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Top Five Brainfood Reads 2012

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We had some fabulous books here this past year and before the month of January vanishes, I wanted to share some of our favourites with you. I am developing a passion for young adult fiction and luckily my daughter seems to share the love of reading. Payton spent more than a few hours spinning some of the reviews here this year. Many thanks to her for reading along with me and for helping out on occasion.

This is our Top Five Great Reads List from 2012.

1. The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry

2. Life With Lily – Book One – Great Books For Tween Girls

3. The Beggar’s Opera 

4. Lone Wolf 

5. The Virgin Cure


As I type this I need to confess that I finally broke down and bough Fifty Shades of Grey, while in the airport in Las Vegas. So, next year maybe it will make the list and maybe not. I have started the book and it’s a page-turner for sure. So tell us, what was your favorite book last year?

Shades of Truth: Top Notch Young Adult Fiction Review

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Lately we’ve had a run of good luck with several great youth books for my oldest daughter. There are numerous historical fiction accounts that we’ve been treated to and enjoyed here on the pages of thriftymommasbrainfood. This novel Shades of Truth is not historical fiction, but it is inspirational Christian young adult fiction and my daughter quite enjoyed it. Shades of Truth is by Naomi Kinsman and it is intended to be the first in a series.

Guest Review by Payton Schuck

Shades of Truth is about a girl named Sadie who moves away from her friends. Her family moves from California to Owl Creek, Michigan. Her Dad is a mediator and he gets a job trying to bridge the gap between researchers and bear hunters. He buys a gun to fit in with the rest of the hunters. Sadie feels strongly about this and tries to persuade her Dad to get rid of the gun. The bears in Michigan have become a problem for residents. They are rooting through the town’s garbage and scaring younger children. Some residents think they need to shoot the bears to protect their families. There is a scientist named Helen who is studying the bears and documenting their behaviour, their denning sites and how many cubs they have. She argues they should not be shot and wants to keep studying them.

Sadie’s Mom has Chronic Fatigue Syndrome and it makes her exhausted often. They are at the point where they have given up on treatments because they keep failing and causing their hopes to be dashed.  Sadie’s Mom starts to get better the more time she spends outside and she seems to do better in Michigan than she did in California.

At school, Sadie has trouble fitting in and a few of the kids tell her she should move out of town. Sadie is sad about the move, but eventually she makes a friend named Ruth who takes her to a youth group where they talk about God and how he influences life. Sadie is entranced by the group and keeps going even when the friendship gets rocky. Sadie soon sees that praying and speaking to God can help you in many ways. She sees God as a constant and reliable voice and friend.

This is a story of her spiritual awakening. Sadie discovers God. She also discovers art. She starts shading and sketching with her art teacher Vivian. She focuses on drawing eyes and starts with her Mom and Dad’s eyes and then begins drawing bear’s eyes and bullies eyes. She sees this as a great way to express herself. Just by shading, she can show if the eyes are sad, scared, angry, surprised. She learns to show how she feels without using words.

This book is very inspiring and there is interesting communication back and forth between Sadie and her old friends. Their emails break up the story. There is also a lot of intriguing detail about trivia and nature in Shades of Truth. There are helpful tips here like how to get tree sap out of your hair. This book also gives helpful details about how to see the world differently.

Shades of Truth is by Naomi Kinsmen, Zonderkidz, by Zondervan, $7.99 and 205 paperback.
$$$$$ out of $$$$$ – this is our highest rating. Payton loved it. She called it very inspiring.

(Thanks to Payton for reviewing this one entirely on her own. We received no compensation for this review. Our opinions are all our own. We received a copy of the book to facilitate this review.)

Courtney Saves Christmas – Blog Tour and Gift

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Courtney Saves Christmas is an adorable little story about a penguin named Courtney who gets a unique gift one year and sets off to find Santa at the North Pole so she can properly thank him. Courtney is a quick read  and a great story for ages five and up. Young readers will enjoy the tale of this peppy little penguin and her adventures around the world as she seeks Santa. I enjoyed the message here of thanks and gratitude. The penguin is a great character and her parents are supportive and kind with big hearts too. The illustrations are high calibre and even my older daughter would appreciate that.

