Tag Archives: So many books: So little time

>All in a day’s reading

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>Morning reading:

  • staff meeting agenda
  • email
  • planning book
  • math manual
  • electronic gradebook.

Mid-day reading:

  • attendance records
  • more emails
  • and again the math manual
  • science guide to set up lab activity correctly
  • data to follow up from staff meeting

Afternoon reading:

  • newspaper (several hours out of date, but why not? The comics are still current.)
  • professional book Strategies that Work to guide reading lesson planning
  • spice bottles to add to supper
  • another professional book: The Next Step in Guided Reading, for study group at school.

On the table by my side in the den:

  • The Crimson Rooms — just finished, soon to be a review. Look for it; this one held my attention.
  • the last two Time magazines; I get behind when I’m busy at school. Progress reports, anyone?
  • two Braille books of Amigo’s: a book on card games (he found out there are Braille poker chips available somewhere) and a volume of A Flash in the Pan, a cookbook of one-pan meals.

On my bedside table:

  • Cold Mountain — So far, fascinating. I’m taking my time.

All right, bloggy friends, what are you reading? I’m sure I missed something in my stack.

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>Get more Bang for your Buck with Suddenly Frugal, the book

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>I have a lot of respect for people who not only talk the talk, but can walk the walk. Leah Ingram is a writer who made major lifestyle changes and wrote a blog and a book about them.

Suddenly Frugal is a practical guide to cutting expenses down to little or nothing. Her family set out to save money in order to buy a nicer home. When they closed on the home and moved in, they realized their frugal ways needed to continue in order to afford the upgrade in housing. When our U.S. economy tanked, others found themselves in frantic states of “OMG, how can I stop spending money?” Leah’s blog reassured them that they could.

The book is much more than the blog. I’ve been a regular reader of the Suddenly Frugal blog for several years; her link is in my blogroll on the left sidebar. In book version, Ingram added more details for each topic, including the estimated savings. Her stories are both personal and practical, involving tips that vary from getting “ring around the collar” out of her husband’s shirts with Do It Yourself laundry soap to finding attractive landscaping plants on Freecycle.

Many of her frugal tips are eco-conscious as well. Buying CFL bulbs saves both money and energy. Backyard composting cuts down on garbage pickups, which reduces her bill for that service (If my city charged for garbage pickup, we’d be saving a bundle). Growing vegetables, buying from the Farmers’ Market, and joining a CSA organization saved money and raised the nutritional value of her family’s menus. Ingram kept her records and has the numbers to prove it.

I’d be hard pressed to choose a favorite chapter or tip because every section has valuable advice. I carefully read the piece on purchasing a vehicle because we’ll be in the market in June. I also browsed her advice on washing machines; mine is making ominous noises, and I’d like to do my research and replace it before it collapses.

And that’s what Suddenly Frugal is all about. It’s not about deprivation, but budgeting carefully and wisely. By avoiding wasteful spending, families can live comfortably and worry less, despite dire financial headlines.

I offered to read and review this book for Leah Ingram because I enjoy her blog. She sent me a copy free of charge in order to review it. You can read her blog or follow her on Twitter (leangreenmom).

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>The $64 Tomato – a good winter read

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Someone (I can’t remember who) recommended this book. I put it on my wish list at Paperbackswap.com, and when it came up, I said sure, send it my way!

This memoir chronicles William Alexander’s journey to create the perfect country kitchen garden, lessons in planting and cultivating, humor, and life lessons as well. Of course there are life lessons; what would a memoir be without them?

I can’t consider myself a genteel gardener in Alexander’s league. For one thing, my small city yard is nowhere near the size of his plot, the one he called a baseball field. Read “small city yard” any way you wish: small city or small yard, either works to describe the piece of land that holds my home, garage, and garden.

