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Table Manners by Mia King

Posted on August 18, 2009 12:00 am by TheAngelForever

The recipe for a great book includes characters that you connect with and a plot that you can believe in. When these ingredients are put together, you have a book that you will not want to put down. Author Mia King does just this in her new book Table Manners (August 2009). Table Manners picks up the story of Deirdre McIntosh that King introduced readers to in Good Things (2007).

Book Description from Amazon.com:

Her simple life is more complicated than ever.

Deidre McIntosh finally has all the ingredients for a perfect life. She has her own line of cakes and cookies, and the perfect boyfriend, Kevin Johnson, one of Seattle’s top bachelors. Creative, energetic, and loving, Deidre is the person friends go to when they need a helping hand.

But when Kevin’s ex-fiancée, the sultry and successful magazine publisher Sabine Durant, suddenly appears in Seattle, it’s Deidre who needs help. Already intimidated by Kevin’s glamorous, moneyed world–and his sister, who wants Deidre out of Kevin’s life–she knows she’s no match for Sabine.

Deidre turns to her friends for advice, but finds they’re having crises of their own. When her business begins to slip from her fingers, Deidre knows she must to do something to keep her career and her love life from imploding. Can everyone’s favorite go-to person save herself?

More about Mia King (from Amazon.com Biography):

Author Mia King

National bestselling author Mia King is the author of three novels, GOOD THINGS (2007), SWEET LIFE (2008), and TABLE MANNERS (2009). Her books have been printed internationally and are selections of the Doubleday, Literary Guild, Rhapsody and Book of the Month book clubs. Mia lives in Hawaii where she is currently at work on her next novel.

My Review:

Last summer, I kept reading review after review for the book Sweet Life by Mia King. I was intrigued by all of the positive remarks that people wrote. I decided to pick up a copy and devoured the book over two days. I even wrote about it since I was actually able to put my knitting down in favor of this book.

I was immediately able to call my self a Mia King fan and decided to read Good Things. King’s style of writing is captivating. You quickly transport ourself into the world of her believable characters. When I was finished reading Good Things, I wanted to continue on and know more about Deirdre McIntosh. What happened to her and Kevin? Would Deirdre’s life continue in a positive direction after her walks around the lake?

When I was given the opportunity to read Table Manners as part of a review for The Family Review Network, I jumped at it. Like a little kid, I stayed up late and read in dim lights reading through the book with delight. Each page brought me closer to finding out what happened to the likeable Deidre McIntosh. I absolutely loved this book. Seriously, the characters lives grew in depth as I read more about them. We watched as Deidre problem solved through several sticky situations and baked more amazing sweets (which inspired my need to bake). When I was finished, I once again found myself wishing for more. Rather than spoil it, let me just say that I want to know how life continues to play out for Deidre, Kevin, Marla, and Lindsey.

A special bonus in each of Mia King’s books, including Table Manners, is the section of mouth watering recipes included at the end. In Table Manners, the recipes were all of the items that were served at William and Alain’s Buffet. I can not wait to try some of them.

If you are looking for a great book by an author that knows how to connect to her readers, then I highly recommend Mia King’s latest book Table Manners. One suggestion, just make sure to read the introductory book about Deirdre McIntosh called Good Things.

This post was written for Family Review Network as part of a program for Mia King, who supplied me with the book for review. No compensation was given and all opinions are my own genuine feelings.

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books Product review

Beaucoup de books

Posted on July 30, 2009 9:10 am by TheAngelForever

To say that we have a lot of books for our boys would be an understatement. As an elementary education major, I purchased a lot of picture and chapter books from Scholastic and beyond. While student teaching I bought even more, and again while getting my masters degree in Reading. I truly do have a very large collection of books from many different genres. At one time or another I have read most, if not all of the books. When NHL was born, and then started in daycare, we added many more books to our house.

Last year, we bought a book shelf for the boys room. This was to house their books and some of mine that had been brought down for their age group. The boys love their own personal library. NHL and JSL are constantly grabbing books off the shelves and taking them to read. The problem, the boys rarely ever put the books back. Most of the time they leave piles of books in the living room, or on their bedroom floor.

