Listen Along Storybook 8 Book Set Giveaway

Sterling Books has some of the cutest children’s books.   My six year old and I have enjoyed reading several of them in the past.   I was excited to learn about their new program to encourage parents and children to read.   They took several of their popular books, including Cesar Takes a Break and Cowboy Camp and made a website of free audiobooks to enhance the reading of these books.

Currently the website has eight audiobooks available.   You can listen or download them for free.   We received Cesar to try out and Nolan (who is six) has read and listened half a dozen times already.   The voices on the audio are adorable and kept his interest the whole time and Cesar is a long book.   At first I was surprised the audio didn’t have beeps to show children when to turn the pages, but Nolan figured it out just fine.   For younger children, a parent would need to help out. It is still important, in my opinion, for parents to read to their children every day, but audiobooks are a fun addition to reading.

 

You can purchase Sterling books on their website or on Amazon. The website for the audiobooks is http://www.listenalongstorybook.com  Here is a link to a video about how the audio books are made.

STERLING BOOKS has generously offered to send THREE of you copies of ALL EIGHT BOOKS in the LISTEN ALONG STORYBOOK PROGRAM! AWESOME!

TO ENTER:  VISIT THEIR WEBSITE AND COMMENT HERE WHICH OTHER CHILDREN’S BOOK YOU WOULD LIKE TO SEE ADDED TO THE AUDIOBOOK WEBSITE.

THIS CONTEST WILL END MARCH 21st. I WILL E-MAIL THE WINNER WHO WILL HAVE 48 HOURS TO RESPOND. RANDOM.ORG PICKS THE WINNER. GOOD LUCK AND THANKS SO MUCH FOR VISITING!

The product(s) featured in this review were provided free of cost to me by the manufacturer /PR agency. Opinions expressed are my own

Win a Kindle

I would love  to find one of these under the Christmas tree this year.   I just entered a contest to win a free Kindle from Noobie (worth $259!) and I wanted you to have a chance to win one too!

All you need to do to enter is to click the link below or copy and paste it into your favorite Internet browser:

http://www.noobie.com/kindle-giveaway?ref=39796817

Meadowbook Press Board Books Review

Board Books are society’s response to the natural tendancy of toddlers and young children to eat, throw, cut, bend, and otherwise destroy books.  These sturdy books (eg. “Board Books”) are the best way to read to your little ones and introduce them to the fun of reading.  Meadowbook Press is a leading provider of classic stories in Board Books and in collaboration with Baby Genius, they have made some good ones!

I received four great books for review and am excited to share them with my little one.  The books I received include:

• The Wheels on the Bus – Sing ‘N Move Book
• 5 Little Monkeys Jumpin’ on the Bed – Sing ‘N Count Book
  
• Old MacDonald Had a Farm – Sing ‘N Learn Book
• 1 Little, 2 Little, 3 Little Elephants – Sing ‘N Count Book

I really belive books like these not only help benefit your kids with reading, but they also teach other great pre-academic skills.  I know my 5 year old learned a lot about numbers and sequencing because of his love for the 5 Little Monkeys song, and other similar ones.  These nursery rhymes help instill a sense of numbers, letters, and basic educational concepts that correlate well with early education.

The books are great, the stories are simple, but fun and educational.  These are books that you can let your young one handle and interact with.  They also make for great bedtime story adventures!

Back to School with LeapFrog products review

As your kids get back in to school mode, you might find that those make the early transition into school need a little extra help from an entertaining and educational source. Leading educational product provider LeapFrog has some great Back to School LeapFrog product that you can use for your preschoolers, kindergartners, or early grade school children.

My son loves the LeapFrog “Let’s Go to School” DVD that helps with late preschool skills including phonics, counting and animals. Teaching kids 4-7 to read is a primary concern for parents. Average kids learn to read at varying rates, usually from ages 4-7. My son has a great memory and learns lots of words through memorization. His ability to sound out unfamiliar words has grown immensely with the added help of the DVD.

We have thoroughly enjoyed and appreciated our LeapFrog Tag Reader for the last year and were excited for a chance to review some new Back to School “Learn to Read” books. Designed for kids 4-8, the Long Vowel sound and Short Vowel Sound books help your kids learn the difference between varying sounds with the letters a,e,i,o, and u. This adds to the phonics DVD in that kids can understand that the vowels have different sounds.

I wanted to share these new LeapFrog products with you because, we are huge fans of the LeapFrog company and products. My son loves to learn and products like the LeapFrog DVD and Tag Reader and books are fun to use and help support learning at school and home.

