Stop a moment and feed your brain. Don't forget to leave a note before you go

A Dozen Different Ways to Keep Kids Reading All Summer

posted by

TwitterMoms came up with this idea as part of an I Can Read books campaign running with Harper Collins and since I’ve been mulling this topic over for some time I thought I would post today some of my tips for summer reading.

1. TEACHER: Think like a teacher. On sunny days at your child’s school they take the lesson outside to vary it up a bit and make magic memories. Pick a topic that is summery or sunny, or even the opposite of that, and read outdoors underneath a tree. When it is superhot we make fake snow and read a winter book set in the Arctic.

2. MAGAZINES: Subscribe to magazines so kids can peruse at their leisure. My eldest daughter got a gift subscription to Chickadee magazine many years ago from my mother-in-law. After my mother-in-law passed away I kept the subscription going because Payrton loves it so much. What a great gift and a great legacy. Now we have Chirp for my youngest daughter, now 6, and Chickadee and even a French magazine to keep them learning en francais.

3. READ ALOUD: Don’t underestiamte the power of oral storytelling. Pick a big fun book you always meant to read together and schedule it for the summer. Delve into Chronicles of Narnia or Anne of Green Gables. We started The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe together about three weeks ago and I’ve read about five pages a night each night. We are almost done now and I have no idea what will be next. (which brings me to next tip.)

4. BE A DRAMA MAMA: Act a bit to bring it alive. Something about summer and the drama camps my kids do makes me want to try on different accents. So for three weeks I’ve been faking a British accent and the kids love it. I’m reading The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe, so it only makes sense.

5. THEMES: Pick a theme and bring it alive. Maybe science books, and do some experiments too to help illustrate the theme, or a craft. I have experiments over here at http://www.thriftymommastips.blogspot.com/ There are a few cool books that give you hints on how to do this. One of them was reviewed by me here many months ago. It was called the Parent-Child Book Club,by Melissa Stoller and Marci Winkler.

6. LIBRARY: Take them to the library for their fun summer programs. Walk or ride bikes, or haul the wagon behind you. Most library programs are free and they often will do a summer story time. Some do summer reading contests.

7.  BOOK STORE: Visit your local Chapters/Indigo or Smithbooks and have them pick one new book.

8. MOVIES AND THEATRE: Movies can be complementary to books, and so can theatre. Check out what’s coming soon at local theatre and if your kids like to watch performances as mine do then read the book and get tickets for the play. We have seen a few interesting theatrical shows. Recently my children saw Velveteen Rabbit. It didn’t make them want to read less, but more.

9. READING NOOKS: Book corners in the house. Books in the van or car. Books that travel. My kids never go anywhere without books. When they are handy, then during a quiet moment they are easy to choose. Also stash them in every room of the house. I mean – every room. Audiobooks also count.

10. PHONICS OVER FROSTED FLAKES: I will use tools like the I Can Read books a lot this summer for my youngest who needs to build confidence before entering grade one. I will use them in the morning and read with her at breakfast. I do this on purpose because my active girl loses interest later on in the day and is sharpest in the morning. Also if she senses that I am trying to get her to work then game over. So we will be reading over the Corn Flakes.

11. FIND FESTIVALS: Summer is a great time to get outside and look for local writer’s festivals and story-telling festivals, even children’s festivals. Almost always there is reading going on there. Having someone else do the reading while you sit beside your child in the park and absorb another wonderful season…what could be better?

12. COOKING: Cook and bake together. Have them read the recipes. This is a great math and reading activity. Not to mention Yummy!

“I wrote this blog post while participating in the TwitterMoms blogging program to be eligible to get an “I Can Read!” book. For more information on how you can participate, click here: http://www.twittermoms.com/forum/topics/share-tips-for-getting-kids-to?

My Mailbag

posted by

This is my new Thursday mailbag. Check out all the amazing reads I have received this week alone. New Nora Roberts. Wow! And this wonderful story from a mother with a child who has Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorder, Jennifer Poss Taylor. Sadly my Kobo goes back this weekend. I was just using a loader for review purposes and I have loved the thing. It is in fact one of the easiest, most fun, tech devices I have been given. Look for my review on thriftymommastips. The price is right on this adorable little purse sized ebook reader, so perhaps someone will take the hint and buy me one for my next birthday. That would be better than swell. Anyways, I just wanted to show you my mailbag. Look for these reviews coming soon.