There are three e-books available here for giveaway. Good luck!

Courtney just loves exploring, and is overjoyed when she receives a compass from Santa on Christmas morning. She’s so grateful for the gift, in fact, that she just needs to give Santa a great big hug and say “Thank you!” in person. The only problem is she lives in the South Pole, and Santa is all the way on the other side of the globe!

With the aid of her new compass, Courtney sets off on a journey that takes her almost an entire year. By the time she reaches Santa’s workshop, the elves are in a flurry preparing for the upcoming holiday. Unfortunately, Rudolph is feeling very sick—too sick to guide the sleigh. If Courtney can’t find a way to help, Christmas will be ruined and all the children of the world will be devastated. What’s a little penguin to do?


BIO:  Emlyn Chand emerged from the womb with a fountain pen clutched in her left hand (true story). When she’s not writing, she runs a large book club in Ann Arbor and is the president of author PR firm Novel Publicity. Best known for her Young Adult novels, she is also developing a small, but devoted, following to her children’s book series and is beginning to dapple in other genres as well. Emlyn enjoys connecting with readers and is available via almost every social media site in existence. Visit EmlynChand.com for more info.

ONLINE LINKS:
·         Website & Blog:  www.emlynchand.com
·         Facebook:  www.facebook.com/emlynchand
·         Twitter:  www.twitter.com/emlynchand
·         Goodreads:  www.goodreads.com/emlynchand

 BUY NOW LINK: Not available yet

I was provided with a copy of this book for review purposes. My review opinion is my own.

·         Amazon paper book
·         Amazon Kindle copy
Giveaway: 3 E-Books

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Best Fiction Books for the Sandwich Generation – The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry

