As part of my project, I taught a lesson to 1st graders revolving around the children’s book http://www.hiddenvalley.com/veggies/. We started off by reading the book together, which is all about a young goat who is a terrible eater because he wants to eat things like fresh fruits, vegetables, eggs and milk instead of true goat food like tires and paper. With the advice of Dr. Ram, his parents slowly ease goat foods into his diet, until he finally likes them. But then he likes them too much and ends up eating all sorts of things from around the house. To teach him a lesson, his parents go to the junkyard and collect a large pile of trash that they leave outside his sandbox. When Gregory comes home that day, he’s elated to see that the pile of delectable trash is all for him. But after eating his way through most of the pile, he spends his night in bed tossing and turning with tummy aches. The story ends with Gregory sitting down to a balanced breakfast of eggs, orange juice and wax paper, providing an “all in moderation” lesson.

After reading the book, I engaged the children in some discussion to get their minds thinking more about food and less about the silliness of a goat eating tires. First, we talked about what kind of foods Gregory really wanted to eat in the beginning of the book. From their answers, we opened up the discussion to naming fruits and vegetables. The kids did a great job with this and really impressed me at times. I definitely expected to hear apples, bananas, carrots, and broccoli, but radishes, kiwi, Brussels sprouts and pineapple?! These kids were smart and right on track with me!

Next, we had to draw some sort of connection between Gregory’s junkyard tummy ache and unhealthy eating. I told the kids “Now, Gregory got a tummy ache from eating too much junk, like tires and trash, right? Well, humans don’t eat trash. But can you think of any junk foods that maybe if you ate too much it would make your tummy hurt?” The kids had an endless stream of answers from cookies, cakes, and ice cream to cheeseburgers, potato chips, and hot dogs. Next step – how do you explain to a 1st grader what makes these foods unhealthy? If the kids could stick with me on this one, then we’d be on the fast track to a successful lesson.

So I asked “Alright, cake, cookies, candy, ice cream – can anyone tell me what they have in common?” The answer might not have been the first one called out, but after one or two tries someone always answered “sugar”. I was momentarily relieved, but I knew the next was a bit tougher. “French fries, potato chips, burgers, fried chicken, what do they all have in common?” I was quickly reassured of how bright these kids are when it took no time at all until the answers “fatty” or “greasy” were called out. Success!! These kids were doing everything right. And next came the most fun part of all… feeding the goat!

In each class, students were broken up into pairs and each pair was given a brown lunch bag with two paper food models inside. One was an obvious healthy choice and one was an obvious unhealthy choice (e.g., grapes versus chocolate chip cookies). I told the kids that we were looking to build healthy meals for Gregory that wouldn’t give him any more tummy aches. Each pair chose what they thought was the healthy pick and then I collected all their choices. We went through them one by one, talking as a class about what foods were paired up against each other and which was the right pick. The kids knocked this activity out of the park, picking all the healthy options. Then one student from each pair got to feed their healthy pick to a large recreation of Gregory the Goat that I built out of foam board. The kids got a kick out of the huge goat and the whole lesson was a great big success.

I had an absolute blast teaching these kids about nutrition, and I really respect Nancy Nadel and the rest of the Forest Oak Elementary School for the initiatives they are taking to promote healthy behaviors in their students. I think other schools could learn a lot from what’s going on there, and I was happy to be a small part of their bigger mission, even if it was only for a few months.

Does this inspire you? Is this something you think you could do in your home or classroom? Have you used other books as a springboard to discussing healthy eating?

This is a story about friendship through good times and bad with a hopelessly romantic ending. The characters were real and the colloquial language used by the author created an authentic high school background full of drama, heartache, and friendship.

This was a very enjoyable listen. The plot of the story was light and the language used by the author made the setting realistic. I think that every teenager could relate to this story. Having both male and female points of view may attract boys and girls, however I believe the mushy romantic stuff and heartache will draw more girl fans to this books. The one drawback was that at times the story lines were a little hard to follow as I heard it through one character who may have left some details out but was filled in by another character in a later chapter.

