bookpagedev

LifestylesHealth & Fitness

Review

Review by bookpagedev

Fitness for the future This time, it’s going to be different. Think about it. One year from today, you could be 70 pounds lighter and ready for a marathon or triathlon. Whether you’re a beginner who’s new to weight loss and aerobic and strength training, or whether you’ve already made proper diet and exercise a part of your lifestyle, there’s enough information in the following books to motivate and invigorate you over the next 12 months.

Joanie Greggains, author of Fit Happens (Villard, $19.95, 0375500367), focuses on the fundamentals of weight loss and physical fitness by demystifying fad diets and demonstrating that you can make time in your day for fat-burning exercises. She also gives you the latest information on 13 health foods that really aren’t healthy and offers helpful suggestions for handling your food cravings. Greggains believes that losing weight and staying fit are simple processes that anyone can learn. The official Chub Club Coach’s Workout Program that Judy Molnar features in her new book, You Don’t Have to Be Thin to Win (Villard, $19.95, 0375504141), will move you from an unfit to a physically fit person in no time. Molnar transformed her 330-pound body, and at the end of her two-and-a-half year program, began participating in triathlons. The goal of her program is good health and fitness not thinness. She offers strategies for finding a way to exercise that’s right for you and even includes a 12-week marathon training program and an eight-week sprint triathlon training program for beginners who are ready for a new challenge.

The Tae Bo Way by Billy Blanks provides the dynamic blend of martial arts, dance, and boxing that has been called the most energizing workout in America. No matter what your level of physical fitness, you’ll find his program exhilarating and simple to learn. Blanks’s strength is that he motivates as he explains. Will is everything to him, and his message to people of all ages is inspirational. If you have his video workout programs, this book will give you even more information to assist your total body conditioning. Don’t miss this one.

As aerobic and strength training become a part of your life, add Arnold Schwarzenegger’s paperback The New Encyclopedia of Modern Bodybuilding (Fireside, $25, 0684857219) to your library. Seven-time Mr. Olympia and winner of three Mr. Universe titles, Schwarzenegger has written what is universally recognized as the definitive sourcebook for bodybuilding. You don’t have to be a bodybuilder (or a man) to learn from this pro. Anyone in a simple strength-training program can benefit from this information. The book covers every facet of the sport, and methods of training are outlined to take the novice from early to advanced stages of training. You’ll refer to this book often.

Fitness expert and personal trainer Brad Schoenfeld has written an excellent book for women who want to strengthen, streamline, and shape their bodies. Sculpting Her Body Perfect (Human Kinetics, $19.95, 0736001549) involves a three-step program that is based on the unique needs of women. Loaded with training tips, illustrations, special maintenance programs, and safe workout routines for pregnant women, the book is a perfect guide to sculpting a beautiful physique in ten to 25 minutes, three times a week. This is a good book for women who are just beginning a strength-training program.

Fitness, however, isn’t limited by age. In Slim and Fit Kids: Raising Healthy Children in a Fast-Food World (Health Communications, $12.95, 155874729X), Judy Mazel and John E. Monaco tackle the serious problem of overweight children. Surprisingly, more than 30 per cent of American children are presently overweight, and one in five is considered obese. The authors discuss combining foods to maximize a child’s energy and meet nutritional needs, along with kid-proof recipes and suggestions on how to talk to your child about this sensitive subject. Their 28-day exercise program (designed by a personal trainer) could set your child on the wellness path and perhaps create an interest in fitness that lasts a lifetime.

Pat Regel pumps iron in Nashville.

Fitness for the future This time, it's going to be different. Think about it. One year from today, you could be 70 pounds lighter and ready for a marathon or triathlon. Whether you're a beginner who's new to weight loss and aerobic and strength training,…

Fiction

Review

Review by bookpagedev

If you’re a fan of Kurt Vonnegut, then get ready to celebrate. In September comes Bagombo Snuff Box, a hilarious collection of 23 previously uncollected examples of the comedic gifts of this American original.

