I got tagged!

Dear Marcia over at Tea Time For Marce tagged me with this meme and it looks like fun! Thanks Marcia!

4 Things in my Handbag

Burts Bees chapstick (I live in Minnesota, the temps are crazy and my lips suffer)

My blackberry

My current read always

Usually a diaper or a kid snack ( I forget to de-baby my bag sometimes)

4 Things in/on my Desk

My latte

A jade plant

My stack of books to review and my review calendar

Bubbles (yes, bubbles. they are oh so much fun!)

4 Favourite Things in my Bedroom

PIctures of my Grandma

My favorite pillow that I call Schmooshy

My slippers

My laundry basket that always seems to be full

4 Things I Always wanted to Do (but haven't yet)

Go on a baseball stadium tour around the US!

Travel! to London, Italy and Ireland

Shave my head (then I would be red headed bald child)

Live by the ocean

4 Things I Enjoy very Much at the Moment

Reading

Working at the Library

Storytime with my son

A Quiet moment

4 Songs I Can't Get Out of My Head

Mickey Mouse Clubhouse them song (grrrrrr)

Bob the Builder theme song (double grrr)

Taylor Swift "Fifteen" (And when your fifteen, somebody tells you they love you, your gonna believe them....la la)

Pink "So What"

4 Things you Don't Know About Me

I get wicked gas

I LOVE the theater ( I have to restore some dignity here)

I didn't learn to ride a bike until I was 9

I was in labor for 31 hours and I feel awesomely proud

I would love to tag

Stacy from A Novel Source

GMR from Insatiable Readers

Readerbuzz

and

Teresa from Teresa's Reading Corner

I haven't done a meme in a long time! This one was simple and fun!

Happy Reading and as always, thanks for stopping by!

red headed book child

Review #86: The Paranoid Parents Guide by Christie Barnes

TLC BOOK TOURS

Title: The Paranoid Parents Guide:Worry Less, Parent Better, and Raise a Resilient Child

Author: Christie Barnes

Publisher: Health Communications, Inc.

ISBN: 978-0-7573-1505-3

Price/Pages: $14.95/250

My Review:

It's no surprise to anyone in my life that I would read this book. Reviewing it however was tough. I saw a lot of myself in many of the pages. I am indeed a Paranoid Parent! For some of my old followers, you may remember the accident my son had last fall. For my new followers, well, let's just say that moment changed how I parent.

I NOW worry about everything!

This book is very straight forward and to the point, full of facts, surveys and real life stories. This, as a parent, I can appreciate.

It lists the most common fears that parents have and then outlines them nice and neat by age; from Infants to College.

I have quite a few post it notes on the toddler section myself. Did you know that shopping carts are dangerous? Yes, they are. They are the leading cause of brain trauma. Holy crap!

Helpful to know. Yes. Terrifying? Yes!

One of my favorite chapters is Chapter 4; Myths expose: Parents' top Worries Versus Children's Real Dangers. This is where her research kicks in and out get some straight forward facts.

She breaks down the reality of some of the harmful things that could happen, like drugs, kidnapping and abuse.

This book is not something you sit down and read cover to cover. You read it bits at a time. It takes some processing. Did I feel immediately better after reading it? No. Did I feel more paranoid? No, not really. I felt more aware and informed. That, in any respect, is helpful in my eyes. In some areas I feel I know a bit more than I wanted but knowledge is power, I think.

Rating: 5 stars/ 6 stars

I rate this one high. As a parent of a toddler, I appreciate the straight forward, tell it like it is style. I was not shocked or put off by the title. I proudly read it in public! I am Paranoid Parent and know it! I even talked about this book in the Parenting class today. As the subtitle states, I want to raise a resilient child and I do honestly want to worry less. I think this book was a good choice for me to read and review. I recommend it to every parent out there,

especially with little ones.

Author Website and Blog:

http://www.paranoidparentsguide.com

Thank you to TLC Book Tours for asking me to participate in this tour. Please stop by the following blogs to read more about this title.

Wednesday, September 8th: Overstuffed

Thursday, September 9th: The Prissy Mommy Chronicles

Monday, September 13th: Juggling Life

Wednesday, September 15th: Suzie QTPie’s Scraps of Life

Thursday, September 17th: JDaniel4′s Mom

Monday, September 20th: From Marriage to Motherhood

Wednesday, September 22nd: Book Dads

Monday, September 27th: Red Headed Book Child

Wednesday, September 29th: Baby Dickey

Monday, October 4th: Eternal Lizdom

Happy Reading and as always, thanks for stopping by!

red headed book child

Nerding out to Nancy Pearl

This morning as the wind was whipping outside and the rain was coming down, I listened to Nancy Pearl on Midmorning on NPR. If you have not heard of her, please check her out. She is the author (and librarian) of the Book Lust books. Total, complete nerd, book loving fun.

Below is her bio from the NPR website and above is her new book. 

Check her out at her website.

Nancy Pearl

Nancy Pearl

Commentator, Morning Edition

Marco Prozzo

Nancy Pearl

text size A A A

Nancy Pearl is a regular commentator about books on NPR's Morning Edition and NPR affiliate stations KUOW in Seattle and KWGS in Tulsa.

The New York Times calls her “the talk of librarian circles.” Readers can’t get enough of her recommendations while bookstores and libraries offer standing room only whenever she visits. Since the release of the best-selling Book Lust in 2003 and the Librarian Action Figure modeled in her likeness, Nancy Pearl has become a rock star among readers and the tastemaker people turn to when deciding what to read next.