AUDIO NOTES:

I enjoyed listening to this story. With three different points of view I can imagine that reading the book may prove to be confusing. However, with three different performers, one for each character, it was easy to follow the stories of Rhiannan, James, and Nicole. MacLeod Andrews, Angela Dawe, and Sarah Grace did an awesome job playing the roles of teenagers. I was able to imagine myself back in high school through their voices.

You can listen to an excerpt at Brilliance Audio’s AudiobookStand.com

Guest Reviewer Betsy is a Youth Services Librarian at her hometown library. She is due to start a new chapter in her life this September with her fiancé Adam, a comic book fanatic, at their book themed wedding. She does most of her reading (listening) while walking her two dogs in the morning, her favorite time of the day. Betsy enjoys apocalyptic fiction, historical fiction, and everything in between.

Obviously we all hope that a book will come with both, most sadly do not quite hit both targets. That doesn’t always make it a bad book – and if they’ve managed to nail one of them, a lot of people will still like or even love it. Our fearless bookie leader claims that whether a person loves these books comes down to whether they are in it first for the prose or first for the plot. For instance, we would both agree that she is very much in it for the prose. She commented that she can read a book in which nothing happens at all, so long as they say it prettily.

I, on the other hand, can probably get through a book that is not so polished as long as the story is really good. Hence my adoration for fluffy chick lit and young adult titles. We’ve found the books that she and I both adore tend to be the books that really have the whole package – beautifully written, fascinating story – example: The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society by Mary Ann Shaffer and Annie Barrows. We both really loved this one and I have to agree: beautifully written [check!] amazing plot [double triple check].

Later in the conversation, someone asked if a book had to have a happy ending to make us Plot-readers happy. I said no, of course not, but then struggled to find an example – the only fitting one I could think of being Gone with the Wind. To which some prose-readers snarled back and commented that they hated that book. And I laughed. And laughed… But it’s true, no real happy ending in Gone with the Wind – an awful lot of unhappy throughout in fact. But even just that promise of tomorrow, when all would be well, was apparently enough for me. I knew Scarlett, of all people, would be okay somehow. She’d get her man or get some new plan of happiness and she’d make it work – no matter what. That’s just her way. And I loved the story. Like adored it with a fiery passion. So it’s all good.

But in general, call me childish, but YES – I prefer books with a happy ending. And you know what? I won’t apologize for it. Because you know what? Life isn’t fair. People are awkward and clumsy and they say the wrong things and they sometimes fumble things up even when they have the best of intentions. And sometimes a tornado or tsunami or other natural disaster will come in and wipe out entire families who had GOOD lives and important things going on but now it’s gone and it doesn’t matter. And wars happen – and people shoot other people – who had families, children, wives, dreams, hopes, et cetera that now don’t matter any more because their story is over.

But fiction is different. A fictional story can happen any way you want it to. It’s entirely up to the author. The characters can say things in the clever way that we hear them in our head before we open our mouths and stutter out an attempt at cool speech that will in real life sound like, “So um what’s for dinner, ahem?” but in fiction can come out, “My darling, I have had the most tiresome of days and all I want now is to sit down with you, my love, over a warm meal and forget about my troubles for awhile because you make me so happy.”

Or something, I don’t know – a good writer would say it even better than that. Because they can. And at the end of the story – the guy gets the girl! The hero saves the day! Because if we want to see a sad ending, we can turn on the news or talk to our neighbors. Sad endings are for real life. Happy endings are for fiction – where we as writers can control every page. Because, I at least, read to be entertained. To escape the real world and enter into the fantasy world where dreams come true and milkmaids become Queens of Florin but then say, “Screw that, I’m going to hook up with the hot pirate instead because I CAN.” The End.

