My Book Retreat

I hope you're all enjoying your Memorial Day. We've had a very relaxing day. So relaxing that I almost forgot to post my recap of last week!

I published a review of Skinny is Overrated by Danielle Milano, MD. You can click on the title to see my review.

I also got back to What My Children Are Reading this week, so you can see some of the early reader books my son has been reading recently.

Upcoming Reviews
The Post-War Dream by Mitch Cullin
Not My Daughter by Barbara Delinsky

Currently Reading
Not My Daughter by Barbara Delinsky (June book club selection) ~ almost done with this, which is good since it's due back to the library tomorrow!

Up Next
One Foot in Eden: A Novel by Ron Rash
Freedom's Call by John Walker

What are you reading this week? This meme is being hosted by Sheila at Book Journey, so hop over there if you'd like to see what others are reading too.

I'm back after a week off from this meme. I really enjoy sharing what my kids are reading each week, but being on vacation last week without Internet access made it impossible to share! During the past couple of weeks, C has been reading a few different early readers that I think will appeal to younger kids too as read aloud books.

Henry and Mudge: The First Book by Cynthia Rylant is a Ready-to-Read Level 2 book. This is a sweet story that sets up the characters of Henry and his dog Mudge, who are featured in a series of books. C received this as a gift about a year ago, and didn't like it the first time I read it to him back then. In the story, Mudge takes a walk and ends up getting lost. He and Henry are both very sad to be apart, but of course, in the end, they find each other again. It was too sad/scary for C a year ago, but this time when he read it on his own, he liked it. I think if your child wouldn't be upset by Mudge getting lost, they'd enjoy it.

Another boo…

According to Danielle Milano, MD, author of Skinny is Overrated: The Real Woman’s Guide to Health and Happiness at Any Size, "If you put a bulldog on a diet, you don't get a greyhound." The point is that your genes have a lot to do with your weight, so some people are just not going to be skinny. And that's okay. Dr. Milano says you don't have to worry about being in the "healthy weight" category of the Department of Health's Body Mass Index (BMI) chart. Many people would never be able to achieve this. Instead, she recommends you adopt a healthy lifestyle of eating the right foods and exercising regularly, without worrying about your specific weight. If you do this, you'll likely lose weight; but even if you don't lose a lot of weight, you'll be healthy.

I think this is a great way to look at health and weight. But then Dr. Milano begins to outline her program. She goes over all the foods you should avoid, and explains that you really n…

Good Monday morning to you. Well, my vacation is over and it's back to work today. Bummer. I got a lot of reading done last week, but not much blogging! I didn't even publish my What My Children Are Reading post this weekend. I think that's the first time in months that I skipped it. That's what happens when you don't have Internet access while on vacation. It's hard to write blog posts on a BlackBerry!

I completed The Last Christian by David Gregory. You can click on the title and get to my review. I'm hosting a giveaway for this one as well, and I really loved it, so be sure to check it out and enter the giveaway!

I also completed Skinny is Overrated by Danielle Milano, MD, but I haven't written the review yet. You'll have to wait until later this week for that one.

Upcoming Reviews
The Post-War Dream by Mitch Cullin
Skinny is Overrated by Danielle Milano, MD

Currently Reading
Not My Daughter by Barbara Delinsky (June book club selection)

I haven'…

Abigail has lived her entire life in the jungle where her parents were missionaries bringing the Christian religion to the Inisi tribes. After 34 years, she makes her way out of the jungle alone when her entire tribe contracts a mysterious disease, and finds a doctor who is willing to go back to save her people. But when they return, they are too late. Abby is the only survivor.

She soon receives a very old message from her grandfather telling her to go to America and help revive the Christian religion, which has died out. When she arrives in America, she feels very out of place. The year is 2088. Life is fast-paced and completely reliant on technology. No one is remotely interested in Jesus or Christianity. As a matter of fact, they accuse Abby of hate speech when she talks of her religion.

In this society, everyone is directly connected to the grid, the modern-day Internet, by neural implants. But that isn't enough. Now they are starting to get brain transplants, replacing thei…

It's time for another Book Blogger Hop! Jennifer at Crazy-for-Books hosts the weekly Book Blogger Hop on Fridays. So, if you talk about books on your blog, stop over and add your link! If you're just looking for a list of some great book blogs to read, head over to Crazy for Books and start hopping!

I hope you're having fun hopping around to all the great book blogs that are out there. I know I am! While you're visiting, be sure to check out my review and giveaway of Life, In Spite of Me by Kristen Jane Anderson. This is an inspiring story that you won't want to miss! The giveaway ends on Sunday night.

If you've just found my blog through the Hop, please leave a comment and let me know!