The Household Guide To Dying

posted by

The Household Guide to Dying is the story of a young 40-year-old mother dying and setting her house in order. It is a slow burn kind of novel with a devastating and beautiful end. It is imaginative and humourous in its use of character, and yet the plot could not be more steeped in realistic situation. There is little in life more predictable than death. Everyone eventually finds the same end. Delia is a very popular advice columnist dishing out cheeky and somewhat cynical replies to readers who seem to enjoy the abuse. She is a mother of two daughters and a son. It is revealed through the book, that her son was tragically killed when hit by a car. She is married to the wonderful Archie, a great standup kind of guy who really understands her, and she also makes a living writing The Household Guide to … series of books. We are told that she is dying of cancer and Delia approaches the factual approach of her own death with pragmatics and lists. She thinks in terms of what she must set about completing for her children and her husband before she can submit. Her last months have been spent trying to brief her husband on the daily operations of the household, a place she has run with a loving precision. Delia makes clear that her marriage, while loving can often also be weighed down by routine. Buried deep in the details of managing all the needs and wants of the various personalities in her family, it has become sometimes hard for Delia to see the bigger picture, the passion that has bound them all together. “If this marriage were to have unravelled it would have been over something as trivial and tangible as a misplaced sock or a forgotten school lunchbox.” Her failing health and imminent death brings a new perspective. Urgency. Fresh eyes. A fierce need to leave something unique and lasting behind. For a brief period at the start of the novel Delia leaves her family to venture back to a city known as Amethyst, a small sleepy town filled with carny types and circus performers. It is an odd turn of plot and leaves the reader pondering why the road trip until, bit by bit, slowly it is revealed that she has some loose ends from her life there with Sonny. The details of Sonny’s death are let loose in small increments as Delia gets closer to the end of her own life, more poignant because they are so simply revealed. I have had quite a run of excellent reads here at thriftymommasbrainfood recently. Lucky for me. I wasn’t expecting a book entitled The Household Guide To Dying to keep this streak alive and yet it has more than done that. Debra Adelaide has created a truly humourous, bittersweet and lovely tale. It is a surprisingly fantastic read. It is compelling and well written and charming with eccentric moments. Not a summer beach read, but the book you read before your vacation or right after you get back. The Guide is ideally suited for book club discussions. It is a story that will leave you feeling happy to be alive, and if a book can be said to make you take stock of your life and wish to hold those you love a bit closer to cherish them, then this is that kind of book. Adelaide has worked as an editor, book reviewer and researcher and is now a senior lecturer in creative writing at the University of Technology in Sydney, Australia. She has three children. This novel was nminated for the Orange Prize for fiction.

The Household Guide To Dying, by Debra Adelaide, Penguin Group Canada, $18.00 paperback edition, 2010.
Thriftymommastips rating is $$$$ out of $$$$$.

Picture Perfect: A Giveaway

posted by

Hey all, this one is a giveaway too, so don’t forget to read to the end to enter. Picture Perfect is one of my fave author, Jodi Picoult’s, earlier books. As I am steadily working my way through every novel she has ever written I felt the need to read and review this one recently. It isn’t the grabbiest or most topical of all Picoult’s books, but the slight parallels to a certain A-List Hollywood celebrity couple made it relevant and interesting to me.
At the start of this novel is a mystery. A half-dead woman is found in a cemetery. Her head is wounded. She is discovered by a grave and has no inkling how she got there or why she is there, nor does she know her name. A conflicted native American police officer takes her in and tried to help her find the truth. He calls her Jane and along the way, as he helps her to find out about her history, he naturally falls for her romantically. Cassie Barrett is a world-renowned anthropologist when she meets the legendary Alex Rivers. (Think Brad Pitt with a mean-spirited side.) She has been hired by the movie he is working on to give technical advice. He sweeps her off her feet and she is easily charmed, but it is not long before his temper flares and she tries to make excuses. Soon a pattern of abuse is evident to have followed Rivers from his past and extended well into his future. It is a pattern Cassie believes she can cure. As in many Picoult novels a subtheme echoes and crosses through the main plot of the novel. The native American police officer Will pops in and out of the book weaving strong themes of nature and healing and aboriginal folklore. He is, in many ways Cassie’s saviour and a very strong character. Picture Perfect is the story of a couple who to the world and the media appear to be golden and yet, in reality, they are deeply flawed personalities that feed each other’s weaknesses. They are simply combustible together. This is a compelling story and it is, as usual really well written. Picoult is the author of many other novels, including The Tenth Circle, House Rules, Faith, Mercy and My Sister’s Keeper.