That’s just how I like it. No apologies.

How about you? Do you read for prose first or plot for sure? I know most of us would try to huff and say, “I like both!” I know, so do I, but I do think there comes a point where one becomes suddenly clearly more important at the end of the day. So which is it for you?

Guest Bio: When Jennifer isn’t reading her latest book club’s pick, she can be found blogging about her life as a stay at home mother to two adorable kiddos at mommablogsalot.com. She spends the majority of her time snapping pictures of her two year old and five year old, baking up yummy desserts to ruin her diet and of course blogging and reading. She loves just about every genre from historical fiction to celebrity memoirs, young adult fantasy novels to Jane Austen — preferably with a happy ending!

I’ve always been curious as to what moves those who write memoirs to share such personal stories. When we were asked if we’d like to do an interview, I knew exactly what I wanted to ask Jennifer Gardner Trulson:

JD, 5M4B: Were you always a writer, or did this story just beg to be told?

JGT: This memoir is my first attempt at writing something other than a heartfelt thank-you note or a legal memorandum. Though I never intended to write a book, I have told and retold pieces of my family’s story like some modern-day Ancient Mariner from the Coleridge poem. After the 9/11 attacks, I panicked that my children would never understand who their father was or the devastating impact of his loss. I feared that time would blunt memories and Doug would fade into an abstraction – a ghost. Trained as a lawyer, I clung to the idea that I should keep real-time records. I started writing and saving notes, journals and emails. A friend eventually gave me a hand-held tape recorder into which I poured my stream-of-consciousness ramblings in the days and months following Doug’s death. I threw all of it into a box; it was a mess, but at least I’d created my children’s private archive which they could mine for information when they were old enough to ask.

A few years ago, an author friend looked at my jumbled collection and encouraged me to write about my experience, even if just to have an organized account for the kids of their father’s life and our struggles during the aftermath. I procrastinated for months until one day I found myself at the computer attempting to write a single anecdote. One turned into two and suddenly I was writing; the stories poured out of me, tears and laughter flowed and Doug became vivid again. My friend insisted on forwarding a few passages to her literary agent, and before I knew it, Gallery Books decided to take a chance on me.

JD, 5M4B: Was it hard for you to share such a personal experience?

JGT: In a word, yes.

Because 9/11 was so public, I desperately tried to keep our anguish over Doug’s murder as private as possible. I couldn’t bear that my beautiful husband might be reduced to a statistic, diluted by the sheer number of deaths, memorial services and news stories. We had no perspective then, only pain and fear, and I had no interest in allowing others to peer, voyeur-like, through the windows into our tragedy. With the passage of time, my family has regained much of its equanimity, I’m happily remarried and my children, especially, have grown to own their story. Though nothing dulls the loss — I miss Doug as much today as I did at ten days or ten months — I am more willing to share my experiences now because I have these ten years of perspective from which to view them.

JD, 5M4B: What do you hope people will take from this book?

JGT: I certainly do not have a monopoly on pain and loss, but I think that all Americans felt connected to the 9/11 attacks and the grieving and recovery that followed. My memoir gives people a personal, emotional and ultimately hopeful back story that they could never get from the news. I hope that the reader will find a kindred spirit, a fellow traveler within the pages – even if she has never experienced a loss like mine. I also hope that this book will inspire others to extend themselves when they are in a position to help a person in need. Even the smallest acts of kindness from an acquaintance or stranger – a one sentence email or a bag of groceries – resonates and reminds one that life is always good despite evidence to the contrary.

Mostly, I would like a reader to know that one doesn’t have to shut the door on the past in order to move forward. We hear all the time that we should find “closure” and “move on.” I don’t think we move on; I think we simply continue to move through a loss like this and learn to live again. I’ve never looked for closure, not only because it doesn’t exist, but because I want Doug’s memory to sting, to remind me that he existed and mattered. It’s the only way I can give him to my children and love my husband, Derek, with the full and open heart he deserves. I have to believe that you can live a fully present life, carry your loss and somehow joy will find you.