Reading Vonnegut like this, in miniature, within the parameters of the short story, one cannot help but sit agog at the color and depth of his characters. Vonnegut is a master caricaturist. In considering his work as a humorist, it is hard not to think primarily of his players, individuals like the indefatigable Kilgore Trout, who tirelessly amuse us as they appear and reappear in his novels. So the wide assortment of individuals found in this collection provides all the more reason to be excited by the publication of these stories. Throughout these tales, Vonnegut focuses on some genuine quacks. Whether it be financial Frankensteins or real estate blockheads, Vonnegut invests most of his energies in parodying individuals warped by their ambitions. Everyone in this book is dead set on being number one. Though there’s nothing wrong with exercising a drive for personal betterment, Vonnegut cleverly uses this tendency to show how gross ambition can mutate those it takes for its subjects. Take for instance the protagonist of The Package. Earl Fenton can best be described as nouveau riche. Everything in his life is new and as he tours his state-of-the-art domicile with his wife, he gloats aloud over their good fortune and wealth. Yet the crux of the parody of this vacuous couple lies in another character the humble, less materialistic Charley Freeman. The heart of this mesmerizing tale thus is two fascinating portraits. If we take character names for keys to workings of this dichotomy, it is the pride and moral bankruptcy of the falsely regal Earl, versus the simple joys of the monastic, unencumbered Freeman, that supply the thematic tension for this well-wrought vignette.

Elsewhere in this book Vonnegut highlights the fanatical drive of a high school marching band leader in order to further display his interest in ambition gone awry. George Helmholtz appears in three stories in this collection and serves best as the model for the ambition-blinded American. Helmholtz is consumed by a passion for success. Unfortunately he is a man mismatched with his profession. Such competitive zeal might be better spent on a Wall Street entrepreneur, but for Helmholtz the school marching band is the vehicle for his personal drive. Thus it is bass drums, coronets, and epaulets that fire his imagination and fuel his desire. Helmholtz is a baton-crazed grotesque, a hilarious example of Vonnegut’s take on the self-made man.

Throughout this book, through clever characterization and mischievous humor, Vonnegut shows his love for the underdog as well as his distaste for the fat cat. His predilections help show us the many laughable sides to our mercurial human character.

Charles Wyrick plays with the band Stella.

If you're a fan of Kurt Vonnegut, then get ready to celebrate. In September comes Bagombo Snuff Box, a hilarious collection of 23 previously uncollected examples of the comedic gifts of this American original.

Reading Vonnegut like this, in miniature, within the…

LifestylesHealth & Fitness

Review

Review by bookpagedev

Fitness for the future This time, it’s going to be different. Think about it. One year from today, you could be 70 pounds lighter and ready for a marathon or triathlon. Whether you’re a beginner who’s new to weight loss and aerobic and strength training, or whether you’ve already made proper diet and exercise a part of your lifestyle, there’s enough information in the following books to motivate and invigorate you over the next 12 months.

Joanie Greggains, author of Fit Happens (Villard, $19.95, 0375500367), focuses on the fundamentals of weight loss and physical fitness by demystifying fad diets and demonstrating that you can make time in your day for fat-burning exercises. She also gives you the latest information on 13 health foods that really aren’t healthy and offers helpful suggestions for handling your food cravings. Greggains believes that losing weight and staying fit are simple processes that anyone can learn. The official Chub Club Coach’s Workout Program that Judy Molnar features in her new book, You Don’t Have to Be Thin to Win, will move you from an unfit to a physically fit person in no time. Molnar transformed her 330-pound body, and at the end of her two-and-a-half year program, began participating in triathlons. The goal of her program is good health and fitness not thinness. She offers strategies for finding a way to exercise that’s right for you and even includes a 12-week marathon training program and an eight-week sprint triathlon training program for beginners who are ready for a new challenge.

The Tae Bo Way (Bantam, $25, 0553801007) by Billy Blanks provides the dynamic blend of martial arts, dance, and boxing that has been called the most energizing workout in America. No matter what your level of physical fitness, you’ll find his program exhilarating and simple to learn. Blanks’s strength is that he motivates as he explains. Will is everything to him, and his message to people of all ages is inspirational. If you have his video workout programs, this book will give you even more information to assist your total body conditioning. Don’t miss this one.

As aerobic and strength training become a part of your life, add Arnold Schwarzenegger’s paperback The New Encyclopedia of Modern Bodybuilding (Fireside, $25, 0684857219) to your library. Seven-time Mr. Olympia and winner of three Mr. Universe titles, Schwarzenegger has written what is universally recognized as the definitive sourcebook for bodybuilding. You don’t have to be a bodybuilder (or a man) to learn from this pro. Anyone in a simple strength-training program can benefit from this information. The book covers every facet of the sport, and methods of training are outlined to take the novice from early to advanced stages of training. You’ll refer to this book often.