Picture Perfect is worth $$$$ out of $$$$$. It is published by Berkely, Penguin Group USA, 1995. $15 US and $18 Canadian.

I am giving away one copy of this novel. I will draw for the winner June 24th with random.org. Open to all US and Canada.
To enter:
1. Leave a comment here indicating that you want to enter the giveaway. Tell me if you have read any other Jodi Picoult books and, if so, which was your favourite.
2. Follow me on twitter @inkscrblr.
3. Visit http://www.thriftymommastips.blogspot.com/ and leave a comment.
4. For an extra chance at winning follow me on GoogleFriendConnect.

A Place For Delta

posted by

A Place For Delta is an amazing, educational adventure story for youth aged 9 to 12 set against an Alaskan backdrop. This young adult fiction tale is one of the best stories we’ve read here in a very long time. For a couple of weeks I’ve been reading this book out loud to my daughters, aged 8 and 6, and they have been captivated from start to finish. And you know that thing where your brain wanders sometimes to adult stuff while reading kids books out loud, well none of that happened to my brain with this story. In fact I might even be a bit smarter from reading it. Delta is a baby polar bear and this is the story of the people who find her and help nurture her, in the process, also helping to solve the crime of who shot the bear cub’s mother. It is insightful and educational. It is relevant, at times dealing with topics such as global warming, Alaskan oil drilling and environmental threats to animals such as polar bears. A Place For Delta is well written, and contains just the right amount of suspense to drive the plot forward. The story begins in Georgia many years prior, when a young brother,  Ben, his sister Kate and their mother, Lisi, move to an old farmhouse with many acres of land. We are told Lisi has taken a job at a college nearby and her children are explorers venturing out onto their new property tracking footprints and scat, in search of wildlife. They are pioneering in spirit, both animal and nature-lovers. As young children, Ben and Kate are daring. They have several close calls with bears and snakes. But these are smart savvy kids, without need of rescuers. Fast forward, many years later and the children are grown. Ben has a son named Joseph. Kate is employed at a research station in Alaska when news of an orphaned polar bear comes to light. She is busy with research, but also needing to help hand-feed and socialize a polar bear and she quickly asks her nephew Joseph, 11, to come to Alaska to help raise the bear. What follows is an amazing cultural adventure and a mystery as well. Joseph becomes friends with Ada, a young Eskimo girl, and together the two spy on locals and tourists to uncover the truth. At times, while reading this, I felt it to be the same kind of timeless classic like Charlotte’s Web that can be read over and over, treasured and passed down through families. A good book, read together with children, can cement bonds, raises important issues, help encourage character development and nurture creativity. A Place For Delta was a joy to share and I suspect that’s how my children felt to when it ended and they asked to read it all over again. I will treasure A Place For Delta, a savvy intelligent book that encourages children to be smart and resourceful while taking ownership of the world around them. This story is wholesome and contains many biology and geography lessons. Walker was a professor of English at the University of New Orleans, and is an advocate for civil rights and wilderness. She makes Alaska fascinating. She is the author of Reading The Environment and Living on Wilderness Time: 200 Days Alone in America’s Wild Places. She lives with her husband Jerome in Atlanta and spends summers in Alaska. Richard Walker is a nurse and artist. His illustrations are quite lovely and timeless. The jacket blurb for Delta indicates it is the first of a series of books for children. We will wait anxiously for the second installment in the series.
Melissa Walker, A Place For Delta, illustrated by Richard Walker, $16.95 US, Whale Tale Press
released today June 1, 2010. Thriftymommastips rating $$$$$ out of $$$$$. Loved it. I don’t think I’ve ever given perfect $$$$$’s before. My eldest has told every child at her school about this amazing new book called A Place For Delta and my youngest has asked all of her teachers if they’ve ever read it. One night she stated: “I would like 100 copies of that book.”