We haven’t hired people to do any of the garden work, which means my garden history pales in comparison to Alexander’s. From Lars the young guy who drives the tractor too fast to Lou the plumber/excavator that leaves his backhoe stuck in the Alexanders’ clay soil backyard all winter, the hired help provide many stories so funny they must be true.

Size and perspective make a difference, too. Weeding is a small job in my garden due to its smaller size and the application of square-foot gardening principles. Poor guy, Bill Alexander got roped into a design of rows, rows, and more rows, which meant weeding, weeding, and more weeding. He attempts to minimize the feeling of labor by calling it “cultivating.” He describes his tools with such awe that I want to buy a shuffle hoe now, not wait until spring. By spring I’ll remember that I have a fairly small vegetable plot, and I won’t spend a bundle on a limited-use tool. My regular hoe will do.

In The $64 Tomato, Bill waxes poetic in an attempt to rationalize the size and design of his beds to minimize the huge job of weeding. He doesn’t put the same poetic response toward his failure to remain organic. Good intentions were the road to chemical intervention in his garden as the pests got tougher and tougher – and bigger: Superchuck the woodchuck! My woodchuck visitor last year didn’t come back, and didn’t provide me with the same level of entertainment as Superchuck did the Alexanders, thank goodness.

I mentioned life lessons. To keep this post short and sweet, I’ll let you read the book to find them. Is it worth the marital trauma to spend nights canning peaches? Does the time and financial investment necessary for a kitchen garden truly pay back in quality? Can this family be considered (gasp) normal?

If you’re looking for a gardening book with straightforward advice, this isn’t it. If you’re looking for a good read with a fun take on the entire gardening experience, this is just right.

Disclosure: I found my copy of The $64 Tomato on Paperbackswap.com. This is not in any way a compensated post.

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>After Christmas: Read.

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>The boxes are broken down, the ribbons rolled up, and the tissues neatly folded on the shelves for reuse.
Cookies are frosted and decorated, ready for eating, and coffee brews in the pot.

What next?

Read, of course. On my list:

The $64 Tomato: How one man nearly lost his sanity, spent a fortune, and endured an existential crisis in the quest for the perfect garden (not a gift, but on my wishlist at Paperbackswap.com and arrived just in time for break)

40 Years on the Street; a history of Sesame Street. La Petite grabbed this out of the bag already; I’ll have to snatch it back to read it! We’re loving the photographs.

Food to Live By: The Earthbound farm organic cookbook. I’ve browsed it a little already; this book has more than just recipes. I’ll be making more detailed lists for the farmers’ market next summer with this book in hand.

Fix it and Forget It Big Cookbook: 1400 best slow cooker recipes!
This reinforces my desire for an additional crockpot in a smaller size. I have my regular 6 quart and the Little Dipper that came with it. Now I’m going to look for a 4 quart size for smaller quantities and different recipes. I’ll check the thrift stores first; maybe I’ll score an almost-new one like the steamer I found at Saver’s.

Suddenly Frugal by Leah Ingram. Yes, it’s by thewriter of the Suddenly Frugal blog. I’m looking forward to reading and reviewing this book. I enjoy her blog, her philosophy, and her style. This will be fun!

For more fun in the kitchen, Taste of Home’s Fast Fixes with Mixes. This cookbook features simple starters and decent meals: just the kind of thing I can use to put together a good supper every night after teaching all day!

Meanwhile, Amigo is reading The Black Stallion in braille, a cookbook for 30 minute skillet meals called A Flash in the Pan, and on CD, Uncle John’s Bathroom Reader.

This year was the season for cookbooks, definitely. Chuck received Dining on the B&O: recipes and sidelights from a bygone age. Amigo was skeptical of the concept: how good could railroad food really be? Then we reminded him that our meals on the Empire Builder were delicious and varied, and we had a great time in the dining car. Chuck is a super cook himself; he’ll have fun with the recipes and the history in this book.

On that note, I think I’ll set up the crockpot and sit down with a good book. The coffee’s on, and the cookies are good!