Having worked as a librarian and bookseller in Detroit, Tulsa, and Seattle, Pearl's knowledge of and love for books is unmatched. In 1998, she developed the program "If All of Seattle Read the Same Book," which spread across the country. The former Executive Director of the Washington Center for the Book, Pearl celebrates the written word by speaking at bookstores and libraries across the country and on her monthly television program Book Lust with Nancy Pearl on the Seattle Channel.

In 2004, Pearl became the 50th winner of the Women’s National Book Association Award for her extraordinary contribution to the world of books. In the moments when Pearl finds herself without a book, she is an avid bicyclist and happy grandmother of two. She lives in Seattle with her husband Joe.

Happy Reading and as always thanks for stopping by!

red headed book child

Review #85: The Recipe Club by Andrea Israel and Nancy Garfinkel

Title: The Recipe Club

Authors: Andrea Israel and Nancy Garfinkel

Publisher: Harper Perennial

Genre: Fiction

Price/Pages: $15.99/352

Paperback due out in stores today!

Book Description:

Lilly and Val are lifelong friends, united as much by their differences as by their similarities. Lilly, dramatic and confident, lives in the shadow of her beautiful, wayward mother and craves the attention of her distant, disapproving father. Val, shy and idealistic—and surprisingly ambitious—struggles with her desire to break free from her demanding housebound mother and a father whose dreams never seem to come true.

In childhood, “LillyPad” and “Valpal” vow to form an exclusive two-person club. Throughout the decades they write intimate letters in which they share hopes, fears, deepest secrets—and recipes, from Lilly’s “Lovelorn Lasagna” to Valerie’s “Forgiveness Tapenade.” Readers can cook along as the girls travel through time, facing the challenges of independence; the joys and heartbreaks of first love; and the emotional complexities of family relationships, identity, mortality, and goals deferred.

But no matter what different paths they take or what misunderstandings threaten to break them apart, Lilly and Val always find their way back together through their Recipe Club . . . until the fateful day when an act of kindness becomes an unforgivable betrayal.

Now, decades later, while trying to recapture the trust they’ve lost, Lilly and Val reunite once more—only to uncover a shocking secret. Will it destroy their friendship, or bring them ever closer?

My Review:

The Recipe Club was a unique novel because it was told in letters. The letters between Lilly and Val start when they are very young and go into early adulthood. They range from simple and sweet to angry and emotional, always including a recipe in the end. Recipes with clever titles like "Lovelorn Lasagna" (perfect to soothe a broken heart) or "Worry Free Waffles". 

Towards the end of the book, the novel changes shape and the letters stop. It reads like a normal novel at that point. 

The hardcover edition is beautifully bound with great illustrations and pictures of the recipes. It takes on the feel of a scrapbook between these two women. 

Val and Lilly are two very different people. Both raised in somewhat dysfunctional families, Lily is dramatic and beautiful and lives to perform, like her mother. Val, more shy yet ambitious struggles to break our of her shell. 

Both personalities are very strong  in these letters. 

It takes some getting used to reading a novel of only letters, especially when it's fiction  and the end was a bit jarring when it stopped.  I find that just reading letters seems a bit forced and too dramatic. The letters need to tell the story and sometimes they seem to tell too much, making them seem unrealistic. I used to be quite a letter writer in my youth and had several pen pal relationships. I love the idea of expressing yourself in this form and having relations that just exist through letters. This is why I thought this book would appeal to me.

Rating: 3 stars/ 6 stars

Overall, it was a quick, relatively enjoyable read. I  think it will find an audience of foodies and women's fiction fans.  I enjoyed the recipes a lot and will definitely try some. My only real gripe was that the novel being just letters. I think I would have felt more invested with the characters and their story if it was written like a novel with a few letters included. 

The letters seemed a bit forced and dramatic and I didn't get a good sense of the women as a whole. You really seem to experience only what happens to them, which seems to mostly the bad.

Author's Website:

The Recipe Club

Happy Reading and as always , thanks for stopping by!

red headed book child

I've been lost...

I am so very sorry I have been away for a few days. 

Okay, really it has been a week but I have been lost...in Kate Morton's Distant Hours.

 It rarely takes me this long to get through a book but, with a very busy few weeks coupled with a 700 page book, it took me some time. 

But, honestly, I also savored it. I didn't want it to end. 

I re-read passages. I put post it notes on my favorite parts. I sighed a lot. 

It is coffee stained and beaten up because I took it with me everywhere. 

Sigh.

But now it's over.

And now I have to put into words exactly how I felt about it.

Oh boy.

This is going to be tough.

I simply loved it.

love, love, loved it.

I hope I can do it justice.

More to come.

Happy Reading and as always, thanks for stopping by!

red headed book child

The Master Butchers Singing Club World Stage Premiere

Though I have never read Louise Erdrich, she has been on my TBR list for some time now. 

She is local to the Twin Cities area and owns an independent bookstore here as well.

I have seen her at an event through the Friends of the Library with her two sisters, 

also writers and poets. 

This novel came out several years ago and has now been adapted to the stage. 

It is making it's premiere at the Guthrie Theater here in Minneapolis this month 

and I am going!

I am going with my step-mother-in-law tomorrow night.

She is a huge fan of her novels and was kind enough to offer me her extra ticket!

Has anyone read Louise Erdrich?

Happy Reading and as always, thanks for stopping by!

red headed book child

WINNER of In the Belly of Jonah!

Congratulations! 

Marie from The Boston Bibliophile is the winner of In the Belly of Jonah by 

Sandra Brannan!

Thank you all for entering and reading all of my posts about this fabulous author and book.

If you wish to buy a copy, please check out her website.

Sandra Brannan

Happy reading and as always, thanks for stopping by!

red headed book child