It's Monday again. Thanks for stopping by! This is a good Monday because I'm on vacation! Yay! I'm hoping to fit some reading time into my vacation this week, but I'm not sure I'll have a chance to do much blogging. We'll see how that goes. Last week wasn't nearly as productive as the week before, but I still did some reading.

I published my review of Life, In Spite of Me by Kristen Jane Anderson this morning. I'm also hosting a giveaway so be sure to click on the title to read my review and enter to win a copy!

I also published my What My Children Are Reading post again this week. And I finished reading The Post-War Dream by Mitch Cullin, but I haven't had a chance to write my review yet. I'll try to get to it this week. I did like this book, but it was one of those books where I had to be in the right mood to read it and enjoy it.

Currently Reading
I'm currently reading The Last Christian by David Gregory. This is for a blog tour that'…

At 17 years old, Kristen Jane Anderson had recently lost loved ones, was upset with her parents and hated her life. As she sat by the train tracks, she decided her life wasn't worth living, so she laid down on the tracks as a train approached and waited to die. But God had other plans, and Kristen lived. She lost her legs and suffered through terrible pain, both physical and emotional, but through it all she came to realize she was blessed to be alive.

I picked up Life, In Spite of Me one evening, and ended up reading it straight through until I was at the last page. This is a very difficult and emotional story, but it is written in very simple narrative that allows for a quick reading. It only took me about two hours to read the entire story. I think the simplicity of the story as told by Anderson, together with Tricia Goyer, makes it very accessible to teens as well as adults. She includes several letters at the end of chapters, in which she talks directly to the reader who may…

M and I ended up going to the library twice this week. The first time was an impromptu visit after dance class on Tuesday. We picked up several new books. Then we went back for story time on Thursday. At that point, we returned all of the books we had from a couple weeks ago and of course, we got even more new books to take home!

C got a couple more Fly Guy books by Tedd Arnold, which he has been reading this week. He really loves them and can read them completely independently now. Have I mentioned lately how cool it is to see his progression with reading?? Anyway, these are great books for boys ~ or girls who aren't grossed out by the stuff Fly Guy eats! The books are all about a boy named Buzz and his pet fly named Fly Guy. This week, he read Shoo, Fly Guy!, Super Fly Guy and Hooray for Fly Guy! These books are at a first grade reading level, and they definitely hold the attention of my almost first grader.

M got a couple more Fancy Nancy books. We had read Bonjour, Butterfly l…

Happy Monday! Thanks for stopping by! I am very, very excited to announce that I completed **three books** this week! Usually, I'm lucky to finish one! I think I need to read more short books because it feels good to accomplish so much in one week.

I read and reviewed The Journey Home by Michael Baron and Jonathan Livingston Seagull by Richard Bach. You can click on the titles to see my reviews. I enjoyed both of these books, which was nice!

Also, check out the guest post by Michael Baron, where he shared his thoughts on the meaning of home. I thought it was the perfect topic for Mother's Day weekend.

The other book I read is Life, In Spite of Me by Kristen Jane Anderson. This is for a blog tour that doesn't happen until the week of May 17th, so you'll have to wait until next week for my review. I will say I enjoyed it and I'll be hosting a giveaway when I put up my review on the 17th ~ so be sure to come back next week!

Finally, I published my What My Children Ar…

Happy Mother's Day! Today, I'm very honored to have author Michael Baron here to share his thoughts on the meaning of "Home." I thought this was the perfect topic to share on this special day when we are focused on our families and our homes.

After avoiding writing fiction for a long time (a response to a bad experience in my younger days, something like having an aversion to raw oysters after getting food poisoning from them), I decided to dive back in a couple of years ago. The reason was simple: though I loved the vast array of material I could cover writing nonfiction, only fiction would allow me to explore matters of the heart as I wanted to. Each of my first three novels has been a love story with a significant secondary theme that allowed me to ruminate on things that I wanted to address. My first, When You Went Away, touched on parenting, and my second, Crossing the Bridge on family and one’s place in it. My third novel, just out, is about the meaning of home…

We made it to the library last weekend, and we picked up several new books. Here are a few of the kids' favorites.

C's favorite early reader is one he got from his school library, called Fly High, Fly Guy! by Tedd Arnold. This is the story of a boy named Buzz and his pet fly, Fly Guy. Buzz and his family are going on a road trip and Fly Guy wants to come along, but the parents say he can't because he might get lost. He ends up going anyway, and in the end it's the family that gets lost, not Fly Guy. He has to save the day. It's a very cute story and C enjoys reading it.

Stanley by Syd Hoff is another early reader we picked up. As I've mentioned several times, we enjoy Syd Hoff's books. This one is about Stanley, a caveman who doesn't like living in a cave, but he likes planting flowers. The other cavemen don't understand him. So he goes off to find a new place to live and ends up building himself a house. In the end, he shows his cavemen friends that…