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>Loads of Hope in the Classroom

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“Sometimes, you can make your own luck.” Was that Cher in Moonstruck? I’m not sure. I’m more sure that luck is only a small part of our destiny; action and hope are much stronger.

Hope isn’t limited to personal disasters, family, children, or close friends. Hope is important in the job arena, too. I’m fortunate (not just lucky) to have a secure job as a public school teacher. Earning that regular paycheck, however, takes a lot out of me physically and emotionally. As budgets tighten and we do more and more with less and less, it takes a lot out of many of us teachers.

Last school year was the Year From H-E-Double Hockey Sticks. Add a class full of unmedicated ADHD that exceeded any statistical average, an overload of students with problem behaviors placed with me because they “couldn’t handle” being in the combination class next door, and then multiply by an unsupportive administration. Insert parents who accused me of picking on their children because I dared hold them to a decent standard of responsibility for homework and called copying what it was: cheating. How does a teacher come back after a year like that?

I’m too young to retire and too old to change careers in an economy like the present. Some colleagues who experienced the same troubles decided to leave for other school buildings, other grade levels, other departments. I opted to stay in my school instead and look for long term options.

Training: I attended a behavior modification training just before school started. The training had some good information, but there was more value in being seen than in the actual presentation.
Education: Recognizing the prevalence of ADHD and the potential for parental denial, I took a class in teaching students with ADHD. Not only did I gain knowledge, I now have that specific topic on my official transcript.
Motivation: I applied to retake an excellent course I’d taken eleven years previously, a course I found highly valuable for methodology, with the goal of reinforcing what I’m doing well and increasing my motivation.
Combining all of the above also earned enough credits and clock hours to renew my teaching license when it comes due, and submitting the transcript lets me slide one lane upwards on the pay scale. It’s not much money, but it feels good seeing a small financial reward for my efforts.

Goals and action: if luck played a part, it was a small supporting role. Setting goals, looking forward, and putting time and energy into positive change: that’s what changed my outlook and brought me back into once again enjoying teaching, doing right by the kids in my class.

That’s what brings me hope: hope that these children will learn, grow, and feel hope of their own, and some day make a difference in the world in their own way.

Loads of Hope for the Holidays
Please join Blog Nosh Magazine as bloggers share stories of hope this holiday season in support of the Tide Loads of Hope program, a mobile laundromat offering laundry services to families affected by disasters.

Follow along with the live event in New Orleans, Sunday and Monday, December 13 and 14, as bloggers and others tweet stories of resilience from laundry recipients and volunteers on the ground. Follow along on twitter via #loadsofhope and be sure to follow @TideLoadsofHope.
Learn more about how you can extend hope to families affected by disasters by visiting http://www.tide.com/.
Blog carnival hosted by Blog Nosh Magazine, sponsored by Tide Loads of Hope.

Hope is not limited to the holidays. What fills you with loads of hope?

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>Good fiction featuring characters with autism

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>Parents and teachers of children with autism, friends of people with Asperger’s, people who know the ropes and recognize the characteristics will appreciate these books. Some intentionally include characters with autism as major or important supporting characters. Others feature characters that fit so precisely on the spectrum I have to say it.

The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time
Imagine a novel with chapters numbered in prime numbers. That’s just one unique twist in British author Mark Haddon’s Curious Incidentof the Dog in the Night-time.

The Truth Out There
I read this book aloud to my sixth grade class a few years ago. The computer game element, the potential for alien sightings, skateboarding and other age-appropriate elements all make this mystery a page-turner. Asperger’s Syndrome is an important piece of the puzzle.


Al Capone Does my Shirts
This Newbery honor book reveals the impact of autism on the entire family and the challenge in seeking appropriate educational placements and services. The historical element of the story lends an interesting perspective because autism wasn’t a known diagnosis at the time. The parents just know their daughter needs help; a lot of specialized help.


