over parts that aren’t relevant to my situation.

I am clearly no tax expert and this book didn’t magically turn me into one. I found it very difficult to get through some of the specifics. I am probably now even more convinced that I need help and I am more motivated to ask for a professional to guide my taxes. But at the same time, I know more than I did when I started this book. Bookkeeping for Dummies for Canadians is not a book you read at bedtime or from cover to cover, but it is a handy reference tool. I often come back to the accounts receivable and accounts payable terms for instance when I am doing my own business affairs here. When I have a reference point I can remember which is which and how to organize. That’s where this book comes in handy. It’s almost like a dictionary for translating bookkeeping terms.

In the end I am still a tax dummy after reading this book, but I understand a few more of the terms now that I did before. I also have a great guide to help me look up and translate what the tax person is saying. Maybe it’s just me, but I have a small mental block for tax season. I am at least smart enough to know that I need help. That’s half the battle. Good luck with your taxes this year. If you need just a little help, then this would be a great reference tool for you. If you want to understand more about your taxes by next year, then buy this now and get studying.

Bookkeeping for Canadians For Dummies, second edition is by Lita Epstein and Cecile Laurin, John Wiley and Sons, Canada, Toronto, 2013. $29.99 368 pages.

This one gets $$$$ out of $$$$$. It is still quite complex.

I received a copy of this book for review purposes. My opinion is all my own.