Thriftymommastips is not paid to review books, but receives a free copy to read from the publisher.

Put Me In A Book

posted by

Beloved Canadian Icon Robert Munsch has written another supercute, catchy book and despite the recent revelation of his drug addictions and the stroke he suffered over one year ago it is very entertaining. I picked this one up for my kids at Chapters Indigo about one month ago and we’ve been loving it every night since. Part of Munsch’s charm is the extreme surreal humour and the repetition he uses to make children join in on the narrative. Put Me In A Book is about a girl and an author. The girl, Hailey, is out with her school visiting the park one day, when they
run into a well known author who “puts her in a book” literally. The story is classic Munsch and the classmate’s attempts to help get Hailey out of the book are comical. The students try to photocopy her out, scratch her out and pull her out of the book. This metafictive tale is meant for children four and up through to about 10. Michael Martchenko lends his animated drawings to this story and the characters as usual are memorable and attractive. Some of the funniest books around have come from this pairing of author and illustrator. Munsch lives in Guelph and has written dozens of books, while Martchenko has illustrated more than 50.

Put Me In A Book, by Robert Munsch..illustrated by Michael Martchenko
Scholastic Canada Ltd. 2010 $7.99, 31 pages
rating $$$$ out of $$$$$
thriftymommastips does not get paid to review books.

Even The Dogs

posted by

If this book were a person it would be your rambling Uncle Reggie with all the skeletons in his closet, you know the relative with a genius level IQ and possibly undiagnosed schizophrenia, the guy that drank it all away and then showed up at Christmas to start a fight. Nobody really likes to be around Uncle Reggie, because he reminds them how fragile the balance of mental health and life, but in reality at the end of the day when you are quiet with just your thoughts, even you have got to admit that Uncle Reggie is far more interesting than all the rest of your relatives combined. At the start of Even The Dogs, is the death of a homeless man, Robert, a person found on a day between Christmas and New Year’s inside an abandoned apartment building. The fictional story that arises out of this sad event is more real than most. What follows is a makeshift eulogy, a strange remembrance of the pitiful man who died, as told by his friends and acquaintances. The key here is the friends and acquaintances. They are each homeless addicts living on the fringes of society, drugged and searching for drugs, drying out and then checking into rehab and then relapsing again. Their remembrances are heartfelt to be sure, but also dreamy, nebulous, frantic, rushed, interrupted, disjointed, confused, urgent, pressured and half forgotten. “Had to find someone and tell them was all he could think. Had to find Laura and let her know, had to find Mike.” We are told Robert had a daughter named Laura and her father’s friends speculate where she might have gone, until the end of the novel when she is forced to reveal, at an inquest, that she abandoned her father to score drugs.

Even The Dogs is an odd novel at first to get into and slightly off-putting with strange use of punctuation and rambling sentences and the continuous use of the pronoun “we.” And yet, if you stick with it and invest yourself fully, by the end of the book all of these stylistic devices truly make sense. In fact, not unlike a drug, when you let this novel fully wash over you, the brilliance of it hits and you are left in awe. Jon McGregor’s latest tale appeared with much advance praise and buzz about the Booker prize and yet it is a difficult read. It is one of the more deceptive reads I’ve been given lately for review here at brainfood. The style is very evocative of the Virginia Woolf school of stream-of-consciousness and this reminded me a great deal of some of the duty reads from university English literature classes of years gone by.  At first it left me cold and then I realized that was partly the point. You are supposed to feel hot and cold about the topic matter at hand and the death of a homeless drunk is really not poetry to most. He will be given a pauper’s funeral and his friends wonder at the sadness and hopelessness at the end of this lifeMcGregor is a stylist of the highest calibre and  a writer’s writer for sure. Here we will find sentences paused mid-thought, punctuation dropped or forgotten, mishmashed grammar and rambling odd rants about life on the street. McGregor’s characters have strong voices and his talent for dialect is nothing, if not realistic. McGregor has also written If Nobody Speaks of Remarkable Things and So Many Ways To Begin. He has won the Somerset Maugham Award and The Betty Trask Prize. He was born in Bermuda and now lives in England.