Want to find out more about the book and enter to win your own copy? Please check out Lauren’s review of Where You Left Me at 5 Minutes for Mom

What gives?

Racing in the Rain: My Life as a Dog features the same lovable Enzo, and it’s a novel told from a dog’s POV, but this version is the same story told as a “junior version.”

It seems that lots of adults are picking it up again — either this version or the original. Honestly, in reading it three years after I read the original, it isn’t feeling so different. The writing level is probably simplified, but the heavy emotional issues are still there, making it a book that I would recommend for more mature readers (Enzo is an aging dog that knows he’s going to die soon, another character has cancer, and even the way that certain things are presented, such as Zoe’s conception and arguments between Eve and Denny don’t necessarily seem retooled for a young audience — more YA than middle grade).

But it’s not so precious that it will only appeal to dog lovers. However, as a dog lover, I loved the fictitious look into an intelligent dog’s head, but I’ve heard from many who are not who still enjoyed this. Enzo is like a wise soul, observing everything going on around him, like a good narrator of any book.

I was able to ask the author Garth Stein a few questions about this new release, which added even more interest to the story and the concept:

Why did you decide to share Enzo’s story with children? Do you think that they are more likely or less likely to trust him as a narrator?

Garth Stein: I really felt that children could identify with Enzo’s limitations. Enzo has no thumbs so he can’t open doors. His voice is limited by his floppy tongue. He depends on people for food, water, transportation, to change TV channels for him. If you look at the limitations children live with, dogs and kids are almost the same. Kids have to ask for permission to do things. They depend on their parents for food and water. They need to be driven around. They have a lot to say, but sometimes adults discount them. Actually, now that I think about it, maybe trust is the issue: children would trust Enzo long before they might trust an adult!

When I realized the dog/child similarities, I thought it would be great to get my book into the hands of young readers. I knew there were certain issues with adult language and content, so my editor, Alyson Day, and I worked these things out and now Enzo can be read by all ages!

How does telling a story from a dog’s point of view help you move the plot along? How does it hinder?

Garth Stein: For me, the important part of telling a story is making the narrator a compelling voice. Enzo has that compelling voice, partly, at least, because he is a character in a classic double-bind. Enzo has a nearly human soul, and he feels limited and trapped by his dog body. He believes he will be reincarnated as a person in his next life, and he would like to get on with it. So on the one hand, he wants to hurry up and be done with this present incarnation so he can move on. On the other hand, Enzo loves his family–Denny and Eve and Zoe–so much, he doesn’t want to leave them. Therefore, he wants two very different things, and he can’t have them both. Out of this tension grows a character and a character’s voice. That Enzo is a dog is almost irrelevant. That he is a compelling character who is terribly conflicted is really at the heart of it.

Are you curious? I have a copy of Racing in the Rain: My Life as a Dog to give away to one of you (perfect for adult readers or mature younger readers). Leave a comment if you’d like to win. We’ll announce the winner on August 31.The giveaway is closed.

More details about both Enzo books can be found on a special microsite from The Book Report Network: http://racingintherain.bookreporter.com. Features include interviews with Garth Stein and a family reading guide with ideas on how to make reading about Enzo a fun activity.

Readers can visit GoEnzo.com to sign up for Garth’s newsletter, or connect with him on Facebook and Twitter @GarthStein. Readers can also purchase Enzo-themed merchandise at the Enzo Store.

Jennifer Donovan is a proud dog-owner and is convinced that they are more observant than we’ll ever know. She blogs at Snapshot about her family, four-legged and the more human variety.

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Big Secret #1

I was a closet screenwriter before I was a novelist.