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The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry tops my list of best fiction books of 2012. It is a riveting read, emotionally wrought, relevant, contemporary and lyrical. So why did it take me well over a month to read this story? Well, life is busy over at thriftymommastips. No question my books list and reviews are piling up, but this one from the start caught me and captured my imagination. But my ever growing list of jobs and reviews is not the sole reason this took me so long to read. Have you ever picked up a book that cut so close to the bone you struggled to finish, while simultaneously wanted to plow on, letting it consume you? This is that book for me. No, I am not a senior citizen, nor is the author Rachel Joyce. I am not a disillusioned old guy searching for a way to make his last decade mean something. I am not his wife, the one left behind, or his son, the one who falls away despite best parenting practices. I do not have Alzheimer’s Disease, but I know far too many in my own life and greater circle of friends who have been devastated by this tragic disease. Perhaps that’s why this book weighed heavily on me.  It is simply magnificent and real. Most of all though, it is a story well told.
Harold Fry is a recently retired married man, father of one grown son. He is, by his own admission, a man who never really stood out, or up for anything. He worked; he lived. He did nothing extraordinary. At least until that last few years of life when out of the blue he received a letter from a former colleague named Queenie. She is dying and she has written him a letter telling him so. That in itself is heartbreaking. Then you add to the letter the realization that Harold wants to say a last good bye to this woman, who appears to have had some great emotional pull on Harold’s psyche. On top of this layer there comes the light bulb realization for Harold that, in his golden years,  he can sit still and wait for death to find him, or he can get up and move beating death back by the day. It is an easy choice, even if it is no simple feat for this aging unfit man to pick up and lace up and walk across country to say his last good bye.
So Harold, much to the dismay of his wife, picks up the phone and impulsively dials his friend Queenie and he tells her, leaves a message for her with hospice staff, I am walking to see her and she must not die before I get there. This might have been a story on its own if he had hopped in a car and driven to visit her and maintained a relationship of some sort in her dying days. But this is not that tale. It is the story of his walk and his inner journey. He believes he can save her. His wife, at first, thinks him insane and belittles him, before she eventually comes around. “You can’t save people from cancer Harold. Not unless you are a surgeon. And you can’t even slice bread without making a mess. This is ridiculous.”
Along the way, despite the misgivings of his wife and the idle gossip of his neighbours, Harold becomes a champion as media catch wind of his pilgrimage. He is on TV, radio and in papers. Others begin to join him, one a strange hanger on and a bit of a hippie who seeks fame and reminds Harold of his son.
There were many times this book had me holding my breath emotionally waiting for the other shoe to drop, so to speak. It seemed that Harold and Maureen were dancing around some sort of issue in their marriage – a potential affair, a looming divorce? I couldn’t quite put my finger on it and speculated throughout the first three quarters of the book. All is revealed in the denouement. Author Rachel Joyce constructs an atmosphere of reality based fiction and yet towards the end commits a small magic trick that is brilliantly revealed as long closed doors of Harold’s memory swing open. 
 I can see Harold Fry as a play or a movie adaptation. It is built to last and the characters are endearing and some are quirky as well. I can envision this book being bid on by half a dozen movie producers right now as I write this. Harold Fry is a contemporary Forest Gump for seniors and the sandwich generation. It could be a crazy hit as an independent film company flick, or a runaway blockbuster for the seniors. The simplicity of this story transcends the art form. It would be every bit as brilliant staged properly. 
The author Rachel Joyce is an actress who lives on a farm in England. Joyce is also an award-winning playwright of more than 20 original plays for BBC Radio 4. She lives on a farm in England with her husband and four children. She is working on another novel.
Harold Fry is stunning and gorgeous and you won’t regret reading it, even if it takes you forever to get through because of the emotional topic. I give this one my highest rating because it is brilliant and Rachel Joyce turns the idea of an Alzheimer’s brain over in her hands and deftly recreates Harold’s inner reality with such skill it is sheer magic. She allows each of the bit characters on Harold’s pilgrimage to seamlessly unlock a small part of Harold’s personality or memory. It is done so well you hardly notice she is doing it. Obviously Joyce is a gifted craftsperson here. There were times Joyce’s insights into Harold and the mystery of memory reminded my of Lisa Genova’s skill with neurological topics in books like Left Neglected. There were other times when I felt this might have started out to be a bit like About Schmidt. Luckily Joyce is her own writer and she told her own unique fiction story here in Harold Fry.
I finished this book at long last while reading the end in public and working out at the YMCA. I do not recommend this setting for the end of the book as I had to bite my lip not to start crying openly.  
The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry, by Rachel Joyce, Double Day, Random House Fiction, $29.95, 320 pages, also available by ebook.
This one gets $$$$$ out of $$$$$. My highest rating. A great Christmas gift for the book lover on your list.
I received a copy of this book to facilitate review. My opinion is all my own. Get it to gift someone for Christmas.

Life With Lily – Book One – Great Books For Tween Girls

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This is a guest Post by Payton Schuck

My daughter Payton,11, who loves to read plans to guest post occasionally here now.
By Payton Schuck

Life With Lily was an amazing read. It was very complex and I liked how descriptive so many passages were. My favourite character was Lily, a six-year-old Amish girl, who has two brothers Dannie and Joseph. She is a happy young girl who has a positive outlook on things. Her Mom and Dad are traditional Amish people and she is raised surrounded by animals and she loves being outside and helping her mother in the garden. Lily is in grade one and she lives in upstate New York. She finds something fun and curious about every new experience and each new day. 

When her youngest brother is born, Lily thinks he is ugly. Her cousin Hannah’s mom has a baby at the same time and Lily finds that baby adorable. She wishes her cousin’s baby brother was her baby brother at first. Lily is a good helper to her Mom and Dad and she looks after her brothers too. Lily does arithmetic and attends a very small one-room school house heated by a coal stove. (the kind my grandma always talks about). Lily faces lots of changes – from a baby brother to a new school teacher. Her brother Joseph gets into mischief. He jumps off the chicken coop, tries to fly and breaks his arm. Her brother Dannie dumps a bucket of flour on his head when his Mom is baking bread one day. Lily dreams he is a snowman after that. Her brothers are very active and always finding something to destroy. 

Lily enjoys school and church, but she has one friend Mandy who is often telling her to do things that Lily often knows with her heart she shouldn’t do, but she ends up doing them anyways. One day Mandy tells Lily and some other little girls to come and play in a secret spot. They end up playing on train tracks and a train comes whipping through. Lily almost gets run over, but her Dad swoops in fast to save her. Lily and her family have to move to Pennsylvania at the end of this first book. She is not happy about moving at first, but once she sees the area and meets a new friend while visiting, then she is convinced it won’t be so bad after all. 