With the arrival of my in-laws last week, I had to do something about the book shelf disaster (sorry forgot to take photos of this mess). Thursday night after I was done eating dinner, I excused myself to their room to tackle the project. I took all of the books off of the shelves. I put them into a few piles and started to organize by type of book, author and so on. What I soon realized was there was really no room in the book shelf for all of our board books that JSL reads. As a quick solution I put them into a big Rubbermaid tote and kept moving along with my other project.

It honestly did not take me long, but the result was SO much better than it originally looked (take my word for it). Here is the entire bookcase when I was finished.

A closer look from the bottom up. On the botton shelf I put larger books that would not fit elsewhere, along with some of our coloring books.

On the middle shelf I grouped collections of books by a single author, along with books about familiar television/movie characters. You can see all of the Curious George, Froggy, Dr. Seuss, Eric Carle and multiple other groupings.

The top shelf has the early readers on the left (a few chapter books also here). In the middle I put an empty space for NHL and JSL to put books back when they are done reading.

On the right are some of our Jewish book collection (many thanks to the PJ Library) and books about holidays in general.

A week after this project was completed the books are still looking good. NHL and JSL have been good about only taking three books out of their library at a time. Each day I go back in and help them to put the books back away to keep it on the sort of organized side.

So do you keep your books in a certain order? How do you deal with your ever growing collection of books? Inquiring minds want to know!

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Enter the world of Berenstain Bears

Posted on July 10, 2009 12:00 am by TheAngelForever

Welcome to Aloha Friday! This weeks question will take you back to your childhood and make you use your imagination. Here it is:

Have you ever wished that you could jump into the world of a book you read as a child or read to your children? What book would it be and why?

As a child, parent and teacher I have often thought about this as I read amazing stories with beautiful illustrations. Of course, I never thought that it would actually happen in my life. A few weeks ago the world of the Berenstain Bears came alive when we went to visit the Strong Museum of Play. When I was growing up I read lots of the Berenstain Bear books and loved them. NHL has read a few and we now plan on many more.

When you walk up to the area you are greeted by the Berenstain Bear family. Mama, Papa, Brother and Sister are all waiting to welcome you to the amazing world that they live in.

There are seven areas to explore within the Berenstain Bear area. Here is information from the Strong Museum website and photos of the kids playing within them:

Mama Bear’s Quilt Shop: Design your own quilt or work at the counter to sell and buy quilts, just like Mama Bear! Centuries-old quilts from Strong’s collection decorate the shop.

Papa Bear’s Woodworking Shop: Put on a work apron and build your own creations with pretend tools and wooden construction toys.

Bear Family Restaurant: Be a customer or part of the restaurant staff in this pretend diner inspired by Burger Bear.

Dr. Bearson’s Dentist Office: Don a lab coat and play dentist with a giant set of teeth and oversized dental tools.

Farmer Ben’s Farm: Visit a barn, barnyard, and fruit and vegetable stand filled with learning activities.

1. Cousin S selling produce, 2. The little guy wants some fruit, 3. Sending things up and away, 4. Ready to catch the items, 5. Time to collect eggs, 6. Are they good or bad eggs

Brother and Sister Bear’s Club Houses: Make tin-can telephone calls from club house to club house and play silly sentence spinning games.

Bear Country School Art Class: Create a Berenstain Bears-themed masterpiece to take home or plink out a familiar tune on the Bear Band xylophone.

We spent quite a lot of time in this part of the museum. My two boys and niece loved running around and exploring all of the items within. Of course, now the boys want to read more Berenstain Bear books, which is fine with me!

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Thanks to Kailani at An Island Life for starting this fun for Friday. Please be sure to head over to her blog to say hello and sign the Mr. Linky there if you are participating.