Oprah’s Free Books Giveaway

Starting today, August 3rd, Oprah.com members can download the book Let The Great World Spin by Colum McCann. How cool!

The book is one of Oprah Magazine’s 25 Books Of Summer and has gotten stellar reviews. Hurry, though, the download is only available for 48 hours and ends on Wednesday, August 5 at 10:59pm EST. Also you might want to sign up for her newsletter because she will supposedly continue offering free book downloads.  Here is the link.

Making Life Better Family Fun Book

With summer comes new routines and exciting activities, as our kids head to camp, play and splash at pool parties, stay up later, and spend long, sunny days outside. Of course, not everything changes during the summer, especially a Mom’s routine. We still get up early, do laundry, pack lunches, and get dinner on the table, no matter the season or day of the week.

To bring some variety to meal-planning this summer, Unilever teamed up with the author of the “Kitchen Coach” cookbook series, Jennifer Bushman, to create the ultimate Family Fun Book, filled with delicious recipes and affordable meal ideas perfect for the whole family to enjoy – together.  The Family Fun Book can be downloaded for free at www.makinglifebetter.com.

Bushman recommends making meal time “family time” by bringing the kids into the kitchen to help prepare the meal.  By keeping a well-stocked refrigerator, freezer, and pantry with versatile and easy-to-prepare ingredients, it’s simple to get the whole family involved in the cooking process.  In addition to kid-friendly recipes, Bushman suggests, add in a little fun with creative themes and recipes like these:

• Have an at-home dinner picnic. Spread a blanket out in the living room and prepare simple sandwiches or wraps, like a delicious Chicken & Basil Sandwich. Opt for Hellmann’s Light Mayonnaise, which has the great taste but half the calories and fat of Hellmann’s. Get the kids involved by letting them pick the sandwich fixins and spread the mayo!

• Save on cooking and clean-up time by choosing easy, delicious, one-pot dips and recipes. Use sweet potatoes or yams to prepare Spicy Oven Fries and pair with your favorite dipping sauce. To sneak in some nutrition and receive 20 percent of your daily value of Vitamin D, top with melted Shedd’s Spread Country Crock Calcium Plus Vitamin D. With just three steps, this recipe is perfect for setting loose your child’s inner chef.

• To make nights in even more enjoyable, pair meals with fun at-home entertainment. Spend less time in the kitchen by using Knorr Rice Sides to make an easy one-dish meal like Grilled Chicken & Veggies Over Rice, then create a show by letting your kids sing their favorite songs in your very own “kitchen cabaret.”

• Host a camping-inspired sleepover for the kids and create a kitchen retreat with campfire meals. Use whole grain tortillas as a healthy and easy dipper for your favorite one-pot recipes like Super Easy Slow-Cooked Chili with Ragu Pasta Sauce, which packs a full serving of vegetables in every half-cup of sauce. Not to mention that a slow cooked meal leaves more time for “camping” activities!

• Use versatile ingredients from your well-stocked pantry. Wish-Bone Dressings can do double-duty as delicious salad dressings and simple, great tasting marinades for chicken, pork, beef and fish. Pair with soy sauce for a delicious Asian Grilled Steak. You may want to keep your children away from the grill, but they can help by preparing the steak ahead of time.

• Summer and iced tea go hand-in-hand to stay hydrated. Did you know those tea bags can also spice up your cooking?  Use Lipton Teabags to create Tasty Tea Baked Apples – a delicious desert with an extra helping of antioxidants for just $1 per serving.

I wrote this review while participating in a blog campaign by Mom Central on behalf of Unilever/Making Life Better. Mom Central sent me a gift card and a copy of the Family Fun Book to thank me for taking the time to participate.

New Moon Comic Con Clips (Video)

New Moon scenes were unveiled yesterday at Comic Con and the movie looks impressive!   The clips seems to suggest that it is not diverting from the novel written by Stephanie Meyer.  Check out the clips below.  Beware of lots of screaming.  What do you think?

Clip 1
Jacob Black (Taylor Lautner) and Bella Swan (Kristen Stewart) are bent over an antique light blue motorcycle. Jacob wears jeans, a brown t-shirt, and his hair is long. As Bella sits on the motorcycle, Jacob guides her hands (touching!) over the handles. “Brake. Clutch. Gas,” he reminds her. Bella revs the engine. “Slowly release the clutch,” says Jacob.

Suddenly, Bella sees the translucent apparition of Edward, a concerned look on his face, standing in front of her. We can see him, but also see through him. Bella takes off on the bike.