Fitness expert and personal trainer Brad Schoenfeld has written an excellent book for women who want to strengthen, streamline, and shape their bodies. Sculpting Her Body Perfect (Human Kinetics, $19.95, 0736001549) involves a three-step program that is based on the unique needs of women. Loaded with training tips, illustrations, special maintenance programs, and safe workout routines for pregnant women, the book is a perfect guide to sculpting a beautiful physique in ten to 25 minutes, three times a week. This is a good book for women who are just beginning a strength-training program.

Fitness, however, isn’t limited by age. In Slim and Fit Kids: Raising Healthy Children in a Fast-Food World (Health Communications, $12.95, 155874729X), Judy Mazel and John E. Monaco tackle the serious problem of overweight children. Surprisingly, more than 30 per cent of American children are presently overweight, and one in five is considered obese. The authors discuss combining foods to maximize a child’s energy and meet nutritional needs, along with kid-proof recipes and suggestions on how to talk to your child about this sensitive subject. Their 28-day exercise program (designed by a personal trainer) could set your child on the wellness path and perhaps create an interest in fitness that lasts a lifetime.

Pat Regel pumps iron in Nashville.

Fitness for the future This time, it's going to be different. Think about it. One year from today, you could be 70 pounds lighter and ready for a marathon or triathlon. Whether you're a beginner who's new to weight loss and aerobic and strength training,…
Children's & YA

Review

Review by bookpagedev

As a 13-year-old, Jay Liebowitz had already created and sold his own software program and begun investing his money in the stock market. In Wall Street Wizard, Liebowitz takes his knowledge and insight about the stock market and transforms it into a readable book for the young investor. Liebowitz starts by telling the reader all about the stock market, how it works, and what must be done to earn money. He covers a variety of subjects, including investing, starting a business, and understanding how our economy works.

The author devotes a big portion of the book to giving the reader tons upon tons of helpful and easy tips for finding the perfect investment. He also provides website addresses and other helpful information for looking up specific companies to see how they are doing on the market. Throughout the book, Liebowitz does an excellent job of making sure the reader doesn’t get lost in what is being said. At the end of each chapter he provides an outline of the main topics covered. He also includes a glossary at the end of the book, defining important words used throughout. This easy-to-read and comprehensive guide shares the excitement of making money. It’s sure to help the young investor get started early on the road to making it big.

Thomas Crawford, a high school freshman, invests his time in sports and writing at Goodpasture Christian School.

As a 13-year-old, Jay Liebowitz had already created and sold his own software program and begun investing his money in the stock market. In Wall Street Wizard, Liebowitz takes his knowledge and insight about the stock market and transforms it into a readable book for…
NonfictionTrue Crime

Review

Review by bookpagedev

A title wave of beach paperbacks Whether you’re contemplating a trip to an exotic beach, or planning to spend the warm weather months in the back yard, you’ll want to bring along that most necessary of seasonal accouterments. No, not sunscreen. We’re talking summer reading. Especially the easy-to-tote paperback variety. A hardcover sensation, John Berendt’s Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil: A Savannah Story, literally spent years on bestseller lists. This month the 1994 title at last debuts in soft cover. Never mind that Clint Eastwood’s movie version has come and gone. If you haven’t read this account of life and death and murder Savannah-style, replete with its parade of beguiling eccentrics, you’re in for a mint-julep-flavored treat. Southern accents and sensibilities also abound in Rebecca Wells’s Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood (HarperCollins, $14, 0060928336). Flashing back and forth from the 1990s to the 1960s, the book explores Siddalee’s efforts to understand her seemingly incomprehensible mother, the Louisiana magnolia Viviane, and her three chums. Booted out of a Shirley Temple lookalike contest when they were just six, the girls spent their college years blazing a bourbon-splattered trail, buffered by the motto (from a Billie Holiday tune), smoke, drink, don’t think. As much a paean to sisterhood as it is a mother-daughter tale, Ya-Ya is a kind of follow-up to Wells’s much darker first novel, Little Altars Everywhere, (HarperCollins, $13, 0060976845), and is being developed for a movie by Bette Midler’s production company. Yet another girly story is recounted in Bridget Jones’s Diary (Penguin, $12.95, 014028009X). Helen Fielding’s book which originated as a column in a London newspaper is the first-person odyssey of the thirtysomething Bridget, who is obsessed with such ’90s issues as learning to program her VCR, finding Mr. Right, and, of course, weight loss (in one year she manages to lose 72 pounds . . . and to gain 74). The producers of the quirky Four Weddings and a Funeral plan a movie version of the quirky Bridget.