Life With Lily: Book One is by Suzanne Woods Fisher and Mary Ann Kinsinger, published by Revell Books, 2012, ages 8-12, 280 pages, $12.99 $$$$$ out of $$$$$. Our highest rating. 

(A note from me: Paula Schuck – publisher of thriftymommastips.com. Life With Lily was a total delight for me. I had to wrestle this novel away from Payton at bedtime she loved it so much and found it truly compelling. She took it to school and gave mini reviews to her friends, then her friends each wanted to read it next. I loved that this book was so charming and really rekindled my daughter’s love of reading. She naturally enjoys cultural stories and this tale of a young Amish girl and her daily life was pitch perfect in every way. I have reviewed Suzanne Woods Fisher’s novels for adults and find her writing to be technically and artistically stunning. So pleased this is the first in a series for young readers.)
PS: Can’t wait for the sequel

The Three Lost Kids and the Death of The Sugar Fairy

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Do you have young readers in your house? Are they fans of the Rainbow Magic Fairy series? Then they are going to love this new book, The Three Lost Kids and The Death of The Sugar Fairy by Kimberly Kinrade. The Three Lost Kids and the Death of the Sugar Fairy is super cute and entertaining. I was amused and I fully enjoyed the youthful narrator. The quality of the writing is solid here which to be quite honest came as a surprise to me. The structure is a simple chapter book and it is easy enough to read but probably best for those six and up. There is a slight message to the story that will appease parents buying the books, but at same time should not be overly heavy-handed and offputting. This is a solid $$$$ out of $$$$$.
The setting is Halloween and the trip of sisters are ecstatic, like most kids, to dress up and Halloween is here and Lexie, Bella and Maddie couldn’t be happier. But why does everything feel so different? Fewer houses are decorated and fewer kids are out trick-or-treating. Still, that’s not going to stop the three girls from eating as much candy as they can before their parents can stop them, even if that means fighting each other for it.
When they finally discover a haunted house worthy of their favorite holiday, they forget their parents’ warnings and go in alone, only to discover that the house really is haunted, and not only that, but they’ve been transported to a whole different world!
A dying Sugar Fairy in one of the abandoned rooms send them on a quest to find her Sugar Baby and the magic Sugar Flower in order to save her and Halloween. If they fail, Halloween will be gone forever, and they’ll never return to their family.
But with Sugar Bug attacks, the Cavity Caves where they must face their deepest fears, and giant gummy bears armed with candy cane swords, the girls aren’t sure they’ll make it.
Their only chance is to work together, using each of their strengths to help each other. Can they stop fighting over candy long enough? Or will they be trapped in the dying Sugar Land forever?
BIO:
Kimberly Kinrade was born with ink in her veins and magic in her heart. She writes fantasy and paranormal stories for children, YA and adults and still believes in magic worlds. Check out her YA paranormal novels Forbidden Mind and Forbidden Fire and her illustrated children’s fantasy chapter books Lexie World, and Bella World, all on Amazon.
She lives with her three little girls who think they’re ninja princesses with super powers, her two dogs who think they’re humans and her husband, also known as the sexy Russian Prince, who is the love of her life and writing partner.
For a list of her books, check out: http://Amazon.com/author/kimberlykinrade
For a fun fan experience, join the team at I.P.I. at http://IPIAcademy.com

For kids and parents of young kids, join the Lost Kids at http://ThreeLostKids.com
BUY NOW LINK:
·         Amazon paper book
·         Amazon Kindle copy

ONLINE LINKS:
·         Website  http://KimberlyKinrade.com
·        Twitter: @KimberlyKinrade
·        IPI Twitter: @IPIAcademy
·        Facebook: /KimberlyKinrade
·        IPI Facebook: /IPIAcademy

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Tales From the Treehouse: Ambition is Not An Awful Word Review

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Ambition is Not An Awful Word, by Zack Zage, illustrated by Adam Watkins, $16.95 picture book, US., Ivy Court Press This one gets a $$$ out of $$$$$ because the rhyme is too forced for us. Loved the pictures though and the message. Disclosure: I was not paid to review this book. I received a copy to facilitate the review.