As she zooms down the road, Bella gains speed. She zooms by another apparition of Edward, standing in her path. She speeds by another. Losing focus, Bella swerves and falls from the bike, hitting her head on a rock.

Jacob speeds over to Bella on his own bike, coming to a stop with a flourish. He hops off the bike and rushes to Bella’s side. She is bewildered, and blood gushes from a gash on her forehead.

“Are you trying to get yourself killed?” Jacob asks. Bella apologizes for the blood, but it doesn’t bother Jacob.

He takes a step back, the camera following his every move. Jacob strips off his shirt, revealing a six-pack, and bends down to dab Bella’s wound with it. Their faces come very close.

“You’re so beautiful,” she tells him. Emotion flashes across his face.

END SCENE. TWILIGHTERS SCREAM.

---

Unveiled at the close of the panel, Chris Weitz introduced the pivotal Volterra scene:

Clip 2
Alice and Bella are winding through the streets of Volterra, slowed by massive crowds of townspeople in red robes, celebrating the festival. Bella jumps out of the car.

“You’re the only one he can’t see. He’ll be under the clock tower. Go!” says Alice.

Bella races through the crowded city. We see her at times in slow motion.

She fights her way through the crowd, stopping at the fountain in the middle of the square. In slow motion, she looks up to see Edward, slowly unbuttoning his shirt just moments away from revealing himself in the sunlight. He opens his shirt to expose his pale chest. (And his abs. Very nice abs.)

Bella screams out to Edward. “Stop! Stop! No Edward, don’t!”

He takes a step forward.

END SCENE. CROWD GOES WILD.

Into the Beautiful North Book Review

  

BOOK REVIEW

Into The Beautiful North is initially set in the village of Tres Camarones in Mexico. Nayeli, who works at The Fallen Hand Taco Shop & Internet Cafe, dreams of travelling to the United States and riding in an elevator like one of those she’s seen in the movies. No major highway runs through Tres Camarones, there is no local police station, no radio or television station, no harbor, no supermarket, and even the high school is in another city — according to the official highway guide, her village doesn’t even exist! Along with the owner of the cafe, Tacho, Nayeli yearns for London, Madrid, Paris and especially New York. Often at night she dreams that she lives:

“in a big white house, surrounded by trees and fountains. There was snow on the distant mountain range. Her horses were white, and the swans in her lake floated serenely as the maids served her. She had English muffins with strawberry jam on a silver tray. She spoke perfect English. She wore a long gown and ate ice cream when she was done with the muffins. Her husband, Johnny Depp, had gold teeth, black eyeliner, and waist-length hair. “Tomorrow,” he said with a metallic grin, “we will go to Kankekee.”

There were, however, advantages to living in Tres Camarones, like crabbing:

“Crabbing was like going to heaven. A whole day immersed in the clean lagoon, with barrels of ice full of soda and beer, the thatched-roofed huts in the sand swinging with hammocks, the big pots boiling crabs to be eaten on stiff fried tortillas. There was nothing better than crabbing.”

Nayeli sees that in the crab basket “the armored creatures wrestled one another, and when one seemed about to climb out of the basket and make its escape, the others could grab it and haul it back down into the endless battle,” and Nayeli felt that was exactly what was happening to her and her friends, staying in Mexico, especially in Tres Camarones where most of the the men had left the village and there were no women who were pregnant. But when Mexican bandits and drug lords start to infiltrate the village and take away people’s homes, Nayeli and her friends decide to go to America and bring back men to protect their village as soldiers. They feel like they’re on a mission from God, just like Los Hermanos Blues, The Blues Brothers (since at least at their cinema, run by just one man, they saw many movies), and they would take a side-trip to Kankekee to find Nayeli’s father, who had left suddenly and inexplicably many years ago.

So Tacho, Nayeli, and Nayeli’s two girlfriends, Yolo and Vampi (the latter so-called because she dressed in Goth clothing) set out on a bus to America. The poverty and difficulty they see along the way makes their tiny village look like Eden! They get caught at the border as illegals (where Tacho is also mistaken as a terrorist from the Middle East) and are constantly eluding robbers and con-men. But they do finally cross the border in an unusual manner and end up in San Diego, wher they can begin their mission in America (Los Yunaites).

Read about the adventures of Nayeli and her friends in Into The Beautiful North as Nayeli and Tacho see snow for the first time and in America they see “Ravens, hawks, eagles. Deer beside the road. Evergreens look over the cottonwoods and alleys and ranges of mountains with vivid snowscaps on their points marching to infinity.  The sky was fractured in great blocks of cloud – chunks of white, blue, orange, violet.  Nayeli gasped.  She began to cry upon sight of it.”  But what happens in America is entirely different than they expect!  This book is exceedingly colorfully written with life constantly pushing its way out of the surrounding chaos and decay, like a green sprout rising up out of a crack in the sidewalk or roses in the desert.  A very unique book! 