Memoirs of a Geisha: A Novel, by first-time novelist Arthur S. Golden, may also be headed for the screen with Steven Spielberg’s involvement. For now, enjoy it in print (Vintage, $14, 0679781587), as the geisha Sayuri details her metamorphosis from peasant child she was nine when her widowed father sold her to a geisha house to her prewar rise as a leading geisha and on to her role as mistress to a power-broker. Golden spent nine years researching and writing this intricately detailed saga, which takes us on a memorable, eye-opening journey.

And last but not least, we mustn’t forget Margaret Mitchell’s monumental (and perennially best-selling) classic, Gone with the Wind (Warner Books, $7.99, 0446365386).

Hollywood journalist Pat H. Broeske is also a biographer who has chronicled the lives of Howard Hughes and Elvis Presley.

A title wave of beach paperbacks Whether you're contemplating a trip to an exotic beach, or planning to spend the warm weather months in the back yard, you'll want to bring along that most necessary of seasonal accouterments. No, not sunscreen. We're talking summer reading.…

FictionWomen's Fiction

Southern flavor fills first novel

Review by bookpagedev

Reading Susan Gregg Gilmore’s debut novel is almost like being introduced to the author herself. The former journalist writes Looking for Salvation at the Dairy Queen in a conversational Southern dialect that includes frequent use of words like "dad-gum." The reader is instantly immersed in a world of chigger bites, berry picking, comfort food and Sunday school.

The small town of Ringgold, Georgia, is home to nearly 2,000 people in the early 1970s, and one of these citizens is a girl with big aspirations. Catherine Grace Cline, the preacher’s daughter, dreams of moving to the big city—Atlanta—as soon as she turns 18. She and her younger sister, Martha Ann, lick Dilly Bars at the Dairy Queen every Saturday and plan what excitement their lives will hold in Atlanta. The difficult part is that Catherine Grace must leave her father, sister and high school boyfriend behind. She embarks on what she hopes is a great adventure as an independent young woman, but soon returns to Ringgold because of a devastating tragedy. A surprising series of events, including revealed family secrets, causes Catherine Grace to question where she really belongs: working at Davison’s department store in Atlanta or growing her own crop of tomatoes in Ringgold? Maybe what she was seeking could have been found in her hometown all along.

The tight-knit Cline clan lives in a home of Baptist values and Georgia football, but the most significant component of this family is their confidence in one another’s dreams. That kind of love and support is even more appealing than a diet of Dilly Bars, and Gilmore’s novel is a meal well worth the consumption.

(This review refers to the hardcover edition.)

Reading Susan Gregg Gilmore's debut novel is almost like being introduced to the author herself. The former journalist writes Looking for Salvation at the Dairy Queen in a conversational Southern dialect that includes frequent use of words like "dad-gum." The reader is instantly immersed in…

LifestylesHealth & Fitness

Review

Review by bookpagedev

Fitness for the future This time, it’s going to be different. Think about it. One year from today, you could be 70 pounds lighter and ready for a marathon or triathlon. Whether you’re a beginner who’s new to weight loss and aerobic and strength training, or whether you’ve already made proper diet and exercise a part of your lifestyle, there’s enough information in the following books to motivate and invigorate you over the next 12 months.

Joanie Greggains, author of Fit Happens, focuses on the fundamentals of weight loss and physical fitness by demystifying fad diets and demonstrating that you can make time in your day for fat-burning exercises. She also gives you the latest information on 13 health foods that really aren’t healthy and offers helpful suggestions for handling your food cravings. Greggains believes that losing weight and staying fit are simple processes that anyone can learn. The official Chub Club Coach’s Workout Program that Judy Molnar features in her new book, You Don’t Have to Be Thin to Win (Villard, $19.95, 0375504141), will move you from an unfit to a physically fit person in no time. Molnar transformed her 330-pound body, and at the end of her two-and-a-half year program, began participating in triathlons. The goal of her program is good health and fitness not thinness. She offers strategies for finding a way to exercise that’s right for you and even includes a 12-week marathon training program and an eight-week sprint triathlon training program for beginners who are ready for a new challenge.

The Tae Bo Way (Bantam, $25, 0553801007) by Billy Blanks provides the dynamic blend of martial arts, dance, and boxing that has been called the most energizing workout in America. No matter what your level of physical fitness, you’ll find his program exhilarating and simple to learn. Blanks’s strength is that he motivates as he explains. Will is everything to him, and his message to people of all ages is inspirational. If you have his video workout programs, this book will give you even more information to assist your total body conditioning. Don’t miss this one.