Rules is another Newbery honor book that depicts the impact of autism on a family. By noted author Cynthia Lord, Rules is written in first person from the perspective of the disabled child’s older sister. An interesting character in this story is another disabled young person, and the plot twists tightly as he find his place socially with the neurotypical and non-disabled students.

The Art of Keeping Cool
Set on the east coast of the U.S. during WWII, The Art of Keeping Cool involves two high school boys, an authoritarian grandfather, and a German refugee artist. The main character’s cousin Elliot shows so many autistic-like traits that I’m certain a real-life Elliot would be on the spectrum. An “aha” moment for Elliot is the day he realizes his actions have an effect on others. Until then, he thinks only of his own small circle, his own perspective on life.


Silent to the Bone
Elaine “E. L.” Konigsburg wrote a thriller in this one. Older brother Branwell loses the power of speech when his baby sister is seriously injured and blame falls on him. This isn’t the part that suggestions autism, however. Branwell’s character traits before the tragedy and his inability to cope suggest Asperger’s. It takes a close friend to see through the silence and find a way for Branwell to communicate and help himself.

The Silent Boy by Lois Lowry features a non-verbal boy as the title character. An asylum for the insane looms in the background as a young girl learns to accept and reach out to the boy in the field, the one who despite his disability loves animals and takes care of babies of all breeds – or tries.

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>Back to school and Pondering Potter

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Harry had never even imagined such a strange and splendid place.

What makes a book or series worth re-reading? A good story, believable and likable characters, a unique world so strange and splendid it can’t be imagined – unless described by a brilliant storyteller. Harry Potter is one such series.

Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone has a special magic. The shortest of the seven, it introduces Harry and his readers to a whole new world: a world of magic. Witches, wizards, a sport played on flying broomsticks, owl post, powerful potions, and more incredible yet believable things exist in this parallel world. In The Sorcerer’s Stone, Harry first learns of his family and his wizard identity.

Readers can share his awe as he learns that his new school has its own train that leaves from platform Nine and Three Quarters at Kings Cross Station. Somewhere between platforms nine and ten, he encounters the Weasley family, asks them for help finding the train, befriends Ron, and the rest, as they say, is history. Mythology? Legend? Wizardry? Ghostology?

I enjoy rereading The Sorcerer’s Stone because of JK Rowling’s genius. The settings are magically unique, but she describes them in a matter of fact tone so that we readers know this is only the beginning of the mysteries to come. When she describes the staircases at Hogwarts’ School for Witchcraft and Wizardry, all 142 of them: “…wide, sweeping ones; narrow, rickety ones; some that led somewhere different on a Friday…” it’s simply in a paragraph about Harry attempting to learn his way to his classes.

And the classes! No Intro to British Lit here. Harry takes History of Magic (taught by a ghost), Herbology, Charms, Transfiguration, Potions, and the cursed (literally, but we don’t know that until a later book) Defense Against the Dark Arts.

The “strange and splendid place” in the first line is the Great Hall as Harry sees it on his arrival at Hogwarts. In his limited upbringing by his neglectful Muggle (non-magical) relatives, he had never even dared imagine a world so wonderful.

Thankfully for all readers, JK Rowling did imagine such a strange and splendid place – a world nearby, yet far different from our everyday Muggle existance. Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone stands on its own as a wonderful story and sets up the reading world for an adventure that begins – and ends, several books later – on Platform Nine and Three Quarters at Kings Cross Station.

My students won’t have wands, owls, or school robes. They’ll write their assignments with pen on paper or type them on computers, not ink and quill on parchment. One of my challenges, though, is to create a safe place for them to experiment, read, and write. Maybe one of them will create a strange and splendid story for another generation – some magical day in the future.

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>Applying the lessons of Animal, Vegetable, Miracle

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>I read Barbara Kingsolver’s Animal, Vegetable, Miracle recently. It is an amazing book, fitting my sensibilities and interests well. Kingsolver and her family dedicated a full year to feeding their family on local foods. The backstories describing her reasoning and the supplemental stories describing her disasters and successes make this a great story. Animal, Vegetable, Miracle is an easy and fascinating read.