thriftymommastips rating $$$$ out of $$$$$
Not for everyone, but realistic, highly intelligent and brave writing.
Bloomsbury USA New York, 2010, $17.50 Canada. $14 US.

Melvin The Magnificent Molar

posted by

Melvin the Magnificent Molar is a cute and functional children’s book I received last week from TwitterMoms. My children have given it a resounding two thumbs up and loved the cute story about a tooth named Melvin. “Mommy, I am brushing my Melvin,” they holler every morning now. See Melvin is a molar and as such he is often covered in a sleep scummies and gook and generally neglected because he is at the back of the mouth and just gets missed. The sweet little paperback picture book about hygiene was written by Julia Cook and Laura Jana, MD. The illustrations are lovely by Allison Valentine. The story is full of cute rhymes and sing song tunes that get children involved in the book. “Brush us and floss us and help us to shine so we can be ready and look mighty fine.” Cook and Jana use Melvin to take a bit of the mystery out of dentists and the tooth fairy and baby teeth.

Melvin the Molar is published by the National Centre For Youth Issues.
For a copy contact http://www.ncyi.org/
Tennessee, USA, 2010
thriftymommastips rating $$$$ out of $$$$$.
thriftymomma does not get paid to review books instead she receives a free copy to read

Friendship For Grownups: a giveaway

posted by

Many will recall Facts of Life star Lisa Whelchel from the truly popular hit show of the 80s. They might have even watched the cast reunion show, but lesser known to many is the fact that she is a Christian author with many publications to her credit. I was asked to review Friendship For Grownups: What I Missed and Learned Along The Way and was pleasantly surprised by the writing and the author herself . Whelchel speaks candidly of being a child star, moving from her native Texas at the age of 12 to Hollywood where she grew up fast and went on to superstardom as Blair in The Facts of Life. Her first appearance on The New Mickey Mouse Club launched her early childhood career, a career that actually began as an outlet for an overly shy bookish, introverted, child. Not so surprisingly Whelchel missed some key developmental stages in her life as a result of diving headlong into acting so early. This she examines in a calm and matter of fact way to indicate why she headed down this path that led her to write this book. It is a tone that remains constant throughout the book, never maudlin or self-pitying, just a simple fact of her life. This is an admirable quality. When Whelchel was young, she moved to Hollywood and life was essentially suspended while she acted. When The Facts of Life ended, Whelchel’s career came to a halt. Years later, as a homeschooling mother and a pastor’s wife, she realized she had few true friends as a grownup, a glossy superficial veneer preventing her from attaching too deeply to anyone. This book is a really insightful look at the process of working through that veneer allowing vulnerability and growth into your life. Whelchel smartly touches on several key issues with women’s friendships that often prevent women from being genuine in friendships. This is an enjoyable and telling portrait of life in Hollywood from a young age and how Whelchel grew up, learning from her mistakes. There are some truly delicious bits here that all women will relate to, including the gossipy nature of women’s friendships that keep us from working in a truly supportive and collaborative way with each other. She notes her longtime friendship with Nancy McKeon, who played Joe on the hit show, as one of her greatest takeaways from her time acting. She also delves into some of the darker sides of fame that she personally experienced. For instance at an age when puberty began to make the child star gain weight, she was forced daily to endure the humiliation of a weigh in prior to each day of shooting. Others might call that abuse, but Whelchel simply refers to it as something she felt at the time that she deserved. With therapy and the help of friends, she comes to realize how all of these prior experiences led her to create a wall around her that prevented her from being in a true friendship. Friendship For Grownups is a nice read and a smart look at vulnerabilities in female friendships.