As aerobic and strength training become a part of your life, add Arnold Schwarzenegger’s paperback The New Encyclopedia of Modern Bodybuilding (Fireside, $25, 0684857219) to your library. Seven-time Mr. Olympia and winner of three Mr. Universe titles, Schwarzenegger has written what is universally recognized as the definitive sourcebook for bodybuilding. You don’t have to be a bodybuilder (or a man) to learn from this pro. Anyone in a simple strength-training program can benefit from this information. The book covers every facet of the sport, and methods of training are outlined to take the novice from early to advanced stages of training. You’ll refer to this book often.

Fitness expert and personal trainer Brad Schoenfeld has written an excellent book for women who want to strengthen, streamline, and shape their bodies. Sculpting Her Body Perfect (Human Kinetics, $19.95, 0736001549) involves a three-step program that is based on the unique needs of women. Loaded with training tips, illustrations, special maintenance programs, and safe workout routines for pregnant women, the book is a perfect guide to sculpting a beautiful physique in ten to 25 minutes, three times a week. This is a good book for women who are just beginning a strength-training program.

Fitness, however, isn’t limited by age. In Slim and Fit Kids: Raising Healthy Children in a Fast-Food World (Health Communications, $12.95, 155874729X), Judy Mazel and John E. Monaco tackle the serious problem of overweight children. Surprisingly, more than 30 per cent of American children are presently overweight, and one in five is considered obese. The authors discuss combining foods to maximize a child’s energy and meet nutritional needs, along with kid-proof recipes and suggestions on how to talk to your child about this sensitive subject. Their 28-day exercise program (designed by a personal trainer) could set your child on the wellness path and perhaps create an interest in fitness that lasts a lifetime.

Pat Regel pumps iron in Nashville.

Fitness for the future This time, it's going to be different. Think about it. One year from today, you could be 70 pounds lighter and ready for a marathon or triathlon. Whether you're a beginner who's new to weight loss and aerobic and strength training,…

Children's & YA

Review

Review by bookpagedev

In Memories of Summer (Ages 10 and up), Newbery Honor recipient Ruth White paints a thoughtful but disturbing portrait of the lives and times of 13-year-old Lyric Compton and her 16-year-old sister, Summer. White’s palette begins with soft muted tones, as she describes the girls’ harmonious relationship and loving upbringing in rural Glory Bottom, Virginia. But shades of gray and crimson gradually bleed into the mix.

Though her Mama died in 1942, when narrator Lyric was only three, father Poppy kept her spirit alive through memories of whispers and songs. Mama believed a person’s name had definitive purpose, he told his daughters. So Summer was named for her sparkling warmth and Lyric was named for her full, rich voice. With hopes for a brighter tomorrow, Poppy moves Lyric and Summer from their coal-mining birthplace in southwest Virginia to the big city bustle of Flint, Michigan, in 1945. But hope almost immediately begins to fade. With Poppy at work in the Chevrolet factory late into the evening, Lyric is left to care for her older sister. And what were charming eccentricities in Virginia soon become full-blown insanity in Flint.

Step by step, we witness not only Summer’s crumbling mental health, but younger sister Lyric’s growing personal strength. We come to understand how frightening paranoia and schizophrenia must have been during the 1950s, before long-term therapy and medication replaced institutionalization and electric shock. Like all of White’s work, Memories of Summer is understated and warm, even through the coldest of plot points. Her observations are unflinching in their honesty, and yet compassionate and kind. Thanks to White’s tenderness, craftsmanship, and historical detail, Memories of Summer is a gripping novel and a testament to unconditional familial love.

Kelly Milner Halls is the author of I Bought a Baby Chicken (Boyds Mills Press).

In Memories of Summer (Ages 10 and up), Newbery Honor recipient Ruth White paints a thoughtful but disturbing portrait of the lives and times of 13-year-old Lyric Compton and her 16-year-old sister, Summer. White's palette begins with soft muted tones, as she describes the girls'…
FictionWomen's Fiction