Tales From the Treehouse: The Search for Wond-La

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The Search For Wond-La is hardcover available from Simon and Schuster for $19.99, author Tony Diterlizzi. This one gets $$$$ out of $$$$$ for tweens. Now available in softcover too. This, I just discovered, is one of a trio of books set in Wond-La. I have also just learned they are searching for actors to play these characters in a movie series of the books. (I apologize thaat my phone cut off the end of the vlog.) I received a copy of this book for purposes of reviewing.

New York Times best-selling author’s latest: The Next Best Thing – review

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The Next Best Thing is a sweet summer read that doesn’t disappoint. 
The Next Best Thing is the story of a budding screenwriter, from Massachusetts, left orphaned and physically scarred, by a car accident. Ruth is a creative witty young girl forced to endure many surgeries as a result of facial burns she sustained during the accident that killed her parents. Like many children who are hospitalized throughout their formative years Ruth develops a passion for escapism. Her escape is television,  a diversion from pain. She is raised by her grandmother, a kind and caring sort who does her best to compensate and make life tolerable for her wounded charge. Together they spend hours enjoying series like The Golden Girls. Ruth’s creativity spills from her own personal tragedy and her love of television. She turns these experiences into a semi-autobiographical TV show pilot.
Some of the most compelling scenes in The Next Best Thing are those that centre on the relationship between Ruth and her grandmother. After one of the more invasive surgeries Ruth undergoes, her grandmother lays in bed next to her having decorated the tiny hospital room with a big screen television. She finds the diary of her granddaughter which states only: “I will never be beautiful.” The scene that follows is bittersweet in some ways as it is both a turning point and one of the only times the grandmother character is really shown to be vulnerable.
The Next Best Thing is the tentative name of the series Ruth has created and pitched to TV executives. It is the break they have both been working towards and yet also the start of a difficult journey of introspection and one that challenges her relationship with her grandmother. Ruth’s TV series is chosen and accepted for TV, but it’s subtly and not so subtly altered along the way causing her to question her own personal belief system and personal integrity. In the end, the series, although it brings money and fulfills Ruth’s dream, ends up being far more than bargained for.
There are many comic moments here and Weiner is nothing if not a humorous writer who knows her stuff. She has also written for TV and published multiple books. Her grandmother gets work as an extra on movie sets and she finds love as well.
It is the second novel I have read by Jennifer Weiner and while I have seen questionable reviews about this particular book, I enjoyed it thoroughly. Ruth is by far my  favorite of Weiner’s characters because of her vulnerability. I enjoyed the writing and the witty scenes of insider Hollywood. 
This is a great beach read. Take it to the cottage and enjoy. It won’t overtax you and you won’t regret the laugh out loud moments it brings.
The Next Best Thing, by Jennifer Weiner, is by Simon and Schuster Atria books, $29.99 and 385 pages
$$$$ out of $$$$$ 

Literary Love Giveaway Hop

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The Literary Love Giveaway Hop Starts Tonight and is a chance for you to win a new read for you or your family. 
I picked this one up at Blogher 12 and enjoyed it quite a bit. It’s a cute and unique series featuring the Neon Tiki Tribe, a group of heroic tiki characters that inspire and empower boys and girls to make good choices and to stand up for others. We are giving away The Neon Tiki Tribe: Bullies: Playground Push-Around. It is also featuring a unique typeface that is dyslexic friendly. (The typeface itself is extremely interesting to me as a tool that could have huge potential in many books. Several letters that typically give children difficulty when they are dyslexic are printed darker and heavier and apparently this is supposed to increase their ability to read on their own. I think that’s amazing.)
The book itself sells for $7.95 and has a lot of kids in every day situations battling back. This one had a little girl who just got glasses and is being bullied because of that. Good luck! Don’t forget to enter all the other blogs to win too. This hop is hosted by Views From the ‘Ville http://www.viewsfromtheville.com and Money Saving Mindy moneysavingmindy.com)

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