As a girl who grew up in the Midwest and hated the cold, I moved out to Los Angeles as soon as possible. The Hollywood Sign! The stars on the sidewalk! The stars walking the sidewalks! It was all such a thrill, very similar to humming a bar of Miley Cyrus’ “Party in the USA.”

Originally, I moved out to LA with plans to be an actress. But the truth of the matter was, I was a closet writer. I secretly wanted to write movies.

It took a while, but I eventually made that leap.

Big Secret #2

The Whole Package was originally conceptualized as a movie.

While pitching and writing spec scripts in LA, I thought a movie about three women who open a male version of Hooters would be hilarious.

The story would be about three women – no, three best friends – wronged in the way Diane Keaton, Goldie Hawn and Bette Midler were in The First Wives Club. These friends would stand up for themselves and the female population by opening a restaurant designed to exploit men. There would be dance numbers like those in The Full Monty… Fabulous!

Oddly, no one found this idea as hysterical as I did.

Big Secret #3

Visions of exotic male dancers haunted me.

But I tell you what – I just couldn’t get the vision of Full Monty-esque dancers out of my head.

Secretly, I started conceptualizing a story. It couldn’t just be about the dancers; it had to be about the women who started the restaurant. They were the centerpiece.

An opening scene started to shape in my head – I pictured a Goldie Hawn-esque character in a Paris cafe. She orders a chocolate croissant, a French girl dares to call her fat. Goldie becomes mock-outraged, adorably hurt, beautifully defiant… Yes! This story just had to be told.

Big Secret #4

The Whole Package became a book (read Jennifer’s review).

I decided that, if I couldn’t write the story as a screenplay, I would write it as a book.

The outline I wrote for The Whole Package was actually guided by a screenwriting book. Specifically, Blake Snyder’s Save The Cat! The Last Book on Screenwriting You’ll Ever Need.

Big Secret #5

The Whole Package could become a movie.

I wrote the book and am delighted to hear that it reads like a fun, heartfelt movie. Specifically, The First Wives Club meets The Full Monty.

And – in a twist of events worthy of a Hollywood movie – a top agency in Hollywood believes The Whole Package should be a movie. They now represent it for book-to-film.

Will The Whole Package become a movie? Only time will tell… but I think that would be the perfect Hollywood ending.

Stay in touch!

Cynthia Ellingsen is an author and screenwriter who lives in Lexinton, KY with her husband. Visit her website at www.cynthiaellingsen.com.

Facebook: Cynthia Ellingsen – Author Page

Traveling to Phoenix to visit her Father for spring break, 14 year old Lucy, her older brother Jamie, and his best friend Kit pull over on the side of the road to inspect the animal that they hit. As they approach they realize it wasn’t a coyote at all but a girl not much older than themselves. A dead girl.

So starts Elise Broach’s book Desert Crossing. What ensues after the discovery of the girl is a web of mystery, suspense, and romance. Lucy will not stop until she reveals who the girl was and what she was doing in the middle of the desert on such a stormy night. Jamie is too wrapped up in a forbidden romance to worry about what his sister is doing and Kit becomes Lucy’s sidekick and kissing partner.

The story is a murder mystery and therefore kept my attention. However, the relationships that formed between the characters were beyond belief and hard to accept. Lucy goes from hating Kit to kissing him without any development. Still, for the reader who enjoys good detective work this story is entertaining.

Audio Notes:

The voice of Lucy, read by Amy Rubinate, rang true as a 14 year old. However, as the plot thickened and romantic situations arose it was hard to picture the innocent sounding voice getting involved romantically as she sounded quite young. The situation seemed too mature for the character.

You can listen to an audio sample at the Brilliance Audio site.

Content Notes:

Although there are sexually mature relationships in the story there are no explicit descriptions, which makes this story appropriate for readers age 13 and up. The mystery and the underlying relationships will definitely draw and hold the attention of the average teenage girl but the voice of Lucy and the lack of action will deter boys.