Implementing her advice is more challenging. Kingsolver addresses this, facing the fact that not everyone has a large garden space like hers or the opportunity to raise chickens, turkeys, or other meat animals. She spends a significant amount of space on suggestions for folks like me, people who would like to move toward a more locavore philosophy but face stumbling blocks on the way.

My garden is coming into its season now. I’ve been gathering spinach and lettuce already, and I found the first handful of beans when we came home from vacation. Pea pods look good, too. This is the first year I’ve successfully grown peas, so I’ll have to look them over carefully to make sure I only pick those that are truly ripe! There are at least three zucchini appearing from the blossoms, and I see flowers on the tomato plants at last.

Here in the Northern zones, we don’t get as much food for as long as Kingsolver does on her small Virginia farm. I can use what I have, though, and pick up more local goodies at the farmers’ market every Saturday until October. For now, at least, I’ll put delicious and local foods on the table. Next year’s goal: learn to can. Maybe. We’ll see.

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>Sullivan’s Island: what a difference!

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>When I knew I would be reading Return to Sullivan’s Island, I put in a request on paperbackswap for Sullivan’s Island, the first book in the series and Dorthea Benton Franks’ inaugural novel. I didn’t enjoy Return. With a little trepidation and more than a little curiousity, I picked up the other.

Sullivan’s Island is much, much better than its sequel.

As the title suggests, the setting is in itself a major character. The heat, the salty air, the tides, the beach — all are integral to the plot. Through the eyes of Susan, the second daughter in a large Catholic family, a rather sheltered group of siblings comes to grips with complex relationships between their kin and their neighbors. Their housekeeper is as much family as the uncle and aunt, in fact is more beloved by the children. Susan comes to grips with her conflicted past and calls on her strengths to face a murky and challenging future, one that presents surprises at every page turn.

By moving the timeline from 1999 to 1963 and back again, the author lets Susan’s story unfold with details not always possible in a pure chronological piece. These time switches are clean and clear. Each chapter is labeled, Susan’s thoughts in the present day lead logically to her memories and vice versa, and the first person perspective fills in her past to set up her reasoning in her present.

I can’t apologize for my negative review of Return to Sullivan’s Island. The book was awful. But Sullivan’s Island feels as though it were written by an entirely different author. What happened? I don’t really want an answer. I do want to recommend Sullivan’s Island as a great beach read, a story that will transport its readers from wherever they are to the hot and steamy islands of South Carolina.

No paperbacks were harmed in the making of this review. In fact, I didn’t get a complimentary copy, either. Go ahead: find it in a bookstore or on Paperbackswap. Just don’t bother with the sequel.

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>Return to Sullivan’s Island

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>Dorothea Benton Frank’s Return to Sullivan’s Island is a sequel that features a new generation of islanders coming of age in and around the old beachfront homestead.

Dorothea (Dot) Frank is an experienced and talented author, but this is not her best work.

Dialogue is awkward, to say the least. How about this statement? “Yeah, I know, anyway, at the end of the day, there’s nothing more important in the whole world than your family.” I visualized the scene in sepia tones with our main character wearing bright shiny ruby slippers. Maybe if she clicked her heels together three times, the manuscript would go back to the editor for one more revision. It certainly needed it.

I’d like to give Dorothea Benton Frank the benefit of the doubt. Maybe she was rushed to a deadline or pressured to create a sequel she didn’t like. Plot potential, some interesting characters, and a truly lovely setting could be the basis for a wonderful story. Return to Sullivan’s Island is a disappointment. Luckily, the original Sullivan’s Island is much better. I recommend reading Sullivan’s Island instead. Come back again; I’ll have a review up for that book soon.

I received a copy of Return to Sullivan’s Island from Mothertalk in order to read it and complete this review.

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