  

REVIEWED BY:

Christina Zawadiwsky is Ukrainian-American, born in New York City, has a degree in Fine Arts, and is a poet, artist, journalist and TV producer. She has received a National Endowment for the Arts Award, two Wisconsin Arts Boards Awards, a Co-Ordinating Council of Literary Magazines Writer’s Award, and an Art Futures Award, among other honors. She was the originator and producer of “Where The Waters Meet”, a local TV series created to facilitate the voices of artists of all genres in the media, for which she won two national and twenty local awards, including a Commitment to Community Television Award. She is also a contributing editor to the annual Pushcart Prize Anthology, the recipient of an Outstanding Achievement Award from the Wisconsin Library Association, and has published four books of poetry.

 

Twilight Graphic Novel Coming

For those of you who can’t get enough Edward and Bella, EW announced  on their website that Yen Press will be publishing Twilight in graphic-novel form, publication date still to be determined. Though Korean artist Young Kim is creating the art, Stephenie Meyer herself will be reviewing every panel.

The manga-style adaptation of Meyer’s books sounds, from the story’s description, as if it will be a straight words-to-comics of existing stories, but there is no word yet on how many books are currently planned. At least for now, though, everyone asking has their answer.

Nevertheless, this announcement will likely be a hot topic when “Twilight” fans descend on Hall H next Thursday for the “Twilight: New Moon” panel at San Diego Comic-Con. Since that room is going to be packed with a hybrid crowd of “Twilight” and comics fans, you can bet these new books will be on a lot of minds.

What do you think of the artist rendering above?  Overload or will you buy it?

The Way Home by George Pelecanos Book Review

The Way Home by George Pelecanos

Thomas Flynn has a carpeting service, a loving wife and a young, healthy son.  His life seems monetarily and emotionally fulfilled until his son Chris strays into the world of drugs, making him erratic, rebellious and unambitious.  Since Thomas himself experimented with drugs when he was younger, he assumes that his son will travel down the same path of fleeting interest.

Not only does Thomas’s son’s life differ radically from his own, but at a crucial point Chris decides that he doesn’t have to do whatever anyone (including his mother and father) tell him to do.  On the heels of this discovery comes a minor car accident that turns into a tragedy which results in Chris’s incarceration.

George Pelecano’s The Way Home (published by the Hachette Book Group on May 12th) is startlingly in-depth in regards to detail, down to the eclectic phraseology that prisoners use and an interesting rendition of their mind-sets.  In a detention center (because of his age) Chris sees the way in which the underprivileged have been led into lives of crime, and there he also learns what extreme violence can occur from flippant and uncaring actions.

After serving his time Chris returns to work at his father’s carpeting business, and through the years he brings in some of his past prison mates, whom his father hires.  But then Chris’s past flies up to haunt him just at the point when he wants to marry his girlfriend and study to become a history teacher.  Because of his previous prison connections he comes into conflict with real psychopaths and murderers (over money, of course) and he must choose whether to honor past bonds or give over his life of crime to other, more damaged souls.

Whether or not you’ve experienced similar life situations, George Pelecanos makes you feel as if you’re in the same room with his characters, vicariously experiencing their fears and joys.  Middle-class homes and the dreams of those who inhabit them come alive, as do prison cells and jailhouse camaraderies.  In this story of familial love and forgiveness and a son’s return to his father, Pecanos creates dramatic mood changes as he draws you through intense and intricate plot lines.  This ability makes him a superior writer that you not only admire but with whom you identify, since he has opened his heart to all.

Grade: A

Themes:  Family, fathers, sons, loss, incarceration

Hachette Book Group

REVIEWED BY:

Christina Zawadiwsky is Ukrainian-American, born in New York City, has a degree in Fine Arts, and is a poet, artist, journalist and TV producer. She has received a National Endowment for the Arts Award, two Wisconsin Arts Boards Awards, a Co-Ordinating Council of Literary Magazines Writer’s Award, and an Art Futures Award, among other honors. She was the originator and producer of “Where The Waters Meet”, a local TV series created to facilitate the voices of artists of all genres in the media, for which she won two national and twenty local awards, including a Commitment to Community Television Award. She is also a contributing editor to the annual Pushcart Prize Anthology, the recipient of an Outstanding Achievement Award from the Wisconsin Library Association, and has published four books of poetry.

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