Guest Reviewer Betsy is a Youth Services Librarian at her hometown library. She is due to start a new chapter in her life this September with her fiancé Adam, a comic book fanatic, at their book themed wedding. She does most of her reading (listening) while walking her two dogs in the morning, her favorite time of the day. Betsy enjoys apocalyptic fiction, historical fiction, and everything in between.

Bring your tissues to The Help! Christie O. Reviews…

On August 10th, the film adaptation of the New York Times Best Seller “The Help” makes it into theaters and there is one word that comes into my mind every time I think about it. The word is important.

It’s not just that you have to drag everyone you know to see this movie, it’s important for you drag everyone you know to see this movie.

It is amazing. It is an eye-opener.

It was and is, truly, important.

The Plot

The movie is set in the 1960′s during the civil rights movement. “Skeeter” Phelan (Emma Stone), a recent college-graduate, returns home to Jackson, Mississippi sans husband; a near travesty since college was something akin to husband-shopping for her friends at that time, who all returned with a husband instead of a degree and immediately settled down to have children.

But despite pressure from friends and family, Skeeter didn’t fit that mold.

She was an independent, budding journalist and writer at heart who wanted to wait to find a husband and having done both myself, I identified with Skeeter. I identified with her passion, her independence, her heart and her longing for truth as a journalist.

As part of becoming a “real” writer and trying to woo a publisher in New York City, Skeeter decides to interview the maids living in her hometown. The only thing is, she can’t get any of them to talk. It was not only a faux pas to speak to the maids (in fact it was considered by some to be disease-spreading to even share the same bathroom with the help even though ironically, it was the help who ultimately raised the children in the home). But even more than that, it was downright dangerous, not only for Skeeter but for the maids.

But Skeeter opens up that can of worms anyway with one question, ““Do you ever dream of being something else?”

What starts out as an interview turns into an expose’ and with that, you are taken on a series of twists and turns that will have you laughing out loud in absolute hysterics and then, in the very same scene horrified, gasping with shock and crying. It’s that powerful.

The movie is complete with a powerhouse cast that includes Academy Award nominee Viola Davis (Aibileen), Emma Stone, Octavia Spencer (Minnie), and Oscar Winner Sissy Spacek, all who give the movie depth and heart.

The Book Vs the Movie

I read the book and it was a page turner. I finished it in three sittings. (It would have been two, but you know how that goes.)

The movie did not drift far from the book either, in fact there were a few differences, mostly subtle, but the kind of differences I was ok with. What I believe was the key element to the seamless transition from book to movie was the fact that Taylor and Stocket were childhood friends and they knew this story firsthand.

Because this was Taylor’s first screenplay, Dreamworks’ co-chairman and CEO Stacey Snider admits she took a chance on him, but now admits it was a good move. Tate was not far removed from what went on in Jackson; he grew up there, even filmed scenes in one a good friend’s home and one of the maids in the movie was a maid who actually (and ironically) raised him. I always love hearing the story behind the story, because nine times out of ten, that story is just as good. Just like this one.

If you’re wondering if the book was better, I have to be honest. The movie wasn’t better than the book or vice versa either and that is very rare for me; I am usually sorely disappointed by the movie version of whatever book I ruined by watching the movie.

Final Thoughts

The Help is deep-rooted with ironic twists and turns but like the book, this movie is about courage. It’s about bravery and fear and the ability to confront your own demons and still find it somewhere inside to laugh at yourself.

Skeeter and all of the women of The Help became my heroes and they will become yours too.

Go see it. And do yourselves a favor: don’t forget the tissues.
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For one lucky reader, Disney & Dreamworks is giving away a great prize-pack to one of you! It includes the following:

Just leave a comment below. We will announce the winner on August 17.

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Disclosure: Disney paid Christie’s expenses for the press junket in LA. The opinions expressed are Christie’s.

Guest contributor Christie O. blogs at Average Moms Wear Capes and contributes to 5 Minutes for Mom