Review

Review by bookpagedev

A title wave of beach paperbacks Whether you’re contemplating a trip to an exotic beach, or planning to spend the warm weather months in the back yard, you’ll want to bring along that most necessary of seasonal accouterments. No, not sunscreen. We’re talking summer reading. Especially the easy-to-tote paperback variety. A hardcover sensation, John Berendt’s Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil: A Savannah Story, literally spent years on bestseller lists. This month the 1994 title at last debuts in soft cover (Vintage, $12, 0679751521). Never mind that Clint Eastwood’s movie version has come and gone. If you haven’t read this account of life and death and murder Savannah-style, replete with its parade of beguiling eccentrics, you’re in for a mint-julep-flavored treat. Southern accents and sensibilities also abound in Rebecca Wells’s Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood (HarperCollins, $14, 0060928336). Flashing back and forth from the 1990s to the 1960s, the book explores Siddalee’s efforts to understand her seemingly incomprehensible mother, the Louisiana magnolia Viviane, and her three chums. Booted out of a Shirley Temple lookalike contest when they were just six, the girls spent their college years blazing a bourbon-splattered trail, buffered by the motto (from a Billie Holiday tune), smoke, drink, don’t think. As much a paean to sisterhood as it is a mother-daughter tale, Ya-Ya is a kind of follow-up to Wells’s much darker first novel, Little Altars Everywhere, (HarperCollins, $13, 0060976845), and is being developed for a movie by Bette Midler’s production company. Yet another girly story is recounted in Bridget Jones’s Diary. Helen Fielding’s book which originated as a column in a London newspaper is the first-person odyssey of the thirtysomething Bridget, who is obsessed with such ’90s issues as learning to program her VCR, finding Mr. Right, and, of course, weight loss (in one year she manages to lose 72 pounds . . . and to gain 74). The producers of the quirky Four Weddings and a Funeral plan a movie version of the quirky Bridget.

Memoirs of a Geisha: A Novel, by first-time novelist Arthur S. Golden, may also be headed for the screen with Steven Spielberg’s involvement. For now, enjoy it in print (Vintage, $14, 0679781587), as the geisha Sayuri details her metamorphosis from peasant child she was nine when her widowed father sold her to a geisha house to her prewar rise as a leading geisha and on to her role as mistress to a power-broker. Golden spent nine years researching and writing this intricately detailed saga, which takes us on a memorable, eye-opening journey.

And last but not least, we mustn’t forget Margaret Mitchell’s monumental (and perennially best-selling) classic, Gone with the Wind (Warner Books, $7.99, 0446365386).

Hollywood journalist Pat H. Broeske is also a biographer who has chronicled the lives of Howard Hughes and Elvis Presley.

A title wave of beach paperbacks Whether you're contemplating a trip to an exotic beach, or planning to spend the warm weather months in the back yard, you'll want to bring along that most necessary of seasonal accouterments. No, not sunscreen. We're talking summer reading.…

Children's & YA

Review

Review by bookpagedev

For those who don’t know, (and I’ll have to admit I wasn’t quite sure myself), the dictionary definition of serendipity is “accidental sagacity; the faculty of making fortunate discoveries you aren’t looking for.” It is getting everything you dreamed of when you aren’t expecting anything. It brings to mind the familiar line that one finds happiness when he isn’t looking for it, or least expects it.

Serendipity is a rather scary word for those who are only knee-high. It is almost as big as they are, and it even sounds daunting. But author Tobi Tobias takes this nonsensical noun and makes it . . . well, delightful.

Accompanied by whimsical illustrations, this little book relates a series of unexpected surprises; it IS serendipity! Tobias reveals the meaning of the word through a string of easy-to-understand metaphors. “Serendipity is putting a quarter in the gumball machine and having three pieces come rattling out instead of one all red.” Or, “Serendipity is when you spill ANOTHER glass of milk, and your mom says, ÔAccidents will happen.'” Even “Serendipity is when your old stuffed bear that you really don’t care about anymore, except you used to sleep with it ISN’T lost.” This is a touching book that children will love you know how they love a surprise. And in sharing it with them, you might learn a new big word in return! Carolyn Cates lives, writes, and occasionally discovers serendipity in Nashville.

For those who don't know, (and I'll have to admit I wasn't quite sure myself), the dictionary definition of serendipity is "accidental sagacity; the faculty of making fortunate discoveries you aren't looking for." It is getting everything you dreamed of when you aren't expecting anything.…
Audio