Aloha #56

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Story time at Chez Angel – Monkey Monkey Monkey

Posted on May 11, 2009 12:00 am by TheAngelForever

My almost two year old is really starting to enjoy story time . I love this because he will not only sit and "read" his own board books, but he likes to listen to bigger books that I read to him. JSL is fascinated with all things monkey. He will demand that we put the Wiggles monkey song on and he makes monkey sounds galore.

Recently, we read the new book Monkey Monkey Monkey by Cathy MacLennan.

I must admit, when I selected this book I definitely judged a book by it’s cover. I knew that JSL liked monkies and the cover was absolutely adorable. The minute I pulled the book out, JSL came flying to me. He was making monkey noises and plopped onto my lap. My kindergarten kid heard the noise and also came to listen to the story.

When you start the story, you immediately meet Monkey. Monkey is playing and doing what monkies do. Monkey has a problem, though. Monkey can not find something he wants. Monkey is missing his "monkey-monkey-monkey nuts!"

While reading the story, you follow Monkey as he looks for his monkey-monkey-monkey nuts. With each page you turn, Monkey finds various rainforest friends including spotted leopards, crocs, frogs, insects, birds. Monkey also travels to different places in the rainforest like to fruit trees and even the top of the leafy canopy. Monkey gets more and more hungry and does not find his monkey-monkey-monkey nuts . . . until somebody saves the day!

Both of the boys thoroughly enjoyed the book. NHL really appreciated the rhyme and repetition within the story. He quickly joined in and was able to help me read the book. Even JSL was making his monkey sounds each time we turned the page and saw the beautiful colorfilled illustrations of Monkey’s rainforest world. I know that we will be looking for more of Cathy MacLennan’s books in the future because of how the amazing illustrations put you into the world with the characters.

JSL also likes to take Monkey Monkey Monkey and "read" it alone. Here he is enjoying some reading time on his own.

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books Product review Story time

Story time at Chez Angel – Go! Go! Go!

Posted on April 25, 2009 4:31 pm by TheAngelForever

When growing up, I remember I adored books that had flaps. It was always exciting to go inside and explore all of the hidden wonders. My oldest son, NHL loves reading flap books as well. He is now able to explore them without damaging the books.

Recently, NHL and I read the book Go! Go! Go! by Roxie Munro. Right on the cover of the book, it states that there are "More than 70 flaps to uncover and discover!" Each and every page in this book is loaded with flaps and items to unwind and flip that help and tell the story.

NHL and I waited for a quiet time and stretched out on the floor to explore the book. As soon as we opened the book, NHL noticed that the information on the inside cover was even included in a flap. We immediately knew that this was going to be a fun experience. As you continue into the book, you are taken on a transportation adventure. Roxie Munro’s colorful illustrations, and interactive flaps quickly brought us into the world that she created.

Our first stop was a fire station where firefighters were getting ready. NHL liked lifting a flap to help some of them slide down the pole. Another flap made one of the people in the scene pick up a telephone. This allowed NHL and I to talk about things that go on in a fire house. He had a great time using his 5 year old imagination and playing out the scene sine there is no text on the page. As we continued on, the book a huge flap that allowed the fire truck to drive down the street, send out the ladder and put out a fire. NHL was in his glory because this one page required you to flip a section four times.

Next, Munro takes us to a Balloon Festival. Here you lift flaps to assist the people taking items out of their trucks and getting the balloons off the ground. Then you go to another page and the balloons all lift into the sky in a gorgeous display of artistic perspective.

Go! Go! Go! continues taking you to a horse race where you watch the horses getting ready and then they are off and racing. Next, there is a Deep-Sea Discovery Research Vessel that shows a diver exploring the ocean below. The last stop is a Pit Stop where members are assisting two cars in a race. The last page of the book opens up to reveal an amazing display of a raceway that is as wide as four pages. While exploring here you are able to make the cars race around the track.

NHL and I enjoyed this book. It was a great way for us to talk about different items that are on the "go" and discuss things that take place in these environments. Roxie Munro does an amazing job of capturing the details and allowing the reader to truly feel like they are in the scene while flipping and turning the flaps. I know that we will definitely be exploring more of the wonderful books by Roxie Munro in the future.