Friendship For Grownups, Lisa Whelchel
Thomas Nelson publsihers, 2010, USA, $21.99 US.
Thriftymommas rating $$$$ out of a possible $$$$$$ or 4 out of 5.
Insightful and heartfelt.

Thriftymommastips does not get paid to review books, but receives a free copy of the book from the publisher.

To enter this giveaway you need to do three things:
1. Leave a comment here with your email address stating that you want to win Friendship For Grownups.
2. Follow this blog. See sidebar.
3. Follow @inkscrblr on twitter. Or let me know if you already follow me.

Good Luck. I will draw for this with the help of random.org on May 28th.

Sean Aiken, the One-Week Job Guru

posted by

He found true love, tried out 52 different jobs and, along the way took the temperature of an entire generation, kickstarting a one-week job empire. Sean Aiken, author of The One-Week Job Project spoke with thriftymomma last week about the U.S. release of his book this coming week and a summer job project like no other. From firefighter to yoga instructor. From cowboy to fundraiser, Sean Aiken has tried it all. Aiken is author of The One-Week Job Project and a media sensation. In one year Aiken, a recent college graduate from Port Moody, B.C. tried on as many hats as possible in search of a career that sparked his passion. His idea attracted attention from around North America. “When I first started this project I thought I was alone in this search,” Aiken told thriftymomma. But Aiken quickly learned the topic hit a nerve and legions of fans understood the universal search for a career they were passionate about. This week Random House publishes his book in the United States. This month I had the pleasure of reading the story, a fun, light and, at times, philosophical look at life and the relationship we have with our career and our colleagues. The year he spent examining himself and his own passions led him to employers who were self obsessed and those who were selfless, those who tirelessly worked for non profits raising funds to help cure cancer and those who promoted films pompously self inflated and egomaniacal. There are numerous excellent glimpses into really interesting career paths. Aiken recalls some of his favourites: “My answer changes. I really enjoyed being a park ranger in Hawaii and a real estate agent.” In the book, his fondness for Steam Whistle Brewing, a microbrewery, in Toronto makes this one of the highlights. Clearly this employer has a knack for treating employees right and a reputation for knocking off work at 5:30 and rounding up the crew for a trip through downtown Toronto on the Steam Whistle party bus. Throughout the book the media attention Aiken attracted first shocked him and then became a little too familiar. He chronicles the trials of keeping up with the media requests and the dangers of falling into a trap where you begin to believe all of the hype created by the image machine. Early in his travels Aiken attracted a sponsor and was fortunate to be able to have this unique quest funded in part by NiceJob. Along the way he met a girl named Danna, from Toronto, who endures the lengthy separations and ups and downs of the bizarre year. Thriftymomma wanted to know if Danna and Sean were still together and readers will be glad to know they are happily living in B. C. Later on in the book Sean’s mother is diagnosed with cancer causing him to question whether he can finish the journey or not. But Aiken clarifies his mother is well now. “I could definitely see myself teaching at some point,” says Aiken. “For now I am really enjoying giving the talks. It has been so rewarding to have so many students come up to me afterwards and say how much the book resonated with them.”

This book, blog and web site, http://www.oneweekjob.com/ are all very entertaining.The book is excellent for anyone contemplating a job change or searching for a career. It would be a lovely graduation gift for a high school or university student. On the One-Week Job site a new project, which is a mini version of the book, has been spun off into a contest starting this summer. The winners net $3,000 to try out 8 different jobs, hopefully finding their passion in the process. Entrants must be 18 years of age. Each individual will sculpt their own path and line up their own series of jobs to try out. Interest has been very good so far, he notes.

Sean Aiken
The One-Week Job Project, Penguin Canada, 2010, 288 pages, $19.
To be released in the U.S. next week Random House.
Thriftymommastips rating $$$$$ out of $$$$$. Highly entertaining and informative. Enjoyable and insightful. Thriftymomma doesn’t receive compensation for her reviews, instead publishers send one free copy for review.