Review

Review by bookpagedev

A title wave of beach paperbacks Whether you’re contemplating a trip to an exotic beach, or planning to spend the warm weather months in the back yard, you’ll want to bring along that most necessary of seasonal accouterments. No, not sunscreen. We’re talking summer reading. Especially the easy-to-tote paperback variety. A hardcover sensation, John Berendt’s Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil: A Savannah Story, literally spent years on bestseller lists. This month the 1994 title at last debuts in soft cover (Vintage, $12, 0679751521). Never mind that Clint Eastwood’s movie version has come and gone. If you haven’t read this account of life and death and murder Savannah-style, replete with its parade of beguiling eccentrics, you’re in for a mint-julep-flavored treat. Southern accents and sensibilities also abound in Rebecca Wells’s Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood. Flashing back and forth from the 1990s to the 1960s, the book explores Siddalee’s efforts to understand her seemingly incomprehensible mother, the Louisiana magnolia Viviane, and her three chums. Booted out of a Shirley Temple lookalike contest when they were just six, the girls spent their college years blazing a bourbon-splattered trail, buffered by the motto (from a Billie Holiday tune), smoke, drink, don’t think. As much a paean to sisterhood as it is a mother-daughter tale, Ya-Ya is a kind of follow-up to Wells’s much darker first novel, Little Altars Everywhere, (HarperCollins, $13, 0060976845), and is being developed for a movie by Bette Midler’s production company. Yet another girly story is recounted in Bridget Jones’s Diary (Penguin, $12.95, 014028009X). Helen Fielding’s book which originated as a column in a London newspaper is the first-person odyssey of the thirtysomething Bridget, who is obsessed with such ’90s issues as learning to program her VCR, finding Mr. Right, and, of course, weight loss (in one year she manages to lose 72 pounds . . . and to gain 74). The producers of the quirky Four Weddings and a Funeral plan a movie version of the quirky Bridget.

Memoirs of a Geisha: A Novel, by first-time novelist Arthur S. Golden, may also be headed for the screen with Steven Spielberg’s involvement. For now, enjoy it in print (Vintage, $14, 0679781587), as the geisha Sayuri details her metamorphosis from peasant child she was nine when her widowed father sold her to a geisha house to her prewar rise as a leading geisha and on to her role as mistress to a power-broker. Golden spent nine years researching and writing this intricately detailed saga, which takes us on a memorable, eye-opening journey.

And last but not least, we mustn’t forget Margaret Mitchell’s monumental (and perennially best-selling) classic, Gone with the Wind (Warner Books, $7.99, 0446365386).

Hollywood journalist Pat H. Broeske is also a biographer who has chronicled the lives of Howard Hughes and Elvis Presley.

A title wave of beach paperbacks Whether you're contemplating a trip to an exotic beach, or planning to spend the warm weather months in the back yard, you'll want to bring along that most necessary of seasonal accouterments. No, not sunscreen. We're talking summer reading.…

Self-HelpFamily & Relationships

The gift of knowledge

Review by bookpagedev

You survived the beach vacation with Aunt Agnes and the rest of the family, only to return home just in time for school to begin. It seems to never end, this hustle and bustle that permeates your life. But fear not, my friend, we’re here to help you and the kids start back to school on the right track.

What gift doesn’t require registration, late bells, and forms in triplicate? Why books, of course! 
The Brain Quest series has been around since 1992. Its curriculum-based, question-and-answer game formats help children learn facts, but the friendly presentation encourages deeper understanding. Recently Workman gave Brain Quest a facelift, with newer (and more) questions and new packaging. With questions for children from toddler age to teenage, there’s an edition of Brain Quest that’s just right for your child.
 
For example, Preschool Brain Quest (0761115145) covers first numbers, rhyming words, animal riddles and a Panda named Amanda; 4th grade Brain Quest (0761110240) covers syllables, suffixes, the solar system, Maya Angelou and the numerator; 5th grade Brain Quest (0761110259) covers polygons, homophones, the Aztecs, Shakespeare, and the 15th amendment; 6th grade Brain Quest (0761110267) covers equations, archipelagos, metaphors, Mother Teresa and the Magna Carta. There’s even Brain Quest Extra: For the Car (0761115382) to keep children sharp during lazy summer months or holiday breaks. At $10.95 each, they’re quite a bargain, and the wealth of knowledge received is immeasurable.
Cut down on homework stresses with Scholastic’s Kid’s Almanac for the 21st Century ($18.95, 0590307231, ages 8+). Chock full of lists, facts, profiles and timelines, this book is an easy reference tool for all those science and history reports. Its colorful, fluid design and stylish layout will appeal to young researchers, and its up-to-date entries mean this book will not be dated anytime soon.

What goes up and never comes down? College costs! Get a head start on college planning with The Scholarship Book 2000: The Complete Guide to Private-Sector Scholarships, Fellowships, Grants, and Loans for the Undergraduate (Prentice Hall Publishers, $25, 0735200793). Author Daniel J. Cassidy has assembled thousands of scholarship sources and pertinent details regarding each award. Some of these details include amounts, deadlines and contact information. Good news: You do not have to earn straight A’s and thousands of extra-curriculars and honors for most of these. Cassidy provides easy cross-referencing, enabling readers to look up information alphabetically or categorically. The entries are carefully explained and indexed. The Scholarship Book 2000 will put you way ahead of the financial aid race.

And while many scholarships do not require stellar grades, test scores and the like, it’s no crime to succeed in these areas, either. How can busy college-bounders prepare for those standardized tests? The Princeton Review has an answer their Word Smart audiobook series features Word Smart SAT Hit Parade (Living Language, $25, 0609604406) and Word Smart + Grammar Smart (Living Language, $39.95, 0609603515) among others. SAT Hit Parade contains four 60-minute audiocassettes that cover 250 words commonly found on the exam, including spellings and definitions of each word. This list is taught in The Princeton Review’s SAT prep courses and books, and includes interactive quizzes. Grammar Smart’s CD edition contains six hours of more than 200 essential words, parts of speech and common grammar goofs. Both are perfect for students on the go, audio learners and anyone who wishes to communicate more effectively.

When your favorite scholar is packing for the fall, one item that cannot be left behind is Chicken Soup for the College Soul: Inspiring and Humorous Stories About College (Health Communications, Inc., $12.95, 1558747028). Amid pressures to achieve academically and socially, very often the college soul can be neglected. These essays, varied in voice and perspective, offer insights into leaving home, college classrooms, dating, and the looming future. Parents may want to purchase a second copy for themselves as a memory refresher.

Determining a major course of study is often scarier than the major itself. Too often students are afraid of making an error that is irreversible or, worse yet, discovering their preferences long after their college years have passed. The College Majors Handbook: The Actual Jobs, Earnings, and Trends for Graduates of 60 College Majors (Jist, $24.95, 1563705184) seeks to narrow that gap, helping students determine their strengths and weaknesses, interests and values as they choose their course of study. Authors Neeta P. Fogg, Paul E. Harrington and Thomas F. Harrington provide information about the majors themselves, types of courses and training involved, actual jobs obtained with a given major, salary and employment outlooks and much, much more. And while students need to be reassured that there are no specific formulas or guaranteed results to life’s decisions, books like The College Majors Handbook certainly help inform them of their options.

 

You survived the beach vacation with Aunt Agnes and the rest of the family, only to return home just in time for school to begin. It seems to never end, this hustle and bustle that permeates your life. But fear not, my friend, we're here…

Children's & YAMiddle Grade

Words singing in her head

Review by bookpagedev

Have you heard any Spanish lately? It's not hard to do with a Spanish language radio station in almost every city of the country. Roughly one-fourth of the U.S. population speaks Spanish as their native tongue, and each year more and more elementary school students study the language. But it takes more than just speaking the language to be really in touch with Hispanic culture. Lynn Joseph's The Color of My Words is a moving story for middle-graders that captures many elements of the culture in the Dominican Republic: dancing the merengue, sitting up in a gri gri tree, eating huge plates of arroz con dulce (rice pudding), shopping at the colmado. Joseph paints a life that is lush and brightly colored in spite of serious economic deprivation.

The engrossing story painted on this Hispanic canvas will convince young readers that the urge to write can erupt anywhere. When we first meet the narrator, 12-year-old Ana Rosa Hernandez, she is washing clothes in the river with her mami, and confesses that she wants to become a writer. Although her mother warns her that it's better to keep things inside ("writers have died here"), Ana Rosa believes there always has to be a first person to do something. She begins filching little bits of paper to write her poems on: the paper sacks her papi buys his rum in; napkins; and finally her older brother Guario's notebook from the restaurant where he works. When she reads her story about a sea monster (a whale) she had watched from her perch in the gri gri, all is forgiven and her brother becomes the principal champion for her writing.

Each episode of the story coils more tightly. First, Ana Rosa is disappointed when her brother's handsome friend becomes infatuated with her older sister. Next she learns that she is illegitimate, and then "some big-mouth politician" tells the villagers that the government plans to buy their land. Guario becomes the leader of the opposition, and a violent street fight ends with terrible results for the Hernandez family.

In the end it is Ana Rosa's writing and her family's gift of a typewriter that restore her sense of wholeness. She knows she must write Guario's story for all to read, and "All the way home, words sing in my head." Joseph thanks the real-life Guario and all his family for their help in her author's note. Readers will want to thank Joseph for a terrific story.

Etta Wilson is a children's book enthusiast in Brentwood, Tennessee.

Have you heard any Spanish lately? It's not hard to do with a Spanish language radio station in almost every city of the country. Roughly one-fourth of the U.S. population speaks Spanish as their native tongue, and each year more and more elementary school students…

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